Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. The US military recently arrested Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who may have passed on the video to Wikileaks. Manning’s arrest and the hunt for Assange have put the spotlight on the Obama administration’s campaign against whistleblowers and leakers of classified information. We speak to Daniel Ellsberg, who’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers has made him perhaps the nation’s most famous whistleblower; Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament who has collaborated with Wikileaks and drafted a new Icelandic law protecting investigative journalists; and Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com. [includes rush transcript–partial]
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Daniel Ellsberg and Glenn Greenwald on Whistleblowers and Wikileaks (with audio/video)
Democracy Now! with video/audio:
Rachel Maddow: "What She Wishes Obama Had Said" (with video)
HuffPo with video from MSNBC, (10:33):
Rachel Maddow was among the cable news hosts and pundits who were unsatisfied with President Obama's Oval Office address about the oil spill Tuesday night.Howie P.S.: "Obama's Gulf Coast restoration plan is short on details" by Juliet Eilperin's is in this morning's WaPo.
But instead of just complaining, Maddow offered a version of what she wished the President had said — and she did it from a fake Oval Office set on her show Wednesday night. MORE...
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Joel Connelly: "Social Justice and the South Park Bridge"
Joel Connelly (seattlepi.com):The South Park Bridge is a bread-and-butter resource, one that has stayed on the shelf as transportation dollars get spent on light rail and streetcars, boulevards and bike lanes.
The federal government is shelling out Stimulus dollars to clean up nuclear waste at Hanford, speed removal of two salmon-destroying Elwha River dams, insulate homes, upgrade power grids and monitor University of Washington power use.
Millions of dollars of U.S. Department of Transportation TIGER grant money is being spent to rebuild Mercer Street and provide an attractive entrance to Vulcanville.
Sen. Patty Murray, Gov. Chris Gregoire, Mayor Mike McGinn, a bevy of state legislators and Seattle City Council members -- and a batallion of their flacks -- showed up earlier this year to kick off the Mercer project.
But a cost-sharing agreement for a new South Park Bridge -- estimated cost $130-150 million -- has never seemed to come together. MORE...
Katrina vanden Heuvel "Are Obama and progressives on the outs?"
Katrina vanden Heuvel (WaPo):
There's a tension between the Obama administration and the progressive movement, but it's not the one mainstream media have been describing or that the White House seems to perceive.
(SNIP)
The thinking is that if progressives organize independently and forge smart coalitions, building a mass movement for reform with a moral compass that can transcend left-right divisions, we may be able to push Obama beyond the limits of his own politics, overcome the timid incrementalism of the establishment Democratic Party and counter the forces of money and power that are true obstacles to change. As Arianna Huffington has said, "Hope is not enough. . . . We need a 'Hope 2.0' that depends not on what President Obama or other politicians say or do but on what we as progressives do."
(SNIP)
The tension between Obama and the progressive movement isn't a threat to the president. Rather, it may be needed to save him. MORE...
"President Obama's Oval Office Address on BP Oil Spill & Energy" (video)
whitehouse, video (17:00).
Howie P.S.: Most pundits agree---it was a "hope and a prayer," too little too late and not very specific as far as proposed solutions.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sable: "As Seattle City Hall Turns: The SPD Chronicles"
Sable:Seattle has been without a permanent police chief since President Obama snagged former chief Gil Kerlikowski to be our nation’s drug czar over a year ago.Howie P.S.: I call it "Amateur Hour," but you get the idea.
The responsibility to fill the job fell to first time Mayor Mike McGinn. He looked to a 25 person panel to for recommendations. The list of eleven finalists was finally reduced to 3; Interim Chief John Diaz, Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel and East Palo Alto California Police Chief Ron Davis.
People in the Mayor’s office say hizzoner was leaning heavily towards Sacramento’s Chief Rick Braziel, who was also recommended by SPD’s Union, along with Diaz.
But then, without much explanation or warning, last week Braziel withdrew his name for consideration, leaving Mayor McGinn in a lurch. Insiders say the city’s top brass is devastated that Braziel withdrew, and that clearly he was the Mayor’s top choice.
The union quickly stepped forward and said 30 year vet and department insider Interim Chief John Diaz should be immediately named the new Chief. They point to his leadership during one of the most difficult years in the department’s history, and say his ability to lead is unquestionable. They also say the 3rd finalist, Chief Davis, isn’t nearly qualified for the job.
But if the decision seems like a no brainer for the union, it apparently is a little more complicated for the Mayor. MORE...
"...marijuana arrests cost $169.39 million in Washington for 2006."
Jon Gettman ("Marijuana in Washington"):The criminal justice system in Washington cost $3.41 billion for 2006. This includes state, county, and costs. Here is the breakdown for those costs:
Police Protection $1.33 billion
Judicial and Legal Services $666.47 million
Corrections $1.41 billion
Total $3.41 billion
The federal Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) provides a simple way of making a general estimate of the criminal justice costs of drug‐related arrests. Actually, estimating the costs of different types of arrests is a very complicated challenge because of the differences between individual offenses and, for example, the investigative and follow‐up work they require. However the use of a percentage basis method provides a general estimate of the costs associated with marijuana offenses. The method utilized by ONDCP is to (a) calculate the percentage of total arrests accounted for by drug arrests and then (b) apply that percentage to total criminal justice system costs. There were 290,650 arrests in Washington in 2006. There were 14,434 marijuana arrests that year, accounting for 4.97% of all arrests in Washington for 2006. Consequently, according to this percentage basis method of estimation, marijuana arrests cost $169.39 million in Washington for 2006. MORE...
"Seattle officer punches girl in face during jaywalking stop" (with video)
seattlepi.com with video from KOMO4 (02:28):
Seattle police are investigating what they call an assault of an officer in South Seattle. However, a police officer is seen punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during the incident captured by a video camera on Monday.
According to Seattle police, the incident began when an officer spotted a man jaywalking in the 3100 block of Martin Luther King, Jr. Way S. at approximately 3:10 p.m. The man was some 15 feet away from a pedestrian overpass, police said.
