The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profits from Jobs, Robert Reich.org, July 26, 2010, by Robert Reich, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Second-quarter earnings reports are coming in, and they’re making Wall Street smile. Corporate profits are up. And big American companies are sitting on a gigantic pile of money. The 500 largest non-financial firms held almost a trillion dollars in the second quarter, and that money pile is growing larger this quarter. Profits that plummeted in the recession have bounced back. Big businesses have recovered almost 90 percent of what they lost.

So with all this money and profit, they’ll start hiring again, right? Wrong – for three reasons.

First, lots of their profits are coming from their overseas operations. So that’s where they’re investing and expanding production.

GM now sells more cars in China than it does in the US, but makes most of them there. The company now employs 32,000 hourly workers in China. But only 52,000 GM hourly workers remain in the United States – down from 468,000 in 1970.

GM isn’t just hiring low-tech assembly workers in China. Last week the firm broke ground there on a $250 million advanced technology center to develop batteries and other alternative energy sources.

You and I and other American taxpayers still own over 60 percent of GM. We bought GM to save GM jobs, remember?

GM officials say no American taxpayer money is being used to expand in China. But money is fungible. Because of our generosity, GM can now use the dollars it doesn’t have to spend in the United States meeting its American payrolls and repaying its creditors, for new investments in China.

Second, big U.S. businesses are investing their cash in labor-saving technologies. This boosts their productivity, but not their payrolls.

Last Friday, for example, Ford reported a $2.6 billion second-quarter profit. The firm is already more than two-thirds the way to equaling its record 1999 profits. But due to labor-saving technologies, Ford now has half as many employees as it did a decade ago.

Wall Street analysts are happy with Ford’s “commitment to keeping capacity in check,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Ford shares rose 5.2 percent Friday. “Keeping capacity in check” is the Street’s way of saying “no new hiring.” In fact, the Street is advising investors to sell the stocks of companies that talk openly of expanding capacity.

Finally, corporations are using their pile of money to pay dividends to their shareholders and buy back their own stock – thereby pushing up share prices.

Last Friday, GE announced it would raise its dividend by 20 percent and reinstate its share-buyback plan. It’s GE’s first dividend increase since the company cut its dividend in early 2009. As a result, GE shares are up more than 5% in the past few days.

Bottom line: Higher corporate profits no longer lead to higher employment. We’re witnessing a great decoupling of company profits from jobs.

The next supply-side economist who tells you companies need more incentive (i.e. lower taxes) before they’ll hire is living on another planet.

The reality is this: Big American companies may never rehire large numbers of workers. And they won’t even begin to think about hiring until they know American consumers will buy their products. The problem is, American consumers won’t start buying against until they know they have reliable paychecks.

Watch Foreclosures on Pace for Record, AP Video on YouTube — 1:01

Robert Reich was the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Most Successful Cabinet Members of the century. He has written eleven books, including “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages. His latest book is “Supercapitalism.” For Professor Reich’s book page for Supercaptialism at Amazon, go here. The above article is from Reich’s new blog, and can be viewed here.

Thanks to Professor Reich for permission to publish his articles on an ongoing basis.

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Tea Parties Racked By Infighting, Confusion and Dissent, Mother Jones on AlterNet, July 25, 2010, by Stephanie Mencimer, quoted verbtim:

A series of rallies meant to help unify the movement have actually sired confusion and dissent.

The tea party movement is not just a political juggernaut — it’s also become a big business. That quickly became clear following last September’s unexpectedly enormous rally in Washington organized by Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, the event that helped put the movement on the map. With crowd estimates ranging from 75,000 to 2 million, the rally was such a hit that conservative activists are planning a sequel this year. A bunch of them actually. And these competing events have led to confusion and infighting among the tea party faithful. The conflict has reached such a pitch that Glenn Beck weighed in with a plea for unity on his radio show Thursday. “I don’t care who started it,” he lectured. “We must come together.”

If nothing else, conservative activists will have plenty of opportunities this summer to publicly vent their frustrations with the Obama administration. On the afternoon of September 12, FreedomWorks plans a repeat of last year’s march on the National Mall. Another group with ties to Beck’s National 9.12 Project has decided to get in on the action as well, putting together a three-day extravaganza that weekend that includes a “liberty XPO” at a swank DC hotel and a march on the Mall on the 9th anniversary of 9/11. Then there’s the “Restoring Honor” spectacle planned by Beck himself for the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the same spot. That rally will be followed the next day by yet another protest march, this one sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots.

