governmentality

Obama's White House "Job" Fair

Hang Obama By F*ck Haiti Earthquake Facebook Group

This disgusting image from Fuck the Haiti Earthquake Facebook group.

Their mission:

Why should we give our money to a country that was piss poor to begin with? You know... the money we supposedly didn't have to bail out companies. Oh, and the fact that we're giving them 18 month visas to come work here at the jobs we supposedly didn't have?

FUCK THAT

Strangely, they think they don't violate Facebook usage policy

Face Book Tried To Remove Us If You Do This Again I Will Contact The ACLU As The Previous Group Did Not Violate Your Terms Of Use The Removal Was Censorship

UPDATE 12:31pm: The image has already been taken down from the site. It's not clear whether the group's administrators took it down, or Facebook or another authority. Time for a little more digging.

Kucinich To Obama: "We Could Lose Our Country"

Yesterday, Dennis Kucinich commented to Raw Story that Obama's State of the Union address as moving in the right direction, but that if he isn't "much bolder" the risk is that "we could lose our country."

Kucinich, a key member of the progressive caucus, is asking the president to push forward, full team ahead, on a number of issues that put Obama in the White House in the first place. 

"It would be helpful if he could take a page from Franklin Roosevelt," Kucinich told Raw Story in an exclusive interview. "FDR saw the need for broad structural changes in the economy and also the need for government to invest and put America back to work."

Read the full report at Raw Story.

David Frum Loves a Fight, Unless Obama's the Fighter

If you haven't checked out the all-new AlterNet yet, you should do that now with my new post on their re-launch day.

David Frum Loves a Fight, Unless Obama's the Fighter

I’ve always found it humorous (and occasionally infuriating) when a clearly partisan commentator offers advice–helpful hints–to presidents or other figures on the other side of the aisle, as though they are genuinely trying to help.

The newest? David Frum’s weekly CNN.com column, “‘Obama the populist’ doesn’t ring true.” Before stepping in front of the country on Wednesday to give his first State of the Union address, Frum wanted to give some friendly advice to President Obama.

But not without one of Frum’s signature backhanded lead-ins:

The president will respond as he always does to emergencies: with a speech. In this case, it’s his State of the Union address. The Obama team always assumes the best remedy for any Obama difficulty is more Obama.

Read the rest of "David Frum Loves a Fight, Unless Obama's the Fighter" at AlterNet.

Is This What You Want the State of the Union to Be?

Was Obama Naive on Israeli-Palestinian Peace?

It looks like Obama is finally starting to understand how difficult (but not impossible) Israeli-Palestinian peace will be.

From al-Arabiya:

As his envoy George Mitchell began a fresh attempt to get the two sides talking to each other, Obama told Time Magazine: "This is just really hard ... and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high."

Obama said his administration had underestimated the internal political constraints preventing bold peace moves by either camp and 2009 had ended without the kind of breakthrough he set out to achieve at the start of his term.

What I hope this means is that the Obama Middle East team figures out what it will do a few moves in advance, given different scenarios.

I keep thinking about how George Mitchell was sent to tell Netanyahu to stop building the settlements. Netanyahu said no and the U.S. had absolutely no response. End of negotiation. Mitchell came home. It was as though the Obama team had never considered this as a possible reaction, which was shocking.

What If They're Right?

Policy Report: Obama Should Learn Defense Budget Lessons from French

My new piece at truthout on Obama and defense spending...

Policy Report: Obama Should Learn Defense Budget Lessons from French

Thursday 17 December 2009
by: Allen McDuffee, t r u t h o u t | Report

In an era when defense contractors monopolize technical expertise and determine pricing while Congress protects parochial interests, President Obama would do well to adopt lessons from French Defense, according to a recent Washington, DC think tank report.

The report ("Smart Defense Acquisition: Learning from French Procurement Reform") published by the Center for New American Security (CNAS)  and authored by CNAS nonresident senior fellow Ethan B. Kapstein, suggests that the $110 billion military procurement budget - the single largest discretionary item in the federal budget - undergo a reduction in the same fashion the French did in the late 1980s and early '90s, resulting in a 20 percent decrease in the procurement budget between 1990 and 1997.

Read the full report here.

Obama Interruptus

The Numbers Aren't There: Army Data on Afghanistan

Obama's expected to announce his decision on troops in Afghanistan shortly after he returns from his Asia tour. Spencer's got the numbers and they're not good, no matter how you look at it.

If President Obama orders an additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, he will be deploying practically every available U.S. Army brigade to war, leaving few units in reserve in case of an unforeseen emergency and further stressing a force that has seen repeated combat deployments since 2002.

According to information compiled by the U.S. Army for The Washington Independent about the deployment status of active-duty and National Guard Army brigades, as of December 2009, there will be about 50,600 active-duty soldiers, serving in 14 combat brigades, and as many as 24,000 National Guard soldiers available for deployment. All other soldiers and National Guardsmen will either be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan already or ineligible to deploy while they rest from a previous deployment.

Read Spencer's full report at The Washington Independent and you'll see how this is all about to go down. Lots of nifty graphs too.