Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving (9:51 pm)
Grace
Thanks & blessings be
to the Sun & the Earth
for this bread & this wine,
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
this food;
thanks be & blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks & blessings to them
who share it
(& also the absent & the dead).
Thanks & Blessing to them who bring it
(may they not want),
to them who plant & tend it,
harvest & gather it
(may they not want);
thanks & blessing to them who work
& blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want - for their hunger
sours the wine & robs
the taste from the salt.
Thanks be for the sustenance & strength
for our dance & work of justice, of peace.
-Rafael Jesus Gonzalez
posted by Jarrett | 1 comment
A Bad Day for Franken (11:21 am)
The Franken-Coleman Senate race reached a pivotal moment this morning, as the MN Canvassing Board rejected Franken’s request that absentee ballots rejected by poll workers be included in the recount.
This is rough, rough news for Franken. Th absentee ballots are really the only obvious scenario handing the Dem victory. Ballot challenges, which both Franken and Coleman volunteers seem increasingly addicted to, probably won’t matter. It’s all about the absentee ballots.
Which means Franken’s team will likely deploy litigation to push this battle into 2009.
At the end of the day yesterday, with nearly 80 percent of ballots counted, Coleman was ahead by 238 votes, although the Star Tribune had the lead at 231. The Twin Cities’ CityPages has a nice overview of the lay of the land, as does the Minnesota Independent.
The Uptake streamed the chipper five-person Canvassing Board meeting live, and is streaming reactions to it right now. Check it out:
posted by Jeremy Gantz | start the discussion
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Bravo, Sherrod Brown (3:01 pm)
(H/t to Kos for the catch).
Dear Mr. XXX
Thank you for contacting me regarding Senator Joe Lieberman’s role as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. On November 18, the Senate Democratic caucus voted to recommend that Senator Lieberman continue as chair of the Homeland Security Committee while relinquishing his membership and subcommittee chairmanship on the Committee on Environment and Public Works. The full Senate will act on this recommendation in January.
I believe that a committee chairman should be a leader in the party, and I do not believe that Senator Lieberman has demonstrated appropriate leadership. That is why I voted to require Senator Lieberman to relinquish his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. A majority of the Senate Democratic caucus felt differently, however, and I will respect the decision of my colleagues.
I am glad that Senator Lieberman wants to stay in the caucus. I look forward to the Senator’s support on important issues such as jobs, health care, and education.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Sherrod Brown
posted by Jarrett | 1 comment
Arranging Mr. Geithner’s Priorities (12:03 pm)
President-elect Barack Obama announced his economic transition team yesterday—and we’ll get to that—but first let’s take a look at the top economic stories from the week that you might not have heard—but need to know.
With so many recent headlines detailing the government’s policy position on some of the nation’s largest corporations, it’s important to remember that economic policy ought to include people living at the other end of the economic spectrum.
Obama was charged with being a “redistributionist” by conservatives within and without the McCain campaign during the final weeks leading up to the Nov. 4 election. Funny what happened. It turns out people actually find that drastic inequality thing offensive, particularly when they are losing their homes while the nation’s largest banks are getting billions in speedy federal assistance.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson still refuses to allocate one dime of his financial bailout funds to help struggling homeowners, while giving lip service to the idea that the housing market “correction” is at the heart of our current economic woes. Even the modest anti-foreclosure bill Congress passed in July is slow-going. In addition to about $1.7 billion to help underwater homeowners refinance into affordable mortgages, the bill directed an additional $4 billion to local governments to help communities rehabilitate foreclosed homes. That sum will barely make a dent in the deepening foreclosure crisis, as Garland McLaurin of American News Project and Mary Kane of the Washington Independent detail in this video, but many cities and counties are yet to see their share of the $4 billion kitty. By contrast, hundreds of billions of dollars have been injected into banks in recent weeks.
