Unconditional Surrender

By Fuzzyone

The details are still filtering out but it looks like the "deal" that Obama has made is total capitulation to the Republicans. No taxes of any kind, cuts in Medicaid, an additional vote where the Republican's get to vote against raising the debt ceiling again, and a "Super Committee" that will figure out how to cut $1.2 trillion or there would be automatic cuts, half to defense and half to domestic programs (though not Medicare of Social Security).

The Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus call it "a sugar coated Satan sandwich." The House Progressive Caucus has also rejected the deal. Even Nancy Pelosi does not seem so hot on saying "I look forward to reviewing the legislation with my caucus to see what level of support we can provide." Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Given all that it will be interesting to see if this can get through the House. Boehner says that nothing in the deal "violates our [Republican] principles" the determination of the Tea Baggers to say no should not be underestimated so it will be interesting to see if the votes are really there. Tea Party leader Rep. Joe Walsh has already said he won't vote for it.

Once again Obama has shown his total lack of spine or conviction and complete incompetence as a negotiator. Just as he insisted in December that the tax cuts for the rich would not be continued, that he would close Guantanamo, and fight for a public option he had insisted that tax increases had to be part of a debt limit deal. I've never been a dead ender but right this minute I'm not sure I could bring myself to pull the lever for him.

Great Jazz Albums (IMO) #44

Wynton Kelly.  Kelly at Midnight (1960).  Another great yet unsung piano player who was a prolific sideman.  Best known for his work with Miles Davis, Kelly played on the iconic album, Kind of Blue.  He also recorded some great albums as a leader, often bringing together the rest of Miles' rhythm section, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums, to form a formidable trio. Kelly was a "distinctive soloist," described as having "a rhythmically infectious solo style in which he combined boppish lines with a great feeling for the blues."  (See, e.g., this recently posted a video Green Dolphin Street featuring John Coltrane which includes a typically great solo from Kelly.)  I am particularly fond of Kelly at Midnight, which one critic calls a"first-rate trio outing with Kelly given the space to demonstrate subtlety and flair, harmonic precision, melodic brilliance and rhythmic diversity."  This trio includes Chambers on bass and the great Philly Joe Jones on drums.

[Related posts:  Great Jazz Albums  #1 (Hank Mobley), #2 (Horace Silver), #3 (Sonny Rollins), #4 (Sonny Clark), #5 (Dexter Gordon), #6 (Cannonball Adderley); #7 (Bill Evans), #8 (McCoy Tyner), #9 (Clifford Brown), #10 (Sinatra), #11 (Monk), #12 (Kenny Dorham), #13 (Coltrane), #14 (Duke Ellington), #15 (Miles Davis), #16 (Wayne Shorter), #17 (Dinah Washington); #18 (Sarah Vaughan); #19 (Stan Getz); #20 (Blue Mitchell); #21 (Gene Ammons); #22 (Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers); #23 (Red Garland); #24 (Ella Fitzgerald); #25 (Charlie Parker); #26 (Art Pepper); #27 (Bud Powell); #28 (John Hicks); #29 (Kenny Barron); #30 (Coleman Hawkins); #31 (Count Basie);  #32 (Benny Carter w/ Ben Webster and Barney Bigard); #33 (Chet Baker); #34 (Thad  Jones); #35 (The Great Jazz Trio); #36 (Ahmad Jamal); #37 (Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond); #38 (Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis); #39 (Charles McPherson);
 #40 (Harold Land); #41 Booker Little); #42 (Elis Regina & Antonio Carlos Jobim); #43 (Art Farmer & Benny Golson)] 

Bye Bye Beltran

"What we’ve seen from Beltran is ours to keep forever, no matter what team he’s playing for tomorrow. Carlos Beltran playing baseball at the peak of his ability is a beautiful sight to behold, and we got to watch it hundreds of times."  Ted Berg

There are some Met fans who have never forgiven Carlos Beltran for taking a called strike three with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh and final game of the 2006 playoffs.  It was a brutal end to a great season and the Mets have suffered nothing but heartbreak and frustration since.  But the Mets would not have come close to making the playoffs that year without the incredible season Carlos had.  He was an All Star, played a brilliant centerfield, earning him the first of three consecutive Gold Glove awards, and put up huge offensive numbers, especially for a Met (41 home runs, 127 runs scored, 116 RBIs).

I recently wrote about great players who came to the Mets with high expectation only to flounder.  Carlos was not one of them.  The Mets signed him after his monstrous 2004 post-season with the Astros to a 7-year contract that at the time was the biggest in franchise history.  In his first year, he suffered from injuries, including those stemming from an outfield collision with Mike Cameron, and his numbers were off .  But for three years, 2006-2008, before getting hurt once again, he was great.  And this year, finally healthy after knee surgery, he has rebounded superbly, making the All Star team once again, and becoming the much sought after hitter for contending teams. 

As a Met, Beltran hit 149 home runs (6th All Time), had 557 RBIs (6th), scored 548 runs (6th) and stole 100 bases (11th).  He has been a great leader on the field and was known for charitable works off the field.  Although admittedly not a deep pool, he is one of the greatest Mets ever.  But with his 7-year contract coming to an end and the Mets going nowhere this season, they decided to trade the 34-year old to the Giants.

I understand why the Mets made this deal.  They got an excellent pitching prospect, Zach Wheeler, in exchange for two months of Beltran.  But it is a shame that the business of baseball comes down to buyers and sellers in the second half of the year, with struggling teams having to give up players before they are lost to free agency -- especially players as fun to watch and who have given so much to the team as Carlos Beltran.  He will be missed.

SB 490: Let The Voters Make An Informed Decision

By James Clark, cross-posted from ACLU of Southern California's blog.

No one is surprised to learn that California’s death penalty is a broken and dysfunctional system. After all, you don’t have to go far in California to find any government bureaucracy that’s broken or dysfunctional – it’s finding a functional government program that might take a while. The question is: How do we fix it? How do we punish the worst criminals in a way that maximizes public safety without bankrupting the budget?

