Q: Who Is To Blame For Obama Failures? A: His Inside Circle Jerk; Mandela Moment
February 10th, 2010 - by: danny
“The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” Milan Kundera
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As More Snow Threatens, Congress Heads For Hills
Wall Street Insatiable: Trend No Longer Your Friend
Nelson Mandela Wanted To Stay In Jail (For A Week)
• CNN: Earthquake (4.3) Hits Illinois
Threat of Snow stages Peremptory Strike: Congress Bows To Nature
• The Hill Newspaper: The House suspended votes for the rest of the week because of the impending snowstorm while the Senate may cancel votes on Wednesday.
Insider report blames White House’s first year failures on Obama’s inner circle: Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod are the subject of a juicy report on what’s gone wrong.
This article references a report in Britain’s Financial Times, another case of an international media organization scooping our own.
• FT: America: A fearsome foursome By Edward Luce
At a crucial stage in the Democratic primaries in late 2007, Barack Obama rejuvenated his campaign with a barnstorming speech, in which he ended on a promise of what his victory would produce: “A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.”
Just over a year into his tenure, America’s 44th president governs a bitterly divided nation, a world increasingly hard to manage and an America that seems more disillusioned than ever with Washington’s ways. What went wrong? [More here →]
• Politico: Health Care Summit – Not A Chance
Politico: Immediately after President Barack Obama announced a bipartisan health reform summit, Democrats and Republicans made clear they have almost no expectation the half-day meeting can break a bitter yearlong standoff. The two parties are staking out positions that leave them completely at odds even before they sit down.
Republicans say they’re open to compromise – as long as Obama tears up the House and Senate bills, restarts the legislative process and drops several key parts of his wish list.
We spend the most in the world for health care and yields 37th best care in the world:
• LA TImes: Obama official ‘very disturbed’ by Anthem Blue Cross rate hikes
The insurer should give a ‘detailed justification’ for its plan to raise premiums on individual policies by as much as 39%, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says. [More here →]
• Truthout.org: Alabama Senator Shelby Backs Down From Blocking Obama’s Nominees by Glynn Wilson
An Alabama Senator with long-standing ties to the US military-industrial complex and an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama is backing down from a direct confrontation with the White House today after taking the unprecedented step of announcing last week that he would filibuster all the president’s appointments to secure earmarks for his home state. [More here →]
• How Many US Bases in Afghanistan? 400 reports Nick Turse for Tom Dispatch
From TomDispatch.com this afternoon, a news-making piece, revealing for the first time the actual number of U.S. and allied military bases in Afghanistan — 400 — and the number of (largely U.S. financed or built) Afghan security bases, 300, as well as the staggering Pentagon base-building program that is behind them:
Tomgram: Nick Turse, America’s Shadowy Base World
Once is an anomaly; twice is the beginning of a pattern. Right now, we’re seeing the same sequence of events for the second time in less than a decade, and it looks like the signature American way of war in our time is coming into focus.
In 2003, when the Bush administration invaded Iraq, the Pentagon already had on its drawing boards plans for building a series of permanent mega-bases in that country. (They were charmingly called “enduring camps.”) [More here →] AND
Nick Turse, “The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan, Black Sites in the Empire of Bases”
“In the nineteenth century,” begins Pentagon expert and author of The Complex, Nick Turse, “it was a fort used by British forces. In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation. On its grounds, a new military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across the country.” [More here →]
• Truthdig.org: The Terror-Industrial Complex By Chris Hedges
The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe. [More here →]
ABC/AP: “Haiti raises estimate of earthquake’s death toll to 230,000 – on par with 2004 Asian tsunami.”
This is probably low because so many of the deaths were unidentified and many more are expected to die as a result of the botched aid program.
• WAPO: Haiti earthquake relief efforts are still falling short
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — Nearly one month after a powerful earthquake brought this country to a halt, Haiti is tumbling headlong through a crisis that has not begun to abate, with evidence everywhere that current relief efforts are falling short. [More here →]
Bill Quigley offers some other numbers to ponder:
• Haiti Numbers – 27 Days After Quake
890 million. Amount of international debt that Haiti owes creditors. Finance ministers from developing countries announced they will forgive $290 million. Source: Wall Street Journal
644 million. Donations for Haiti to private organizations have exceed $644 million. Over $200 million has gone to the Red Cross, who had 15 people working on health projects in Haiti before the earthquake. About $40 million has gone to Partners in Health, which had 5,000 people working on health in Haiti before the quake. Source: New York Times.
1 million. People still homeless or needing shelter in Haiti. Source: MSNBC.
1. For every one dollar of U.S. aid to Haiti, 42 cents is for disaster assistance, 33 cents is for the U.S. military, 9 cents is for food, 9 cents is to transport the food, 5 cents to pay Haitians to help with recovery effort, 1 cent is for the Haitian government and ½ a cent is for the government of the Dominican Republic. Source: Associated Press. [More here →]
• NY Times Alert: N.Y. Lawmakers Expel State Senator for First Time in Decades
The New York State Senate on Tuesday evening voted to expel Senator Hiram Monserrate, the first removal of a member of the State Legislature in nearly a century. Mr. Monserrate, a Democrat from Queens, was found guilty of misdemeanor assault of his girlfriend in October.
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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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