The Great Populist Divide

Conservative Populism Dies Hard

The populist hero was born on a small farm not far from the Canadian border. As a boy, he scraped together money by raising chickens and managing a grocery store. He then worked his way through an unprestigious law school, and enlisted in the Marines to fight for his country.

My doctrine, the young Republican senator liked to say, “is Americanism with its sleeves rolled up.” Given his background, he said he identified with “real people” from rural areas and small towns “who are the heart and soul and soil of America.” He vowed to defend them against “the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouth” who were “selling this nation out.”

FBI Wanted Obama Plotters Charged, But A Rove Appointee Said No

-- by Dave

We noticed last week that it was awfully peculiar that Colorado’s U.S. Attorney, Troy Eid, had so airily dismissed conspiracy charges against the three white-supremacist tweakers who were caught planning to assassinate Barack Obama at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Now it turns out that those suspicions were fully warranted:

KUSA - 9Wants to Know has learned three men in Denver planned to assassinate U.S. Senator Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention in Denver by sneaking into one of his events and shooting him with a gun hidden inside of a camera, according to federal court records.

Nathan Johnson's girlfriend, whom 9NEWS is not naming because she's a juvenile, said it would have to be a suicide mission.

TPM: McCain Plays the Cameron Card

According to a article just out from Huffington Post, the story about flags from the Democratic National Convention being thrown away is simply false. The story was jumped on and apparently authored by the McCain campaign. But the real tell is down in the Huffpo piece where it traces the story to none other than Fox News' Carl Cameron.

Economists may not call it recession, but job stats say it is

By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers

The combination of falling home equity, the rising cost of food, health care and housing, tighter credit and eight straight months of job losses — 84,000 in August alone — has put the squeeze on middle-class families struggling to stay afloat in a slumping economy. And every time payrolls have declined this consistently since 1948 the economy has been officially in recession. Even college graduates are feeling the pinch. Their 2.7 percent unemployment rate is the highest since 2004, while the 9.6 percent unemployment rate for workers without a high-school diploma is the highest since 1996.

Will The GOP's Negativity Produce A Backlash?

by Glenn Greenwald

After a long week in Denver and another week in Minneapolis, I'm traveling home today and thus won't have much time to post, but I wanted to follow up on the discussion that ensued yesterday in response to my post arguing that, particularly in light of the brutal personal attacks on Obama at the Convention, Democrats ought to be far more aggressively critical of McCain and the GOP generally. Many people in comments and by e-mail argued that Americans dislike negativity and that Sarah Palin's speech, in particular, would backfire on the Republicans.

US rules out new economic package

The United States government says it does not see an immediate need for new measures to stimulate the US economy despite a sharp rise in unemployment.

The latest figures show a rate of 6.1% - the highest since December 2003.

A White House spokeswoman said that while the figures were disappointing, the existing economic stimulus plan was having the impact intended.

U.S. Mortgage Foreclosures, Delinquencies Reach Highs

By Kathleen M. Howley

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Foreclosures accelerated to the fastest pace in almost three decades during the second quarter as interest rates increased and home values fell, prompting more Americans to walk away from homes they couldn't refinance or sell.

New foreclosures increased to 1.19 percent, rising above 1 percent for the first time in the survey's 29 years, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report today. The total inventory of homes in foreclosure reached 2.75 percent, almost tripling since the five-year housing boom ended in 2005. The share of loans with one or more payments overdue rose to a seasonally adjusted 6.41 percent of all mortgages, an all-time high, from 6.35 percent in the first quarter.

Obama stays cool during O'Reilly inquisition

In first segment aired, Obama says surge succeeded

It's been almost nine months to the day since Fox News's Bill O'Reilly tried to shove his way to an interview with Barack Obama during a New Hampshire campaign stop. The setting was a little more peaceful when the two finally sat down together Thursday, but O'Reilly was his good old fashioned bullying self.

Paul Krugman: The Resentment Strategy

Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?

Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?

Bisphenol A linked to metabolic syndrome in human tissue

CINCINNATI—New research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) implicates the primary chemical used to produce hard plastics—bisphenol A (BPA)—as a risk factor for metabolic syndrome and its consequences.