A new bill in the California State Assembly, SB 490, has a shockingly simple solution: give voters the facts and let the voters decide. (The shock is that it’s taken 30 years to figure that out.)

In 1978, when California voters first reinstated the death penalty, no one knew how much it would cost. No one knew how long executions would take, how many attorneys would be required to prosecute and defend the appeals, how large a facility would be needed to house death row inmates – in short, no one knew what a big, expensive mess it would be.

Thirty-three years later, we know. We now know that the death penalty is a hollow promise to victims’ family members. These families wait 25 years– on average– for resolution to a death sentence. 99% of those sentenced to die are never executed and die from old age or sickness instead.

And we know from empirical research that the death penalty costs vastly more than the alternative of life without parole – $184 million every year. We also know from common sense that public safety improves when money is used for real solutions, like law enforcement officers on the street or violence prevention and education in schools.

Jazz Interlude: John Coltrane

It does get much better than this. John Coltrane performing Green Dolphin Street, with a typically brilliant solo by Wynton Kelly on piano.  Also, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.

Playing Ball With The Pentagon

Back in October, when I started this blog, one of my early posts was on the unquestioned baseball tradition of singing the Star Spangled Banner, which after 9/11 was supplemented with God Bless America.  Apparently one song no longer seemed sufficient for fans and players (including the 28% of Major League Baseball players who are foreign born) to express their love of the United States.

The playing of the National Anthem at ballgames began in earnest during World War II, partly to make sure fans didn't question the patriotism of the players who weren't fighting in the war.  It seems that the double dose of patriotic singing post-9/11, and the military spectacles like the one at Fenway Park that Andrew Bacevich writes about below, not only humanize and normalize what feels like our state of perpetual war but help to ensure that our own patriotism isn't questioned despite our disconnection from any real sacrifice.

Ballpark Liturgy: America’s New Civic Religion

Cheap Grace at Fenway

By Andrew Bacevich, cross-posted from TomDispatch.

Fenway Park, Boston, July 4, 2011.  On this warm summer day, the Red Sox will play the Toronto Blue Jays.  First come pre-game festivities, especially tailored for the occasion.  The ensuing spectacle -- a carefully scripted encounter between the armed forces and society -- expresses the distilled essence of present-day American patriotism.  A masterpiece of contrived spontaneity, the event leaves spectators feeling good about their baseball team, about their military, and not least of all about themselves -- precisely as it was meant to do.

In this theatrical production, the Red Sox provide the stage, and the Pentagon the props.  In military parlance, it is a joint operation.  In front of a gigantic American flag draped over the left-field wall, an Air Force contingent, clad in blue, stands at attention.  To carry a smaller version of the Stars and Stripes onto the playing field, the Navy provides a color guard in crisp summer whites.  The United States Marine Corps kicks in with a choral ensemble that leads the singing of the national anthem.  As the anthem’s final notes sound, four U. S. Air Force F-15C Eagles scream overhead.  The sellout crowd roars its approval.

But there is more to come. “On this Independence Day,” the voice of the Red Sox booms over the public address system, “we pay a debt of gratitude to the families whose sons and daughters are serving our country.”  On this particular occasion the designated recipients of that gratitude are members of the Lydon family, hailing from Squantum, Massachusetts.  Young Bridget Lydon is a sailor -- Aviation Ordnanceman Airman is her official title -- serving aboard the carrier USS Ronald Reagan, currently deployed in support of the Afghanistan War, now in its 10th year.

R.I.P. Robert Jackson III

Roman Colosseum lit to protest an execution

On July 29, 2011, Delaware executed Robert Jackson III for the 1992 killing of Elizabeth Girardi, which occurred during a botched burglary.  Jackson maintained that his accomplice in the burglary had been the actual murderer.  Anthony Lachette testified against Jackson at trial, was permitted to plead guilty to burglary and conspiracy, and was released from prison in 1996.

This is the 30th execution in the United States in 2011, the first in Delaware since 2005.

Don't Fall For The GOP Lie: There Is No Budget Crisis. There's A Job And A Growth Crisis

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his blog.

A friend who’s been watching the absurd machinations in Congress asked me “what happens if we don’t solve the budget crisis and we run out of money to pay the nation’s bills?”

It was only then I realized how effective Republicans lies have been. That we’re calling it a “budget crisis” and worrying that if we don’t “solve” it we can’t pay our nation’s bills is testament to how successful Republicans have been distorting the truth.

The federal budget deficit has no economic relationship to the debt limit. Republicans have linked the two, and the Administration has played along, but they are entirely separate. Republicans are using what would otherwise be a routine, legally technical vote to raise the debt limit as a means of holding the nation hostage to their own political goal of shrinking the size of the federal government.

In economic terms, we will not “run out of money” next week. We’re still the richest nation in the world, and the Federal Reserve has unlimited capacity to print money.

Nor is there any economic imperative to reach an agreement on how to fix the budget deficit by Tuesday. It’s not even clear the federal budget needs that much fixing anyway.

Yes, the ratio of the national debt to the total economy is high relative to what it’s been. But it’s not nearly as high as it was after World War II – when it reached 120 percent of the economy’s total output.

If and when the economy begins to grow faster – if more Americans get jobs, and we move toward a full recovery – the debt/GDP ratio will fall, as it did in the 1950s, and as it does in every solid recovery. Revenues will pour into the Treasury, and much of the current “budget crisis” will be evaporate.

Get it? We’re really in a “jobs and growth” crisis – not a budget crisis.

Palate Cleanser: Monsters of Folk

Temazcal by Monsters of Folk

Choose Your Poison

As The Economy Burns, GOP & Dems Fight Over How To Make Things Worse

By Richard (RJ) Eskow, cross-posted from Huffington Post.

Gandhi famously answered the question "What do you think of Western Civilization?" by saying "I think it would be a good idea." That phrase might come in handy the next time somebody asks what you think of a two-party democracy: It would be a good idea. As the economy burns to the ground, nobody's calling the Fire Department. Both parties want to throw gasoline on the fire, and their only disagreement is whether to use regular gas or unleaded.

