What does he think, drone pilots grow on trees?

Barack Obama made a point of criticizing electronic devices in a commencement speech to more than 1,000 graduates and thousands of their family and friends gathered on the football field at Hampton University, a historically black college in

southeastern Virginia.

"Obama said today’s college graduates are coming of age at a time of great difficulty for the United States. They face a tough economy for jobs, two wars and a 24/7 media environment not always dedicated to the truth, he said.

"Added to the mix are the distractions offered by popular electronic devices that entertain millions of Americans.

“'With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,' Obama said."

The rest of the story:
Obama criticizes iPods & iPads; Xboxes & PlayStations -- Reuters news story.

Trump has his "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" moment:

"USA Today published a brutal editorial Tuesday after President Donald Trump smeared Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) by saying she 'would do anything' for campaign contributions. 'A president who’d all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library or to shine George W. Bush’s shoes,'” USA Today’s Editorial Board wrote, adding Trump was clearly suggesting Gillibrand would trade sexual favors for campaign donations. The board added that Trump is a 'uniquely awful' person with 'sickening behavior.' His tweet was a new low for a president redefining rock bottom, they wrote. -- USA Today Calls Trump Unfit To Clean Obama's Toilets In Scathing Editorial (Yahoo News).

Will Trump's lows ever hit rock bottom? by The Editorial Board (USA Today)

D.J. Trump: Not Living Up to His Full Potential

If Donald Trump knew anything about history, he'd realize that he could go so much bigger than merely reversing Barack Obama's executive orders. Think how pleased his supporters and enablers would be if he revoked the Emancipation Proclamation, say, or gave Alaska back to the Russians.

What he did.

It shouldn't be hard to head off Trump tonight before he escalates the war in Afghanistan.

Somebody tell him.

Obama already did it.

Unforced Error

After eight years in office, Barack Obama's greatest failure will be to leave office without delivering justice and mercy to political prisoner Leonard Peltier.

Case of Leonard Peltier (FreeLeonard.org)
Leonard Peltier, 38 years a detainee: How did we get here? (Amnesty International)

"It Can't Happen Here."

Not only can it happen here, it probably will.

The same people who, out of complacency, did not resist as Barack Obama embraced and enlarged the mechanisms of oppression, will not resist, this time out of fear and despondency, as Donald Trump uses them.

No longer can Americans smugly scorn the complicity of "good Germans" in Hitler's rise. We are all good Germans now.

How far back can Trump turn the clock?

It is going to be interesting to see how much President Donald Trump will be able to or even try to get done.

In his first 100 days, he promised, he will cancel “every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum, and order issued by President [Barack] Obama," which he will have the power to do. These could include the Syrian refugee program; increased regulations on greenhouse gas emissions for the nation’s power plants; the right to take family medical leave for same-sex couples; and halting the deportations of illegal immigrant children. And he vowed to repeal Obamacare, which would strip over 20 million Americans of their health insurance, although this may be more difficult than he imagines: the insurance hogs will not go easy from the trough.

He threatened to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports, officially branding China as “a currency manipulator,” while also seeking a 35 percent tariff on Mexican imports, but pressure from the business community should be enough to keep him from setting off a trade war and sparking a world-wide depression (the stock market already seems to be pricing in tax-cut Trump but ignoring trade-war Trump).

He promised to deport 2 million “criminal illegal immigrants” on his first day in office, but it took Obama six years to accomplish that, so expect a slow acceleration there, and the wall is a non-starter.

More seriously, he pledged to cut all federal funding to “sanctuary cities,” which are municipalities whose local policies do not permit prosecuting people only for being undocumented. He said he will cut all payments to U.N. climate-change programs which, in addition to likely signaling an increase in U.S. emissions, will also cut budgets of U.S. universities and laboratories dedicated to studying climate-change. Some of this is real. Some of it is campaign rhetoric. More dangerous may be that he won't veto actions by the whackos controlling Congress.

