Reuters has the article Yellen says Fed has ‘more work to do’ to aid recovery.

(Reuters) – Janet Yellen, President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, thinks the U.S. central bank has “more work to do” to help an economy and a labor market that are still underperforming.

“I believe that supporting the recovery today is the surest path to returning to a more normal approach to monetary policy,” Yellen, the Fed’s vice chair, said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.

Yay, Janet Yellen!  She appears to “get it” much more than President Obama does.  Although, I am not sure how much more the Fed can do to help the economy.  The powerful tools are in the hands of Congress and the Executive branch.  Rather than deploying these tools, they are both bragging about how they are retiring these tools – fiscal stimulus to be exact.

Truthout has the article Pivotal Trans-Pacific Partnership Section Revealed.

The TPP has been shrouded in secrecy from the beginning because the Obama administration knows that the more people know about it, the more they will oppose the agreement. The release of the full Intellectual Property chapter today by Wikileaks confirms what had been suspected, the Obama administration has been an advocate for transnational corporate interests in the negotiations even though they run counter to the needs and desires of the public.

The article gets its information from a WikiLeaks announcement and publishing of leaked documents in the article Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

I am surprised that some fairly active political people have not even heard of the TPP yet.  It is something that will do very little to enhance free trade, but it will do a good job of locking in power and wealth disparities that are the cause of so many of our economic problems.

I have been doing my best to correct this lack of knowledge problem with previous posts Bill Moyers: The Corporate Plot That Obama and Corporate Lobbyists Don’t Want You to Know About and Video: The Anti-TPP Take Over Of The US Trade Representative Building.

Since I was as the title suggested, I found the video below to bring back a lot of memories.

If you were also born and raised in Lowell, have I got the Facebook group for you.

Thanks to MarleneK for sending me the link to the video.

Alternet has the article Could Elizabeth Warren Thwart a Clinton Presidency?

The press seems to have anointed Hillary Clinton as the next Democratic presidential nominee. But Clinton’s ties to the Wall Street wing of the party could prove trouble for her future. Could Elizabeth Warren, the progressive Senator from Massachusetts, thwart what seems to be the inevitable?

The Alternet article is really a discussion of The New Republic article Hillary’s Nightmare? A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren. The New Republic article is very worthwhile reading, itself.  However, it is a fairly long article.  If you want to get just a flavor of the argument plus some original material, then the Alternet article is the one to read.  If you have time to read both, then reading both is a good approach, too.

Being the Elizabeth Warren fan that I am and being luke warm to Hillary Clinton, I really would like to see Warren run.  I would be open to someone who fights for the Warren issues better than she does, but I cannot imagine who that would be at the moment.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has posted this video on a page Thank you, Elizabeth Warren! that says the following:

Check out this video of Elizabeth Warren standing up for the people against big banks! Then sign the card on the right to thank her.

There have not been that many likes on YouTube for this video. You might want to click on the video’s link to YouTube and register your vote.

Talking Points Memo has the article Lindsey Graham Silent About Discredited ’60 Minutes’ Benghazi Report That He Hyped.

He told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last week that the report filed by CBS News correspondent Lara Logan proved that “the story told by the administration about what happened in Benghazi doesn’t have an ounce of truth in it.”

If you follow the above link to the CNN transcript, Interview With Sen. Lindsey Graham, you will see the following exchange between Graham and Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: So even someone like Janet Yellen who’s been nominated to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve, you would hold up her nomination, the important work she needs to do in order to try to put pressure on the administration to make these people available?

GRAHAM: Yes.

BLITZER: Is that right?

GRAHAM: Yes. Why? Why? Because I just think we can’t live in a country when something bad happens, when there’s a national security failure, and the “60 Minutes'” piece and Erin Burnett, the media has done — a pretty good job basically of explaining to the fact — to the American people that the story told by the administration about what happened in Benghazi doesn’t have an ounce of truth in it.

This is the strongest piece of evidence I have seen on how much Lindsey Graham depended on the false CBS report.

See my previous post “60 Minutes” issues apology about Benghazi report, to see CBS’s retraction.  This is not the last we will hear about the CBS retraction.  I smell a rat even in the retraction.  If the CBS source explained away the discrepancy between what he was telling them and what he told his bosses at the time, you would think that CBS would seek comment from his bosses.  Furthermore, you would expect for them to have sought corroboration of their source’s story from his coworkers in Lebanon at the time.

When your source is telling you that when you fact check his story you will find discrepancies, that ought not make you feel comfortable with his upfront honesty.  That ought to make you wary, and cause you to dig much deeper.