Here's a challenge, if anyone's willing to take it: Can you read the statistics below without concluding that our current debate is a national disgrace? Both parties are pushing radical and counterproductive cuts that would devastate middle class and lower-income Americans, compounding the misery for ninety percent of us. Neither asks the top one percent of earners, some of whom caused this crisis, to help repair the damag after enjoying historically low tax rates.

And this isn't just somebody's opinion. These are the numbers talking, not me. John Boehner's plan is a radical right-wing assault on government that would have embarrassed previous generations of Republicans. Nevertheless, his party's base and members of the House will probably reject it. Harry Reid's proposal is also devastating - and his party's rank and file may very well support it. It's hard to know which is a sadder statement on the degraded state of our politics.

Both proposals would defer the most brutal cuts until after the election. Both try to insulate their architects from the consequences of their actions - actions which the public strongly opposes - by placing them in the hands of an unelected 'Super Congress'whose directives would be given a high pressure up-or-down vote. That's cowardice, not courage. A vote for either plan is a vote against democratic process, and a vote against the middle class and those in need.

How Did We Get Here? Ask the Bus Driver

By Fuzzyone

As Lovechilde rightly noted earlier today what used to be something routine has been turned by the Republicans into what could be a major economic disaster for the United States and the entire world. While the Republicans should get most of the blame if this occurs, and polls suggest them will, its still worth noting how we got here. I argued in my very first post here that Obama had made a fundimental mistake in adopting the Republican frame that the budget deficit and not jobs or reviving the economy should be the focus of economic policy. Because of this the only argument we are having is how much to cut, not whether budget cutting in a down economy is a good idea.

Obama has also proved to be a terrible negotiator. He could have demanded a debt ceiling increase back in December in exchange for the terrible tax cut deal, which is part of the reason the deficit is so big, but he did not. Way back then Ezra Klein explained the Democrats' logic and why he thought it was faulty. He doubted that the Democratic Party would have the stomach to face down the Republicans. We don't know how the game of chicken will turn out but I think it is tough to argue that the Dems and Obama would be worse off if the debt ceiling had been raised in December.

But its more than that. Robert Kuttner argues persuasively in the American Prospect today that Obama has encouraged the Republican behavior we are now witnessing by training them to keep demanding more, because he will always give them more. Now it may be that they have finally reached the point where he wont give more, but there is no reason for them to think that. This entire presidency has in some ways been a hostage negotiation. The hostage taker is obviously the most culpable party, but if the negotiator does a terrible job he is not without fault.

As Kuttner argues the dynamic that has been created has led to a truly dangerous situation, one that he analogizes to Europe in August 1914--both sides are convinced the other will blink first. If the Democrats can't give in but the Republicans think they will there is a real possibility that this problem does not get solved and then we get to see what exactly that looks like. I suspect its not as bad as World War I, but its not going to be pretty.

Debt Ceiling Debate Enters The Twilight Zone

With the competing plans by House Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Reid heading for a stalemate, it is worth noting that if either somehow passed it would not only fail to create jobs, it would actually increase unemployment.  This is insane!

What used to be considered a "housekeeping matter" should never have been allowed to fester into a vehicle for cutting spending that will undermine the economic recovery.  Thankfully, many House Democrats are now pushing for a clean debt limit vote -- as was done seven times for President George W. Bush, and should be done again.  This is the obvious way out of this absurd Republican-generated crisis.

If this fails, the only other reasonable choice is one that Obama seems reluctant to take:  To unilaterally raise the debt ceiling without congressional consent.  Several House Democrats agree.  As Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Cal) put it:  "The Republicans have taken us into the twilight zone."  He and fellow Democrats are urging Obama to use this option as a fall-back:  "What we're saying to the president is... 'The Republicans, through their failure, have given you license to do whatever it takes to not let the American family go down into that abyss'." 

Will The Roberts Court Kill The Voting Rights Act?

By Dr. Greg Rabidoux, July 25, 2011, cross-posted from American Constitution Society's blog.

Speaking before a joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965, LBJ urged support for the Voting Rights Act (VRA). He implored all members to get behind it or risk being on the wrong side of history. He asserted that “Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law…can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.”

That was then, and Justice Clarence Thomas (among others) and his assertion that the time for the Voting Rights Act has indeed come and gone, is now.

But before we throw dirt on the VRA once and for all, a bit of context is in order.

The Empty Bully Pulpit

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his blog.

Tom Tomorrow

How did we get into this mess?

I thought I’d seen Washington at its worst. I was there just after Watergate. I was there when Jimmy Carter imploded. I was there during the government shut-down of 1995.

But I hadn’t seen the worst. This is the worst.

How can it be that with over 9 percent unemployment, essentially no job growth, widening inequality, falling real wages, and an economy that’s almost dead in the water — we’re locked in a battle over how to cut the budget deficit?

Part of the answer is a Republican Party that’s the most irresponsible and rigidly ideological I’ve ever witnessed.

Part of the answer is the continuing gravitational pull of the Great Recession.

But another part of the answer lies with the President — and his inability or unwillingness to use the bully pulpit to tell Americans the truth, and mobilize them for what must be done.

A True Criminal Justice Reformer

There are certainly some juveniles who need to be incarcerated, for our safety and theirs.  But we can make our city safer by having the knowledge to see the difference between a dangerous juvenile and simply a troubled child who, with our support, can be directed to a productive path.  -- David Onek

David Onek is running for District Attorney of San Francisco.  I  have previously written about why I so strongly believe in his candidacy:  Onek's the One.  David's goal as District Attorney would not be simply to put more people behind bars but to find creative ways to to reduce the inflated prisoner population.  In this regard, he has just released a major policy initiative -- The Safest Generation: A Common Sense Plan to Make Our Entire City Safer by Reforming Our Juvenile Justice System.  This plan is emblematic of  his thoughtful, progressive approach to criminal justice and public safety issues.

