The Economic Recovery Fight Has Begun; Obamunism; Karl Rove Subpoenaed — Finally
January 27th, 2009 - by: danny
OBAMA CONFRONTS GOP ON ECONOMY
ECONOMIC CRISIS ROCKS EUROPE, SPREADING
IRAQIS EXPECT EARLIER TROOP WITHDRAWAL
President Obama [video below] addresses Microsoft, Intel, United Airlines, Sprint, Nextel, Home Depot, etc., each cutting 1,000′s of Jobs and the stimulus package.
WASHINGTON — (AP) The recession is killing jobs at an alarming pace, with tens of thousands of new layoffs announced Monday by some of the biggest names in American business – Pfizer, Caterpillar and Home Depot. More pink slips, pay freezes and other hits are expected to slam workers in the months ahead as companies desperately look for ways to survive.
“We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg – the big firms,” said Rebecca Braeu, economist at John Hancock Financial Services. “There’s certainly other firms beneath them that will lay off workers as quickly or even quicker.”
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Folks, we are just as the tip of the iceberg even as other icebergs are melting in places where they shouldn’t be. As the US economy continues to decline, and as the political temperature around the issue of economic recovery continues to rise, we are seeing two problems more clearly.
Today, two very global different “summits” open their doors. The economic elite is gathering up on the mountain top in Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum to talk about the mess the economy is in.
The new social media is represented as evidenced by the WEF press release, MySpace and YouTube “reporters” chosen to cover the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009.
• Rebecca McQuigg from Los Angeles chosen to represent the MySpace community
• Pablo Camacho from Bogotá, Colombia, chosen to represent the YouTube community. Pablo’s winning entry: “CEO – Code of Ethics: Make some money for yourselves and while you’re at it, do not harm others.”
The WEF contest is closed and you can still reply to the following four Youtube.com video questions:
• Are you confident that global growth will be restored in 2009?
• Will the environment lose out to the economy in 2009?
• Will the Obama administration improve the state of the world in 2009?
• Should company executives have a code of ethics similar to doctors and lawyers?”
Over 650,000 people have watched the appeal videos and the video submissions on YouTube since the contest was launched in mid-December.
An interview with a “global” participant/sponsor of the Forum, Ian Livingston, CEO, BT Group:
Across the world in Beselem, Brazil, the World Social Forum meets today, January 27 through February 1, 2009 in Belém – Pará – Brazilto to plan a global response to a crisis caused in part by globalization. I will have reports tomorrow. There has never been a bigger contrast between the movements and “the mountain” than this year [graphic is from last year].
NUMBER ONE:
The first item to be aware of is that the forces out to block an economic recovery plan have no real plan themselves – except more discredited tax cuts — and may be fearful that if the Obama Plan works, they will loose even more political support since the crisis erupted when Republicans were in power. The Financial Times reports that President Obama faces an unexpectedly early test on Tuesday on whether he can govern as a bipartisan president when he meets Republican lawmakers to try to roll back the growing tide of conservative hostility to his $850bn stimulus plan.
John “9/15/08 the economy is fundamentally sound” McCain, who’s chief financial adviser during the campaign was Former Senator Phil “foreclosure” Gramm, a key player in promoting subprime and predatory lending, has joined the Republicans who want to kill the Obama stimulus:
Apparently Senator McCain forgets it is a Youtube.com world. As candidate McCain, his 2008 campaign comments on broadband:
Center for American Progress: Beyond the Beltway: Tax Cuts to Make Work Pay
The House Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes spending provisions and tax cuts aimed at reviving our ailing economy. The Act contains three personal tax measures which sum to $167.8 billion: Making Work Pay, the Earned Income Tax Credit increase, and Child Tax Credit. The map uses analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy to show how much tax stimulus will go to people in each state.
Interactive Map #1: Tax Cuts in the Recovery Plan to Make Work Pay
Interactive Map #2: The Nationwide Allocation of $541 billion
RELATED: Nextwave Finance: Bigger ’09 Paychecks Under Obama’s ‘Make Work Pay’ Tax Plan
Americans making less than $75,000 annually should expect to see a slightly larger paycheck every two weeks when Barack Obama takes the presidential office on January 20. While he was once believed to be re-thinking the plan he touted during the election, the President-elect is in fact expected to implement a reduced tax plan.