Despite the many offerings in the works, this may be one case where competition won’t lead to a better product. Some activists fear that the smorgasbord of events — and the fighting about them — will dilute the impact of a single rally and divert precious resources away from where they need to be: in local elections. Bemoaning all the dissention, Darla Dawald, director of ResistNet, a social networking site for “patriots” recently lamented that “the movement is caught up in a tsunami of egos, nasty attitudes, manipulation, criticism, and pseudo leaders.”

The march controversy got its start last year, when tea party groups stunned the Washington establishment by arriving en masse for FreedomWorks’ mega rally on the Capitol lawn. The event landed with such impact that a couple of days after the march, FreedomWorks’ state and federal campaign director Brendan Steinhauser applied to the US Park Service for a permit to do it all over again in 2010. What he didn’t know was that other people had the same idea, namely activists associated with the 9.12 Project Beck started last year, when he called on viewers to launch a new conservative movement. (Hundreds of local 9.12 groups sprung up as a result.)

Among those activists was Beck’s ex-sister-in-law and the administrator of his 9.12 Project, Yvonne Donnelly. She made a beeline to the Park Service on the first business day after last year’s March to apply for a Mall permit for the entire weekend of Sept. 11, 2010. Then, in November, Patrick Jenkins, the president of the National 9.12 Project, created a new organization called Unite in Action to manage the newly christened “March on DC” and related events. UIA claims to be an umbrella group for a host of “liberty” organizations, including the militant Oath Keepers, Beck’s 9.12 Project, ResistNet, and others.

Its plans for the “March on DC” weekend are grand. The three-day extravaganza “by the people and for the people” has all the trappings of a corporate trade show, and for good reason. Among the organizers is Christine Drawdy, who owns a Florida-based company called One-Step Promotions & Incentives, which specializes in trade shows and travel promotions. According to UIA, its show is “modeled after conservative political conferences but with a purely grassroots flare.” Yet the group is hardly charging grassroots prices. The cost to host an event during the expo starts at $30,000. Renting a booth goes for anywhere from $1500 to $7700. Entry to the event itself runs $50, though a premium package allowing access to VIP receptions and banquets is a steep $250.

For all its corporate veneer, the fledgling UIA nonprofit appears to be on rather shaky footing. Jenkins incorporated UIA in Florida as a 501 (c)(4), a tax-exempt political organization, meaning that donations to the group aren’t tax deductible. The group missed the May 1 filing deadline for its annual report. According to the state division of corporations, it’s in jeopardy of losing its incorporation status as a result.

Even as the group has been heavily soliciting donations (“donate” buttons dominate the “March on DC” homepage), an IRS spokesman said he could not confirm its nonprofit status, meaning that UIA may have applied for 501 (c) (4) status, but that it has either not been granted or is still being reviewed. “We have made all filings required by the IRS consistent with 501(c)(4) status,” insisted Jerry Thompson, UIA’s treasurer, in an email. Meanwhile, the group’s president, Stephani Scruggs, declined to say how much money UIA has raised so far.

Particularly problematic for UIA, and potentially troubling to donors and would-be “March on DC” attendees, is the fact that the group does not yet have an official permit for its march. While anyone can apply to hold an event on the Mall, and the Park Service doesn’t charge much beyond a $50 application fee if organizers can show that the event has a First Amendment component, arranging a march on the Mall is no easy — or cheap — feat. Organizers still have to present the Park Service with comprehensive site plan and demonstrate they have the considerable finances to pay for all the logistics: Porta Potties, emergency medical tents, sound systems, etc. When told UIA is actively promoting its event and encouraging people to make travel arrangements to come to DC, without a valid permit in hand, a Park Service spokesman told me, “That’s a pretty big gamble.”

Meanwhile, it’s unclear how many people are likely to show up. UIA’s weekend lineup is decidedly short on the kind of big-name VIPs who help draw a crowd. While attendees of the FreedomWorks march will get a pep talk from tea party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and hear from potential GOP presidential candidate Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), UIA has yet to book any marquee speakers. So far on the agenda for the weekend is a seminar by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a group founded by Beck’s favorite Mormon constitutional historian, Cleon Skousen, author of The 5,000 Year Leap. There’s also a talk dubbed “Foreign Aid: Enslaving Nations” by Tatiana Milne, a former student at George Wythe University, the unaccredited Utah college founded by Skousen’s Mormon acolytes, who did a stint as a Mormon missionary in Latvia. UIA also says its event will feature a ton of “conservative moms.”

Conspicuously absent from the lineup is anyone or any organization representing the families and victims of 9/11, despite the fact that the march will take place on the anniversary of the attacks. Scruggs, the UIA president, said in an email:

“We are in communication with a lot of these families and to protect their privacy and respect the sacred nature of this event, we have not yet decided whether we will publically release the names of the victim’s families who are participating until the day of the event. We appreciate you respecting their privacy as well.”