In a laboratory study, using fresh human fat tissues, the UC team found that BPA suppresses a key hormone, adiponectin, which is responsible for regulating insulin sensitivity in the body and puts people at a substantially higher risk for metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is a combination of risk factors that include lower responsiveness to insulin and higher blood levels of sugar and lipids. According to the American Heart Association, about 25 percent of Americans have metabolic syndrome. Left untreated, the disorder can lead to life-threatening health problems such as coronary artery disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

Researcher says: No-till practices show extended benefits on wheat and forage

VERNON – With more than 3 million acres of wheat in north Texas, 50 percent or more of which is grazed by 1 to 2 million head of cattle, it is important to look at tillage practices and their effect on forage production, said a Texas AgriLife Research expert.

Dr. John Sij, AgriLife Research agronomist at Vernon, has been studying nitrogen response and forage production in relation to tillage practices at the nearby Smith-Walker research farm, where grazing research is conducted under commercial conditions. "When talking about tillage, we have to look at environmental conditions," Sij said, "including frequent droughts, high winds and temperatures, highly erodible soils, low yields, low production inputs, low returns and intense rainfalls."

Conventional tillage can sometimes be excessive and cause moisture loss as well as lower organic matter, he said. Severe wind and water erosion can also occur under conventional tillage, resulting in dust storms and low visibility.

Tracking the reasons many girls avoid science and math

UWM researcher's work aimed at halting the exodus of women in STEM careers

Most parents and many teachers believe that if middle-school and high-school girls show no interest in science or math, there's little anyone can do about it.

New research by a team that includes vocational psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) indicates that the self-confidence instilled by parents and teachers is more important for young girls learning math and science than their initial interest.

Archives of Alaska Papers Reveal Disturbing -- And Goofy -- Details from Palin's Past

By Greg Mitchell

Published: September 03, 2008 2:10 PM ET
NEW YORK The McCain team may not have vetted Sarah Palin with boots on the ground in Alaska, but the Democrats sure did -- two years ago when she ran for governor. The oppo-research, compiled in a 62-page document with countless summaries or direct quotes, largely from local newspapers, covers all of the important issues you would expect to see, from her views on abortion and abstinence to tangled oil pipeline questions.

But it also gets into some quirky, if revealing, areas as well, such as Palin founding a company called "Rouge Cru" -- what she called a "classy" way to say redneck -- in case her political career didn't work out a few years ago.

Pepe Escobar: All Square

ST PAUL - An energy explosion - literally.

"Starting in January, in a John McCain-Sarah Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources."

This is how a 44-year-old woman, mother of five, governor of Alaska for only two years, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-oil, a mooseburger-eating huntress at war with polar bears who hasn't traveled outside of the US until last year, introduced herself to America and the world. Meet Sarah Palin, the lipstick pitbull.

Stocks mostly rise as investors snap up financials

By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer
46 mins ago

NEW YORK – Wall Street wrestled with intensifying economic worries Friday, extending sharp losses after a disheartening jobs report and then grudgingly engaging in some mild bargain hunting that gave the market some modest gains. The major indexes ended the week with big declines, a sign that investors, who not long ago expected the economy to improve, are now growing increasingly discouraged.

Stocks initially fell after the Labor Department reported that payrolls shrank more than predicted last month and that the unemployment rate reached a five-year high. But stocks that had been pounded lower, including a huge drop on Thursday, were suddenly more attractive to investors willing to make some bets.

Glenn Greenwald: Sarah Palin and Mark Halperin's Complaints of 'Liberal Media'

In 2006, Mark Halperin -- then of ABC News, now of Time Magazine -- published a book with Politico's Editor-in-Chief John Harris, and Halperin's primary strategy for selling books was to appear on right-wing talk radio and television and rail against "the liberal media," sychophantically spouting right-wing attacks on his profession. Halperin told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he agreed with Hewitt's complaint that the "liberal media has destroyed the necessity of the left having to debate, having to reach a message across, because you guys have always papered over the weakness of their arguments," and then debased himself before Bill O'Reilly by vowing "to prove to conservatives that we understand their grievances. We're going to try to do better."

Halperin continues to play this self-flagellating role in order to please the Right. Today he published a chart arguing that part of what was driving the scrutiny of Sarah Palin is "anti-Republican liberal media bias," and he then went on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC show this morning to make the same claim:

There are three bad reasons [for the "frenzy" against Palin]. One is the liberal press. I think the McCain campaign is right that people are going after her harder than they would go after a Democratic Vice Presidential nominee.

Abramoff gets 4 years prison in corruption scandal

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 8 minutes ago

Jack Abramoff, the once powerful lobbyist at the heart of a far-reaching political corruption scandal, was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday by a judge who said the case had shattered the public's confidence in government.