The plan would take effect almost immediately, which could increase individual earnings by $83-$166 per paycheck during the first quarter of the year.
NUMBER TWO:
Secondly, we have to stop thinking of this as an American problem. The whole world is being impacted. So far, neither Obama nor the Democrats have expressed much concern about how a crisis “Made in America,” has, like some economic flu, spread globally.
Here’s some of the “economic tsunami” news. You will find more sprinkled throughout today’s blog:
DEPRESSION
Over in England, The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard adds a scary perspective. He believes we are in the equivalent of 1931:
The US is losing 500,000 jobs a month. Brazil lost 650,000 in December. Beijing says 10m Chinese have lost their jobs since the crunch began. Japan’s exports fell 35pc last month, year-on-year. The central bank is printing money furiously, buying bonds to prevent a relapse into deflation.
So yes, it is like early 1931. Citigroup and Bank of America have more or less disintegrated. JP Morgan’s health is failing fast. General Motors and Chrysler survive only on life-support from the US taxpayer.
But it is not yet like 1933. That second leg down was the result of “liquidation” policies by a Dickensian leadership blind to the dangers of debt deflation. By then the Gold Standard had degenerated into an instrument of torture. It forced the Fed to raise rates from 1.5pc to 3.5pc in October 1931 to stem gold loss, with predictable results for shattered banks.
It is worth glancing at the front page of New York Times on Monday March 6, 1933 to see what the world looked like three days after Franklin Roosevelt moved into the White House.
The newspaper splashed with the story that FDR had closed the US banking system — invoking the Trading with Enemies Act — and ordered the confiscation of private gold. From left to right, the headlines read: “Hitler Bloc Wins A Reich Majority, Rules Prussia”; “Japanese Push On In Fierce Fighting, China Closes Wall, Nanking Admits Defeat”; “City Scrip To Replace Currency”; “President Takes Steps Under Sweeping Law of War Time”; “Prison For Gold Hoarders.”
RELATED — FOX news: Documents: Bush’s Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler. Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Look at what’s happening elsewhere in other countries:
Economic Crisis Fuels Unrest in Eastern Europe
• Philip P. Pan, The Washington Post: “On a frigid evening this month, more than 10,000 people gathered outside a 13th-century cathedral in this Baltic capital to protest the government’s handling of Latvia’s economic crisis and demand early elections. The demonstration was one of the largest here since the mass rallies against Soviet rule in the late 1980s, and a sign of both the public’s frustration and its faith in the political system. But at the end of the night, as the crowd dispersed, the protest turned into a riot. Hundreds of angry young people, many drunk and recently unemployed, rampaged through the historic Old Town, smashing shop windows, throwing rocks and eggs at police, even prying cobblestones from the streets to lob at the Parliament building.”
• Banking Crisis Brings Down Iceland Government
Peter Walker, The Guardian UK: “Iceland’s prime minister today announced the immediate resignation of his government because of the country’s severe financial crisis, which saw the collapse of the currency and banking system. Geir Haarde announced as recently as Friday that his coalition administration would remain in office until early elections called for May 9 after violent protests at its handling of the economic situation. Today he said his Independence party and its Social Democrat partners were quitting immediately after a disagreement over whether he should step down as prime minister.”
PROGRESSIVES IN US SAY: ECO RECOVERY — NOW
Issaiah Poole:The Fierce Urgency of Now On Economic Recovery
Today the Campaign for America’s Future and other progressive organizations are calling on concerned citizens to flood congressional offices with calls today supporting immediate action on the economic recovery package that is scheduled for a House vote this week. Why? Not because the legislation is perfect by any means. It is not. But the imperfections can be fixed. We absolutely must resist congressional conservatives’ effort, now laid bare, to stall a Main Street recovery package and instead repeat the same right-wing policies that got us into this mess.