The officer was talking to the man when he saw four young women jaywalk across the same street at the same spot. The officer asked the women to step over to his patrol car, but the women were being "verbally antagonistic toward the officer," according to officials. MORE...
STILL Leaking (with live video)
PBS, with live video.
Howie P.S.: Just in case you haven't heard, Obama will address the nation tonight on "The Spill" in his first Oval Office broadcast @ 5PM Pacific.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Matt Taibbi on the "fierce urgency" of Wall Street
Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone):It's early May in Washington, and something very weird is in the air. As Chris Dodd, Harry Reid and the rest of the compulsive dealmakers in the Senate barrel toward the finish line of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act – the massive, year-in-the-making effort to clean up the Wall Street crime swamp – word starts to spread on Capitol Hill that somebody forgot to kill the important reforms in the bill. As of the first week in May, the legislation still contains aggressive measures that could cost once-indomitable behemoths like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase tens of billions of dollars. Somehow, the bill has escaped the usual Senate-whorehouse orgy of mutual back-scratching, fine-print compromises and freeway-wide loopholes that screw any chance of meaningful change.Howie P.S.: I would never spoil your delight by divulging how the battle concluded, you can click through yourself. It wasn't an entirely happy ending or an entirely unhappy one either. Maria Cantwell played an important "supporting role," but it's doubtful she'll win any major awards for her performance. You have to be a Senator for a long time for that.The real shocker is a thing known among Senate insiders as "716." This section of an amendment would force America's banking giants to either forgo their access to the public teat they receive through the Federal Reserve's discount window, or give up the insanely risky, casino-style bets they've been making on derivatives. That means no more pawning off predatory interest-rate swaps on suckers in Greece, no more gathering balls of subprime shit into incomprehensible debt deals, no more getting idiot bookies like AIG to wrap the crappy mortgages in phony insurance. In short, 716 would take a chain saw to one of Wall Street's most lucrative profit centers: Five of America's biggest banks (Goldman, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup) raked in some $30 billion in over-the-counter derivatives last year. By some estimates, more than half of JP Morgan's trading revenue between 2006 and 2008 came from such derivatives. If 716 goes through, it would be a veritable Hiroshima to the era of greed. MORE...
Campaigning Against "Big Bucks from Big Oil" (video)
American United For Change, video (00:31).
Howie P.S.: They also are running this ad against Scott Brown and Richard Burr.
"White House Is Pushing For Second Round of Stimulus Money For States And Cities" (with video)
David Axelrod on MTP, (Susie Madrak--Crooks and Liars) with video from MSNBC (03:26):
As progressives, bloggers and experts like Paul Krugman said at the time, cutting the stimulus package the first time around to make Republicans happy only weakened the stimulus effect to the point where it was enough to deter the worst effects of the financial crisis, but not enough to fix it. (Kind of like having a bacterial infection and taking half a dose of antibiotics.)Krugman said then that he doubted the political climate would permit a later stimulus package, and he was right - which is probably why David Axlerod is tying himself in knots to avoid calling it that: MORE...
WA I-1068: "FUSE and the ACLU - the Tea Party of the left???..."
Kirk Prindle:How is the behavior of FUSE and the ACLU in re I-1068 any different than that of those involved with the Tea Party movement? In lieu of supporting issues profoundly important to their respective bases, these groups instead defer to a long history of mis-informed scare tactics and overt racist slander.
It takes an informed perspective to truly understand the tragic implications of continued prohibition to the working families of Washington State---especially families struggling in underprivileged areas and communities of color.
It is too bad the Board of FUSE does not have the necessary experience to understand the importance of this informed perspective (though, unfortunately, not surprising given their privileged demographic and socioeconomic make-up).
Fortunately -- in addition to the other many benefits of I-1068 to the State of Washington -- the initiative allows the people of Washington to identify who is truly willing to lead on important progressive issues in this state. It is clear progressives need to look beyond the privileged Board of Directors at FUSE.
Don't be conFUSEd...
True progressives support social justice!
True progressives SUPPORT I-1068!
Ari Melber: "The Solution to Obama's BP Press Problem"
Shorter Ari Melber, from his commentary today in The Nation:In other words, the solution to the White House's press woes is pretty obvious: Stop complaining about the media you have, and start engaging the media you want. Of course, that assumes Obama's stated desire for a deeper, more substantive conversation is genuine. He just has to prove it.Howie P.S.: Speaking of press access, has anybody heard from Dick Cheney lately?
"This could be a big week for Obama. People are waiting for a leader...."
Joe Sudbay (AMERICAblog):The Senate convenes today to continue debate on the "American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010." A summary is here. Many members of Congress, including most of the GOPers (but plenty of Democrats), seem to think we've moved past the economic crisis and should only be focused on the deficit and debt. Now, of course, far too many American are still mired in the crisis, which many of those same members of Congress helped created. Let's just say, members of Congress aren't suffering economically. So, the focus for many on the Hill is reducing the deficit. But, they won't close tax loopholes for the richest Americans and they won't extend benefits for people who are suffering. Still looking out for Wall Street, not Main Street.Howie P.S.: I believe Obama has shown leadership already. It's just that his job keeps demanding even more from him, given the realities he is facing.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
"The Courage to Leave" (Afghanistan)
Bob Herbert (NY Times):
Americans have zoned out on this war. They don’t even want to think about it. They don’t want their taxes raised to pay for it, even as they say in poll after poll that they are worried about budget deficits. The vast majority do not want their sons or daughters anywhere near Afghanistan.Howie P.S.: Seems like I'm finding more to post from this newspaper lately.
Why in the world should the small percentage of the population that has volunteered for military service shoulder the entire burden of this hapless, endless effort? The truth is that top American officials do not believe the war can be won but do not know how to end it. So we get gibberish about empowering the unempowerable Afghan forces and rebuilding a hopelessly corrupt and incompetent civil society.
Our government leaders keep mouthing platitudes about objectives that are not achievable, which is a form of deception that should be unacceptable in a free society. MORE...
