June 25, 2015

Fast-Track Retaliation: Back the 2016 Democratic Candidates Who Oppose the TPP

Fast-Track Retaliation: Back the 2016 Democratic Candidates Who Oppose the TPP

Wednesday, 24 June 2015 00:00
By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed


With the minimum required 60 votes - including 13 Democratic votes - the US Senate has passed fast-track authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other secretive, anti-democratic, pro-corporate, anti-worker, climate-chaos-exacerbating, medicine-price-raising trade agreements.

Naturally, many progressive Democrats will be asking each other, "How can we retaliate against this?"

Many of those conversations will revolve around the 13 Senate Democrats who voted yes, as well as around the House Democrats who voted yes.

But that cannot be the whole story: It leaves out the crucial role of presidential politics. Sooner or later, people will have to acknowledge openly that this isn't just about individual members of Congress. It's about Democratic presidential politics. Holding only individual members of Congress accountable for fast track would be like only holding some CIA employee you've never heard of accountable for CIA torture. Responsibility justly flows to the top.

This happened, in large measure, because President Obama made it his top priority. ..................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31550-fast-track-retaliation-back-the-2016-democratic-candidates-who-oppose-the-tpp

June 25, 2015

Sam Seder: Here Are the 13 Democrats Who Backed the TPA in the Senate

June 25, 2015

Professor Richard Wolff with Thom Hartmann: The Greek Implosion

Published on Jun 24, 2015
Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Democracy At Work joins Thom. Years of austerity has turned Greece and it's economy into a disaster zone with unemployment at record highs. So why are countries like Germany pushing for Greece to make evene MORE cuts in exchange for a new bailout?

June 25, 2015

Thom Hartmann: Fukushima and thyroid cancer

Published on Jun 24, 2015

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear joins Thom. The worst nuclear accident in recent history wasn’t unexpected - that’s according to an internal document recovered from Tokyo Electric Power - also known as Tepco. Tepco originally claimed that it had done everything possible to protect the nuclear power plant at Fukushima. But we now know that Tepco executives had discussed the need to build up coastal defenses back in 2008 - two and a half years before the tsunami hit Fukushima and caused a triple meltdown.

June 25, 2015

Lindsey Graham goes off the deep end

Last week's horrific shooting in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina reminded Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of violence in the Middle East.

"I don't know how you can sit with somebody for an hour in a church and pray with them and get up and shoot them. That's Mideast hate," Graham said Wednesday on the Senate floor. "That's something I didn't think we had here, but apparently we do."

Asked by a reporter after his speech to clarify his comments, Graham told NBC's Frank Thorpe, "What ISIL is doing, that kind of hate. It's kind of that hard-heart, that, you know, heart that has been hardened after generations of hate." ..................(more)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/24/lindsey-graham-mideast-hate_n_7657558.html

June 25, 2015

Icahn warns market is ‘extremely overheated’

(MarketWatch) Activist investor Carl Icahn took to Twitter and CNBC Wednesday to issue a stark warning to investors: “I think the public is walking into a trap again as they did in 2007,” Icahn told CNBC.

Specifically, the 79-year-old investor warned of a bubble in high-yield debt. The prominent investor joins a chorus of voices pointing at frothiness in the so-called junk-bond market, including DoubleLine Capital founder Jeff Gundlach.

In two tweets published on Wednesday, Icahn cautioned against listening to so-called permabulls, saying the 2008 crisis might have been avoided if more investors had warned about the risk of a bubble in 2007, as he is attempting to do now.

On Monday, Los Angeles-based bond fund manager Jerry Cudzil, head of U.S. credit trading at TCW Group, told Bloomberg that he is also building up a big cash stockpile to brace for a bond-market selloff. ..................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/icahn-warns-market-is-extremely-overheated-2015-06-24

June 24, 2015

Fast-Track Retaliation: Back the 2016 Democratic Candidates Who Oppose the TPP

Fast-Track Retaliation: Back the 2016 Democratic Candidates Who Oppose the TPP

Wednesday, 24 June 2015 00:00
By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed


With the minimum required 60 votes - including 13 Democratic votes - the US Senate has passed fast-track authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other secretive, anti-democratic, pro-corporate, anti-worker, climate-chaos-exacerbating, medicine-price-raising trade agreements.

Naturally, many progressive Democrats will be asking each other, "How can we retaliate against this?"

Many of those conversations will revolve around the 13 Senate Democrats who voted yes, as well as around the House Democrats who voted yes.

But that cannot be the whole story: It leaves out the crucial role of presidential politics. Sooner or later, people will have to acknowledge openly that this isn't just about individual members of Congress. It's about Democratic presidential politics. Holding only individual members of Congress accountable for fast track would be like only holding some CIA employee you've never heard of accountable for CIA torture. Responsibility justly flows to the top.

