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Cate is an artist, photographer and a Senior Editor with Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
| The Ryan-Romney Flim-Flam Ticket |
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| Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=6907"><span class="small">Jim Hightower, Creators Syndicate</span></a> | |
| Wednesday, 22 August 2012 14:56 | |
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Hightower writes: "Being branded as 'serious' means never having to admit you're a flim-flam man. Thus, the widely ballyhooed Ryan Budget is called 'honest' and 'responsible' by insiders who obviously haven't run the numbers on it."
The Ryan-Romney Flim-Flam Ticket22 August 12
No. Most people would prefer a root canal to a budget discussion (indeed, I've heard that some dentists use a recording of budget numbers to anesthetize their root-canal patients - everything from the neck up quickly goes numb). But Paul Ryan is different. The GOP's vice presidential nominee is touted as Mr. Budget, a guy who gets excited by running his fingers through fiscal things. That's why the Washington cognoscenti have declared him to be "serious," rather than just another political opportunist riding the right-wing wave of tea party ridiculousness. Being branded as "serious" means never having to admit you're a flim-flam man. Thus, the widely ballyhooed Ryan Budget is called "honest" and "responsible" by insiders who obviously haven't run the numbers on it. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, however, has tallied Ryan's budgetary giveaways to the rich and take-backs from the middle-class and the poor. Far from balancing the federal budget, as the self-proclaimed deficit hawk claims, the analysts found that Ryan's plan increases the federal deficit. And not by a little, but by about $2.5 trillion! So, yes, he is serious - serious as a snakebite. Then there was Ryan's explosive admission recently that the budget plan of his presidential partner, Mitt Romney, is also a con game. Despite Romney's repeated assertion that - by golly - his nifty plan will balance the federal budget in only eight years, Ryan confessed that they don't really know that, because "we haven't run the numbers on that specific plan." Say what? What? Hello - a budget is nothing but numbers - numbers that have, in fact, been run! Otherwise, it's just a political hoax. During his run in the presidential primaries this spring, when he was trolling for votes in the shallow waters of the Republican fringe, Romney embraced the Ryan budget, calling it a "bold and exciting effort" that is "very much needed." And, hoping to glom onto Ryan's "wow" appeal to the hyper-energized right wing, Romney brought Mr. Budget onboard for the fall run - with one interesting condition: The veep candidate has had to jettison his budget. That document, which Ryan had rammed through the U.S. House in 2011, would have provided another gold mine for the one-percenters, with millionaires-and-up averaging around $300,000 a year in tax breaks. The rest of us would've gotten the shaft, including tax increases, privatization of Medicare, deep cuts in student aid and job training programs, and federal abandonment of food stamps and health care for the poor. Yet Ryan is on the Republican presidential ticket specifically because his budget whackery has enthralled the GOP's far right. Anti-government guru Grover Norquist, for example, has gushed that the six-term Wisconsin congress-critter would be the Dick Cheney of economic policy. Sheesh - that's not a threat to be taken lightly! But the very bauble that got him to the GOP's No. 2 political slot turns out to be so widely and wildly unpopular with voters in the deeper waters of the general election that it's already been trashed by the party's No. 1. "I have my own budget plan," Romney backpedaled the day after he knighted Sir Ryan, "and that's the budget plan we're going to run on." Yes, the budget with no numbers. That aside, it's kind of strange (and a bit unsettling) to see a candidate for president straining to explain that he's the one in charge, not the young ideologue. Romney even went on national TV to tell us that, while Ryan would certainly be among the people he asks for advice, "I have to make the final call in important decisions." Sure, Mitt - you da man! But was he trying to convince us ... or himself? Or Ryan? Embarrassingly, at the staged event where Romney introduced his VP selectee, he bungled his line, presenting Ryan as "the next president of the United States." Was that just another Romney gaffe? A Freudian slip? Or an eerie moment of candor? After all, Romney has no unwavering principles or solid commitment to any policy except, "Elect me, and I'll lower my taxes." Republican leaders are now trying to downplay Ryan's extremism, but if they were honest with voters, their bumper sticker would read: "Ryan-Romney in 2012." To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com. National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, "Swim Against The Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow," Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks. |
| Don't Lose Sight of Why the US is Out to Get Julian Assange |
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| Wednesday, 22 August 2012 14:54 | |
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Milne writes: "Considering he made his name with the biggest leak of secret government documents in history, you might imagine there would be at least some residual concern for Julian Assange among those trading in the freedom of information business."
Don't Lose Sight of Why the US Is Out to Get Julian Assange22 August 12
Ecuador is pressing for a deal that offers justice to Assange's accusers - and essential protection for whistleblowers.