The existence of two different organizations planning two different marches in DC the weekend of September 12 has left many tea party activists — many of whom attended last year’s march — scratching their heads. Andrew Ian Dodge, the Maine coordinator and advisor to the board of the Tea Party Patriots, which is co-sponsoring the 9/12 march with FreedomWorks, says that many tea party activists have been complaining. “They’re asking, ‘why are there two? Why are they not working together?’ I’m involved and I’m confused,” he says with a laugh.

The confusion has only been enhanced by UIA, whose website and communications have been vague about who is in charge. “There are huge fights going on in the ‘tea party’ universe on who got which permit when, who is funded by whom, who is sponsoring what,” Iris Scheibl, a member of the South Florida 9-12 group, wrote on the group’s site this spring. She noted that the “March on DC” site “shows pictures from last year’s event — altho’ as far as I know — “Unite in Action” had no part in that event.”

Indeed, few of UIA’s leaders had any involvement in organizing last year’s 9/12 march, according to Steinhauser. Yet that hasn’t stopped UIA from leading people to believe it was the group behind the rally. In February, UIA issued a press release saying, “While few can logically deny that the September 12th 2009 ‘Taxpayers March on DC’ was a huge success, organizers for the 2010 event are redesigning the format, planning early and this year they promise to deliver a message to Washington DC that both houses of Congress and the Administration, Democrat, Republican or Independent, will not be able to ignore.” Such comments have only lent credence to suspicions among tea partiers that UIA is trying to stealthily capitalize on last year’s march success to boost its own fortunes (and perhaps finances as well).

None of this bodes well for the prospects of another huge tea party march in DC this fall. Nor does the evidence that tea partiers may be rallied out. Tea Party Nation, which made headlines earlier this year for landing Sarah Palin as a keynote speaker for a convention in Tennessee, was supposed to hold another “unity” event in Las Vegas this month. The event was canceled at the last minute, presumably for lack of interest. But there’s another reason to believe turnout for the September rallies could be underwhelming.

Part of last year’s success stemmed from heavy promotion by Glenn Beck. This year, though, he’s lending his star power to promote his “Restoring Honor” show with Sarah Palin . Rather than working with the group he helped spawn, he may well help suck the wind out of the “March on DC” weekend. “Some folks just can’t afford to go [to DC] twice,” says South Florida 9.12 Project member Fred Scheibl. Many conservative activists may have to choose: Dick Armey, UIA, and a bunch of conservative moms or Beck and Sarah Palin? That seems like an easy one.

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Bernie Sanders: they are “Hell bent on destroying the middle class and creating an Oligarchy”, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Class War 101. Bernie Sanders is THE MAN.

Senator Bernie Sanders calls it what it is, fabulously wealthy families and their multinational corporations are hell-bent on destroying the middle class and determined to create an Oligarchy.

. . . While the middle class disappears and poverty increases the wealthiest people in our country are not only doing extremely well, they are using their wealth and political power to protect and expand their very privileged status at the expense of everyone else. This upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world. In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com

More from Bernie Sanders . . .

The truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades. During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance.

Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

The average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. And the rich are richer than ever. Anyone guess why? Because when the rich get richer, the EVERYBODY ELSE gets poorer. There is only so many ways you can slice a pie, and if a few people get most of it, everyone else must go hungry.

And, as Bernie Sanders so points out, the richest 400 families in America are richer than ever. Under Bush they raked in the cash while the average media American family saw their income drop by nearly $2,200 a year while the social safety net was slashed and defunded. And why? So very rich people could pay less in taxes and shirk their civic duty to their nation.

Now, I would argue that we already have an Oligarchy now, but certainly Bernie Sanders is already aware of that. I think Senator Sanders is alluding to something worse, like an Oligarchy on steroids. Citizens United fueled, out of control, a Too Big to Fail Oligarchy that would recall to my mind these words written by George Orwell.

So what happens when a few people have more money than medium sized countries? I mean that literally, what happens? Or better, what is happening?

From Forbes.com, where Billionaires are applauded as the Randian heroes they imagine themselves to be.

George Lucas, the famed Hollywood director behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and ILM, the world’s most bankable special effects shop, has a $3 billion fortune, making him worth as much as the GDP of Guyana.

Forbes 400 members with net worths just under $1 billion still possess fortunes that could operate the economies of significant fractions of the globe. Gary Magness, who owns water rights in Colorado through his ranch holdings, has a net worth of $990 million, which barely exceeds Vanuatu’s GDP ($988.5 million).

If this year’s three poorest Forbes 400 members were to combine their wealth (a combined $2.9 billion), their amassed fortune would be worth more than the workings of Belize’s entire economy.

