The article, U.S. may face deflation, a problem Japan understands too well, discusses the likelihood that we may experience deflation instead of inflation.

Under the heading of, we always prepare to fight the last war, most of the public is concerned about the current federal deficit causing inflation.  They might not realize that the deficit is one of the things that is holding off deflation at the current time.

I know there are lots of things to criticize, but there are also lots of things to be proud of. Some of them are mentioned by Rachel Maddow in the above video.

It also just dawned on me that there is an implicit proud moment in RihacrdH’s post Liptak-Court Under Roberts Is Most Conservative in Decades that didn’t even get a mention by Rachel Maddow. Think how President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees have prevented a total disaster from occurring in the Supreme Court.

We need to keep in mind the extremely high stakes in the upcoming elections in November.  If this doesn’t get you stirred up, I don’t know what will.

The Afghanistan War Logs article on the UK Guardian web site is an intelligent response to the leaking of classified military documents.

The White House national security adviser, General Jim Jones, stressed that the documents related to a period from January 2004 to December 2009, during the administration of President George Bush and before President Obama ordered a surge in Afghanistan.

President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al-Qaida and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years,he said.
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In the US, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee and former Democrat presidential candidate, John Kerry, responded to the leak with a direct challenge to the administration. However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said.

Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right.

In Why Does Fox News Have More Power Than Any Progressive in the Country?, Cenk Uygur does lay some of the blame for the Shirley Sherrod incident at the feet of Faux Noise.

However, I am still waiting for an article that concentrates its ire solely on Faux Noise, and highlights the damage that they are doing and have done.

This article fails in that respect because it spends too much time calling the Obama administration nasty names for having been drawn into this mess by Faux Noise.

After all that Faux Noise has done, the story is still focused on the people who fell for it rather than on the perpetrators of the crime.  Maybe I should say “alleged crime” or “to be alleged crime”, because Shirley Sherrod has not even filed her defamation case against Faux Noise yet.

Let me be clear that there is nothing wrong with legitimate criticism of the Obama administration.  However, once in a while Obama’s natural constituency ought to consider criticizing something else.  Occasionally they might even find something for which they can praise Obama.  Or maybe once in a while they might take Obama’s side when facing a common antagonist..  How about some praise for President Obama having the courage to reverse an error made by his administration and taking responsibility for the damage that they did? Before the White House stepped in Vilsack, the Agriculture Secretary, seemed adamant that he would stick to his decision even after it was shown to be such a mistake.

The left, liberals, and progressives are so used to the stick approach, that they seem to have forgotten that the carrot approach is frequently more effective.

I recognize that this post seems to be all stick and no carrot, too.  I’ll try to find some carrot that I can give to the left wing media.  There is no carrot I can think of for Faux Noise.  Perhaps someone can correct me on that.

In Using Race to Smear Obama, Eugene Robinson posits his explanation for the Shirley Sherrod incident.

After the Shirley Sherrod episode, there’s no longer any need to mince words: A cynical right-wing propaganda machine is peddling the poisonous fiction that when African-Americans or other minorities reach positions of power, they seek some kind of revenge against whites.

The Democratic Governors Association wants us to Fight The Right.

The article How to Make an American Job Before It’s Too Late is written by Andy Grove.  He is one of the founders of and a long time CEO and Chairman of Intel.  You may know Intel as the maker of 80% of the computer central processing units in the world.  You may recognize the acronym CPU or the model name Pentium.

He is concerned with the deindustrialization of the US economy and the consequent loss of innovation in this country.

He puts the details and authority around some of the trends that I have been worried about for many years.

Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated from a conviction based on observation to an unquestioned truism, is that the free market is the best economic system — the freer, the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief, largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better.

He starts to indicate what modifications are needed when he says:

The rapid development of the Asian economies provides numerous illustrations. In a thorough study of the industrial development of East Asia, Robert Wade of the London School of Economics found that these economies turned in precedent- shattering economic performances over the 1970s and 1980s in large part because of the effective involvement of the government in targeting the growth of manufacturing industries.

You may think that he is just too naive to understand the perils of a planned economy.  See if this history of his changes your mind:

I fled Hungary as a young man in 1956 to come to the U.S. Growing up in the Soviet bloc, I witnessed first-hand the perils of both government overreach and a stratified population. Most Americans probably aren’t aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed. It was 1932; thousands of jobless veterans were demonstrating outside the White House. Soldiers with fixed bayonets and live ammunition moved in on them, and herded them away from the White House. In America! Unemployment is corrosive. If what I’m suggesting sounds protectionist, so be it.

Ayn Rand apparently had a similar history with planned economies in her youth.  When she came to this country, she never went through the experience of building a multi-billion dollar high tech company.  She didn’t have the opportunity to learn that her obsession over the evils of a planned economy would lead her to to an extreme obsession with unfettered capitalism that is almost equally as perilous.

Here is a personal email that I got from the President.

Steven — When you and I set out on this journey three years ago, we knew that ours would be a lengthy struggle to build a new foundation for this country — one that would require squaring off against the special interests who had spent decades stacking the deck in their favor. Today, it is clear that you have shifted the odds. This morning, I signed into law a bill that represents the most sweeping reforms of Wall Street since the Great Depression, and the toughest consumer financial protections this nation has ever seen. I know that I am able to do so only because the tens of thousands of volunteers who make up the backbone of this movement overcame the most potent attack ads and the most powerful lobbying the special interests could put forward. Our special-interest opponents and their Republican allies have now set their sights on the elections in November as their best chance to overturn the historic progress we’ve made together. Organizing for America counts entirely on supporters like you to fight back — no special interests, no corporate PACs. To keep making change and to defend the change we have already won, we need you — and at least 14 other people in your area — to contribute so we have the resources necessary going into the election. Can you donate $25 today and help Organizing for America lay the groundwork for the fights ahead? Because of Wall Street reform, we will ensure that Americans applying for a credit card, a mortgage, or a student loan will never again be asked to sign their name under pages of confusing fine print. We will crack down on abusive lending practices and make sure that lenders don’t cheat the system — and create a new watchdog to enforce these consumer protections. And we will put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts, giving us the ability to wind down any large financial institution if it should ever fail. The passage of Wall Street reform is at the forefront of the change we seek, and it will provide a foundation for a stronger and safer economy. It is a foundation built upon the progress of the Recovery Act, which has turned 22 months of job losses into six consecutive months of private-sector job growth. And it is a foundation reinforced by the historic health reform we passed this spring, which is already giving new benefits to more than 100 million Americans, ushering another 1 million Americans into coverage by next year. But today’s victory is not where our fight ends. Organizing for America and I will move forward in the months ahead on the tough fights we have yet to finish — even if cynics say we should wait until after the fall elections. This movement has never catered to the conventional wisdom of Washington. And we have fought to ensure that our progress is never held hostage by our politics. You and I did not build this movement to win one election. We did not come together to pass one single piece of legislation. We are fighting for nothing less than a new foundation for our country — and that work is not complete. As we face the challenges ahead, I am relying on you to stand with me. Please donate $25 or more today: https://donate.barackobama.com/WallStreetReformed Thank you for helping us get here, President Barack Obama

Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee — 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Contributions or gifts to the Democratic National Committee are not deductible as charitable contributions for income tax purposes.