Since, as David writes, "the majority of adult criminals started out in the juvenile justice system," it is critical to develop programs that will keep youth out of the criminal justice system.  He understands that while there are a small number of juveniles who have committed crimes serious enough to warrant incarceration, punitive policies for most young offenders is inappropriate and leads to them becoming more persistent offenders.

Juvenile offenders can be held accountable for their acts without sweeping them into the criminal justice system.  David is a strong believer in the restorative justice model, which "does a better job of holding  youth accountable than the traditional justice system."  Instead of seeking to punish those who break the law -- which encourages the offender to deny responsibility -- a restorative justice program holds him or her directly accountable to the people they harmed:  "the 'punishment' is determined by the victim,the offender, and the community."

One of the many impressive aspects of David's approach to criminal justice is his emphasis on bringing the various stakeholders together and forging strong partnerships with the community.  To reform the juvenile justice system he will work with educators, community leaders, law enforcement, and city agencies to: (1) address the over-representation of youth of color in the juvenile justice system; (2) address the unique needs of girls in the system; (3) focus on health at all levels; (4) continue reform of foster care; (5) focus on schools; and (6) expand focus on safe recreation, after-school and employment opportunities.

It is significant that David's first detailed policy initiative concerns juvenile justice and is designed to "cut crime at the source."  It reflects his vision for criminal justice reform, which requires "fundamentally chang[ing] the way we prosecute, and prevent, crime."  Rather than relying on knee-jerk, overly punitive responses to crime and violence, David will engage the community and implement policies in ways that will make us safer. 

To learn more about David's ideas for criminal and juvenile justice and to join and/or contribute to his campaign, click here

The Debt Ceiling Debacle

By Robert L. Borosage, cross-posted from Huffington Post.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
....
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

"It is clear we must enter an era of austerity; to reduce the deficit through shared sacrifice," reads the statement issued by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as she endorsed Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid's plan to cut $2.7 trillion in spending over 10 years with no call for the wealthy to pay anything in taxes.

It has come to this. The proud liberal leader of House Democrats, excluded from many of the debt ceiling negotiations because she insisted on defending Social Security and Medicare, has now capitulated to the austerity caucus. And the Republicans still refuse to take yes for an answer.

For all the president's talk about shared sacrifice and the wealthy paying a bit more by closing loopholes, the two choices before the Congress now are all about spending cuts without revenue increases. Republican Speaker Boehner's plan would raise the debt limit to cover debts for six months in exchange for $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, followed by an election year debate over the same debt limit in exchange for cuts of $1.8 trillion coming largely from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years. In his plan, benefits of current retirees would necessarily face harsh cuts. 

The alternative, put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, endorsed by the president and Pelosi, calls for stunning cuts in discretionary spending over $2.7 trillion over 10 years, excluding entitlements and any new revenues. These would come partly from winding down two wars and cutting defense, but would require deep cuts in domestic programs in everything ranging from schools to the environment to mass transit and food safety.

Both plans would set up a super committee -- a gang of 12 -- with special powers for expedited votes on a proposal to cut entitlement and, in Reid's case, consider closing loopholes if not raising taxes.

The irresponsible decision of the Tea Party Republican right to hold the economy hostage over the raising the debt ceiling has paid off big time. And Americans will pay the price.

It is worth recalling just how extensive the Democratic retreat has been.

Federal Court Loss Is California's Gain

The last time Jerry Brown was Governor he nominated Rose Bird, Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso to the California Supreme Court. These three smart, principled, liberal-minded justices were recalled by the voters in November 1986, in a nasty campaign exploiting their votes reversing death sentences, funded by business interests who disagreed with their pro-labor, pro-consumer decisions.  The Court has never been the same.  A liberal court became a conservative one overnight.

A string of conservative Governors appointed a string of conservative justices. There is not one justice on the current Court appointed by a Democrat. (Carlos Moreno, appointed by Democrat Gray Davis recently stepped down, leaving a vacancy on the bench.)  At least with regard to criminal justice, the Court's near unanimity favoring the prosecution over the rights of criminal defendants in virtually every case, particularly in death penalty cases, has cemented their reputation as the most reactionary state court in the country.

Jerry Brown has just nominated Goodwin Liu to replace Moreno and thus, begin the process of providing some badly needed balance to the Court.  Liu was nominated by President Obama to sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, but he was successfully filibustered by Senate Republicans.  I've previously written about what a wonderful addition Liu would have been to the federal bench and how infuriating it was that he couldn't get past the Senate. (See Tit for Tat; Courting Failure.) 

By all accounts Goodwin Liu has a brilliant legal mind.  He is a law professor at Berkeley, a Yale Law School graduate and a Rhodes Scholar.  The American Bar Association gave Liu its highest possible rating.  He also has been endorsed by liberals and conservative legal alike.

Liu will be the one bright spot on a very dismal Court.  Hopefully he can disrupt the echo chamber effect caused by having a Court that has consisted solely of like-minded conservatives.  And hopefully Jerry Brown will get the opportunity for more judicial appointments.

Norway's Tragedy: Contexts and Consequences

By Thomas Hylland Eriksen, July 24, 2011, cross-posted from open Democracy.
 

The atrocities inflicted on Norwegian society by a far-right activist leave the country shocked and in mourning. They will have lasting effects even if their exact character is hard to foreseen. 

By coincidence, I was in Oslo on Friday 22 July 2011. During this time of the year, the main holiday season in Norway, the cities tend to be empty and quiet. My teenage son was due to participate in a soccer tournament in Denmark, and I was there to accompany him to the boat before returning to our summer house on the south coast.

In the afternoon, as I was working in the garden and my son was practicing with his football, we heard a loud crash, as if lightning had struck. Dark clouds began to loom nearby. We didn't think any more about it. Only half an hour later, however, I was rung up by a friend who asked me to turn on my computer. From then onwards, events took an increasingly dramatic turn as the afternoon gave way to evening, evening to night, and gradually the full extent of the atrocities became known.

