Lost in the 21st Century

This is good news…

WASHINGTON — Joe Lieberman will not run for reelection in 2012, Connecticut Democratic sources tell HuffPost, ending his four-term Senate career. Two prominent House Democrats, Chris Murphy and Joe Courtney, are eyeing a bid, with Susan Bysiewicz, a thrice-elected former secretary of state, also jumping into the race.Lieberman, who lost a 2006 primary to netroots insurgent Ned Lamont, will announce his retirement on Wednesday. “Senator Lieberman made a decision about his future over the holidays which he plans to announce on Wednesday,” a Lieberman spokesman said.

In 2006, Lieberman ran under a party he created called Connecticut for Lieberman. Anti-Lieberman activists, however, have since taken it over.As Lieberman deliberated, the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Patty Murray D-Wash., told HuffPost that the party would consider supporting Lieberman if he returned to the fold.”This is first a Connecticut decision. Its a Joe Lieberman decision and well work our way through all of that,” Murray said. “He and I have chatted a number of times.”

Lieberman serves as a repository for the anger progressive Democrats have for centrists in — and out of — the party, and some would like little more than to unseat him at the polls. The feeling of ill will is mutual: Lieberman said during the health care debate that one reason he opposed a Medicare buy-in compromise was that progressives were embracing it.

Liebermans participation in the race would have drawn national attention — and money — to the Connecticut race, leaving his political adversaries hoping that he would run.

via Joe Lieberman Out.

Another great op ed from Frank Rich in the New York Times.

Here is an excerpt and a link to the full article.

If we learn nothing from this tragedy, we are back where we started. And where we started was with two years of accelerating political violence — actual violence, not to be confused with violent language — that struck fear into many, not the least of whom was Gabrielle Giffords.

For the sake of this discussion, let’s stipulate that Loughner was a “lone nutjob” who had never listened to Glenn Beck or been a card-carrying member of either the Tea or Communist parties. Let’s also face another tragedy: The only two civic reforms that might have actually stopped him — tighter gun control and an effective mental health safety net — won’t materialize even now.

Gun and ammunition sales spiked last week, especially for the specific varieties given the Loughner imprimatur. No editorial — or bloodbath — will move Congress to enact serious gun control (which Giffords herself never advocated and Obama has rarely pushed since 2008). Enhanced mental health coverage is also a nonstarter when the highest G.O.P. priority is to repeal the federal expansion of health care. In Arizona, cutbacks are already so severe that terminally ill patients are being denied life-saving organ transplants.

The other inescapable reality was articulated by Sarah Palin, believe it or not, in her “blood libel” video. Speaking of acrimonious partisan debate, she asked, “When was it less heated — back in those calm days when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols?” She’s right. Calls for civility will have no more lasting impact on the “tone” of American discourse now than they did after the J.F.K. assassination or Oklahoma City. Especially not in an era when technology allows all 300 million Americans a cost-free megaphone for unmediated rants.

via No One Listened to Gabrielle Giffords – NYTimes.com.

This is one of my biggest concerns…

Social Security does not contribute to the well publicized budget woes and is fundamentally sound…

I wish the press would do it’s job and report it as such….

Social Security may be on the White House chopping block, a US Senator recently told Raw Story, expressing deep uneasiness about President Barack Obama’s noncommittal attitude toward staving off cuts to the cherished program.

“I have to tell you, I have been on the phone to the very, very, very highest levels of the Obama administration, and the responses that I am getting are not assuring,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in an exclusive interview. “What I’m told is that no definitive decisions have been made on the issue of Social Security – I expect that is probably true.”

Progressive activists, fearing that the holy grail of American liberalism could fall prey to a bipartisan deal on Capitol Hill, have launched a campaign to pressure the White House and Congress to oppose cuts. And Sanders has stepped up as their champion in the Senate, confirming their concerns based on knowledge drawn from his relative proximity to the president.

via Exclusive: Obama may cut Social Security, Sen. Sanders tells Raw | Raw Story.

I think of this often…

The term “military-industrial complex” entered the American lexicon 50 years ago today, when President Dwight Eisenhower warned of its dangers in an unusually frank farewell speech to the nation.

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience,” Ike said in a televised address on January 17, 1961. “The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.”

The president added: “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

For years, that warning — issued by a hero of World War II and a Republican president — was heralded by anti-war activists as a sign that “the very structure of our society” was indeed threatened by the merger of weapon-making and profit.

 

And in 2011, as the US — with some 5 percent of the world’s population — spends nearly half of all the money spent in the world on defense, the warning seems prescient to some — and perhaps even too tame for others.

via 50 years later, Eisenhower’s grim warning on military profit rings true | Raw Story.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out…

Progressive and liberal activists are planning at the end of the month to confront the secretive billionaire family that finances the so-called Tea party movement and a host of other right-wing causes and institutions.

“Our government is supposed to be of, by and for the people. So are you ready to take it back?” an invitation for the “Uncloaking the Kochs” event asked.

The Sunday, Jan. 30 event thrown by Common Cause, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization, aims to educate attendees in California on the Koch brothers who will be strategizing nearby with their mega-wealthy allies to win the 2012 elections. Afterwards, activists will rally in Rancho Mirage.

“We can’t sit back while a few billionaires destroy the fragile fabric of democracy and the protections that are so necessary for the health of our society,” Jodie Evans of CodePink told Alternet. “It is time for the progressive community to gather together and say no more, and what better place than where the Koch brothers are plotting their next moves.”

Panel discussions will feature Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary; Van Jones, founder of Green for All; Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Irvine Law Dean; Lee Fang, Center for American Progress blogger and Koch Brothers expert; and DeAnn McEwen, co-president of the California Nurses Association.

 

For the last 30 years, the Koch brothers, who inherited their wealth from their father’s oil interests, have funded a large portion of the conservative movement on issues that promote business over the environmental, labor, and public health concerns.

via Progressives to ‘uncloak’ the secret financers behind the Tea party | Raw Story.