At this point in the economic cycle, mortgages are not the only loans causing major problems. Credit card delinquencies are at their highest rate in six years, and many banking industry experts expect them to go higher as laid-off consumers move basic expenses from checkbooks to plastic. What’s worse, credit card companies currently have legal leeway to alter contracts in almost any way they wish, even if borrowers are current on their payments, as Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.,... read more
posted by Zach Carter | start the discussion
Monday, November 24, 2008
Notes On Our “Unraveling” (1:14 pm)
According to Chris Hedges, the stories of the poor, destitute and hungry in Trenton, N.J. are increasingly becoming the story of America writ small:
The swelling numbers waiting outside homeless shelters and food pantries around the country, many of them elderly or single women with children, have grown by at least 30 percent since the summer. General welfare recipients receive $140 a month in cash and another $140 in food stamps. This is all many in Trenton and other impoverished areas have to live on.
Trenton, a former manufacturing center that has a 20 percent unemployment rate and a median income of $33,000, is a window into our current unraveling. The financial meltdown is plunging the working class and the poor into levels of destitution unseen since the Depression. And as the government squanders taxpayer money in fruitless schemes to prop up insolvent banks and investment houses, citizens are callously thrown onto the street without work, a place to live or enough food.
The statistics are already grim. Our banking and investment system, holding perhaps $2 trillion in worthless assets, cannot be saved, even with the $700 billion of taxpayer money recklessly thrown into its financial black hole. Our decline is irrevocable. The number of private sector jobs has dropped for the past 10 months and at least a quarter of all businesses say they plan to cut more jobs over the next year. The nation’s largest banks, including Citigroup, face collapse. Retail sales fell in October by the largest monthly drop on record. Auto companies are on the edge of bankruptcy. The official unemployment figures, which duplicitously mask real unemployment that is probably now at least 10 percent nationwide, are up to 6.1 percent and headed higher. We have lost 1.2 million jobs since January. Young men of color have 50 percent unemployment rates in cities such as Trenton. Twelve million houses are worth less than their mortgages and a million people will lose their homes this year in foreclosures. The current trends, if not swiftly reversed, mean that one in 33 home owners will face foreclosure.
If Hedges’ piece... read more
posted by Jarrett | 1 comment
Friday, November 21, 2008
Progressives Out In The Cold? (5:39 pm)
With rumors swirling about what Obama’s cabinet is likely to look like, Chris Hayes throws down some inarguable points about just how uninspiring things are looking:
Not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new administration. Not one. Remember this is the movement that was right about Iraq, right about wage stagnation and inequality, right about financial deregulation, right about global warming and right about health care. And I don’t just mean in that in a sectarian way. I mean to say that the emerging establishment consensus on all of these issues came from the left.
I would also submit that the faith of progressives are a considerable reason Obama was the Democratic nominee in the first place. It seems that being right about the defining political questions of our time means fuck-all to the power structure in D.C.
Update:
Some will argue that the appointment of Tom Daschle to Health and Human Services Secretary indicates an aggressive approach to health care reform. Not to mention a potential boost to Native American Health. Also, Obama has indicated that he will act aggressively to combat climate change. Hope remains…
posted by Jarrett | 5 comments
Obama Will Nominate New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner For Treasury Secretary (5:24 pm)
This according to Reuters. Not official yet. According to the Wall Street Journal, Geithner was a “key architect” in the $30b bailout of Bear Stearns earlier this year.
posted by Jarrett | start the discussion
Thursday, November 20, 2008
ITT Contributor Candace Gorman on WBEZ Today (2:40 pm)
In These Times contributor H. Candace Gorman, and attorney for two Gitmo detainees, will be interviewed this afternoon on Chicago Public Radio discussing the (hopefully) imminent demise of the illegal prison.
For those of you in the Chicagoland area, tune into WBEZ at 2 P.M., 91.5 FM on your dial. For those of you outside the Second City, you can stream the program here.
posted by Dan Dineen | start the discussion
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