Also, amid all the whining and puling about Trump, it's important to remember that Obama still has a month and a half to try to ram through TPP.

Time to get organized, folks.

TPP Eats, Shoots & Leaves

During the debate leading up to the passage of NAFTA, the stationery of an outfit lobbying for the treaty trumpeted: “North American Free Trade Agreement -- Exports. Better Jobs. Better Wages.”

So close.

The correct punctuation, of course, is: “North American Free Trade Agreement -- Exports Better Jobs, Better Wages.”

Expect similar lapses in grammar and punctuation -- and accuracy -- during the upcoming consideration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Reading list:
TPP: What is it and why does it matter? (BBC News).
The text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership 2016 also can be accessed in French and Spanish language versions on the site of New Zealand Foreign Affairs & Trade.
TPP is a secretive, multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement. The main problems are two-fold: (1) digital policies that benefit big corporations at the expense of the public and (2) lack of transparency (Electronic Frontier Foundation).
More Job Offshoring, Lower Wages, Unsafe Food Imports: It's Worse than We Thought (Public Citizen).

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words Dept.:

 

In early November 2015, according to Public Citizen, after seven years of secret negotiations -- with the public, press and policymakers locked out, the final TPP text was released. In chapter after chapter, the agreement is worse than expected, satisfying the demands of 500 official U.S. trade advisers representing corporate interests at the expense of the public interest. The text reveals that the pact replicates many of the most controversial terms of past pacts that promote job offshoring and push down U.S. wages. If passed, the TPP will:

-> make it easier for big corporations to ship our jobs overseas, pushing down our wages and increasing income inequality
-> flood our country with unsafe imported food
-> jack up the cost of medicines by giving big pharmaceutical corporations new monopoly rights to keep lower cost generic drugs off the market
-> empower corporations to attack our environmental and health safeguards
-> ban Buy American policies needed to create green jobs
-> roll back Wall Street reforms
-> sneak in SOPA-like threats to Internet freedom and
-> undermine human rights.

Reading List:
The Government of Canada is committed to being transparent, open and consultative with Canadians on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
"TPP raises significant concerns about citizens’ freedom of expression, due process, innovation, the future of the Internet’s global infrastructure, and the right of sovereign nations to develop policies and laws that best meet their domestic priorities. In sum, the TPP puts at risk some of the most fundamental rights that enable access to knowledge for the world’s citizens:" What is TPP? (Electronic Frontier Foundation).

Provisions that allow foreign investors to bypass the federal courts could undermine U.S. legal protections: Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Unconstitutional? by Alan Morrison (The Atlantic).
The “Investor-State Dispute Settlement,” or ISDS, may sound mild, but don’t be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty: The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Washington Post).

The Bernie Beat Goes On

In 2008, the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign was moved to share this picture of young Barack Obama with the voting public.

In 1987, while serving as Burlington’s mayor, Bernie Sanders recorded an album of folk classics for the defunct BurlingTown Recordings label. Vermont's Seven Days found it in an archive search for Bernie Beat, its digital guide to Sanders' colorful political career. Sen. Sanders better watch out; if the Clinton campaign decides to go after the folk music vote, you can bet this will be everywhere: Sanders sings The Banks Are Made of Marble, and it ain't pretty.

The leaders of both parties are underestimating Bernie Sanders

Now that the worried Clinton campaign has turned its guns on a surging Bernie Sanders, Clinton's supporters have begun to express concern that the Vermont senator will be especially vulnerable to attacks from the right (so vulnerable, in fact, that the Clinton campaign itself is using them).

What the Republicans will do, of course, is try to slime the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is.

Barack Obama, who gave his enemies nothing to work with beyond the color of his skin, was vilified as an alien, Muslim, Socialist Pawn of Wall Street, and tyrant -- a weak one at that, but they rarely bothered to question his ethics, because no one would believe that he was personally corrupt. In Sanders' case, too, they have little to work with, now that it has become apparent that "socialism" is no longer frightening the horses, although the GOP will probably attempt to have the voters take notice of his age, as one Clinton surrogate is already trying to do, and his ethnicity.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is the best Democratic opponent you could wish for, if your only hope of winning is a smear campaign.

