NewsTrust - Obama Administration - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Occupy Wall Street "Has Created Something That Didn't Really Exist" in U.S. — Solidarity

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 14 (Interview) - Noam Chomsky says the Occupy movement has helped rebuild class solidarity and communities of mutual support on a level unseen since the time of the Great Depression. "The Occupy movement spontaneously created something that doesn't really exist in the country: Communities of mutual support, cooperation, open spaces for discussion ... people doing things and helping each other," Chomsky says. "That's very much missing. There [has been] massive propaganda going on for a century, that you really shouldn't care about anyone else, just yourself ... To rebuild [class solidarity] -- even in small pieces of society -- can become very important, can change the conception of how society ought to function." Chomsky also gives his assessment of President Obama, whom he says has attacked civil liberties in a way that "goes beyond George W. Bush."

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Ousted Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed on the Coup That Ousted Him & His Climate Activism

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 29 (Interview) - Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, ousted in a coup several months ago, joins us in studio along with Jon Shenk, director of “The Island President,” a new documentary about Nasheed’s rise to power and his climate activism. The tiny Indian Ocean state of Maldives remains in a state of political turmoil seven weeks after Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected president was ousted in what he has described as a coup at gunpoint. Nasheed had become an internationally recognized leader on climate issues as he urged the world to do more to save small island states from rising sea waters. He once held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the Maldives. He also pledged to make the Maldives the first carbon neutral country and installed solar panels on the roof of his presidential residence.

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Rick Santorum's Dystopia of the Year 2014

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Paleofuture - By Matt Novak - Mar. 25 (Opinion) - According to Rick Santorum, if Obama is re-elected Americans will be forced to fill up their heads with gasoline Probably inspired by Hunger Games mania, Rick Santorum recently released the most dystopian campaign video we've seen in quite a while. Called "Obamaville," the video depicts the bleak world of 2014: President Obama has been re-elected, the playgrounds sit empty, freedom of religion is under attack, and apparently we're all cyborgs powered by putting gasoliine directly into our heads. THANKS A LOT OBAMA! As a fan of apocalyptic fiction, I watched closely and noticed a few interesting images that the campaign chose to include in the video. Some of the weirder images are below. If you notice the same timecode for some images it's because these images were only up for 2 or 3 frames, and trust me, that's where the gold is!

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Obama's Diplomacy in Iran: what went right, and what didn't

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

thebulletin.org - By David Shorr - Mar. 13 (Review) - The Obama administration started out by making strong diplomatic gestures to Iran, briefly yielding a fuel-swap deal in which Iran seemed interested. But as talks dissolved, the administration soon found itself wedded to steadily escalating sanctions with little maneuvering room left to pursue negotiations -- all while Iran ran down the clock and continued to enrich uranium. Parsi's book alternately challenges and praises the president -- mostly challenges -- while presenting a behind-the-scenes look at one of the greatest threats facing the United States as well as the acumen and dexterity it demands.

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What's the matter with white people?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Joan Walsh - Mar. 04 (Opinion) - Both the right and left suddenly have a lot of complaints about white people, particularly the so-called white working class. In “Suicide of a Superpower,” Pat Buchanan describes white Americans contemptuously at times, as an endangered species obliviously collaborating in its own demise by tolerating liberal multiculturalism. Charles Murray, the man who in the 1980s blamed government for encouraging sloth and single-parenthood in the black community, is now saying the same thing about the white lower class: they’re suffering from declining wages and higher unemployment not because of a changed economy, but because they’ve come to prefer slacking and shacking up to hard work and marriage. But white rich people are a problem, too: Murray’s book “Coming Apart: The State of White American 1960-2010″ indicts the white uber-class for refusing to impose their own traditional values, which he believes are the foundation of their economic success, on their lazy, out-of-control lessers.

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The Big Distractions

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Dissident Voice - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - The lesser of two evils is still… evil. Who decides what the American public focuses its attention upon on a day-to-day basis? With this nation at war with innumerable countries, with habeas corpus being tossed into the waste bin, with self-confessed tor

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Fact checking the AP fact checker

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Power Line - By Scott Johnson - Dec. 20 (Opinion) - According to Pete Yost last week in a superficial AP fact check story: “Republican presidential candidates have claimed that the Obama administration is cleansing government files of references to radical Islam, an assertion so juicy that politicians keep repeating it — even though it’s a wild exaggeration.” But I think the GOP candidates have it right, more or less, and Yost has it wrong. At least they are closer to the mark than Yost. See, for example, Cliff May’s NRO column “What’s Islam got to do with it?” (May cites a report by the Westminster Institute’s Katharine C. Gorka that notes: “Key national security documents have already excised all terminology that associates terrorism with Islam or Islamic concepts such as jihad.”) See also “Obama administration pulls references to Islam from terror training materials, official says.” (The story quotes purposefully ambiguous comments made by Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole at the George Washington University law school. My call yesterday to the Department of Justice for clarification went unreturned.)