NY Times: "The President’s Moment"
NY Times editorial:
If ever there was a test of President Obama’s vision of government — one that cannot solve all problems, but does what people cannot do for themselves — it is this nerve-racking early summer of 2010, with oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and far too many Americans out of work for far too long.Howie P.S.: Just wonderin' if The Great Lady ever called out GW like this. I quit reading it a regular basis long ago.
The country is frustrated and apprehensive and still waiting for Mr. Obama to put his vision into action.
The president cannot plug the leak or magically clean up the fouled Gulf of Mexico. But he and his administration need to do a lot more to show they are on top of this mess, and not perpetually behind the curve.
It is well within Mr. Obama’s power to keep his administration and Congressional Democrats focused on what the economy needs: jobs and stimulus. Voters are anxious about the deficit. But the president needs to tell them the truth — that without more spending the economy could remain weak for a very long time.
Unless Mr. Obama says it, no other politician will. Just the other day, the House passed an unemployment benefits extension from which Democrats, not Republicans, had stripped vital measures that would have helped lots of Americans, but did not close a tax loophole for billionaires.
Americans need to know that Mr. Obama, whose coolness can seem like detachment, is engaged. This is not a mere question of presentation or stagecraft, although the White House could do better at both. (We cringed when he told the “Today” show that he had spent important time figuring out “whose ass to kick” about the spill. Everyone knew that answer on Day 2.)
Any assessment of the 44th president has to start with the fact that he took office under an extraordinary burden of problems created by President George W. Bush’s ineptness and blind ideology. He has faced a stone wall of Republican opposition. And Mr. Obama has had real successes. He won a stimulus bill that helped avert a depression; he got a historic health care reform through Congress; the bitter memory of Mr. Bush’s presidency is fading around the world.
But a year and a half into this presidency, the contemplative nature that was so appealing in a candidate can seem indecisive in a president. His promise of bipartisanship seems naïve. His inclination to hold back, then ride to the rescue, has sometimes made problems worse.
It certainly should not have taken days for Mr. Obama to get publicly involved in the oil spill, or even longer for his administration to start putting the heat on BP for its inadequate response and failure to inform the public about the size of the spill. (Each day, it seems, brings new revelations about the scope of the disaster.) It took too long for Mr. Obama to say that the Coast Guard and not BP was in charge of operations in the gulf and it’s still not clear that is true.
He should not have hesitated to suspend the expanded oil drilling program and he should have moved a lot faster to begin political and criminal investigations of the spill. If BP was withholding information, failing to cooperate or not providing the ships needed to process the oil now flowing to the surface, he should have told the American people and the world.
These are matters of competence and leadership. This is a time for Mr. Obama to decisively show both.
"MMS has approved 198 deepwater oil leases since Deepwater Horizon explosion"
Chris in Paris (AMERICAblog):
The most recent lease was handed out on June 10. Wouldn't it make sense to step back and figure out what is going on and what changes need to be made to protect the environment before jumping into more drilling? Common sense is probably overrated anyway. MORE...Howie P.S.: "Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum." ~Kurt Vonnegut
"BP exec gives pep talk amid US tensions over spill"
AP:As the federal government ramped up pressure on BP, Gulf states affected by the disaster also were putting the squeeze on the company, seeking to protect their interests amid talk of the possibility that BP may eventually file for bankruptcy.Howie P.S.: In the UK, the Mirror reports "PM David Cameron's oily call to US president Barack Obama." Yesterday's England-USA World Cup match didn't go too well for them, either. Meanwhile, "Tide of anger may turn an ecological tragedy into a political nightmare" is in the Guardian (UK).
The attorney general in Florida and the state treasurer in Louisiana want BP to put a total of $7.5 billion in escrow accounts to compensate the states and their residents for damages now and in the future.
"At the end of the day, my concern is Louisiana," state treasurer, John Kennedy, told The Associated Press on Saturday. "BP ultimately will do what BP thinks is best for BP."
Alabama doesn't plan to take such action, and Mississippi and Texas haven't said what they will do.
But even with Florida and Louisiana, BP might have a hard time complying, and if it did, it could hasten the company's spiral downward.
That's because as of March 31, BP had $6.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents available.
Experts say BP wouldn't necessarily need to use cash to fund the accounts the states are asking for. Instead, the company could borrow money to comply. That, however, presents a potential problem because the company's borrowing costs are likely to be a lot higher due to investor concerns.
BP said in a statement to the AP that it's considering the Florida request. It didn't address the comments by Kennedy.
"We have received a variety of funding requests from different states and have been responding to them in due course based on the particular issues raised in each," BP said, adding that it already has made grants totaling $245 million to four Gulf states and is committed to spending up to $360 million to fund construction of six barrier island berms in Louisiana.
And as to the concerns raised about a possible bankruptcy filing, BP said only that as of Saturday it was "not in discussions with" and had "not engaged any bankruptcy experts."
Along the Gulf coast, ominous new signs of the tragedy emerged on the beaches of Alabama. Waves of unsightly brown surf hit the shores on Saturday in Orange Beach, leaving piles of oil that dried in the hot sun and extended up to 12 feet from the water's edge for as far as the eye could see.
It was the worst hit yet to Alabama beaches.
"This is awful," said Shelley Booker of Shreveport, La., who was staying in a condominium with her teenage daughter and her friends near the deserted beach about 100 miles from the site of the spill.
Scientists have estimated that anywhere between about 40 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf since a drilling rig exploded. The latest cap installed on the blown-out well is capturing about 650,000 gallons of oil a day, but large quantities are still spilling into the sea. MORE...
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Obama to POLITICO: "Some in Congress hypocritical on spill"
Roger Simon (Politico):
President Barack Obama said Friday that some members of Congress are being hypocritical when it comes to blaming the White House for its handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Howie P.S.: Sorry man, you can't say "I told you so" for stuff you didn't say out loud at the time. Why didn't you?
In an interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.” MORE...