Abramoff, who fought back tears as he declared himself a broken man, appeared crestfallen as the judge handed down a sentence lengthier than prosecutors had sought.

Why the media should apologize

ST. PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.

On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.

We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.

We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?

Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.

Amy Goodman: Why We Were Falsely Arrested

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, “Democracy Now!” producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.

The Democratic and Republican national conventions have become very expensive and protracted acts of political theater, essentially four-day-long advertisements for the major presidential candidates. Outside the fences, they have become major gatherings for grass-roots movements—for people to come, amidst the banners, bunting, flags and confetti, to express the rights enumerated in the Constitution’s First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Rick Perlstein: Let's Review

Since Sarah Palin's speech was allegedly already written even before she was picked as John McCain's running mate, I think it's fair game to run a piece I wrote before she was John McCain's running mate...

In the long march of the conservative ascendancy, Folk Songs to Bug the Liberals, the 1964 LP by the satirical conservative quartet the Goldwaters, was only a blip. Four Tennessee college students put on "AuH2O" shirts and recorded an album of songs like "Down in Havana," "Barry's Moving In," and "Row Our Own Boat." They dropped out of school to warm up crowds before Goldwater campaign appearances. The record reportedly sold some 200,000 copies. The Goldwaters were never heard from again. I suggest a critical reconsideration.

Ask a conservative activist to explain what anchors and unites their fractious movement, and he will point to ideas: to weighty tomes by Eric Voegelin, Russell Kirk, Wilhelm Roepke, Edmund Burke; to the development of the philosophy of "fusionism," by which the furrow-browed theorists at National Review cogitated their way past the conflicts between the traditionalist, libertarian, and anti-communist strains of the American right. They will make it sound almost as if the 87 percent of Mississippians who voted for Barry Goldwater did so after a stretch of all-nighters in the library.

TPM: Palin Refuses to Testify

It didn't take long. We've already brought you news of the official investigation into Gov. Palin's firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Steve Branchflower, the lead investigator, began trying to arrange a deposition of the governor days before her veep selection. And despite claiming executive privilege to shield requested emails, up until that point Palin had promised full cooperation with the probe.

Earning Less and Dying Younger: How the Growing Strain on America's Middle Class Is Pummeling Our Health

By Maggie Mahar, Health Beat
Posted on September 4, 2008, Printed on September 4, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/97489/

This article originally appeared on Health Beat.

Last week, the Census Bureau came out with a report that provides a compelling window on poverty and health in America.

It's somewhat modestly titled "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007." I would suggest it deserves a headline that does justice to its sweep, perhaps "Connecting the Dots: Health and Poverty, America's Shifting Priorities, 1960-2007."

Friedman's misplaced monument

By Henry C K Liu

The University of Chicago's plans, announced in June, to establish an economics research institute to be named after Nobel Prize-winner Milton Friedman, a free-market monetarist professor at the university from 1946 to 1976, faces strong vocal opposition from none other than Friedman's own colleagues in the university.

Friedman was widely regarded as the intellectual leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics, which stresses the overwhelming importance of the quantity of money as an instrument of government economic policy and as a determinant of business cycles and inflation. He was also an outspoken public defender of free markets, which he inevitably linked with political freedom.

Study: Workers to pay more for health care

By CANDICE CHOI, AP Business Writer
Thu Sep 4, 7:21 AM ET

Get ready for another hike in copays and deductibles. A survey being released Thursday by the Mercer consulting firm found 59 percent of companies intend to keep down rising health care costs in 2009 by raising workers' deductibles, copays or out-of-pocket spending limits.

On average, health care costs will go up by an estimated 5.7 percent next year for both workers and their employers, the study found. That repeats this year's 5.7 percent hike and a 6.1 percent jump in 2007.

Massive Canadian Arctic ice shelf breaks away

A huge 55-square-kilometre ice shelf in Canada's northern Arctic broke away last month and the remaining shelves have shrunk at a "massive and disturbing" rate. These are the latest signs of accelerating climate change in the remote region, scientists said on Tuesday.

They said the Markham Ice Shelf, one of just five remaining ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic, split away from Ellesmere Island in early August. They also said two large chunks totalling 120 square km had broken off the nearby Serson Ice Shelf, reducing it in size by 60%.