This happened, in large measure, because President Obama made it his top priority. ..................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31550-fast-track-retaliation-back-the-2016-democratic-candidates-who-oppose-the-tpp

June 24, 2015

No wonder the British government has been catapulting the anti-Snowden propaganda....

The New York Times on Wednesday reported details about American counterterrorism officials’ use of drone strikes in countries such as Yemen, as well as the working relationship between intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.

This latest dispatch describes the contents of files shared with The Guardian and The New York Times by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Here’s more from the NYT’s account:

The documents, previously undisclosed, include details about how terrorism suspects are targeted in drone strikes and how strikes can go wrong at times. The documents also show how closely the National Security Agency has worked in Pakistan and Yemen with its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or G.C.H.Q.

Britain has carried out drone strikes only in war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The documents raise the possibility that in addition, British intelligence may have helped guide American strikes outside conventional war zones.

(...) An internal newsletter for the British agency identifies the doctor killed in a drone strike in Yemen on March 30, 2012, as Khadim Usamah, whom it describes as “the doctor who pioneered using surgically planted explosives.” The newsletter calls Dr. Usamah, who appears to have never been identified publicly before, a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the branch of the terrorist organization based in Yemen. It says he was killed along with a second Qaeda member.

Unsurprisingly, representatives from American and British intelligence agencies declined to comment to The New York Times on the information covered in the article.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/new_details_about_drone_attacks_reported_from_documents_20150624

June 24, 2015

In the Bush-Clinton battle, no matter who wins, the bankers and billionaires will emerge victorious

All In
The Bush Family Goes for Number Three (With the Help of Its Bankers)

By Nomi Prins


It’s happening. As expected, dynastic politics is prevailing in campaign 2016. After a tease about as long as Hillary’s, Jeb Bush (aka Jeb!) officially announced his presidential bid last week. Ultimately, the two of them will fight it out for the White House, while the nation’s wealthiest influencers will back their ludicrously expensive gambit.

And here’s a hint: don’t bet on Jeb not to make it through the Republican gauntlet of 12 candidates (so far). After all, the really big money’s behind him. Last December, even though out of public office since 2007, he had captured the support of 73% of the Wall Street Journal’s “richest CEOs.” Though some have as yet sidestepped declarations of fealty, count on one thing: the big guns will fall into line. They know that, given his family connections, Jeb is their best path to the White House and they’re not going to blow that by propping up some Republican lightweight whose father and brother weren’t president, not when Hillary, with all her connections and dynastic power, will be the opponent. That said, in the Bush-Clinton battle to come, no matter who wins, the bankers and billionaires will emerge victorious.

The issue of political blood and family lines in Washington is not new. There have been four instances in our history in which presidents have been bonded by blood. Our second president John Adams and eighth president John Quincy Adams were father and son. Our ninth president William Henry Harrison and our 23rd president Benjamin Harrison were grandfather and grandson. Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were cousins. And then, of course, there were our 41st and 43rd presidents, George H.W. and George W.

If Jeb becomes the 45th president, it will be the first time that three administrations share the same blood and “dynastic” will have a new meaning in America.

The Bush Legacy

The Bush political-financial legacy began when President Ronald Reagan chose Jeb’s father, George H.W., as his vice president. Reagan was also the first president to choose a Wall Street CEO, Donald Regan, as Treasury secretary. Then-CEO of Merrill Lynch, he happened to be a Bush family friend. And talk about family tradition: once upon a time (in 1900, to be exact), Jeb’s great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker, founded G.W. Walker & Company. It was eventually acquired by -- you guessed it! -- Merrill Lynch, which was consumed by Bank of America at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. ................(more)

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176014/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_jeb%21_the_money%21_dynasty%21/#more

June 24, 2015

I'd prefer that she be chairman, but you've got to start somewhere........

After holding prominent positions in the House Democratic caucus for 17 years, California Rep. Barbara Lee is hoping to make the jump to leadership.

The lawmaker told POLITICO on Friday that she’s formally launched her campaign for the No. 5 position among House Democrats — even though the election is nearly 17 months away.

The vice chairman position will come open after the 2016 elections, as its current occupant, New York Rep. Joe Crowley, is term limited from serving a third term and will likely move up in the ranks. The race will attract a significant number of contenders as many rank-and-file members are eager to advance in a caucus that has been dominated by more senior leaders.

Lee said she’s announcing early because she wants her colleagues to know that she’ll be a contender in what will be a crowded campaign.

.....(snip).....

Lee is best known for her aggressive anti-war stance. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks she loudly protested President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lee is also an outspoken advocate on poverty issues. She chairs a Democratic caucus task force on poverty, income inequality and opportunity. .............(more)

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/rep-barbara-lee-makes-early-bid-for-democratic-vice-chairman-post-118953.html#ixzz3dzVQocR8