NPR: "Do Looser Laws Make Pot More Popular? Not So Far" (with audio)
NPR, with audio (05:47):Marijuana use is not on the rise.At least, that's the gist of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health done every year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2008 — the most recent data available — 6.1 percent of Americans 12 and older admitted using marijuana in the previous month.
In absolute terms, that number is probably low; after all, this survey asks people to admit to using illegal drugs. But the real significance of the number is that it's steady — it's been hovering right around 6 percent since 2002. Drug researchers say the real percentage may be higher, but it's probably holding steady, too. MORE...
Friday, June 11, 2010
"Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson On The Inside Story of How Obama Let The World’s Most Dangerous Oil Company Get Away With Murder" (with audio/video)
Democracy Now! with video and audio:
An extensive new investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the BP oil spil disaster reveals that it was government mismanagement, delays, and absence of oversight that allowed the crisis to spiral out of control. In the article "The Spill, the Scandal, and the President" Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson writes QUOTE "Though George W. Bush paved the way for the catastrophe, it was Obama who gave BP the green light to drill." Dickinson explores how Interior Secretary Ken Salazar kept in place the oil industry-friendly environmental guidelines that Bush had implemented and ultimately let BP, an oil company with the worst safety record, to get away with murder.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
WA I-1068: "The marijuana initiative and the ACLU"
Bruce Ramsey (Seattle Times op-ed):
My view is that on a big issue like this, if an individual voter likes the gist of an initiative, he should support it. Tim Eyman told me once that all initiatives are lobbying, and clearly that is true here. Don’t fuss the details. A public vote is about the idea. All the nuances about the text being “poorly written” will be forgotten after election day; if the measure fails the people who oppose the idea will claim victory, and their claim will be believed.If you like the idea, vote yes. (And, more important right now, sign the initiative petition.)
Especially if all that is missing is regulation. People in government will fix that. Regulation is what they do. What they’re not good at is embracing new ideas. And that’s why we have initiatives. MORE...
Ellsberg: "'Obama Deceives the Public"
Daniel Ellsberg (Spiegel Online):Daniel Ellsberg, legendary leaker of the "Pentagon Papers" in 1971, still has a bone to pick with the White House. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the 79-year-old peace activist accuses President Obama of betraying his election promises -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan and on civil liberties.SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Ellsberg, you're a hero and an icon of the left. But we hear you're not too happy with President Obama anymore.
Daniel Ellsberg: I voted for him and I will probably vote for him again, as opposed to the Republicans. But I believe his administration in some key aspects is nothing other than the third term of the Bush administration.SPIEGEL ONLINE: How so?
Ellsberg: I think Obama is continuing the worst of the Bush administration in terms of civil liberties, violations of the constitution and the wars in the Middle East.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: For example?
Ellsberg: Take Obama's explicit pledge in his State of the Union speech to remove "all" United States troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. That's a total lie. I believe that's totally false. I believe he knows that's totally false. It won't be done. I expect that the US will have, indefinitely, a residual force of at least 30,000 US troops in Iraq. MORE....
Joe Conason: Why We Can't Just "Look Forward"
Joe Conason:
Torture is no longer a pressing concern for the American public, if it ever was. The country's attention has understandably turned to lost jobs, costly health care and spilled oil. Most Americans probably agree with President Obama that rather than dwell on the secret abuses of the Bush-Cheney regime, we ought to be looking forward.
Looking forward is one of those cliches that always sounds positive and sensible, and certainly serves the president's political interests. But the years of detainee abuse and constitutional violations cannot be dismissed so easily, because the past is still with us -- and so are the dangers that drew America's leaders toward the dark side.
That is why Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the retired commander of U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, repeated his call for a "truth commission" in a New York University auditorium on the evening of June 7. He joined a group of prominent writers, lawyers and actors in staging an extraordinary event titled "Blueprint for Accountability," which sought to revive pressure on the Obama administration to fulfill its early promises to restore the Constitution, the Geneva conventions and the rule of law. The house was packed, and there was a sense that the president's supporters are deeply disappointed -- and determined to demand that he live up to his word. MORE...
On CNN--Doug Brinkley: "Administration is Going to Come Out With a Large Gulf Recovery Act" (with video)
Heather (Crooka and Liars), with video (06:31):
Well this is one of the more encouraging things I've heard in a while about what's going to be done about this disaster in the Gulf. When I hear they're doing more to contain and capture the oil that's already out there I'll believe the administration is finally handling this in a manner that's actually going to do some good.Howie P.S.: More about Doug Brinkley here.Douglas Brinkley talked to Anderson Cooper about what the Obama administration is going to do to attempt to restore the Gulf coast after years and years of neglect. Even "Be the daddy" James Carville sounded impressed. I'm holding my applause until after I see some action and not talk because it's already absolutely inexcusable that they've allowed all the dispersants to be poured into the water and not done more to contain and collect the oil so far while these BP executives are allowed to go on the air and continue denying that the huge oil plumes in the Gulf even exist. MORE...
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Rolling Stone: "The Spill, The Scandal and the President"
Tim Dickinson:
On May 27th, more than a month into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, Barack Obama strode to the podium in the East Room of the White House. For weeks, the administration had been insisting that BP alone was to blame for the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf – and the ongoing failure to stop the massive leak. "They have the technical expertise to plug the hole," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had said only six days earlier. "It is their responsibility." The president, Gibbs added, lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role – a curious line of argument from an administration that has reserved the right to assassinate American citizens abroad and has nationalized much of the auto industry. "If BP is not accomplishing the task, can you just federalize it?" a reporter asked. "No," Gibbs replied.
Now, however, the president was suddenly standing up to take command of the cleanup effort. "In case you were wondering who's responsible," Obama told the nation, "I take responsibility." Sounding chastened, he acknowledged that his administration had failed to adequately reform the Minerals Management Service, the scandal-ridden federal agency that for years had essentially allowed the oil industry to self-regulate. "There wasn't sufficient urgency," the president said. "Absolutely I take responsibility for that." He also admitted that he had been too credulous of the oil giants: "I was wrong in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios." He unveiled a presidential commission to investigate the disaster, discussed the resignation of the head of MMS, and extended a moratorium on new deepwater drilling. "The buck," he reiterated the next day on the sullied Louisiana coastline, "stops with me." MORE...