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Obama Admin Denounced for "Startling Level of Obstructionism and Defeatism" on U.N. Climate Deal

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 09 (Interview) - For analysis on where the U.N. climate change talks stand, we are joined by two guests who have been closely tracking the role of the U.S. negotiating team over the past two weeks. Kate Horner is a policy analyst at Friends of the Earth, and Michael Dorsey is an assistant professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College. "In those briefings, we've seen, I think, a startling lack of vision, a startling level of obstructionism, of defeatism," Dorsey says. "And I think one way we could summarize those briefings is that the U.S. State Department diplomacy is about delay... What we've seen the U.S. try to force the world to do here is to sort of throw out the baby that's called Kyoto, which is an agreement that's legally binding, and get the world to drink the dirty water, the bath water that's left behind." [includes rush transcript]

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The Most Important Speech of His Presidency

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Robert Reich's Blog - By Robert Reich - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - The President’s speech today in Osawatomie, Kansas — where Teddy Roosevelt gave his “New Nationalism” speech in 1910 — is the most important economic speech of his presidency in terms of connecting the dots, laying out the reasons behind our economic and political crises, and asserting a willingness to take on the powerful and the privileged that have gamed the system to their advantage.

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Why Liberals Should Be Rooting for Romney

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Dan Kennedy - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - If Romney fails to win the nomination, it could be disastrous for the country, for the Republican Party and even for the Obama presidency. Let me take these one at a time.

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Obama's 2012 Chances and Democratic Demographic Dreaming

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Real Clear Politics - By Sean Trende - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - The latest report from Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin of the progressive Center for American Progress contains a thoughtful examination of President Obama's re-election chances. There's an awful lot packed into the 60 pages of text, but the basic thrust is

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Occupy Honolulu: Hawaiian Musician Makana Performs Protest Song to World Leaders at APEC Summit

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 14 (Interview) - within the heavily guarded compound where the summit took place, renowned Hawaiian musician and guitarist Makana carried out his own act of protest. Makana had been invited to play instrumental music at the gala dinner Saturday night. At the dinner, Makana opened his jacket to reveal a t-shirt which read, "Occupy with Aloha." Then, instead of performing the background instrumental he was scheduled to play, he started to sing a protest song he had released earlier that day.

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Afghanistan: “The War is Unwinnable: It is a Stalemate. There is No Victory”

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Jonathan Steele - Nov. 01 (Interview) - The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, now entering its eleventh year, shows no sign of ending. On Saturday, 12 U.S. soldiers died in a suicide bombing in Kabul. It was deadliest single ground attack against NATO forces in the decade of war. To discuss Afghanistan, we speak with Jonathan Steele, a longtime correspondent for the The Guardian newspaper and author of the new book, "Ghosts of Afghanistan: The Haunted Battleground.” “The [U.S. military strategy] doesn't work because you create new resistance by being there. So resistance comes 'cause you're there. You're not there because of the resistance. The occupying force itself creates the resistance,” Steele said. “And so the crucial thing now is to recognize now is that the war is unwinnable: It is a stalemate. There is no victory." [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Colombian, Korean and Panamanian Activists Condemn White House Support for New "Free Trade" Deals

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Oct. 11 (Interview) - Organizers from Colombia, Panama and South Korea held a teach-in at Occupy Wall Street on Monday about "free trade agreements" now pending in Congress that will expand the market for national corporations and financial corporations from the United States. "Essentially, it tries to institute once more the things that caused the financial crisis in the first place,” says Sukjong Hong, an organizer with Nodutdol for Korean Community Development. “It also opens the door to outsourcing more American jobs." Carlos Salamanca, member of AFSCME Local 372, adds that the Colombian free trade agreement “is the continuation of what is going on in Colombia, supporting the government who is not doing anything to stop the killing of workers in Colombia, the union members, the human rights activists, and the persecution against the indigenous and the Afro-Colombian leadership over there." [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Obama’s Plan a Massive Tax CUT Despite GOP Claims of “Largest Tax Hike in Modern History”

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ctj.org - Sep. 22 (Press Release) - While House Republican Leader Eric Cantor’s staff and others have called President Obama’s jobs and deficit plan the “largest tax hike in modern history,” the unfortunate truth is that it actually cuts taxes overall and increases the deficit. ... Unfortunately, ... President Obama’s proposals would ultimately reduce taxes far more than raise them, compared to current law.