George Lucas? WOW! But George Lucas is a storyteller who brings joy to the world, where as investor John Paulson is worth twice as much as Lucas (6.8 Billion) and all he had to do is profit off the real estate bubble and then short sell the subprime market. John Paulson’s wealth equals all the wealth in Montenegro. And these guys aren’t even in the Top Ten wealthiest people in America. If a few people have wealth equivalent to entire nations is it not possible that a few wealthy people can bribe and manipulate entire nations, thus circumventing and overthrowing the Democratic process? Of course! Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Here is yourTop Ten wealthiest plutocrats in America circa 2009

1   William Gates III 50,000 Million   (Microsoft)
2   Warren Buffett        40,000 Million   (Birkshire Hathaway)
3   Lawrence Ellison 27,000 Million   (Oracle)
4   Christy Walton & family 21,500 Million   (Wal-Mart)
5   Jim C. Walton        19,600 Million    (Wal-Mart)
6   Alice Walton        19,300 Million    (Wal-Mart)
7   S. Robson Walton 19,000 Million    (Wal-Mart)
8   Michael Bloomberg 17,500 Million    (Bloomberg)
9   Charles Koch        16,000 Million    (Energy, FreedomWorks, finances Tea Parties)
9   David Koch         16,000 Million   (Energy, FreedomWorks, finances Tea Parties)
11   Sergey Brin         15,300 Million    (Google)

Did anyone notice that the owners of WALMART are 4 of the top 10 richest people in America? Did Walmart eat the middle class? Is Walmart Too Big To Fail? Looks like it.

And as for the people who work for Walmart and earn just enough to go into debt for the rest of their lives, well, it doesn’t seem that anyone is worried about them does it? If they lose their jobs they are called lazy by rich people who never break a sweat or worry about homelessness, if they keep their jobs and struggle to survive and ask for help they are chided for wanting “handouts”.

For the people who work for Walmart and other huge Corporations the American dream has become a nightmare according to Bernie Sanders, and as someone who has lived that nightmare all my life, I entirely agree with him. The game is rigged, rigged for rich people, and if rich people NEVER lose money, everyone else can never earn enough to prosper.

We must level the paying field and STOP giving a huge advantage to the super rich and multi-national corporations. One way our Democratically elected officials can do this is by progressive taxation. And Bernie Sanders has a plan.

That is why I have introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act (S.3533). This legislation would raise $318 billion over the next decade by establishing a graduated inheritance tax on estates over $3.5 million retroactive to this year. This bill ensures that the wealthiest 0.3 percent of Americans pays their fair share of estate taxes, while making sure that 99.7 percent of Americans never have to pay a dime when they lose a loved one. It also makes certain that the overwhelming majority of family farmers and small businesses never have to pay an estate tax.

This legislation must be passed because, with a $13 trillion national debt and huge unmet needs, we cannot afford more tax breaks for millionaire and billionaire families. But even more importantly, it must be passed because the United States must not become an oligarchy in which a handful of wealthy and powerful families control the destiny of our nation. Too many people, from the inception of this country, have struggled and died to maintain our democratic vision. We owe it to them and to our children to maintain it.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

So who is lazy? The person struggling to find a job after free market corporatists shipped their jobs overseas? Or the person who inherits millions of dollars from a dead relative without earning that money and then refuses to pay taxes on it?

The Responsible Estate Tax proposed by Senator Sanders may not seem much, but it is a start. More importantly, it frames the debate in a way that Progressives can win. Because the truth is, billionaires and all of their wealth are the cause of our societies economic problems, not immigrants or unemployed people or Government spending. All of that is a strawman, they shrieks of anguish over “socialism” is a red herring, designed to shift the conversation away from the fact that this form of multi-national corporate capitalism is driving 95% of the world’s population into poverty, and the few who prosper have enough wealth to corrupt the Democratic process in such a way that they are, in reality, an Oligarchy.

Whether we can curb their absolute power and preserve the notion of a Democracy of a majority of The People, and not a Oligarchy based on who controls the majority of the wealth, is what is at stake. Will we starve and exploit our fellow man for profit, or allow all people to prosper? That is the question. What is your answer?

Because I know what the Billionaires, the “Economic Royalty” as F.D.R. named them, I know what they want. It is obvious if you know where to look, and look hard enough.

Greed is NOT good. Greed is destroying America.

Listen to the Chilling words of Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko:

Gordon Gekko: "Greed is Good!"

And Greed is all the Conservative movement has, greed and hate and lies and fear.

Because they serve the Oligarchy and themselves and no one else.

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

~ George Orwell, 1984

And so we must FIGHT BACK, and the truth is your greatest weapon.

Peace and love to all.