NTP finalizes report on Bisphenol A

Current human exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in many polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, is of "some concern" for effects on development of the prostate gland and brain and for behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children, according to a final report released today by the National Toxicology Program (NTP).

The report provides the NTP's current opinion on BPA's potential to cause harm to human reproduction or development. The conclusions are based primarily on a broad body of research involving numerous laboratory animal studies. The report is part of a lengthy review of the scientific literature on BPA and takes into consideration public and peer review comments received on an earlier draft report. The final report is available at http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/chemicals/bisphenol/bisphenol.pdf.

Freedom's Watch smearing Democratic Congressional candidates with false robo-calls

'Shady soft money group' going after Senate and House seats

Early last month the Republican lobbying group Freedom's Watch (FW) launched a series of television and radio advertisements criticizing congressional Democrats for going on vacation instead of staying in Washington and dealing with energy legislation. One ad urged supporters to "Tell Mark Udall," the Colorado Democratic Congressman now running for a Senate seat, "to show up to work and start fixing Colorado's energy crisis."

Freedom's Watch, which made its first public appearance with a $15 million radio and television advertising campaign aimed at maintaining Congressional support for President Bush's Iraq troop "surge" [escalation] just prior to General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's Congressional appearances in late-August 2007, is now attacking Democrats in a number of House and Senate campaigns.

BLM Whistleblower Wins Appeal Over Toxic Nevada Mine

— Labor Department Confirms Retaliatory Firing in Violation of Anti-Pollution Laws

Washington, DC — A federal review panel has ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management illegally dismissed a manager overseeing the cleanup of the Anaconda Mine for raising serious worker safety, as well as serious radiation, air and water pollution problems, according to a final order released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This decision represents a rare pro-whistleblower verdict from Bush administration appointees.

Earle Dixon, the Project Manager for the Anaconda Mine at Yerington, Nevada, clashed with top Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials for raising issues that were being ignored because they would drive up clean-up costs and raise political hackles. As a result, BLM removed Dixon from his position in October 2004, one day before his probationary period ended, over objections of his direct supervisors.

If We Want Good Health Care from Obama, We Better Push Him to Change His Plan

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
Posted on September 2, 2008, Printed on September 3, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/97160/

Barack Obama's health care plan coddles the corporations that profit from the misery and illnesses of tens of millions of Americans. The plan is naive, at best, and probably disingenuous when it insists that we can coax these corporations, which are listed on the stock exchange and exist to maximize profit, to transform themselves into social service agencies that will provide adequate health care for all Americans. I wish we lived in such a rosy world. I know, and I suspect Obama knows, that we do not.

"Obama offers a false hope," said Dr. John Geyman, the former chair of family medicine at the University of Washington and author of "Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry Is Dying, and How We Must Replace It." "We cannot build on or tweak the present system. Different states have tried this. The problem is the private insurance industry itself. It is not as efficient as a publicly financed system. It fragments risk pools, skimming off the healthier part of the population and leaving the rest uninsured or underinsured. Its administrative and overhead costs are five to eight times higher than public financing through Medicare. It cares more about its shareholders than its enrollees or patients. A family of four now pays about $12,000 a year just in premiums, which have gone up by 87 percent from 2000 to 2006. The insurance industry is pricing itself out of the market for an ever larger part of the population. The industry resists regulation. It is unsustainable by present trends."

Thomas Frank: Happy Labor Day. Drop Dead.

September 3, 2008

This is the season for hypocrisy spotting. Pundits have pounced on the moral contradiction presented by the pregnant but unwed daughter of the right's latest family-values champion. They have figured out that riding the Amtrak home to Delaware doesn't automatically make Joe Biden a regular guy.

But as they ponder these personal failings of the mighty, it's easy to overlook the great, yawning hypocrisies that make up the very substance of political life. Take, for instance, the venomous backlash against the Employee Free Choice Act, a bit of union-backed legislation that might allow labor to start reversing decades of decline. Almost wherever there is a close race for a Senate seat, you can see TV commercials assailing the initiative in the most strident terms.

How Children Stop Failing

It takes a village to raise a school.

By Sara Mosle
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008, at 6:49 AM ET

Paul Tough's Whatever It Takes is an inspirational story about one man's efforts to boost educational achievement in New York City's Harlem. The book is also a sobering tale of how such good intentions, alone, are often not enough. Put the two together, and you have everything you need to know not only about inner-city education, poverty, and charter schools but about the realism that is essential to ambitious reform.