This is a man, after all, who has yet to be charged, let alone convicted, of anything. But as far as the bulk of the press is concerned, Assange is nothing but a "monstrous narcissist", a bail-jumping "sex pest" and an exhibitionist maniac. After Ecuador granted him political asylum and Assange delivered a "tirade" from its London embassy's balcony, fire was turned on the country's progressive president, Rafael Correa, ludicrously branded a corrupt "dictator" with an "iron grip" on a benighted land. The ostensible reason for this venom is of course Assange's attempt to resist extradition to Sweden (and onward extradition to the US) over sexual assault allegations - including from newspapers whose record on covering rape and violence against women is shaky, to put it politely. But as the row over his embassy refuge has escalated into a major diplomatic stand-off, with the whole of South America piling in behind Ecuador, such posturing looks increasingly specious. Can anyone seriously believe the dispute would have gone global, or that the British government would have made its asinine threat to suspend the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status and enter it by force, or that scores of police would have surrounded the building, swarming up and down the fire escape and guarding every window, if it was all about one man wanted for questioning over sex crime allegations in Stockholm? To get a grip on what is actually going on, rewind to WikiLeaks' explosive release of secret US military reports and hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables two years ago. They disgorged devastating evidence of US war crimes and collusion with death squads in Iraq on an industrial scale, the machinations and lies of America's wars and allies, its illegal US spying on UN officials - as well as a compendium of official corruption and deceit across the world. WikiLeaks provided fuel for the Arab uprisings. It didn't just deliver information for citizens to hold governments everywhere to account, but crucially opened up the exercise of US global power to democratic scrutiny. Not surprisingly, the US government made clear it regarded WikiLeaks as a serious threat to its interests from the start, denouncing the release of confidential US cables as a "criminal act". Vice-president Joe Biden has compared Assange to a "hi-tech terrorist". Shock jocks and neocons have called for him to be hunted down and killed. Bradley Manning, the 24-year-old soldier accused of passing the largest trove of US documents to WikiLeaks, who has been held in conditions described as "cruel and inhuman" by the UN special rapporteur on torture, faces up to 52 years in prison. The US administration yesterday claimed the WikiLeaks founder was trying to deflect attention from his Swedish case by making "wild allegations" about US intentions. But the idea that the threat of US extradition is some paranoid WikiLeaks fantasy is absurd. A grand jury in Virginia has been preparing a case against Assange and WikiLeaks for espionage, a leak earlier this year suggested that the US government has already issued a secret sealed indictment against Assange, while Australian diplomats have reported that the WikiLeaks founder is the target of an investigation that is "unprecedented both in its scale and its nature". The US interest in deterring others from following the WikiLeaks path is obvious. And it would be bizarre to expect a state which over the past decade has kidnapped, tortured and illegally incarcerated its enemies, real or imagined, on a global scale - and continues to do so under President Barack Obama - to walk away from what Hillary Clinton described as an "attack on the international community". In the meantime, the US authorities are presumably banking on seeing Assange further discredited in Sweden. None of that should detract from the seriousness of the rape allegations made against Assange, for which he should clearly answer and, if charges are brought, stand trial. The question is how to achieve justice for the women involved while protecting Assange (and other whistleblowers) from punitive extradition to a legal system that could potentially land him in a US prison cell for decades. The politicisation of the Swedish case was clear from the initial leak of the allegations to the prosecutor's decision to seek Assange's extradition for questioning - described by a former Stockholm prosecutor as "unreasonable, unfair and disproportionate" - when the authorities have been happy to interview suspects abroad in more serious cases. And given the context, it's also hardly surprising that sceptics have raised the links with US-funded anti-Cuban opposition groups of one of those making the accusations - or that campaigners such as the London-based Women Against Rape have expressed scepticism at the "unusual zeal" with which rape allegations were pursued against Assange in a country where rape convictions have fallen. The danger, of course, is that the murk around this case plays into a misogynist culture in which rape victims aren't believed. But why, Assange's critics charge, would he be more likely to be extradited to the US from Sweden than from Britain, Washington's patsy, notorious for its one-sided extradition arrangements. There are specific risks in Sweden - for example, its fast-track "temporary surrender" extradition agreement it has with the US. But the real point is that Assange is in danger of extradition in both countries - which is why Ecuador was right to offer him protection. The solution is obvious. It's the one that Ecuador is proposing - and that London and Stockholm are resisting. If the Swedish government pledged to block the extradition of Assange to the US for any WikiLeaks-related offence (which it has the power to do) - and Britain agreed not to sanction extradition to a third country once Swedish proceedings are over - then justice could be served. But with loyalty to the US on the line, Assange shouldn't expect to leave the embassy any time soon. |
| Strategic Presidential Voting |
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| Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11243"><span class="small">Ted Glick, Reader Supported News</span></a> | |
| Wednesday, 22 August 2012 10:16 | |
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Intro: "It's puzzling that there is almost no discussion among progressives about the United States' completely unique way of choosing its top political leader, and how we could use that fact strategically."