You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca Thanks to Ministry of Truth for allowing Evans Liberal Politics to republish his works on an ongoing basis.

See Pres. Obama: On issue after issue, we try to move forward and they try to take us back, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, by Blackwaterdog: about the DISCLOSE Act vote in the Senate tomorrow. Watch President Obama: Limiting the Influence of Special Interests.

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Taking Your Message to the World

John Kerry on the WikiLeaks Afghanistan leak, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, by Joan McCarter, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

John Kerry released this statement on the Wikileaks document release:

Statement By Chairman Kerry On Leaked Documents On Afghanistan And Pakistan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) released the following statement this evening in response to the New York Times story on the leak of classified documents concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan:

“However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent.”

This statement, as Clemon points out at the link, is in stark contrast to the White House reaction, and coming from a Senator with the stature that Kerry has on issues of war, indicates that this could be the beginning of an important discussion about, as he puts it, “the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.” The country needs and deserves a serious policy discussion on this war. Hopefully Kerry intends to start one.

TUESDAY UPDATE: See U.S. Hunts For Leaker Of Afghan War Documents, Reuters on The New York Times, July 26, 2010, by Reuters, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Monday it was launching a manhunt to find whoever leaked tens of thousands of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan, one of the largest security breaches in U.S. military history.

U.S. defense officials said the person behind the release of some 91,000 classified documents appeared to have “secret” clearance and access to sensitive documents on the Afghan war.

More leaks were possible, officials acknowledged.

“We will do what is necessary to try to determine who is responsible for the leaking of this information,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

“Until we know who’s responsible, you have to hold out the possibility that there could be more information that has yet to be disclosed. And that’s obviously a concern.”

TUESDAY UPDATE: See Dennis Kucinich Announces Two Important House Votes, Kucinich.us: Cleveland, Ohio (July 26, 2010) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich announces that he and Congressman Ron Paul are joining in a cause focused at compelling the removal of U.S. military forces from Pakistan. Later this week, Congressman Kucinich will also support ending the War in Afghanistan by cutting off funding for the war.

See WikiLeaks Data Seem to Show Pakistan Helped Attack American Troops, ABC World News, July 26, 2010, by Nick Schifrin, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Documents Accuse ISI, Pakistan’s Intelligence Service, Of Aiding Insurgency; Senior ISI Official Dismisses Leaks

Perhaps the single most damming collection of data in a massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan released by the website WikiLeaks is some 180 files that seem to show Pakistan’s premiere intelligence service, the ISI, helping the Afghan insurgency attack American troops.

See WikiLeaks Bombshell on Afghan War: What You Need to Know, AlterNet, July 26, 2010, by Greg Mitchell, excerpt quoted verbatim:

On Sunday, WikiLeaks not released more than 90,000 docs that paint of damning picture of the failing war effort in Afghanistan. Here’s a guide.

Despite advance claims of secret documents coming soon, it still felt like this bombshell arrived almost out of nowhere Sunday afternoon: WikiLeaks not only released more than 90,000 docs related to the United States and the war in Afghanistan, but the New York Times played it for all it was worth (as it turns out, quite a lot). In fact, the Times, The Guardian in London and Der Spiegel had been studying the documents and preparing for this for weeks.The Times highlighted it as “The War Logs” — Pentagon Papers, anyone? — with the subhed, “A six-year archive of classified military documents offers an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war.” It also raises questions about the media coverage of the war to date.

See Afghanistan war logs: whose side is Pakistan on?, The Guardian, July 26, 2010, by Guardian.co.uk, excerpt quoted verbatim:

The storm of controversy raised by the accounts of alleged collusion between Pakistani intelligence and the Taliban in the war logs has resurrected one of the most vexed questions of the nine-year Afghan war: whose side is Pakistan on?

The reports have galvanised the opinions of some Americans who view the Pakistani military, which runs the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, as a double-dealing entity that accepts $1bn a year in US funding while quietly helping Afghan insurgents.

Although the quality of evidence against the ISI in the logs is low – and the spy agency has rejected it as “malicious and unsubstantiated” – experts say there is strong evidence to suggest collusion elsewhere.

See WikiLeaks and AfPak: What “Everyone” Knows, The Atlantic, July 26, 2010, by James Fallows, excerpt quoted verbatim:

1) “Everyone” knows this already. People who have been very close to this story say that little of the information is “new,” in a fundamental sense. See the Atlantic Wire’s summary here, Mother Jones here and here, and (splenetically and amusingly) Andrew Exum here. Fine.