For five years, Tough, an editor at the New York Times Magazine (where I once worked), followed Geoffrey Canada's efforts to launch a multimillion-dollar initiative, the Harlem Children's Zone. The Zone refers to a 97-block area that Canada has blanketed with social services and equipped with an elementary school and junior high, both charters within the New York public school system. Canada grew up desperately poor in the South Bronx and was a student radical in the 1960s. For years, he ran a successful nonprofit that provided the usual scattershot offerings to similarly poor families in Upper Manhattan. His goal for the Zone is on a totally different scale. Instead of trying to reach the lucky few and extricate them from the ghetto, he wants to reach all children (and their families) where they live, in every aspect of their lives, in order to boost student achievement across the board.

Glenn Greenwald: Federal Government Involved In Raids On Protesters

As the police attacks on protesters in Minnesota continue -- see this video of the police swarming a bus transporting members of Earth Justice, seizing the bus and leaving the group members stranded on the side of the highway -- it appears increasingly clear that it is the Federal Government that is directing this intimidation campaign. Minnesota Public Radio reported yesterday that "the searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Today's Star Tribune added that the raids were specifically "aided by informants planted in protest groups." Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force -- an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI -- was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate "vegan groups" and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing. There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by the Federal Government that led to the excessive and truly despicable home assaults by the police yesterday.

One Year After the Publication of The Shock Doctrine, A Response to the Attacks

by Naomi Klein

Exactly one year ago, I set off on a book tour to promote The Shock Doctrine. The plan was for it to last three months, quite long by publishing standards. Twelve months later, it is still going. But this has been no ordinary book tour. Everywhere I have traveled- from Calgary, Alberta to Cochabamba, Bolivia - I have heard more stories about how shock strategies have been used to impose unwanted pro-corporate policies. I have also been part of stimulating debates and discussions about how the current round of crises - oil, food, financial markets, heavy weather -- can be transformed into opportunities for progressive change.

And there have been other kinds of responses too. The Shock Doctrine is a direct attack on the intellectuals and institutions that have disseminated corporatist ideology around the world. When I wrote the book, I fully expected to get hit back. Yet for eight months following publication, there was an eerie silence from the "free-market" ideologues. Sure, a few dismissive reviews appeared in the business press. But not a word from the Washington think tanks that I name in the book. Nothing from the University of Chicago economics department. Even The Economist magazine, which used to attack me gleefully and with great regularity, never mentioned the book in print. An American television producer, who was trying to find an opponent to debate me on-air, confided that she had never been turned down so consistently. "They seem to think if they ignore you, you'll go away."

Twin Cities Violence: Just What The RNC Ordered

By Sara Robinson
September 2nd, 2008 - 2:04pm ET

It almost seems like the Twin Cities cops are going way out of their way to create trouble, doesn't it?

We had our share of ugly police events in Denver—almost all of them resulting when party leaders ordered police to harass journalists trying to document swanky confabs between fat cats and industry lobbyists. But, even so, one did not get the impression that the legions in black Gore-Tex were going out of their way to create trouble, let alone incite public riots. Mostly, they were remarkably live-and-let-live.

On the other hand, law enforcement in the Twin Cities tipped their hand Friday night that they're so ready to rumble that they're perfectly willing to throw the first punch, if that's what it takes to get the riot started. Glenn Greenwald and FDL's Lindsay Beyerstein have been providing summary coverage of events as they unfolded; in their reporting, it's all too clear that there are lot of powerful people involved who are spoiling for a street fight with progressives.

Digital TV: A Giveaway to Corporate Media

By Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report
Posted on August 28, 2008, Printed on September 2, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/96831/

Digital TV means four to ten times as many channels for each and every broadcaster with no obligations to the public. The FCC quietly awarded broadcasters this colossal gift of public property worth $70-$80 billion during the Clinton administration back in 1996. In the 12 years since, under Democratic and Republican presidents alike, corporate broadcasters and their stooges at the FCC have diligently peddled the cover stories that digital TV is all about the advent of high definition television, and that the only nagging questions are how and whether enough converter boxes will be available for consumers who can't or won't buy brand new TVs.

Why Obama shouldn't cave on trade

By Roger Bybee

Like torch-bearing villagers descending on a heretic's home, leading commentators in the United States and from the United Kingdom have warned US Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama in menacing terms: stop "pandering" to unions on the issue of unrestrained corporate globalization.

