February 2011
49 posts
Jon Huntsman resigning as Ambassador to China →
Team Obama’s gambit to sideline Jon Hunstman as a contender for the Republican nomination for president appears to have failed. The former Utah governor, who resigned shortly after winning a second term in 2008 to take the job of ambassador to China, has told the White House he wants to be relieved of his responsibilities within the next few months.
Teacher, my dad lost his job. Do we have to move?
From NPI alumnus Garlin Gilchrist II :
Yet another symptom of the recession not being over - NYTimes: Teacher, My Dad Lost His Job. Do We Have to Move? http://nyti.ms/gGOb2R
“The NFL runs itself in a way that would fit nicely on Glenn Beck’s...”
– Excerpt from Bill Maher’s “What makes NFL football so great: Socialism”
January 2011
35 posts
“For me, Omar Suleiman being appointed VP means that he’s in charge. This...”
– Issandr El Amrani, writing for The Arabist, on the latest developments in Egypt.
Learn from our mistakes: A letter from an Iranian... →
A wise Iranian urges Egyptian protesters not to inject religion in government, not to punish civil servants for the misdeeds committed by the dictatorship, and not to destroy the country’s commons.
“We measure progress by the success of our people. By the jobs they can find and...”
– Excerpt from President Obama’s prepared State of the Union remarks for tonight, courtesy of the White House
And the nominees are...
The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be held in just a few weeks. The nominees were announced this morning. “The King’s Speech” led with twelve nominations; “The Social Network”, which did well at the Golden Globes, garnered eight. Here are the Best Picture nominees:
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception”
“The Kids Are All Right ”
“The King’s Speech”
“127...
Statement of events: Bradley Manning’s primary... →
Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher, and computer scientist and MIT researcher David House were harassed by military police while attempting to pass through the installation’s checkpoint today on their way to visit Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned following the military’s discovery that he had leaked classified documents to WikiLeaks. House is the only person who regularly visits...
“Keith is an innovator and an extremely talented broadcaster who showed there was...”
– Media Matters founder and CEO David Brock (author of The Republican Noise Machine), expressing the sentiments of many progressives after Keith Olbermann announced that today’s edition of Countdown would be the last.
“There were many occasions, particularly in the last two and a half years, where...”
– Keith Olbermann, announcing the end of his eponymous program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, just a few minutes before 6 PM Pacific Time.
“They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution....”
– Fox Noise Channel host Glenn Beck, assailing Democratic leaders on the June 10th, 2010 episode of his hate-filled “show”.
Looking beneath the anti-union label of South... →
The Seattle Times’ Jon Talton explains that anti-union policies haven’t been leading to more prosperity in South Carolina, where the establishment has conspired with business executives to make it harder for workers to legally organize.
Police seize weapons cache from right wing... →
Authorities in Arlington, Massachusetts have seized a large weapons cache from a right wing eliminationist named Travis Corcoran whose response to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords was to post a blog entry (since removed) sneering, “1 down, 534 to go” (referring to the other members of Congress). He also offered guidance to other would-be assassins: ““It is absolutely,...
“The Comcast-NBCU joint venture opens the door to the cable-ization of the open...”
– Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps, decrying his colleagues’ decision to allow Comcast to acquire a controlling stake in NBC Universal.
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“I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history....”
– Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway (December 10th, 1964)
“We used to be the arsenal of democracy. With the events of this weekend, our...”
– Drew Westen, writing about gun violence and the lessons of Tucson for the Huffington Post
JPMorgan Chase reports big profits for 2010 →
Recession? What recession? JPMorgan Chase announced today that it made $17.4 billion in profit in 2010, an increase of forty eight percent from 2009. Despite bank executives’ whining about the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill, they’re clearly doing just fine.
Conservative "civility project" dies due to right... →
Conservative Mark DeMoss’ effort to get other conservatives to behave more decently has, after just a few years, ended in failure (there’s a shocker). It turns out that the right wing just can’t bring itself to get out of bed with bigotry and hatred.
Seriously? School district justifies sending a kid...
As if we needed another absurd incident in our public schools over which to argue about, the geniuses who govern Tacoma’s Truman Middle School decided today to send home a seventh grader who worse a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey on “Seattle Seahawks Appreciation Day.”
It turns out Truman is one of those schools which stupidly requires that students wear uniforms. An exception was...
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“I want to live up to her expectations… I want our democracy to be as good...”
– President Barack Obama, issuing a stirring call for unity, community service, and cooperation, using the logic of progressive values.
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“Imagine — imagine for a moment, here was a young girl who was just becoming...”
– President Barack Obama, eulogizing nine-year old Christina Taylor Green, the youngest victim of the tragic shooting rampage in Tucson, who was unconscionably gunned down at Gabrielle Giffords’ “Congress on Your Corner” on Saturday.
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“Gabby opened her eyes. Gabby opened her eyes, so I can tell you she knows we are...”
– President Barack Obama, breaking the news that Representative Gabrielle Giffords is miraculously recovering from a serious gunshot injury faster than doctors could have believed.
“Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm… Every time I look at...”
– William Henderson of Indiana University, one of many exasperated law professors who the New York Times says are asking the American Bar Association to overhaul the way law schools assess themselves
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“When you want to sync your browsing history between several browsers, several...”
– Mozilla’s Tristan Nitot, highlighting Mozilla’s concern for user privacy in an interview with TechRadar’s Jono Bacon
In WikiLeaks fight, U.S. journalists take a pass →
McClatchy files an in-depth, well-written report about the traditional media’s reluctance to defend WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in the wake of Cablegate.
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“It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to...”
– The New York Times, editorializing against the bigotry, hatred, and conspiracy theories spewed by the Republican Noise Machine, which have already resulted in, and will continue to lead to, other acts of violence.
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“We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list… But the thing is the way that she...”
– U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, in March of 2010, several seasons prior to today’s senseless attack on her at her constituent event,
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“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes...”
– Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, castigating the Republican Noise Machine’s hate talkers for inflaming tensions and causing divisiveness in America.
Washington considers whether to allow plant that... →
The Los Angeles Times reports on the increasing attention and scrutiny that a coal export facility on the Columbia River in Longview is receiving from the environmental community. (NPI opposes the facility).
Anonymous speech: The good, the bad, and the ugly →
Florida International University professor Stanley Fish explores the pros and cons of anonymous speech (which is protected by the First Amendment) in a thought-provoking piece for the New York Times.