WA: "Big bucks behind booze initiatives"
Chris Grygiel (seattlepi.com):
First Costco committed $350,000 to try to get a measure that would privatize liquor sales in Washington on the November ballot.Howie P.S.: The comparisons to Sensible Washington's I-1068 campaign are striking.
Now two big beverage and spirits distibutors have kicked in a combined $400,000 to try to get a competing initiative before voters this fall.
With claims and counter claims flying from both sides, the booze battles are becoming as opaque as a Black Russian. MORE...
"Marijuana Delivery Services Evade Bans on Dispensaries, Spread Across California" (with video)
AlterNet, with video from California Watch(06:12):
A flourishing and unregulated industry of pot delivery services is circumventing bans on storefront dispensaries and bringing medical marijuana directly to people’s homes, offices and more unconventional locations across the state, records and interviews show.
The unfettered delivery of marijuana through hundreds of these services highlights how quickly California’s fabled pot industry is moving from the shadows and into uncharted legal territory. These new couriers include enterprising farmers, business entrepreneurs and even a former Los Angeles pot dealer methodically switching her former clients to legal patients.
In newspapers and on the Internet, hundreds of “mobile dispensaries” advertise a wide range of strains and other products, such as brownies and cookies laced with THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. One service delivers organic vegetables along with medical marijuana, as part of a “farm-direct” service. MORE...
NPR: "Marijuana's Black Market: Will It Stay Or Will It Go?" (with audio)
NPR, with audio (04:14):
In the last nine months, about 65,000 people signed up for Colorado's medical marijuana registry. And many have started shopping at the state's growing number of dispensaries.
The booming industry is creating headaches for state regulators, law enforcement and for one other group — Colorado's drug dealers. FULL TRANSCRIPT...
"Unseen Al Gore Campaign Video" (video)
spike.com, video (13:12)
Spike Jonze directed this intimate look at Al Gore and his family during the former Vice President's 2000 campaign.
"Progressives Ask: Is It Obama, Or Is It Us?" (with audio/video)
NPR with audio (03:52):
A year and a half into Barack Obama's presidency, some of the people who got him elected are feeling restless. That's one of the dominant themes at this week's conference of progressives here in Washington, D.C. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports on a conference called America's Future Now.Howie P.S.: Howard Dean has a more "nuanced" view as he discusses Democratic prospects in the November midterms, video (07:12).
ANDREA SEABROOK: Left-wing activists describe the year leading up to Barack Obama's election as exhilarating, empowering and exciting. Now ask them about the first year and a half of his presidency and they say...
Mr. NICK WEINER (Union Activist): Frustrating.
Professor DARA STROLOVITCH (University of Minnesota): Sobering.
Mr. STEVE PEHA (Education Consultant): Brutal. FULL TRANSCRIPT...
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
"U.S. liberals: Time to make Obama uncomfortable"
Reuters:
Nineteen months after celebrating President Barack Obama's historic election win, disappointed liberal activists promised on Monday to turn up the political heat on a White House they said is too quick to compromise.
At an annual conference of grassroots progressives, they said the euphoria and high expectations after Obama's victory had lulled them into a false sense of security, and hopes for his success had sometimes limited their criticism.
That has changed, they said, because of what they called Obama's go-easy approach on Wall Street, ineffectual efforts to reduce high unemployment, watered-down healthcare and financial regulation reforms and escalation of the Afghanistan war.
"It is not our job to make this president or this administration comfortable. It is our job to make him do the right thing," said Darcy Burner, head of the Progressive Congress Action Fund.
"There were far too many of us who thought our job was done" after the election, she said. MORE...
NPR: "The Man Bankrolling California's Pot Initiative" (with audio)
Richard Lee has created a multimillion-dollar empire in Oakland, Calif., built largely on medicinal pot. And now, he wants to take it a step further, by turning marijuana into a totally legal, taxable commodity for any Californian age 21 or older.NPR, with audio (05:41):
In November, California voters will decide whether to make all pot legal, even for recreational use, 14 years after medical marijuana was legalized.Howie P.S.: Bruce Ramsey opines in the Seattle Times:
The measure would violate federal drug laws, but that hasn't stopped Oakland, Calif., businessman Richard Lee from spending millions to get the issue passed.
In a revitalized neighborhood on the north side of downtown Oakland where medical marijuana is king, an old storefront throbs with the pulse of rock music. The unmistakable scent of ganja fills the air. Some call the neighborhood "Oaksterdam." MORE...
Dawdy's group has had a tough time. At the beginning of the signature drive, a bank refused to process online donations, fearing it was money laundering for a dope business. Later a police bust of a medical-marijuana dispensary seized signed petitions as evidence (of what?). And now the I-1068 people are dumped by our local Left.
The last move does not surprise me too much. I keep telling people that a lot of the lefties in this state, and particularly in this city, are not liberal. They aren't interested in individual rights--at least, not rights to do very many things outside a bedroom. Progressive activists are believers in government. They want to save the Earth by controlling people more, including by banning the use of tobacco outdoors in the public parks. I think the broad group of people who vote leftward are far more tolerant than the activists, and would vote for I-1068 if they could. Maybe now they won't get the chance. MORE...
Monday, June 07, 2010
"Denied Funding And Fighting Mad, I-1068 Will Push Till The End"
Philip Dowdy (Sensible Washington):
Via an Associated Press reporter, Sensible Washington learned earlier this afternoon that the Service Employees International Union and other players in progressive causes in Washington State have declined to financially support paid signature gathering for I-1068. Over the last month, the SEIU and others in state politics have talked with Sensible Washington about steps they could take to ensure that the initiative turned in enough signatures to qualify for this November’s ballot because marijuana legalization being on the ballot would drive extra voter turnout in ways that would benefit progressive causes and candidates in November in what’s shaping up to be a tough year for Democrats and progressive issues. Now after stringing the I-1068 campaign along for four weeks, they’ve walked.