"The kinds of conditions that he has promised labor he would try to negotiate are really non-starters," MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell ominously declared on July 1. "All bets would be off. You can't go there."

Michael Kinsley: No Experience Necessary

How Sarah Palin made the GOP change its mind about presidential qualifications.

By Michael Kinsley
Posted Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008, at 10:36 AM ET

---

In a famous example of ideological flexibility, the American Communist Party changed its mind completely about Adolf Hitler in 1939, when he signed a deal with Stalin. Previously, they hadn't cared for him much. Suddenly, he looked pretty good. Then two years later, when Hitler ratted on the deal and invaded the Soviet Union, the Communists changed their minds again. Both times, it took only days.

But now, thanks to the Internet, the same kind of conversion can take place in hours or even minutes. And although it's hard to find many Communists around these days, we happen to have just the party for the job.

Paul Krugman: John, Don’t Go

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. Three years after Hurricane Katrina, another storm is heading for the Gulf Coast — and this has given Republicans a reason to cancel President Bush’s scheduled appearance at their national convention. The party can thus avoid reminding voters that the last man they placed in the White House did such a heckuva job that he scored the highest disapproval ratings ever recorded.

Instead, Mr. Bush is playing Commander in Chief. On Sunday morning the White House Web site featured photos of the president talking to Gulf state governors about Hurricane Gustav while ostentatiously clutching a red folder labeled “Classified.” On Monday, instead of speaking at the convention, reports suggest that Mr. Bush will address the nation about the storm.

Exposure to lead speeds ageing by up to six years

Studies show that toxic metal remains in the body years after it was banned from fuel, contributing to dementia and other disorders

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 31 August 2008

Millions of people will grow old faster than they should because of past exposures to lead in petrol, a startling series of studies indicates.

The studies, carried out at American universities, show that the toxic metal – which has remained in the bodies of everyone born in Britain before it was finally banned from fuel at the turn of the millennium – accelerates ageing by up to six years, causing loss of memory and difficulties with language.

Those who are tasked to police this democracy are blinded by confetti

The real problem with the Bush years is not so much what he did but that America's political class enabled him do it

Gary Younge
The Guardian
Monday September 1 2008

'Some nations have a gift for ceremonial," wrote the future third Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Robert Cecil, after watching Queen Victoria open parliament. "No poverty of means or absence of splendour inhibits them from making any pageant in which they take part both real and impressive. Everybody falls naturally into his proper place, throws himself without effort into the spirit of the little drama he is enacting and instinctively represses all appearance of constraint or distracted attention."

What was arguably true for 19th century Britain (Cecil, as it happens, believed that Britain did not possess that gift) is no less so for 21st century America. As one party convention ends and another begins (hurricane permitting), we are halfway through a fortnight of ticker tape, talking points, balloons and bluster.

There was a time when these conventions meant something more than mere pageantry. They were the place where arguments were made, platforms thrashed out and delegates wooed with policy. But like British party conferences, conventions are now essentially media events at which the media enjoys neither particular access, information nor, for the most part, insight. The result is two weeks of propaganda rolled out like a well-choreographed marketing campaign and faithfully transmitted by supine outlets.

Thawing permafrost likely to boost global warming

A new assessment more than doubles previous estimates of the amount of carbon stored in permafrost, and indicates that carbon dioxide emissions from microbial decomposition of organic carbon in thawing permafrost could amount to roughly half those resulting from global land-use change during this century.

It's the Constitution, Stupid

You know, that old piece of paper the Bush administration shredded. Why is no one in Denver talking about it?

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008, at 6:34 PM ET

Pat Buchanan is right. There, I said it. Shoot me. Pat Buchanan and I are both maddeningly frustrated by the Democrats' inability to deliver red meat to their base, even when President Bush has spent eight years hunting, shooting, and filleting that red meat himself. Appearing last night on MSNBC, Buchanan, after arguing that Bill Clinton had utterly failed to rally the crowd about real issues, ended up hollering, "Has anybody heard the word Guantanamo mentioned this entire convention?" I've been kind of wondering the same thing.

Now, Buchanan was wrong in the particulars. John Kerry, in what was probably the finest speech of the week, actually mentioned the prison camp shortly after Clinton failed to do so. Kerry promised the crowd that "President Obama and Vice President Biden will shut down Guantanamo; respect the Constitution; and make clear, once and for all, the United States of America does not torture—not now, not ever." They roared. But it wasn't Buchanan's fault he'd missed it. Almost all the networks had cut away from what may have been the convention's only prime-time mention of the zenith of Bush administration lawlessness.