Reading list:
Democrats can't hold the White House forever. Losing in 2016 might make more strategic sense than losing in 2020. Fine, give the GOP four years: The liberal case for either Bernie Sanders, or electing a Republican president by Walker Bragman (Salon).

What kind of experience does Bernie Sanders have? Let's take a look. Bernie Gets It Done: Sanders' Record of Pushing Through Major Reforms Will Surprise You by Zaid Jilani (AlterNet).

Want specifics?: Bernie Sanders Releases Details on Health Plan That Would Raise Taxes but, He Argues, Save on Costs by Yamiche Alcindor and Alan Rappeport (The New York Times).

The Clinton camp is lambasting Bernie Sanders' health care plan, but its critique is blatantly dishonest. Clinton's Health Care Attack Makes No Sense by Pat Garofalo (U.S.News).

Extra credit:
Rant o' the Day: How the Democratic Establishment Manipulates Us by JosephK74 (Daily Kos).

In a democracy, it's no one's "turn." In politics, nothing is "inevitable."

Hillary Clinton was the inevitable candidate in 2008.

But the more progressive elements of the Democratic Party united on Super Tuesday to stop her; nearly accidentally -- nobody really knew who Barack Obama was, we ended up with a better candidate and arguably a better chief executive. There's no reason this can't happen again, and, this time, because of Bernie Sanders' consistent thirty-year record of service, we know that we'd get not only a better candidate but also an immeasurably better president.

We are told we must support Clinton because it is "her turn," and because she will inevitably win (of course, the same promise was made for John Kerry and Mike Dukakis). But, since she is a militarist and a prime defender of her class' interests, how is that even a good thing?

You don't just get to break things

Since the Middle East refugee crisis is a consequence of America's militarized foreign policy, doesn't it follow that we have a moral responsibility to lend a hand to its victims?

Germany, with a population of about 80 million, is admitting between 200,000 and 300,000 displaced persons; since we are about four times bigger (and have a lot more room), in fairness, shouldn't we invite 800,000 and 1,200,000 souls to relocate here?

Alternatively, or additionally, shouldn't we mount a Marshall Plan-style program targeted on Greece, which not only is suffering the most from the influx of refugees but is also the victim of the predator banks that we unleashed?

The Long War is almost exclusively a U.S. project. Don't we have an obligation to take responsibility for what we've wrought?

From the Government Transparency Desk: The dog that didn’t bark

"Watch the feet not the mouth." -- Gabree Family maxim

Despite paying lip service to open government, the administration of Barack Obama has been among the most secretive in our history.

In addition to prosecuting whistle-blowers in record numbers, the White House has dragged its heels over appointments to watchdog positions.

Seven of the 33 inspector general posts in the Obama administration are being filled by temporary appointees, according to [a Senate] panel. Permanent IGs have been nominated for just three of the vacancies.

Four of the agencies without nominees for permanent inspector generals -- the Department of the Interior, the Veterans Administration, the Export Import Bank and the Central Intelligence Agency -- are among those that need oversight the most.

The rest of the story: Senate Panel Says Obama Administration Lacks Watchdogs by Brian Naylor (NPR)

We're all French

I have yet to see a sensible explanation of why the United States alone among its peers was absent from the Paris march. If the Secret Service was quaking in its government-issued brogans over the prospect of losing the president in a crowd, surely they can't be worried that anyone will waste ordnance on Joe Biden. Instead of the president or the vice-president, the U.S. dispatched our ambassador to Paris, Obama fundraiser Jane Hartley, who happens to live down the street.

