Steve's Politics Blog

Naked Capitalism has the article DNC Report Says Blankety-Blank Democrats Need a “National Narrative Project.” No, They Don’t by Lambert Strether.

Call me crazy, but how about, instead of shoveling more walking around money at “Democratic strategists” to write a [blankety-blank] narrative, Democrats come up with a coherent set of policy proposals that would deliver concrete material benefits to the 80% who don’t, and don’t dream of, taking the Acela from South Station or Penn Station down to Union Station? And then go to war on with it. That’s what the Republicans did. “Vote yourself a farm” worked for Lincoln; why not Democrats?

I have posted on this idea before.  One example is in the previous post U.S. economic growth soars, reaches 11-year high.

I have been saying all along on this blog that the Democrats don’t tout their accomplishments enough in the face of all the negativism from the Republicans.  However, I was talking about real accomplishments that need the touting.  You can’t make this stuff up and think people will buy it.  You have to tout real accomplishments that people can see.  You can’t sell them stuff that their own experience tells them is not true.

If the Democrats continue to live in La La Land, they are never going to win majority positions in our government.

Inside Climate News has the article Documents Reveal Fossil Fuel Fingerprints on Contrarian Climate Research.

The gist of the article is in the caption to their cover photo.

Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is honored by the Heartland Institute at its annual event of global warming denialism. Newly released documents show that Soon has collected more than $1 million in funding from fossil fuel interests in recent years, told fossil fuel executives his papers are “deliverables” in return for their funding, and granted a major utility pre-publication review and anonymity.

I think there are similarities between the contract that Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Willie Soon had with American Petroleum Institute (API), Southern Co., ExxonMobil, the Charles Koch Foundation, and others and what I used to see in my industry’s contracts with Universities.  In the case of the semiconductor industry’s support of university research, I was not aware of blatant attempts to influence international government policy by controls on what was published.  However, the point of the funding was to promote research in areas that would help the companies’ future success.  Of course, in those days, there was also very significant funding from DARPA (the USA’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration).  So whatever defense industry needs were provided a tad of counter balance (perhaps) for what the general semiconductor industry wanted.

The fundamental difference between this petroleum research and the semiconductor research that I experienced is that the semiconductor industry had a fundamental desire to figure out how things worked and how to produce software to help design integrated circuits.  Our industry did not have any need nor desire to disprove someone else’s science.

That is not to say that we didn’t suspect some companies of publishing the results of their own internal research only when they had already moved on to better technology and methods.

Thanks to Bill Mager, Jr. for sharing this on his Facebook page.  Not only has he taught me how to square dance, but he is now showing me how to solve my other social problems.

I want to keep track of this video for the day when I am ready to follow its detailed instructions.

The Daily Kos has an article Hilarious Full-Page Ad in NYT Skewers Boehner. I presume that the image below is of the ad.

Read the article to learn more about the origin of the ad. The Daily Kos does provide the link to the National Iranian American Council‘s web site item NIAC Runs Full Page NY Times Ad on Netanyahu Visit.

I wonder if Rudolf Giuliani would do any better on this test? See my previous post Wayne Barrett lowers the boom on Rudy Giuliani.

And don’t give me any baloney about this ad coming from Iranian Americans, and what would you expect them to say.  Who the heck do you think the world believes is pushing Israel’s side in this country and why would you believe them any more than a loyal Iranian American?

The Daily Kos headlined their article Wayne Barrett lowers the boom on Rudy Giuliani. This article was referring to The Daily News article Wayne Barrett: What Rudy Giuliani knows about love — a response to his ‘doesn’t love America’ critique of Obama.

Rudy may have forgotten the half-dozen deferments he won ducking the Vietnam War, even getting the federal judge he was clerking for to write a letter creating a special exemption for him. And remember Bernie Kerik? He’s the Giulaini police commissioner, business partner and sidekick whose nomination as homeland security secretary narrowly preceded indictments. He then did his national service in prison.