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Stewart to "Confidence Men" Author on Obama White House: Larry Summers is, By Unanimous Consent An "Asshole" | AlterNet

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Sep. 21 (Comedy News) - Two of the big stories out of that book have been about the problems with advisors like Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, and with the complaints of women working in the White House. Last night Suskind sat down with Jon Stewart, and besides Larry Summers life-long dickishness, they discussed Obama's leadership style and some of the snafus in the White House.

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Smog v. Jobs: Is Obama Admin Endangering U.S. Environment, Public Health With Retreat on Smog Standards?

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 07 (Interview) - As the nation headed into Labor Day weekend, the Obama administration quietly asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw a plan to limit smog pollution that was projected to prevent 2,200 heart attacks and 23,000 asthma attacks annually. Obama said he made the decision in hopes of reducing regulatory burdens for businesses in a time of economic uncertainty. The move was seen as a major victory for polluters and some business leaders, and another setback for environmentalists. We host a debate with John Walke, the Clean Air Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Dr. Roger McClellan, adjunct professor at the Duke University Medical Center and past chairman of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Could a better narrative save Obama’s presidency?

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Poynter Institute - By Latoya Peterson, Sarah Fidelibus - Aug. 10 (Opinion) - Last weekend, Emory psychology professor Drew Westen crafted a narrative for the op-ed section of The New York Times, in which he argued that President Barack Obama’s failure to shape a national narrative has led to a failure to enact progressive policies. Westen’s premise resonated loudly with the online audience. The column was the most emailed story on the Times site Sunday, and the Op-Ed was shared widely on Twitter — often with praise attached.

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Slouching Toward a Double-Dip, for No Good Reason

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Robert Reich - Aug. 08 (Opinion) - Imagine your house is burning. You call the fire department but your call isn't answered because every fire fighter in town is debating whether there will be enough water to fight fires over the next ten years, even though water is plentiful right now. (Yes, there's a long-term problem.) One faction won't even allow the fire trucks out of the garage unless everyone agrees to cut water use. An agency that rates fire departments has just issued a downgrade, causing everyone to hoard water. While all this squabbling continues, your house burns to the ground and the fire has now spread to your neighbors' homes. But because everyone is preoccupied with the wrong question (the long-term water supply) and the wrong solution (saving water now), there's no response. In the end, the town comes up with a plan for the water supply over the next decade, but it's irrelevant because the whole town has been turned to ashes.

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Drew Westen's Nonsense

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Chait - Aug. 08 (Opinion) - There are some strong criticisms to be made of the Obama administration from the left, especially concerning Obama's passive response to the debt ceiling hostage crisis, and his frightening willingness to give away the store to John Boehner. I've made many of these criticisms myself. But Drew Westen's lengthy, attention-grabbing Sunday New York Times op-ed is not a strong criticism. It's a parody of liberal fantasizing.

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Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

theonion.com - Aug. 05 (Comedy News) - WASHINGTON—After months of heated negotiations and failed attempts to achieve any kind of consensus, President Obama turned 50 years old Thursday, drawing strong criticism from Republicans in Congress.

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Jon Stewart Rips President Obama For Debt Ceiling 'Dealageddon' (VIDEO)

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jon Stewart - Aug. 02 (Comedy News) - video

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I Counseled All My Clients To Plead Insanity

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Common Dreams - By Christopher Cooper - Jul. 29 (Opinion) - if Breivik is crazy, a great many Americans and most of the big boys in D.C. Are crazy. But if the Norwegian shooter-bomber is sane, and culpable and should be tried and sentenced (and most would suggest executed, I imagine), then we had better get started drafting juries and hiring judges because our list of mass-murderers is a long and bipartisan one.

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Can Obama Pull a Clinton on the GOP?

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Reich - Jul. 18 (Opinion) - 'It's no accident that President Obama appears to be following the Clinton script. After all, it worked. Despite a 1994 midterm election that delivered Congress to the GOP and was widely seen as a repudiation of his presidency.' Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

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Can Obama shame Republicans on the debt ceiling?

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Joan Walsh - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - Is President Obama proving his political genius by floating a plan for a $4 trillion deficit cut deal to lift the debt ceiling, offering entitlement cuts that will enrage parts of his base knowing he'll never face their wrath, because far-right Republicans will never take the deal? It could be.

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