After 9/11, the world lined up in solidarity with us; it is at the least very poor taste for us, when our oldest ally suffers the same fate, to send as our delegate a political hack with no stature here or in Europe. But there is a bigger picture, too. The attack on Charlie Hebdo, the murders of artists exercising one of the fundamental values of American and western political thought, was a blow against all our freedoms, not just freedom of expression (and, indeed, in the west, in Britain and the United States especially, there were immediate calls to save freedom by increasing the grasp and reach of the surveillance state).

Despite all the ups and downs of the relationship between the two nations (and the downs have to do mostly with right-wing politics in the U.S., anyway), the French are our friends and our allies. The day after the attack on the World Trade Center, the headline in Le Monde was "Nous sommes tous Américains;” this week, Muslims in France risked their lives to demonstrate fraternity with their fellow citizens; American leaders couldn't be bothered to show up. Obama has revealed himself, once again, to be politically tone deaf -- he was quoted in European papers as saying something to the effect that the murders were an assault on a universal value; but free speech and liberty in general are anything but "universal" values -- not only did millions of people have to give their lives to achieve them, but they are under perpetual attack, even in the western democracies where they are rhetorically enshrined, and must be constantly and rigorously defended.

When leaders of the free world gathered in the streets of the French capital this week to link arms in defense of freedom, everyone in the world could see at a glance that we were not among them. That the president doesn't appear to know that for reasons both practical and symbolic we should have been there is not just a cause for embarrassment and sorrow; it throws into silhouette the continuing question of the quality of his leadership in the two long years remaining in his term.

No learning curve. None. Zip. Zero.

The New York Times reports that "people familiar with the president’s thinking say that in 2015 he might use Keystone as a bargaining chip: He would offer Republicans approval of it in exchange for approval of one of his policies."

Charades

The New York Times says that "people familiar with the president’s thinking say that in 2015 he might use Keystone as a bargaining chip: He would offer Republicans approval of it in exchange for approval of one of his policies."

No learning curve. None. Zero. Zip. 

Ain't it the truth

"From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions we are making will define the type of nation and world that we leave to our children." -- President Barack Obama, 2013-05-23

Third party? Now? How about now? No? Maybe now?

The arguments for a People's Party become ever more compelling. Clinging to the faith that the Democrats any more than the Republicans will dismantle the corporate-security state is like believing in angels.

In a new book, Ralph Nader reminds us that the militarization of American diplomacy began with Bill Clinton and that Obama has doubled down on the excesses of George Bush and Dick Cheney. In Unstoppable, Nader demands an end to “unconstitutional wars and unchecked militarism.” Barack Obama, he writes, “has extended the Bush doctrine by declaring his unilateral right, as secret prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, to destroy anybody, anywhere in the world, including American citizens, suspected to be engaged in alleged terrorist activities, all this vaguely and loosely defined as anti-U.S. security," extending the illegal reach of wars of choice, invasions, incursions, and drone attacks, without regard for international law or national boundaries.

For the average citizen, the growth of corporate power bolstered by the security apparatus has been matched by a corresponding decline in quality of life. Enough is enough. Building new organizations, like a third party, and restoring old ones, like the Labor Movement, to challenge the status quo will not be easy. But without that effort, our national decline, now in its fifth decade. will continue until it is irreversible.

Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State by Ralph Nader (Amazon Kindle).

$15.15 or Fight!

As with affordable health care (and countless other matters), the job of moderate Democrats is to release the build up of pressure for real change (such as universal affordable health care insurance aka single-payer aka Medicare for All) by promoting incremental improvements. The president tonight will call for raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Context: Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently cited a study that suggested the federal minimum wage would be nearly $22 an hour today if it had kept up with increased rates in worker productivity. Progressives should be chary of embracing the president's proposal, because, as with health care reform, we have one shot at getting it right. $10.10 will lock millions of American workers in poverty forever, even if, as is unlikely, future increases are tied to the cost of living. Restaurant workers were on the money in calling for a $15 minimum in actions this year, but that won't fly politically. The president's $10.10 needs to be answered with something more just. Instead of $10.10, how about $15.15?