Giuliani went so far as to rebuke the President for not being “brought up the way you were and the way I was brought up through love of this country,” a bow no doubt to the parenting prowess of Harold Giuliani, who did time in Sing Sing for holding up a Harlem milkman and was the bat-wielding enforcer for the loan-sharking operation run out of a Brooklyn bar owned by Rudy’s uncle.

Though Rudy cited Harold throughout his public life as his model (without revealing any of his history), he and five Rudy uncles found ways to avoid service in World War II. Harold, whose robbery conviction was in the name of an alias, made sure the draft board knew he was a felon. On the other hand, Obama’s grandfather and uncle served. His uncle helped liberate Buchenwald, which apparently affected him so deeply he stayed in the family attic for six months when he returned home.

It’s great to have these facts about Giuliani’s preferred style of upbringing (if facts they are).  I have not done an independent check of these “facts”, but I urge the spreading of these “facts” in any case.  What a great story they make.

The Daily Kos has the story Why are people in America paid so poorly?.

The logic of the market is not to pay people what they deserve. It’s not to pay people what would make a better life for them. It’s to pay the absolute minimum that you can get away with.

Another good article that analyzes what is wrong and provides examples where it is better.  As expected, finding a viable solution is another matter entirely.

Thanks to Jane Switchenko for posting this on her Facebook page.

Talking Points Memo has the article Meet The Man At The Center Of The Unprecedented US-Israel Rift.

After having read the article, I still can’t decide whether or not it is worth reading.  It is a balanced article in the way that all “this side said, and that side said” articles are.  Not being able to predict the future, I’ll just have to be satisfied with seeing how this all plays out.

Naked Capitalism has the story The Boston Globe Covers Up for Wall Street, Ignores Swaps Losses in Coverage of MBTA Turmoil.

The omission of how the MBTA was fleeced in a story that focuses heavily on financial mistakes lets Wall Street off easy. And the Globe has no public editor or ombudsman to take complaints about this gaping hole in its account. So much for its commitment to journalistic ethics.

Particularly if you are in Massachusetts, please call or e-mail the Globe’s managing editor for news, Christine Chinlund and tell her the Globe is showing bias by ignoring the role of Big Finance in the MBTA’s tsuris.

Chinlund’s e-mail is: chinlund@globe.com and her phone is 617 929-3134.

The other approach is to show up the Globe by getting the word out through social media. Tweet this post and link to it on FaceBook. If the press refuses to do its job, it’s time for the Web-savvy to do it for them.

If you read or heard about the article in the Globe and erroneously thought you knew how the MBTA got into trouble, then read this article in Naked Capitalism. If you think of yourself as an informed voter, but get your information from “reputable” sources such as The Boston Globe, then you may have to rethink what you think you know. Just keep in mind who now owns the Globe when you read stories in praise of Wall Street. Of course it is difficult to even guess you are being bamboozled when the nefarious hand of Wall Street is not even mentioned in a story.

Maybe some compromise between the Wall Street Republicans and the Wall Street Democrats can figure out what to do with the rampant fraud by Wall Street bankers (not banks). A bank does not commit fraud, but bankers who run the banks do.

Truth Out has the article Five Reasons No Progressive Should Support Hillary Clinton.

If, as progressives, we simply allow ourselves to fall in line behind a Democratic establishment that smugly mocks us, then we will forever be marginalized and beholden to a political system in which the Overton window is permanently slanted to the right.

If Hillary Clinton is the Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in 2016, then I may have to rethink my association with her party.

Thanks to Cedric Flower for posting this article on his Facebook page.

Nation of Change has posted the following image on their Facebook page.

When I see Faux Noise in any public place, Sharon has all she can do to restrain me from complaining to the management.

Don’t jump to the conclusion that because I dislike Faux Noise so much that I am a fan of MSNBC, CNBC, or CNN.

Thanks to Jacquelyn Wells for sharing this on Facebook.