“Politics in this state stink,” said Philip Dawdy, I-1068 campaign director and an initiative co-author. “Marijuana smells better. It’s disappointing that SEIU and others have walked away from us, but this campaign will fight on because the issue is simply too important.”
Dawdy said he’s especially frustrated that the SEIU and others walked away from I-1068 after romancing it for a month because Sensible Washington, sponsors of I-1068, originally approached the state Democratic Party and others in progressive politics back in February, asking for advice and guidance on running a successful initiative campaign. Sensible Washington was ignored until May when it became apparent I-1068 would be a good voter turnout tool. Sensible Washington was told that various political actors in this state felt marijuana law reform was a fringe issue and that people were nervous about potentially being tied to such a campaign. MORE...
Fergus Falls Daily Journal (MN) --Al Franken: "Nation will not drill its way out of energy problems"
Al Franken:
The oil leak in Gulf of Mexico that is spilling an estimated 1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis is an example of why a new energy policy is needed, Franken said..
“We need a new policy and we need it now,” Franken said.
Franken’s promoting Midwest ethanol production — like the product being produced by the Otter Tail Ag ethanol plant in Fergus Falls — because it’s a safe, renewable energy option that is available immediately for our energy consumption.
“You’ve never seen a 45-day ethanol spill,” Franken told The Journal. MORE...
"Is Obama Serious About Breaking Our Catastrophic Oil Addiction?"
Bill McKibben (AlterNet):
Has the President been transformed by the oil spill in the Gulf, or is he merely trying to ride out the public reaction?---Here's the president on March 31st, announcing his plan to lift a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling: "Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy."
Here he is on May 26th, as political pressure starts to really build over the hole in the bottom of the sea that BP somehow seems unable to plug: "We're not going to be able to sustain this kind of fossil fuel use. The planet can't sustain it." Still, he added quickly, there's no need for any dramatics: “We’re not going to transition out of oil next year or 10 years from now.”
And here is the president last Wednesday, after yet another gimcrack solution at 5,000 feet under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico had gone awry, and real anger at the administration's lackluster performance crested: "[T]he time has come to aggressively accelerate [the transition from fossil fuels.] The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future."
The question is: which one is the real Obama? Has he really been transformed by the oil spill in the Gulf, or is he merely trying to ride out the public reaction with stronger words? I think the answer is as murky as the water off Mobile. We don't know because so far it's all words -- the closest he's come to specifics is that pledge that we won't be off oil in a decade. MORE...
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Updated: Arianna and Markos with George and Liz on ABC---"Stopping the Leak" (video)
UPDATE: "Liz Cheney Sticks Up For Halliburton: ‘I Don’t Know What Planet You Live On’" (Think Progress), with video (02:18).
"This Week" (ABC News), video (12:11):
George Will, Liz Cheney, Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas.Howie P.S.: Liz confirms her role as the interrupting High Princess Of Cheneydom.
Hendrik Hertzberg on Elena Kagan, Socialism and "Wingnut World"
Hendrik Hertzberg (The New Yorker):If the undergraduate is mother to the Justice as the child is father to the man, then I’m ready to believe that Elena Kagan, Princeton ’81, just might grow up to be a terrific Justice of the Supreme Court. I’ve now had the pleasure of reading the senior thesis Ms. Kagan wrote at Princeton, under the kindly, avuncular eye of the master American historian Sean Wilentz.Howie P.S.: My childhood public school chum manages to cram alot of personal history about himself, about Kagan, about American socialism and the present-day right-wing reaction to the Kagan nomination into this piece of writing.
“To The Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933” would be an impressive enough piece of work if its author had been, say, a thirtyish assistant professor publishing in an academic history journal. Coming from a twenty-year-old college kid, it’s a truly remarkable accomplishment, quite out of the ordinary. Either that, or the college thesis-writing standards of the early nineteen-eighties were dramatically higher than I had assumed. MORE...
Updated: "Barack Obama turns storyteller to stem political effect of Deepwater Horizon"
UPDATE: Frank Rich has some serious advice for The President, "Don’t Get Mad, Mr. President. Get Even":
It turns out there is something harder to find than a fix for BP’s leak: Barack Obama’s boiling point. The frantic and fruitless nationwide search for the president’s temper is now our sole dependable comic relief from the tragedy in the gulf. Only The Onion could have imagined the White House briefing last week where a CBS News correspondent asked the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, if he had “really seen rage from the president” and to “describe it.” Gibbs came up with Obama’s “clenched jaw” and his order to “plug the damn hole.” (Thank God he hadn’t settled for “darn.”) This evidence did not persuade anyone, least of all Spike Lee, who could be found on CNN the next night begging the president, “One time, go off!”MORE...
Barack Obama eating shrimp in Grand Isle, Lousiana, on his third visit in a week to the Gulf region affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/APGuardian (UK):
President attempts to rebuild confidence in his leadership with visits to disaster area.---Unlike George W. Bush, whose mishandled response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 damaged his administration and public image, BP remains the main target of public and political frustration. Its share price has been hit hard and it faces calls for a public boycott. Obama, too, has been increasingly willing to attack BP and has threatened a criminal investigation. "If laws were broken, those responsible will be brought to justice," he said yesterday. "We will make sure they pay every single dime owed to the people along the Gulf coast."Howie P.S.: Hold the champagne..."New crises engulf Obama White House" (Agence France-Press):
BP CEO Tony Hayward reiterated yesterday on the company Twitter account that BP would pay all "legitimate" claims. The company estimated it would spend $84m through June to compensate for lost wages and profits.
In his radio address, Obama warned against premature optimism that the spill will be contained in its entirety. MORE...
It was left to Paul McCartney to tap into zeitgeist at a private White House concert last week.Bob Herbert is less concerned about the President's feelings:
"I just want you to know you have billions of us who are rooting for you and we know you are going to come through," he told Obama.