Glenn Greenwald: Massive Police Raids on Suspected Protestors in Minneapolis

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning -- one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a "hippie house," where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with "peaceful kids" who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here.

Study: Bankruptcies soar for senior citizens

By MATT SEDENSKY – 4 days ago

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — First came the health problems. Then, unable to work, Ada Noda watched the bills pile up. And then, suffocating in debt, the 80-year-old did something she never thought she'd be forced to do.

She declared bankruptcy.

While the bankruptcy filing rate for those under 55 has fallen, it has soared for older Americans, according to a new analysis from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, which examined a sampling of noncommercial bankruptcies filed between 1991 and 2007.

There Is an Alternative to Corporate Rule

One of the remarkable features of modern political life is how consistently global elites deny that viable alternatives to the current global order exist, even as the terrain of international politics rapidly shifts. The "imperial globalists" that rose to power in the Bush years contend that without U.S. military strength decisively projected abroad, the forces of evil will sweep the globe. Meanwhile, "corporate globalists" of Wall Street persist in their belief that, in the post-Cold War world, we have no choice but to embrace the continual advance of the "free" market.

Neither idea is credible. The disastrous war in Iraq has firmly contradicted the neocons' argument that preemptive war can create security. Meanwhile, mainstream pundits continue to proclaim neoliberalism -- the radical free market doctrine that has defined the "Washington Consensus" in international economics in recent decades -- to be inevitable and irreplaceable. Yet as that ideology falls into disrepute across the globe, their contention is revealed as ever more deeply disingenuous. Today, there exist scores of books and hundreds of reports that offer new directions for the global order -- plus innumerable initiatives at local, national, and international levels to create political and economic systems that uphold human rights and defend the environment.

RNC Raids Have Been Targeting Video Activists

"St. Paul is a free country!" cried a resident of Iglehart Avenue, a neighborhood street in St. Paul, Minn., as she watched her next-door neighbor's house being overtaken by police officers on Saturday afternoon. Just one in a series of police raids over a 24-hour period the weekend before the Republican National Convention, St. Paul law enforcement officials surrounded the private home with weapons drawn, detaining people in the backyard, while journalists, activists and neighbors -- including several children -- looked on.

Their crime? None whatsoever. No one was protesting or engaging in acts of civil disobedience. Instead, members of I-Witness Video, a New York-based media watchdog group that records police activity in order to protect civil liberties, were holding an organizing meeting at 949 Iglehart, the home of St. Paul resident Mike Whalen, when armed police officers arrived in the early afternoon and ordered their surrender.

Katha Pollitt: Sarah Palin, Wrong Woman for the Job

John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as running mate shows how desperate he is to distract attention from the fact that he is a cranky old man with nothing to offer but more of the same. Palin is a blatant pander for the women's vote. He must think we have the collective IQ of a Tampax.

Sure, Palin is cool -- she's pretty and vivacious and athletic, a former beauty queen who runs marathons, hunts , fishes and eats mooseburgers, plus she's got five kids with unusual names like Willow and Track, including a newborn with Down's syndrome. I feel tired just thinking of what her daily life must be like, and if she were my neighbor I would probably like her a lot.

Digby: Making Them Do It: The Next Challenge

Now that the festivities in Denver have drawn to a close and the bleary-eyed conventioneers (and media who cover them) have gathered up their swag and headed home, I wanted to take a moment to contemplate how this progressive moment looks in this short period of quiet after all the speeches and all the TV bloviating. One thing, at least, is clear to me after having spent four days among progressives from all over the country --- they are convinced that this moment is real and that the stakes have never been higher.

In casual conversation and formal addresses, from health care to foreign policy to media reform and beyond, the progressive agenda dominated the discourse far more than I expected. I knew there would be solidarity in opposition to conservative rule, but it no longer stems from that alone. There is a sense of opportunity and engagement with issues that I haven't seen in progressive circles for some time.

DDay at Hullabaloo: Proud To Be An American

Despite attending the DNC convention, the presence of protesters wasn't all that prominent unless you knew where to look. The security presence was palpable, and there definitely were lots of anti-abortion activists in the streets, but overall you had to look for and find the more wide-scale protests that were expected. And the cops actually facilitated the Tent State march on the Pepsi Center on Wednesday by leading the parade.