2) But not everyone actually did. Notwithstanding #1, information that may be old news to insiders may seem a revelation to the broader public. Whether from George W. Bush or Barack Obama, presidential speeches about Afghanistan have not emphasized the mixed loyalties of the Pakistani security services, the frustrations of dealing with tribal leaders and corrupt officials, the extent of civilian casualties, and other items that, according to insiders, “everyone” already knows. At this stage it’s impossible to say whether a vast, somewhat hard-to-digest compilation of raw reports, released in the middle of summer, will mean that “everyone” in a broader sense comes to share this insider perspective.

3) And that’s the possible similarity to the Pentagon Papers. Afghanistan is different from Vietnam, Barack Obama is different from Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, the raw battlefield intel from WikiLeaks is different from the inside policy memos of the Pentagon Papers, and so on. But the basic similarity of the cases involves the question of what “everyone” knows. By 1971, anyone who had been really following the Vietnam war already “knew,” or could guess, much of what was in the Pentagon Papers. The Papers mattered because of (a) the confirmation that the government had known about the problems for a very long time, and (b) the spreading of that understanding to the broader public. If the WikiLeaks documents, coming during what is already the deadliest month ever for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, really do mark a shift in mainstream opinion about the war, it will be because everyone [general public, press, and politicians] will now recognize what “everyone” [insiders] already knew.

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics Owner Paul Evans: On the Dylan Ratigan show today on MSNBC, Dylan was suggesting that there is certainly an “openness” (shall we say) towards welcoming conservative opposition against continuing to cooperate with Pakistan as we are. Michael Steele’s recent comments that we should rethink the extent of our involvement with Afghanistan (and Pakistan) are a case in point. Even a Republican Party opposing to any extent our continued involvement in Afghanistan and with Pakistan (out of purely partisan considerations) would spur liberals and progressives within the Democratic Party to rethink their lockstep support of the President’s wrongheaded policy. Afghanistan-Pakistan is eventually going to wind down in a similar way to that of Vietnam. The only question is, how many more years of terrible conflict, and how much grievous loss of American treasure and lives will have to be suffered before we ACTUALLY negotiate with the Taliban, or will we have to suffer being actually expelled with horrendous casualties. Or will the war just wind on in it’s terrible course for years before America comes to its senses.

See Pakistani Spy Agency Denounces Leaked US Intelligence Reports, The Huffington Post, July 26, 2010, by Munir Ahmed.

See WH: No attempt to stop WikiLeaks news reports, Antiwar Newswire, July 26, 2010, by AP News Staff.

See Pentagon scrambles to assess Wikileaks damage (AP), A Minute News, July 26, 2010, by AP News Staff.

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Howard Dean tells Fox: Your coverage of Sherrod was racist, The Raw Story, July 25, 2010, by David Edwards, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

In an appearance on Fox Sunday, Howard Dean took the opportunity to tell the conservative network exactly what he thought of their coverage of the USDA worker who was forced to resign last week.

Dean told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that the network had behaved in a racist way when they reported on the tape of Shirley Sherrod that was posted to Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com.

Breitbart posted a video clip that appeared to show Sherrod saying she had withheld help from a white farmer because of the color of his skin. The NAACP condemned Sherrod and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asked for her resignation. After the unedited video surfaced, it was clear that Sherrod was actually telling a story about how she overcame racism. The NAACP and Vilsack both quickly apologized for their mistake.

Appearing alongside Newt Gingrich, Dean was blunt with his accusation. “I don’t think Newt Gingrich is a racist and you’re certainly not a racist but Fox News did something that was absolutely racist,” said Dean.

“They had an obligation to find out what was really in the clip. They have been pushing a theme of black racism, phony Black Panther crap and this business and Sotomayor and all this other stuff. The Tea Party called out their racist fringe and I think the Republican Party has got to stop appealing to its racist fringe,” Dean continued.

“And Fox News is what did that. You put that on,” he said.

“Wait, wait, wait,” interrupted Chris Wallace. “I know facts are inconvenient things but let’s try to deal with the facts. The fact is that the Obama administration fired or forced Shirley Sherrod to quit before her name had ever been mentioned on Fox News Channel.”

While it’s true that Fox News Channel did not air the video until after Sherrod resigned, their Web sites did push the story before her resignation. The Los Angeles Times’ James Rainey reports:

Too bad that message didn’t reach the operators of Fox’s websites and commentator Bill O’Reilly. FoxNews.com posted the story on Monday, and the FoxNation.com website followed with the video and the accusatory headline: “Caught on Tape: Obama Official Discriminates Against White Farmer.” That night, O’Reilly called on Sherrod to resign. (She had already agreed to leave her post before the O’Reilly segment aired.)

O’Reilly at least apologized for proceeding without all the facts. (Though he then proceeded to backhand Sherrod for two days running, suggesting she might be too dangerously left wing for government service.)