Though he played a medley of Beatles classics, McCartney spared the president "Yesterday" and its doom-laden lyrics, "... all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they're here to stay."
President Obama has suspended Shell’s Arctic drilling permits and has temporarily halted the so-called Arctic oil rush. What we’ve learned from the BP debacle in the gulf, and from the rainforest, and so many other places, is just how reckless and inept the oil companies can be when it comes to safeguarding life, limb and the environment.
They’re dangerous. They need the most stringent kind of oversight, and swift and severe sanctions for serious wrongdoing. At the same time, we need to be searching with a much, much greater sense of urgency for viable energy alternatives. Treating the Amazon and the gulf and the Arctic as if they were nothing more than toxic waste sites is an affront to the planet and all life-forms that inhabit it.
"Obama's National Security Strategy"
Doyle McManus (LA Times):
The document lays out the president's worldview. Basically, it says on foreign policy, we'll do what we can, as long as it doesn't cost too much.---In the end, what Obama laid out was more a set of premises — a worldview — than it was a strategy. And he will face at least two challenges in making it work.
One, which the deliberately bland National Security Strategy didn't solve, is explaining his approach to the American people. As a nation, we accept that there are limits to what we can and should do abroad, but we don't always like it. We still want to maintain the world's most effective armed forces, defeat terrorism, spread democracy and bring peace to the Middle East, even as we complain about government spending.
"Obama became president the moment after the collapse of a hubris bubble," said Peter Beinart, author of "The Icarus Syndrome," a brilliant new book about the pendulum swings of U.S. foreign policy between excessive ambition and excessive retrenchment. "He needs to convince Americans that we can become stronger even as we retrench militarily. That is incredibly perilous, politically."
The other challenge is the certainty of unexpected events. When Obama came to office, he knew he faced an economic crisis and two wars. But he didn't know that a BP oil well would explode, that Israel would clash with Turkey or that a Nigerian student would fly to Detroit last Christmas with a bomb in his pants — an event that, had luck not intervened, could have vaulted terrorism back to its old status as the all-consuming focus of American policy. As U.S. Marines like to note, the enemy has a vote too. MORE...
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Hightower: "Who the Hell's in Charge Here? BP Disaster Caused by a Nasty Mix of Government Impotence and Corporate Rule"
Jim Hightower (AlterNet):
Many news reports about the Gulf oil catastrophe refer to it as a "spill." Wrong. A spill is a minor "oops" — one accidentally spills milks, for example, and from childhood, we're taught the old aphorism: "Don't cry over spilt milk." What's in the Gulf isn't milk and it wasn't spilt. The explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon well was the inevitable result of deliberate decisions made by avaricious corporate executives, laissez faire politicians and obsequious regulators. MORE...
"Obama’s Oil Opportunity"
Eleanor Clift (Newsweek):
In a speech Wednesday that the administration touted as a major policy declaration, Obama pledged to spend the coming months finding the votes for the bill, and making the case for a clean-energy future. “The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century,” he said. Of all the responses to the BP oil spill, the legislative route is the least promising in terms of its immediacy and its theatrical attributes. It’s also where the long-term structural changes must be made, and where Obama, if he sets his mind to it, could salvage something positive and equally history-making from the environmental crisis threatening his presidency. MORE...
Friday, June 04, 2010
"Demand transparency in Wall Street reform"
CREDOaction:Now that the House and the Senate have passed versions of financial reform legislation, the fate of Wall Street reform is in the hands of members of the conference committee that will merge the two versions into a final package.
If members of the conference committee can cut deals behind closed doors, free from public scrutiny, the resulting legislation will be pathetically weak.
That is why CREDO, Open Left and the Campaign for America's Future are joining MoveOn in calling for full transparency in the conference committee.
Tell Congress to broadcast the proceedings on C-SPAN and to put the text of the bill online well in advance of the vote. MORE...
"Computer Model Shows Oil Likely to Spread to Atlantic" (with video)
PBS, with video (00:34):
The oil from the BP leak could reach far beyond the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new computer model released Thursday that shows currents could carry some of the slick up the Atlantic coast.
The creators of the model, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said oil could reach the open Atlantic Ocean as early as this summer.
The model shows the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current carrying oil to Florida's Atlantic Coast, where it could be carried north in the Gulf Stream as far as North Carolina, and then be pulled east out into the Atlantic.
Synte Peacock, an NCAR scientist who worked on the model, said it is nearly impossible to predict when the Loop Current will start picking up oil, but that once it does, oil could make it to the Atlantic within days.
"We can say with a high degree of likelihood that oil will get out to the Gulf Stream," Peacock said. "What we can't say is when." MORE...
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Seattle "Folk balladeer & activist Earl Robinson honored"
Steve Shay (West Seattle Herald-WA):Thanks to the inspiration of professional documentarian, college professor, and West Seattle resident B.J. Bullert, and her colleague, civil rights and peace activist, Seattle icon Kay Bullitt, Friday, May 28, has been officially proclaimed "Earl Robinson Day" by Mayor Mike McGinn and the City of Seattle. The late Earl Robinson will be honored and remembered during two events at Northwest Folklife Festival Friday and Sunday evening.Howie P.S.: I was fortunate to get to know Earl after he became my mother's second husband, some years after my father died. He was very generous and friendly with me, taking me to a Jimi Hendrix concert, as well as many other notable events and gatherings where I met many of the musical legends of the sixties and seventies.
Earl Robinson was himself a civil rights and peace and labor activist, and folk balladeer, blacklisted during the McCarthy era. (He was a proud member of the Communist Party, then became disillusioned with it.) He also happened to be raised in West Seattle where he returned before he died. He sang at Folklife Fest two months before his passing, in May, 1991. He was born 100 years ago.
Many who do not recognize his name will recognize two of his famous compositions, "Black and White," popularized by the pop group Three Dog Night, and "Joe Hill," a Joan Baez standard. Robinson co-wrote "Black and White" in 1954 with actor Alan Arkin's father, David.