GOOD NEWS BEAR — At least one business leader says we are on the road to recovery:
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (GE), says the US Government’s TARP program is working well. Mr. Welch made his comments at the recent University of Miami Global Business Forum. Welch elaborated by saying that the TARP program is starting to “restore financial confidence.” He went on to say that the decline in the economy may be ending.
h/t to Paul Schmier for cartoon
But perhaps Welch’s most insightful remarks were directed at our new President. He praised Obama’s cabinet picks and encouraged him to foster an environment of teamwork with his staff. Welch took a scolding tone concerning Obama’s current public stance on the economic situation. Welch advised:
“He has to stop protecting himself by saying it will get worse before it gets better. This country needs a boost and every time he goes on television and talks about how bad it’s going to get, people are looking for someone to take us out of this.”
Bill Berkowitz: Right wing getting venomous in attack on “OBAMUNISM.”
‘Obamunism’:
You might think that the batch of articles insinuating that President Obama is surrounding himself with socialists and communists might have come from the fevered mind of the Reverend Fred Phelps and his Topeka, Kansas-based gang (made up of mostly his children and grandchildren). Or perhaps they could have been ripped from the pages of a disgruntled/delusional white supremacist blog/website. Neither!
In fact, they come from the keyboards over at Lou Sheldon’s shop, the long-lived Traditional Values Coalition. So here’s a troika of recent stories from the TVC:
• Obamunist Nominee Gave U.S. Port To Communists
• ‘Czars’ And The Obama Administration
• Obama’s Soviet Style ‘Hope’ Portrait To Hang In National Portrait Gallery
RELATED: Un-American – Have you listened to the right-wing media lately? By Michael Massing
Washington Monthly: NUKES ARE BACK
After a three-decade lull, nuclear power is on the verge of a global resurgence. More than 100 new reactors are on the drawing board around the globe, including thirty in the United States. And these projects enjoy a broad bi-partisan backing that would have been unimaginable just few years ago. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of Energy Steven Chu both support expanding our nation’s nuclear fleet, as do a growing number of lawmakers, liberal and conservative.
Even some longtime opponents of nuclear energy have warmed to the idea. And there’s a reasons for this: No other energy source can deliver vast quantities of low- or zero-carbon electricity at a price that rivals coal and natural gas, as the industry has promised a new generation of nuclear reactor will do. But as Mariah Blake’s story “Bad Reactors” shows, industry claims about the potential of next-generation nuclear power are crumbling under a stack of evidence that the new breed of reactors will be just as astronomical as those built in the 1970s and 80s, when nuclear construction projects pushed utilities — and in some cases entire communities – to the brink of financial ruin. This raises serious questions about nuclear energy’s potential as a front-line weapon in the battle against climate change.
KARL ROVE SUBPOENAED BY CONGRESS
Invoking Obama, House Judiciary Chairman subpoenas Rove Filed by John Byrne
Invoking President Barack Obama, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) has subpoenaed former Bush Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove about his alleged involved in the political prosecution of an Alabama governor and the firings of nine US Attorneys. The subpoena, approved by an earlier vote of the House, was issued pursuant to “authority granted in H.R. 5 (111th Congress), and calls for Mr. Rove to appear at deposition on Monday, February 2, 2009.”
Specifically, it enjoins Rove “to testify regarding his role in the Bush Administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice, including the US Attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.”
“Mr. Rove has previously refused to appear in response to a Judiciary Committee subpoena, claiming that even former presidential advisers cannot be compelled to testify before Congress,” Conyers’ office wrote in a release. “That ‘absolute immunity’ position was supported by then-President Bush, but it has been rejected by U.S. District Judge John Bates and President Obama has previously dismissed the claim as ‘completely misguided.’”
“I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court, and today’s action is an important step along the way,” Conyers said in a release. “Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it’s time for him to talk.”
The subpoena gives authority to US marshals to enforce, like any Congressional subpoena, and was copied to Rove’s Washington, D.C. attorney, Robert Luskin. Luskin could not immediately be reached for comment.
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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