The Fox corporate rep who took my phone call this week wouldn’t explain why Fox’s Web newsers made the same mistake — failing to recognize that the Breitbart video was a clip job or that Sherrod’s story dated to a quarter-century ago, long before she worked for the feds.

“Fox News was not blameless during this,” countered Dean. “I don’t know if ever there was a clip of the white farmer saying ‘Wait a minute, this woman helped us save the farm.’ Did that ever appear on Fox News?”

“I don’t know because I wasn’t covering that part of the story but we certainly reported that part of the story,” Wallace replied.

“Did Fox News play the clip that turned out to be inaccurate?” asked Dean.

“After she was fired,” answered Wallace.

“Right. I don’t think it matters whether it was before or after. The fact is you played it. You didn’t do your job,” said Dean. “There’s been this ongoing theme [at Fox News] about black racism in America.”

Watch a video on this at The Raw Story.

Migrants sell up and flee Arizona ahead of crackdown, Reuters, July 25, 2010, by Tim Gaynor, photo from Wikimedia Commons, excerpt quoted verbatim:

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block.

A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbour Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants.

“Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving,” said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. “We have no alternative. They have us cornered.”

The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix hauling the contents of their homes into the yard this weekend as they rush to sell up and get out before the state law takes effect on Thursday.

The law, the toughest imposed by any U.S. state to curb illegal immigration, seeks to drive more than 400,000 undocumented day labourers, landscapers, house cleaners, chambermaids and other workers out of Arizona, which borders Mexico.

It makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and requires state and local police, during lawful contact, to investigate the status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant.

The U.S. government estimates 100,000 unauthorized migrants left Arizona after the state passed an employer sanctions law three years ago requiring companies to verify workers’ status using a federal computer system. There are no figures for the number who have left since the new law passed in April.

Some are heading back to Mexico or to neighbouring states. Others are staying put and taking their chances.

In a sign of a gathering exodus, Mexican businesses from grocers and butcher shops to diners and beauty salons have shut their doors in recent weeks as their owners and clients leave.

On Saturday and Sunday, Reuters counted dozens of impromptu yard sales in Latino neighbourhoods in central and west Phoenix/

“They wanted to drive Hispanics out of Arizona and they have succeeded even before the law even comes into effect,” said Aguilar, 28, a mother of three young children who was also offering a few cherished pictures and a stereo at one of five sales on the same block.

She said she had taken in just $20 as “everyone is selling and nobody wants to buy.”

LEGAL RESIDENTS FLEE

Arizona straddles the principal highway for human and drug smugglers heading into the United States from Mexico.

The state’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, signed the law in April in a bid to curb violence and cut crime stemming from illegal immigration.

Polls show the measure is backed by a solid majority of Americans and by 65 percent of Arizona voters in this election year for some state governors, all of the U.S. House of Representatives and about a third of the 100-seat Senate.

Opponents say the law is unconstitutional and a recipe for racial profiling. It is being challenged in seven lawsuits, including one filed by President Barack Obama’s administration, which wants a preliminary injunction to block the law.

A federal judge heard arguments from the lawyers for the Justice Department and Arizona on Thursday and could rule at any time.

The fight over the Arizona law has complicated the White House’s effort to break the deadlock with Republicans in Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration law, an already difficult task before November’s elections. ….

Read the full article, here.

Schakowsky: Want to cut the deficit? Get with our new public option:

The Raw Story, July 25, 2010, by Sahil Kapur:

LAS VEGAS – Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) said Saturday that serious deficit hawks ought to get behind a new “robust” public option bill that she and more than a hundred other members introduced days ago.

In an interview with Raw Story at the Netroots Nation conference, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) predicted that a new “focus on deficit reduction” and rising public distrust of the insurance industry would generate stronger support for it among members of Congress.

“We’ve seen the cost [savings], and we’ve seen the behavior of the insurance companies,” she said. “I think that really puts a new atmosphere on the prospects for a new public option.”

Unveiled last Thursday by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Schakowsky, and more than 120 co-sponsors, the measure would give consumers a choice between private and public health insurance plans in the new law’s exchanges. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that it would cut the deficit by $68 billion between 2014 an 2020.

See Grijalva: Deficit hawks against public option are ‘hypocrites,’ ‘phonies’, The Raw Story, July 25, 2010, by Sahil Kapur, excerpt quoted verbatim:

LAS VEGAS – Progressive caucus co-chair Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) on Saturday issued an ultimatum to opponents of a public option who invoke deficit concerns: get behind this program, or you’re hypocrites.

In an exclusive interview with Raw Story at Netroots Nation, a large conference for progressive activists and media, Grijalva lamented how “one of the most important mechanisms [to cut the deficit] was left out of the [health reform] bill.”