When the domestic media began to report on the blast in central Oslo, virtually everybody must have thought of extreme Islamic groups. At least one, unknown group which called itself "friends of global jihad", appeared to have taken responsibility for the attack on the web. Some experts said that the attack carried the “fingerprints” of al-Qaida. But when the first reports came of the shootings at Utøya - my son and I were in the car by then, on our way to the boat - the connection with international terrorism, Islamic or not, started to seem less likely.

Utøya, a tiny island on a picturesque lake about forty minutes' drive from Oslo, has for decades been the summer camp site of the youth wing of the Labour Party. To target this camp, a gathering of several hundred politically engaged youths from their early teens to their mid-20s, suggested a connection with domestic politics rather than a link to Norway's participation in the wars in Libya or Afghanistan.

The perpetrator was finally apprehended towards the end of what was already being described as the most tragic day in Norwegian history since the second world war. The attack on government buildings in central Oslo, which led the New York Times correspondent to describe “the usually placid” capital of Norway as a place resembling a war-zone, was suddenly a lesser concern; although physical destruction and human suffering, including the loss of at least seven lives, were very considerable. The massacre of youths trapped on Utøya, still difficult to fathom, was simply beyond belief.

The death-toll from Utøya, over ninety at the time of writing, is likely to increase in the coming days. The police investigation and interrogation of the perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, will continue in order to understand the context of this catastrophe. We are still in a collective state of shock and disbelief, yet it is necessary, even now, to take a step back and begin to reflect on the consequences of this tragedy for Norwegian society. I can think of three.

Adults Only

By Richard (RJ) Eskow, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future

Today's preferred political posture is that of "the adult in the room," the one who's prepared to compromise during negotiations. But there's a little problem with that pose. By definition, it means that you're compromising with children. The adult in the room at a pre-school doesn't strike a deal that says we'll play outside instead of eating lunch or snacks. He or she knows that we need nutrition to stay healthy. The adult in the room wants the children to be happy, but if they're not behaving he appeals to their parents. And in politics, he or she appeals to the voters.

Well, the President has finally gone over the Republicans' head to the voters, but he's left out the "nutrition" our economy needs most: jobs. The Republicans keep claiming that jobs will magically appear if taxes are kept low, even though low taxes haven't produced any jobs over the last ten years. The President warned us tonight that "our growing debt could cost us jobs." But you know what really costs us jobs? Not spending money to give people jobs.

Not a single proposal on the table includes short-term spending for job creation. That spending would stimulate growth, after which policy makers could pivot and address our long-term debt issues. And they could do so with the added advantage of added revenue from millions of newly-employed Americans who are paying their Federal income tax. But that's off the table. So, too, are any new taxes, if Sen. Reid's proposal passes.

Who's talking straight to the American people? Adults don't condescend to other adults. They tell them the truth. Who's telling the public that we must first fix the damage caused by the recession by putting people back to work? Who's telling them that Washington understands their problems and wants to fix them?

And while we're on the topic of "adults," consider the "Super Congress" proposals that Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Boehner have both proposed. Under these proposals, "bipartisan" panels of Republicans and Democrats would propose a fixed-dollar amounts of spending cuts that would be fast-tracked to an up or down vote. Why have an unelected "Super Congress" make these decisions? Because politicians want to cut spending without being held accountable for it. They were elected to make decisions and take the consequences, and now they want to avoid both the decisions and the consequences.

Here is why you can't raise taxes for the rich

By Fuzzyone
 
They might not be able to afford to fly their kids to summer camp and then the pilots of their private jets will lose their jobs thus destroying the economy. (I know, I'm on some kind of taxes and airplanes roll.)

Laying Bare the Tax Cut Myth

By Fuzzyone

So, I'm back from my vacation which included a vacation from much of the news. I have to say not much seems to have changed. If I can think of anything new to say about the continued dance between Obama and the Republicans I will, but frankly it seems like the needle is stuck in the same song.

However, a minor casualty of partisan fighting this week was the FAA. Congress failed to pass an extension of its authority to collect certain taxes on airfares. Some thought this might lead to lower fares for consumers. After all, isn't part of the reason Republican's push for corporate tax cuts that it will make things cheaper? Nope, the airlines just raised fares by the amount of the tax they no longer collect. Extra hypocritical is Virgina America which ran this add in the days leading up to the shutdown:

But once the law lapsed they raised their fares too (though after "holding out all weekend").

So, just as the rich put their tax cuts in their pockets corporations put their tax cuts, in the pockets of the rich. That money will either go to shareholders or, more likely corporate executives. So consumers get nothing, the FAA loses $30 million a day, 4,000 FAA employees get furloughed and a bunch of construction workers who were doing things like building runways get laid off. Yes, tax cuts are the solution for all economic problems.

Vicious Cycles: Why Washington Is About To Make The Job Crisis Worse

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his blog.

We now live in parallel universes.

One universe is the one in which most Americans live. In it, almost 15 million people are unemployed, wages are declining (adjusted for inflation), and home values are still falling. The unsurprising result is consumers aren’t buying — which is causing employers to slow down their hiring and in many cases lay off more of their workers. In this universe, we’re locked in a vicious economic cycle that’s getting worse.

The other universe is the one in which Washington politicians live. They are now engaged in a bitter partisan battle over how, and by how much, to reduce the federal budget deficit in order to buy enough votes to lift the debt ceiling.

The two universes have nothing whatever to do with one another — except for one thing. If consumers can’t and won’t buy, and employers won’t hire without customers, the spender of last resort must be government. We’ve understood this since government spending on World War II catapulted America out of the Great Depression — reversing the most vicious of vicious cycles. We’ve understood it in every economic downturn since then.

Until now.

Why Are Discredited "Agencies" Like S & P Dictating Our Economic Future?

By Richard (RJ) Eskow, July 24, 2011, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future.

"Who does Standard & Poor's think it is?" asks Matt Miller, the reasonable and congenial host who represents the "center" on NPR's "Left, Right, and Center." Miller's understandably outraged that this discredited organization still has so much power and influence. But he's asking the wrong question.