Bullert produced and directed the documentary Earl Robinson: Ballad of an American, in 1994. It runs on the Seattle Channel, channel 21. Bullert's work also include Alki: Birthplace of Seattle (1997), Chief Seattle (2000), Duwamish Life with Prof. Kenneth Tollefson (2000), Space Needle at 40 (2002), and Fishermen's Terminal. She is working on the sequel to Fishermen's Terminal. Her films air nationally on PBS, and locally on KCTS as well as the Seattle Channel. Bullert began working in film with Seattle filmmaker John DeGraaf.
Bullert's documentary on Robinson is narrated by folk singer Judy Collins, with interviews by Pete Seeger and the late Alan Lomax, the well-known American folklorist and ethnomusicologist.
"I grew up at 2640 Walnut Avenue Southwest, and the house Earl live in was next door," said Bullert. "He moved back to West Seattle in 1989, on 41st and Manning.
"My documentary was not a conventional story of 'the tortured victimized artist of the Blacklist Era destroyed by the system,'" Bullert said. "This was definitely about a live wire, a consistent theme throughout the film. Earl took the social movements of his day and wrapped songs around them. He gave social movements voice. He was a composer more than a lyricist. He collaborated with Paul Robeson, who sang his song, 'Ballad For Americans,' and Yip Harburg."
Harburg wrote the lyrics to "Brother Can You Spare a Dime," "It's Only a Paper Moon," and all the songs in The Wizard of Oz, including "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
Robinson embraced New Age philosophy toward the end of his life, which, according to Bullert in her documentary, was thought to be off-beat by some of his fans and colleagues.
"There was this concert he gave at the Olympia Capitol Rotunda in the spring of '89," Bullert recalled. "We went for a walk and had a cup of coffee. Earl told me about how he had written 'Joe Hill' in a communist summer camp in upstate New York and his work with Paul Robeson and Joan Baez. Earl said 'Joe Hill' was a very important song because of the line, 'I never died said he.' Earl told me that (lyric) was his link to the New Age. He then told me tales about his conversations with dolphins."
Bullert attended Lafayette, Madison, and West Seattle High School before moving to Pakistan where her father worked in the Army Corps of Engineers. She attended Boston University and studied with author, historian and activist Howard Zinn, who passed away last January. She earned her Masters at Oxford in England where she studied the history of ideas. She is a professor offering an interdisciplinary master's program at Antioch University, Seattle.
She said she was heavily influenced by Zinn.
"Howard was just an incredible guy," she said. "He was great at bringing music into his classes and making us aware how culture was something we could use at changing the way people can see the world. He said we have to end all war and that there is nothing humane about war. We stayed in touch throughout the years. I took history and American politics from him.
"I never thought I'd be a film maker," she said. "I always thought people who made movies were kind of flaky. I grew up with stereotypes in my head of the nutty 'Hollywood-esque' filmmakers. I was much too serious. I was going to be a philosopher. The power of using media, television and film, that was what I wanted to do."
Northwest Folklife Fest's website schedule lists the two Earl Robinson events. However, Bullert offered these details:
Friday, May 28, 7pm-9pm, Seattle Center, Center House Theatre:
Bullert's hour-long documentary, Earl Robinson: Ballad of an American is shown, then music performed by Earl's son, clarinetist Perry Robinson, his nephew Gregg Robinson of Jump Ensamble, singer Nancy Nolan, and Rev. Pat Wright and The Total Experience Gospel Chorus performs "Ballad of an American" that Paul Robeson once performed.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
"The Oil Spill as Metaphor for Our Times" (with video)
Micah Sifry (techPresident):
Depending on your perspective, the Gulf oil spill is many things: a reminder of human fallibility, an indictment of corporate greed, a painful example of government regulatory failure, a portrait of the power of big money in politics, a wake-up call about our continuing addiction to cheap oil. Arguably, it is proof that America has become very good at making what we once imagined as rare accidents, "black swans" in the parlance of Wall Street, into high probability events. Assuming you've been paying attention to the news, by now you probably think it is some combination of all of those things.But it is also a quintessentially 21st century spectacle, and the way we are experiencing it is yet another warning of something that is deeply broken about how we use information today: we consume shocking images almost entirely without taking meaningful action in response.
To give you an example of what I mean, just go watch a few minutes of the BP oil spill video:
Tell me, did you do anything after watching the spill for a while? I'm betting the answer is no. And how did you feel, as you watched it? Transfixed and dazed, right? Like rubbernecking past a car accident. Did you get out of your car to offer help? Probably not. MORE...
Updated: "Snohomish County prosecutor candidate supports marijuana legalization"
UPDATE: "Fiscal Sanity in the Criminal Justice System"---Lee makes the $$ argument.
Everett Herald (WA):
Everett Herald (WA):
The man who would be Snohomish County's next prosecuting attorney wants to legalize marijuana for adults.
Jim Kenny today endorsed Initiative 1068, which would legalize marijuana use, possession and cultivation. He'd previously made clear his support for decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana, and recently supported a broader call for decriminalization of pot on his campaign Website. MORE...
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
I-1068 @ Seattle Folklife: "12,000 signatures and registered over 500 new voters."
Sensible Washington:
Folklife went well for us despite horrible weather almost the entire weekend. We got about 12,000 signatures and registered over 500 new voters. Thanks to all the volunteers who worked so hard on our behalf in trying conditions. More big events coming. Stay tuned. -Philip
Support the Northwest Progressive Institute--June 9th
NPI:What: A special event to benefit the work of the Northwest Progressive InstituteHowie P.S.: I'll be there and I hope you can also attend.
When: June 9th, 2010
Check in at 6:30 PM, main program at 7:30 PM
Where: Community Center at Mercer View
8236 SE 24th Street, Mercer Island, 98040
Who: Speakers include John de Graaf, Dow Constantine, Suzan DelBene, Hans Dunshee, and Gael Tarleton...
BUY TICKETS AND MORE DETAILS HERE.
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