Fear of Freedom, N.Y. Times Editorial, July 25, 2010, by N.Y. Times:

The Obama administration should not deliver Guantánamo prisoners to governments that have a record of torture and lawlessness, like Algeria.

“Rubicon”: Eerie portrait of “Top Secret America”, Salon, July 24, 2010, by Heather Havrilesky: AMC’s stylish drama about a powerful intelligence contractor isn’t pure fantasy, according to the Washington Post.

Please Give: Help Charities Working in the Gulf, American Express and Takepart.

How Charlie Rangel Can Survive, Salon, July 23, 2010, by Steve Kornacki.

We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It, Newsweek, July 18, 2010, by Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, excerpt quoted verbatim:

GOP chairman Michael Steele was blasted by fellow Republicans recently for describing Afghanistan as “a war of Obama’s choosing,” and suggesting that the United States would fail there as had many other outside powers. Some critics berated Steele for his pessimism, others for getting his facts wrong, given that President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan soon after 9/11. But Steele’s critics are the ones who are wrong: the RNC chair was more correct than not on the substance of his statement, if not the politics.

The war being waged by the United States in Afghanistan today is fundamentally different and more ambitious than anything carried out by the Bush administration. Afghanistan is very much Barack Obama’s war of choice, a point that the president underscored recently by picking Gen. David Petraeus to lead an intensified counterinsurgency effort there. After nearly nine years of war, however, continued or increased U.S. involvement in Afghanistan isn’t likely to yield lasting improvements that would be commensurate in any way with the investment of American blood and treasure. It is time to scale down our ambitions there and both reduce and redirect what we do.

Thrown to the Wolves, The New York Times, Editorial, July 23, 2010, by Bob Herbert, excerpt quoted verbatim:

The Shirley Sherrod story tells us so much about ourselves, and none of it is pretty. The most obvious and shameful fact is that the Obama administration, which runs from race issues the way thoroughbreds bolt from the starting gate, did not offer this woman anything resembling fair or respectful treatment before firing and publicly humiliating her.

Moving with the swiftness of fanatics on a hanging jury, big shots in the administration and Bill O’Reilly of Fox News came to exactly the same conclusion: Shirley Sherrod had to go — immediately! No time for facts. No time for justice.

Comment: I have see other editorials to the effect that, given that Ms. Sherrod ultimately got some kind of justice in the affair and was reinstated to a position in the Agriculture Dept., that overall the whole drama represents a victory in the battle for fair race relation. Admittedly the initial response was, as Herbert suggests, all wrong. ~ Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans.

Watch CNN Anchors Call For Crackdown on Bloggers, CNN YouTube video — 5:51 All about anonymous bloggers and the case of Shirley Sherrod’s smear.

Addicted to Bush, The New York Times, Editorial, July 22, 2010, by Paul Krugman, excerpt quoted verbatim:

For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did its best to shout down all talk about how we got into the mess we’re in, insisting that we needed to look forward, not back. And many in the news media played along, acting as if it was somehow uncouth for Democrats even to mention the Bush era and its legacy.

The truth, however, is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating. They always loved his policies and his governing style — and they want them back. In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation. They’ve even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits.

Also see the latest Krugman column: Chocolate and Copper, The New York Times, July 25, 2010, by Paul Krugman.

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Shameful: Pentagon workers tied to child porn, Boston.com, July 23, 2010, by Brian Bender, with video, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports.

The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department.

Also see First year stands out for Sotomayor on Supreme Court, Boston.com, July 25, 2010, by Robert Barnes, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON — Several partygoers were on their way into the Supreme Court one Saturday evening in May to toast retiring Justice John Paul Stevens when they ran into Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She was not heading to the festivities, but coming from her chambers, where she had put in a weekend shift.

She looked neither tired nor overwhelmed by her new responsibilities, one of the partygoers noticed. “She was beaming.’’

In some ways, Sotomayor’s just-finished first term on the court was like those of many who have come before her: She worked constantly, turned down interview requests and most speaking engagements, wrote unglamorous and largely noncontroversial opinions, and was ideologically true to the president who appointed her. She voted with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg more than any other colleague on the court.

In the news: Three Spaniards file charges over Israel flotilla raid, BBC News, July 23, 2010, by BBC, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Two Spanish activists and a journalist arrested in a raid by Israel on a Gaza-bound flotilla are filing charges against Israel’s prime minister.

The three accuse Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, six cabinet ministers and the navy commander of illegal detention, torture and deportation.

The UN has meanwhile named a team of experts to investigate the raid.

Listen to the Latest: World News Update from AlJazeera English. All the latest news from around the world.

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