S&P knows exactly what it is, and so should everyone else. It's the for-profit company which, while masquerading as a credit rating "agency," bartered its coveted AAA ratings for increased profits. The real question is why? Why does S&P still have the power to cost the government billions of dollars in added interest payments, which is what would happen if they downgraded our credit rating?

The pronouncements of these for-profit "agencies" have no more credibility than the murmured compliments of an overpriced escort in a candlelit hotel room. So why do they still have the power to endanger the financial security of millions of Americans?

Balanced But Unfair Media

Members of the U.S. Congress reported Wednesday they were continuing to carefully debate the issue of whether or not they should allow the country to descend into a roiling economic meltdown of historically dire proportions. -- The Onion

Here are some things I know, confirmed by a graphic in the Sunday Times:  (1) the widening deficit has been caused not by non-defense discretionary spending but by the Bush tax cuts and the costs of war; (2) the deficit will not be solved by gutting non-defense discretionary spending, but requires some increase in taxes; (3) more government spending, not less, is needed to jump start the economy and create jobs.

Here are some other things I know: (1) in prior administrations, the debt ceiling was raised countless times without one party holding the other hostage; (2) taking the country to the brink of default is due to Republican insistence on massive spending cuts without tax increases before it will agree to raise the debt limit: (3) Obama and the Democrats continue to seek compromise, if not capitulation, on spending cuts in order to placate the GOP but it has not worked because (4) the House Republicans, having refused to agree to any deal that includes tax increases, appear perfectly willing to allow the U.S. to default rather than waiver from their ideological rigidity; (5) the Democrats' latest proposal has them agreeing to $2.5 trillion in spending cuts without any deal on tax increases in order to prevent the government from defaulting; (6) remarkably, although this gives the Republicans everything they want, they still may not go for it.

If you rely on the mainstream media, you don't hear that this is, as Steve Benen puts it, a "Republican-generated crisis."  You don't hear that the crisis could be over quickly if Congress simply increased the debt limit with a clean bill -- as they did seven times for President George W. Bush.  You don't hear how extraordinary it is that Republicans are demanding spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, which Bush's former budget director referred to as a "housekeeping matter."  You don't hear that Bush and the Republicans, not Obama and the Democrats, are responsible for the deficit in the first place.  You don't hear that Democrats have conceded to Republican demands for spending cuts even though this will do little to reduce the deficit and nothing to help solve the real crisis in America -- unemployment.  And you don't hear about how the Democrats are doing this in large part because they want to ensure that our economy and the global economy don't tank on August 2nd, while the House Republicans, many of whom likely believed that Judgment Day was coming May 21st, don't believe anything will happen on August 2nd if they don't agree to raise the debt ceiling -- and if it turns out to be catastrophic, they are okay with that too because it will help them win back the presidency.

Instead, what you do hear is the conventional wisdom that we must immediately reduce the long-term deficit and that both sides are equally at fault for failing to achieve this through debt-ceiling negotiations.  What you do hear is that the crisis is caused by debt-ceiling gridlock, bipartisan bickering, and the fight over two competing proposals.  As Kevin Drum said, "the American press, as long as it's bound by its usual standard of objectivity, just isn't set up to deal with a two-party system in which one of the parties has gone completely off the rails."

Great Jazz Albums (IMO) #43

Art Farmer &  Benny Golson.  Meet the Jazztet (1960).  As you can tell by perusing the list of albums/artists I highlight every week (see below), I am particularly drawn to a soulful style of jazz of the mid-1950s/ early 1960s that evolved from 1940s bebop known as hard bop.  As opposed to its precursor, "the melodies tend to be simpler . . . the rhythm section is usually looser, and there is more of a blues/rhythm & blues feel.

While one can never really pinpoint with precision where a musical genre originated, 1954 gets you pretty close in this instance.  A Night In Birdland With The Art Blakey Quintet is widely considered the seminal hard bop recording, and it is the one that originally hooked me.  It included Horace Silver on piano, Clifford Brown on saxophone and Blue Mitchell on trumpet.  At the end of 1954, Blakey and Silver recorded Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers, with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Hank Mobley on tenor sax and Doug Watkins on bass.  In 1956, Horace Silver left the Jazz Messengers to Blakey (taking Mobley with him for a time) and went on to record several fabulous albums through the early sixties and beyond.  Art Blakey continued with various incarnations of the Jazz Messengers for three decades, surrounding himself with young musician, many of whom became quite prominent in their own right (e.g., Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis).

In the early 1960s, trumpeter Art Farmer and saxophonist/composer Benny Golson formed the Jazztet which, at least for a short time, arguably rivaled Horace Silver's quintet and Blakey's Jazz Messengers as "the definitive hard bop combo."  On their first album, Meet the Jazztet, the great jazz pianist McCoy Tyner makes his recording debut. (Tyner is replaced in later albums by Cedar Walton).  There are memorable solos by Farmer, Golson, Tyner and trombonist Curtis Fuller.  Golson's compositions, including the first recording of his epic tune Killer Joe, as well as I Remember Clifford and Blues March, stand up well to Cole Porter's It's All Right With Me and George Gershwin's It Ain't Necessarily So.  In sum, this is a "hard bop classic."