Strategic Presidential Voting22 August 12 Reader Supported News | Perspective
In the USA there are 50 separate election contests to choose "electors" to the Electoral College. It's not the national popular vote that does it. If winning the most votes nationally were our system, Al Gore would have been inaugurated president in 2001. It's one of those things that's kind of "hiding in plain site." All during presidential campaign season journalists talk and write about the 10 or so swing states, or battleground states, that receive the overwhelming bulk of presidential candidate visits and TV ads. These are the states that, historically, have voted for either the Democratic or the Republican presidential candidate in the last few decades, and have not regularly chosen one or the other, as is generally true for about 40 or so states. This reality is the flip side of the spoiler coin that keeps large numbers of progressives, even some revolutionary and radical progressives, from voting for a third party candidate. The fear of spoiling it for the Democrat, leading to the Republican winning, overwhelms their appreciation that a third party candidate's positions on issues is much more progressive than the Democrat's. This fear was present even in 2000 when the Green Party brought forward the most substantive third party presidential campaign in decades in the persons of Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke. The spoiler concern is the major reason these progressives give for voting for a candidate like Obama, who by no means can be trusted to do the right thing on most issues. The other reason given is that existing third parties, the Green Party being the prime one today, are too small and weak to have any impact, so why "waste my vote" on them? The Green Party is small and weak, no question about it, but it does exist, and given the incredibly undemocratic and corporate-dominated nature of our two-parties-only electoral system, that is an accomplishment. There are about 250 of its members who have been elected to local offices like water boards, school boards, town and city councils, and even a few mayoral offices. It looks like it will be on the ballot in 40 or more states this year, no small thing given restrictive ballot access laws in many states. It qualified for federal matching funds by raising at least $5,000 in more than 20 states. And it has two candidates for president and vice president, Dr. Jill Stein and anti-poverty activist Cheri Honkala, who are substantive, hard working, articulate and very good on the issues. Of course, these candidates are not going to win. But it would be, strategically, a positive thing for the independent progressive movement, broadly defined, if, in a number of states, they won a decent percentage of votes. What if, in multiple states, 4 or 5 or more, Stein and Honkala received 5% or more of the votes? That would be a victory. It would say to the Democrats that there are a growing number of voters who are looking for something other than centrist, system-supporting candidates. More importantly, it would say to the American people that there is a political force in the electoral arena other than the Tea Party that is consistently progressive and growing. New York State, for example, is ripe for a serious campaign to get at least 5% of the vote for the Green Party. The latest realclearpolitics.com polling results show Obama ahead of Romney by 25 points. Voting for Barack Obama in New York State, if you are a progressive who gets it on how problematic the Democrats are, is a completely unstrategic, wasted vote. It's the same in a state like Utah, where polls show Romney ahead by 42%. In Idaho there are no polls at realclearpolitics, but it's solidly red for Romney. Other states where a smart 4th or 5th grader can predict who's going to win on November 6: California (Obama by 17%), Illinois (Obama by 21%), Arkansas (Romney by 24%), West Virginia (Romney by 21%) and Massachusetts (Obama by 19.2%). The Green Party presidential and vice presidential candidates are on the ballot in all of these states. It makes sense that the Green Party would lead the organizing of this kind of an effort, although there's no reason why non-Green Party activists in the states listed above, or others, couldn't do so. It could be a campaign entitled, in New York for example, "New York, Don't Waste Your Vote." Literature, a website, and social media and campaign organizers can explain the reality of 50 separate state elections and the certain winner in New York, and utilize all kinds of tactics and media to reach out to progressive-minded voters to not waste their vote by voting for Obama in New York. It's late in the political season for something like this to be organized, but it's not too late. I sure hope I'm not the only person who thinks this is a good idea.
Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. Past writings and other information can be found at http://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on twitter at http://twitter.com/jtglick. Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News. |
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e're witnessing the capture by fanatics of what was once a great and important American political party.
nknown to most Americans, many US food companies, which manage to keep their GMO ingredients under wraps, are joining forces to beat back Proposition 37, a bill which will require simple labels on food identifying genetically engineered products and ingredients. The ballot initiative from 
et's talk budget! Yes, the wonky wonderland of the federal budget, with page after page of numbers - what fun, eh?
onsidering he made his name with the biggest leak of secret government documents in history, you might imagine there would be at least some residual concern for Julian Assange among those trading in the freedom of information business. But the virulence of British media hostility towards the WikiLeaks founder is now unrelenting.
t's puzzling that there is almost no discussion among progressives about the United States' completely unique way of choosing its top political leader, and how we could use that fact strategically.