When the CBS source told them that his bosses prohibited him from going to the embassy to try to help, you would certainly wonder why CBS would not make a big deal out of this prohibition.  There is a lot of information we are not getting, and Lindsey Graham is not helping.  He just does not have the talent (and skepticism) to do the investigative journalism that CBS missed.

The Real News Network has the video Iran nears deal with U.S. over nuclear program. This video is from PBS.

The U.S. and other world powers plan to consider reversing economic sanctions on Iran, if the nation will suspend its controversial nuclear program. The announcement comes as Iranian officials and world leaders meet in Geneva for a second round of talks. Gwen Ifill talks to The New York Times’ Michael Gordon and Margaret Warner.

This is a complement to my previous post Netanyahu Attack on Iran Deal Threatens Rift With U.S.   I hope these two stories will impress upon you the sense of urgency for telling your Senators how important it is to keep this diplomatic effort alive.  Prime Minister Netanyahu has a dream of colonizing and dispossessing people of land that is rightfully theirs.  Do not let his dreams come between us and our dreams of peace in the Middle East.  Just as South Africa’s dreams of an apartheid state proved to be untenable, so will Netanyahu’s dreams prove to be untenable.  We do not need to go through years of unrest and bloodshed in the Middle East before we realize what we can plainly foresee today.

Bloomberg has the story Netanyahu Attack on Iran Deal Threatens Rift With U.S.

Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, who has helped write sanctions legislation, said pressure will build in Congress to move ahead with added strictures against Iran because some allies consider a potential interim nuclear deal to be too weak.

‘Tough Sell’

“My sense is it’s going to be a very, very tough sell to hold off” congressional action on additional sanctions, “especially with the Israelis and the Saudis just completely freaking out,” said Dubowitz, who consults with the Obama administration and Congress on sanctions policy.

The Senate Banking Committee is preparing to discuss legislation imposing new curbs on Iran. Chairman Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat, said in a statement that he hasn’t decided on timing for committee action.

“I don’t know the outcome of negotiations now under way in Geneva, and I plan to wait to hear any results of those talks from our negotiators before making a final decision on any additional sanctions,” Johnson said.

Now is the time to contact your Senators to let them know that we should not blow a chance for a peaceful settlement with Iran to appease the war mongers in Israel and our own Congress.  We got rid of the likes of George Bush and Dick Cheney and did not replace them with like minded people partly on account of being sick and tired of constant war.  Why should we let Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu push us into policies that we do not want from our own elected leaders?  (If you don’t recognize the Cheney/Bush “reasoning” in Netanyahu, then you have not been paying attention.)

I sent the following message to Senator Elizabeth Warren and to Senator Ed Markey.

There is a very disturbing report in Bloomberg News, “Netanyahu Attack on Iran Deal Threatens Rift With U.S.”

It indicates that the Israeli Prime Minister is going to try to get the U.S. Congress to scuttle the diplomatic effort between our Secretary of State and Iran.  This effort will be made in the Senate Banking Committee.

Please, do not allow this to succeed.

We were happy to see the Cheney/Bush war mongers leave the scene.  We don’t need an Israeli Prime Minister to talk us into the same disastrous policies that Cheney/Bush managed to foist upon us.

CBS News has two articles, 60 Minutes apologizes for Benghazi report has the transcript of an interview.

LARA LOGAN: The most important thing to every person at 60 Minutes is the truth, and today the truth is that we made a mistake. That’s very disappointing for any journalist. It’s very disappointing for me. Nobody likes to admit that they made a mistake, but if you do, you have to stand up and take responsibility and you have to say that you were wrong. And in this case, we were wrong.

“60 Minutes” issues apology about Benghazi report has the video below.

Time will tell if the Democrats will call for Lara Logan’s head as the Republicans did with Dan Rather.

Yesterday, Foreign Policy had the story Graham Gets What He Wants on Benghazi… And Still Holds Up Government.

Another inspiration for Graham’s hold is a 60 Minutes report on Benghazi that aired last month. “The 60 Minutes piece detailed the people on the ground saw this attack coming. Has anybody been fired for letting the consulate become a death trap?” said Graham. However, the credibility of 60 Minutes’ key source, a private security contractor named Dylan Davies, has been called into question after he admitted lying to his bosses about his whereabouts the night of the Benghazi attack. (Davies maintains that the account he gave to 60 Minutes is true.)

Last Friday, Mother Jones had the story Yet Another Benghazi Story Falls Apart in which they quote Lara Logan:

….The State Department and GOP congressional aides confirmed that Davies’s Sept. 14, 2012, report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, was included among tens of thousands of documents turned over to lawmakers by the State Department this year.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Lindsey Graham’s apology.