[Related posts:  Great Jazz Albums  #1 (Hank Mobley), #2 (Horace Silver), #3 (Sonny Rollins), #4 (Sonny Clark), #5 (Dexter Gordon), #6 (Cannonball Adderley); #7 (Bill Evans), #8 (McCoy Tyner), #9 (Clifford Brown), #10 (Sinatra), #11 (Monk), #12 (Kenny Dorham), #13 (Coltrane), #14 (Duke Ellington), #15 (Miles Davis), #16 (Wayne Shorter), #17 (Dinah Washington); #18 (Sarah Vaughan); #19 (Stan Getz); #20 (Blue Mitchell); #21 (Gene Ammons); #22 (Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers); #23 (Red Garland); #24 (Ella Fitzgerald); #25 (Charlie Parker); #26 (Art Pepper); #27 (Bud Powell); #28 (John Hicks); #29 (Kenny Barron); #30 (Coleman Hawkins); #31 (Count Basie);  #32 (Benny Carter w/ Ben Webster and Barney Bigard); #33 (Chet Baker); #34 (Thad  Jones); #35 (The Great Jazz Trio); #36 (Ahmad Jamal); #37 (Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond); #38 (Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis); #39 (Charles McPherson);
 #40 (Harold Land); #41 Booker Little); #42 (Elis Regina & Antonio Carlos Jobim)]

Mets Or Bust

In 2009, Jason Bay hit 36 home runs with 119 RBIs for the Red Sox, and prior to that had several excellent seasons with the Pirates, hitting between 21-35 homers every year.  But then he signed with the Mets for $66 million, which has translated into six home runs last year and six so far this year.  His 2011 slugging percentage stands at .319, lowest on the entire team.  The last Met who went as long as Bay has gone without hitting a double (he has only 4 all year) was Rey Ordonez, the slick fielding, poor hitting shortstop more than ten years ago. 

While I was watching the Mets lose to the Marlins last night with Bay having a typically dreadful game, I started thinking about All-Time Met busts -- All Stars who came to the Mets with high expectations but then tanked miserably.  (Spoiler Alert:  Jason Bay makes the squad.)   

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)

The immensely talented Amy Winehouse died tragically at 27. Here is the Arctic Monkeys' cover of her great tune You Know I'm No Good.

Why Medicare Is The Solution -- Not The Problem

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his blog, July 22, 2011.

Not only is Social Security on the chopping block in order to respond to Republican extortion. So is Medicare.

But Medicare isn’t the nation’s budgetary problems. It’s the solution. The real problem is the soaring costs of health care that lie beneath Medicare. They’re costs all of us are bearing in the form of soaring premiums, co-payments, and deductibles.

Medicare offers a means of reducing these costs — if Washington would let it.

Let me explain.

Jazz Interlude: Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers perform the Bobby Timmons classic Moanin' in 1958, the same year the archetypal hard bop album of the same name was released.  This great incarnation of the Jazz Messengers consists of Lee Morgan on trumpet, Benny Golson on tenor sax, Bobby Timmons on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass.

R.I.P. Andrew DeYoung

Roman Colosseum lit to protest an execution

On July 22, 2011, Georgia executed Andrew DeYoung, who was convicted of killing his parents and his 14-year-old sister in 1993.  The execution was videotaped after a judge granted the request by lawyers for another condemned inmate to document DeYoung's reaction to an untested three-drug lethal injection combination.  After Georgia's supply of illegally imported sodium thiopental was seized by the DEA, it decided to substitute pentobarbital.  There were problems reported during the previous execution of Roy Blankenship, and concerns have been raised that the new anesthetic is not effective in shielding the inmate from the excruciating pain that comes when the other two drugs are injected. 

This was the 29th execution in the United States this year, and the third in Georgia.

The Only Social Security Reform Worth Considering: Raise Ceiling On Income Subject To It

By Robert Reich, cross-posted with permission from his website, July 22, 2011.

The very idea that Social Security might be on the chopping block in order to pay the ransom Republicans are demanding reveals both the cravenness of their demands and the callowness of the opposition to those demands.

In a former life I was a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. So let me set the record straight.

Social Security isn’t responsible for the federal deficit. Just the opposite. Until last year Social Security took in more payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. It lent the surpluses to the rest of the government.

Now that Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in, Social Security can simply collect what the rest of the government owes it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years.

But why should there even be a problem 26 years from now? Back in 1983, Alan Greenspan’s Social Security commission was supposed to have fixed the system for good – by gradually increasing payroll taxes and raising the retirement age. (Early boomers like me can start collecting full benefits at age 66; late boomers born after 1960 will have to wait until they’re 67.)

Greenspan’s commission must have failed to predict something. What?

Inequality.

How House Progressives Can Save The Debt Ceiling Deal . . . And The Middle Class

By Richard (RJ) Eskow, originally published on Huffington Post, July 21, 2011

As online "Countdown Clocks"count the hours before there's a debt ceiling disaster, the spotlight is on the individuals and groups who can make or break a deal. We've heard a lot about the Senate's Gang of Six, members of the Administration, House leaders Boehner and Cantor, and the radical Tea Party Republicans who allegedly hold 'veto power' over any proposed deal.

But another group holds at least as much power as those radical Republicans, and it has the added advantage of representing views that are widely supporting by Americans in both political parties. That group is the House Progressive Caucus.

The media coverage is revealing. Tea Party Republican Joe Walsh holds no official position in Congress except that of a freshman Representative, and his economic views are far to the right of the American mainstream. Yet as we write this, a Google News search on "Joe Walsh" (excluding "guitar" and "Eagles" to eliminate "Rocky Mountain Way" Joe Walsh) gets 1,461 hits. Rep. Keith Ellison, on the other hand, co-chairs a large Congressional caucus whose support may be vital to the passage of any deal. Yet his name only gets 157 hits - a figure that falls even more when you eliminate references to his religion.

Rep. Joe Walsh: To paraphrase his namesake, life's been good to him so far. Rep. Keith Ellison, on the other hand, must sometimes feel as if he's fighting in the dark. Yet the way things stand today, the Progressive Caucus's 75 members may very well have the power to save us from a debt ceiling crisis, especially in the face of intransigence from Walsh and his fellow Tea Party radicals. That means they have the power to ensure that the deal is much stronger than the proposals now being floated in Washington.

Obama Nominees And Diversity On The Federal Bench

By Nicole Flatow, originally published on American Constitution Society's blog, July 21, 2011.

Following the Senate’s confirmation of J. Paul Oetken as the first openly gay male federal judge, President Barack Obama has announced another nomination that would add diversity to our courts.