The RNC is far different, at least so far. Before one activist has hit the streets, before the delegates have even assembled, there is a coordinated effort by law enforcement to raid suspected protesters and imprison them.

Daily Kos: Sarah Palin: Dominionist Stalking Horse

by dogemperor

Fri Aug 29, 2008 at 03:21:50 PM PDT

The big news, obviously, in the blogosphere today is John McCain's surprise pick for the Republican veep nominee--a relative unknown by the name of Sarah Palin, whom--at least in the more conventional political circles--would appear to be a complete cypher.

Unfortunately, if one digs just a bit deeper, Palin is found to have some very interesting--and very disturbing--connections...among them, being potentially the first Assemblies-linked VP candidate and having a number of links to dominionist groups targeting kids via "bait and switch" evangelism.

Diebold Coverup, Says SAIC Report And Stephen Spoonamore

We have been asserting for years that Diebold (now Premier Elections Systems) makes voting machines that don’t work, are unreliable and that have flipped elections. Just last week, Diebold was forced to admit that software in its machines has for a decade been dropping votes. These machines are being used in 34 states in the upcoming election.

Two years ago, The Brad Blog broke the Pentagon Papers of E-Voting stories about the SAIC report on the vast problems with Diebold vote machines. In short, Diebold had issued a 40 page redacted version of the SAIC report which whitewashed the problems. Computer cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore got a copy of the 197-page unredacted report which listed hundreds of serious problems, and he released that report to us.

NRO's Pollowitz falsely claimed Palin visited troops in Kuwait "a year before" Obama "felt the need to go"

Summary: National Review Online's Greg Pollowitz falsely claimed that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin visited troops in Kuwait "a year before Senator [Barack] Obama felt the need to go." In fact, Obama first visited troops in Kuwait in January 2006, a year and a half before Palin's visit.

In an August 30 post on the National Review Online's Media Blog, Greg Pollowitz falsely claimed that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin visited troops in Kuwait "a year before Senator [Barack] Obama felt the need to go." Noting a July 24, 2007, Alaska Public Radio Network report that "Palin today visited with a National Guard unit from Alaska serving in Kuwait," Pollowitz wrote: "Unlike Senator Obama's staged trip to the Middle East, Governor Palin went to visit the troops in Kuwait before she was ever under consideration for Veep. ... And a year before Senator Obama felt the need to go," a reference to Obama's July 2008 visit. In fact, Obama also visited troops in Kuwait in January 2006.

Frank Rich: Obama Outwits the Bloviators

STOP the presses! This election isn’t about the Clintons after all. It isn’t about the Acropolis columns erected at Invesco Field. It isn’t about who is Paris Hilton and who is Hanoi Hilton. (Though it may yet be about who is Sarah Palin.) After a weeklong orgy of inane manufactured melodrama labeled “convention coverage” on television, Barack Obama descended in classic deus ex machina fashion — yes, that’s Greek too — to set the record straight. America is in too much trouble, he said, to indulge in “a big election about small things.”

As has been universally noted, Obama did what he had to do in his acceptance speech. He scrapped the messianic “Change We Can Believe In” for the more concrete policy litany of “The Change We Need.” He bared his glinting Chicago pol’s teeth to John McCain. Obama’s still a skinny guy, but the gladiatorial arena and his eagerness to stand up to bullies (foreign and Republican) made him a plausible Denver Bronco. All week long a media chorus had fretted whether he could pull off a potentially vainglorious stunt before 80,000 screaming fans. Well, yes he can, and so he did.

US Vulture Funds Head to Europe

By Emily Thornton

As the Continent's economy slows, American distressed-debt and workout funds go on a hunt for wounded businesses.

American vulture investors are swooping down on Europe. Attracted by the scent of rotting valuations, such high-profile players as Wilbur L. Ross Jr. in New York and Lone Star Funds in Dallas are starting to do deals across the Continent. On Aug. 18, Ross spent $70 million to acquire an 86 percent stake in struggling British auto supplier Wagon. Days later, Lone Star took over IKB Deutsche Industriebank, a troubled German bank, for $150 million. And such heavyweights as Oaktree Capital Management and Avenue Capital Group are raising billions to invest in European assets in coming months.

As an arena for distressed-debt investing, in fact, Europe is rising to the top of the list. Having largely ignored the region until recently, investors are raising $7 billion worldwide this year to buy distressed European debt, estimates London research firm Preqin (Private Equity Intelligence). Of that, U.S. players are raising $5 billion.