Litigator and former assistant U.S. attorney Michael Walter Fitzgerald has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, becoming Obama’s fourth openly gay nominee. The others are Alison Nathan, a nominee to the Southern District of New York, and Edward Dumont, nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

These nominations have contributed to the record diversity of Obama’s nominees, Politico reports.

Despite a backlog in confirming Obama’s judicial nominations, the president has surpassed his predecessors in putting forth diverse candidates to the federal bench. Obama has nominated more female, African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and openly gay candidates as federal judges than Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush. That includes two female Supreme Court justices, one of whom is the high court’s only Hispanic justice. The numbers are particularly striking for Asian-American nominees. Obama has nominated half of the Asian-American federal judges currently on the bench.

Of course, many of those nominees haven’t had the success of Oetken in getting through the confirmation process.

As ACS Executive Director Caroline Fredrickson says in the Politico article, “The president has tried to diversify the federal bench, but this effort has hit a wall of Republican obstructionism in the Senate.”

UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu would have been the only Asian Pacific American on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit if confirmed, but his nomination was filibustered after two extensive hearings and countless letters vouching for his sterling qualifications.

Dumont, the openly gay judge nominated to an appeals court rather than a district court (Oetken was confirmed to a district court seat), hasn’t even received a hearing well over a year following his nomination.

And as The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen points out in a recent column, Native American nominee Arvo Mikkanen, who would be only the third Native American to sit on the federal courts in U.S. history (and only the second who is “open” about his background during confirmation), has been stalled for six months by his home-state congressional delegation for no other stated reason than a political dispute with the White House.

“The Senate unburdened itself Monday from one of its many shameful legacies,” Cohen writes. “But it still bears the white man's burden, and the nation's past due responsibility, of bringing Native American lawyers to the federal bench. It is no justification -- merely a convenient excuse, maybe for both parties -- that the White House didn't properly consult with Oklahoma's delegation before placing Mikkanen's name in nomination.”

Visit JudicialNominations.org to learn more about the nominations process and follow developments.

Palate Cleanser: Vetiver

Wonder Why by Vetiver

The Gang Of Six's Raw Deal

By Robert L. Borosage, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future, July 20, 2011.

The backroom Senate gang of five or six (its membership changing over time) released a plan yesterday that swept through the Washington. It got the support and the opposition of all the right people (the President carefully called it “broadly consistent with the approach that I've urged;” Harry Reid called it “wonderful;” House Majority leader Eric Cantor scorned it as a tax hike).

But this isn’t a New Deal or a Fair Deal; it’s a Raw Deal – one that every citizen concerned about rebuilding the middle class should oppose. It would add to unemployment in the short term, increase Gilded Age inequality, leave seniors more vulnerable, and shackle any possibility of rebuilding America. It puts the burden of deficit reduction on the elderly, the poor and the vulnerable, endangers jobs and growth, and lards even more tax breaks on the rich.

The details of the plan aren’t worked out. It isn’t, as Senator Dick Durbin noted, ready for prime time, and won’t be passed as part of the debt ceiling showdown, now careening to its climax. The danger is that it will provide a template for the congressional commission likely to come out of the debt ceiling negotiations with a mandate to reduce the deficit. So it is worth comparing the outlines of the Gang of Six plan with sensible principles for deficit reduction.

Deficit Fetish

President Obama is doing his "balanced approach" thing, supporting the resurrection of a bipartisan gang (see my prior post Gangsters) and reaching across the aisle to achieve compromise on the debt ceiling.  He is using his remarkable powers of persuasion and oratory to convince the American people not only that the debt ceiling must be raised by Congress to avoid catastrophe, but that at the same time we can solve our most immediate problem -- not unemployment -- the long-term deficit.

Obama could argue that raising the debt ceiling has always been considered a "housekeeping matter" not something to bargain over, and that the disastrous impact of failing to do so would require him to do what former President Clinton claims he would do -- bypass Congress.  Instead, Obama appears to see the debt ceiling negotiations as a chance to do something big about deficit-reduction, and is seizing the opportunity by embracing massive spending cuts. This will do nothing to create jobs.  But who cares?

So while the pundits continue to praise the president for being politically savvy, winning over independent voters, and making the crazed House Republicans who categorically refuse to agree to an increase in the debt ceiling look even crazier, it seems to me that the Republicans have won -- and have won big.  After all, they've got the president adopting their language about the government needing to live within its means and accepting the overarching goal of taking immediate steps to reduce the deficit, thereby giving political cover to their cynical economic arguments for gutting social programs.  Short-term spending to stimulate demand and actually create jobs is off the table.  Hooray for bipartisanship!

R.I.P. Mark Stroman

Roman Colosseum lit to protest an execution

On July 20, Texas executed Mark Stroman  for the killing of Vasudev Patel, an Indian immigrant, in October 2001. Stroman also killed Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani, and injured a third man, Rais Bhuiyan, an immigrant from Bangladesh.  Stroman claimed that the fatal shooting spree, in which he mistook the victims for Arabs, was aimed at avenging the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Bhuiyan, the lone survivor, launched a campaign and filed a lawsuit in an unsuccessful attempt to halt the execution, saying his Muslim beliefs told him to forgive Stroman.  Bhuiyan hoped to spend time with Stroman to learn more about why the shootings occurred.  Bhuiyan said:  Killing him is not the solution.  He's learning from his mistake. If he's given a chance, he's able to reach out to others and spread that message to others."

This is the 28th execution in the United States this year, the eighth in Texas.

R.I.P. Thomas West

Roman Colosseum lit to protest an execution

On July 19, Arizona executed Thomas West, who was convicted of the 1987 murder of Donald Bortle.  At his clemency hearing, West apologized to the victim's family, and witnesses explained that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from physical and sexual abuse he suffered as a child.  By a 3-2 vote, the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency voted to reject the plea to commute West's sentence to life.  Federal court challenges based on Arizona's failure to follow the official execution protocol in prior executions were rejected after the state guaranteed they would follow it this time.

This is the 27th execution in the United States in 2011, the fourth in Arizona.