AlterNet: America's Rich Citizens Can't Escape Our Poor Public Infrastructure

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of "Nickel and Dimed," is an expert on poverty in America.  In this post, she makes the point that even the ultra-rich can't get away from the poverty that they have helped to create. 

What this means is that even the very rich cannot escape into their own little bubble of purity and excellence, of “haute” this and “haute” that. Ride around in a limo and you still have to sit in traffic created by ordinary people who can’t afford to live near where they work. Fly in a private jet and you’re still dependent on archaic, underfinanced, systems of air traffic control. Travel first class on the Acela train and you still have to stare out at the rotting environs of Philadelphia and Newark. Oh, and you lobbied against higher taxes and regulations on business? Then think twice before you sink your teeth into that chocolate and gold dessert. The vermin are always with you.

AlterNet: America's Rich Citizens Can't Escape Our Poor Public Infrastructure

No Drinking Liberally Monday Night

Monday Night's Drinking Liberally meeting is canceled in commemoration of Veteran's Day.  Join us November 26th at a new location for the next exciting get together! 

Goodbye to All That

A fascinating article about Barack Obama by Andrew Sullivan in the Atlantic.  It offers a perspective of why Obama's candidacy, and if elected, his presidency, could move this country in a new, positive direction.  Sullivan believes that Obama  is the catalyst for finding, exploring, and bringing about common ground as a matter of principle.  Sullivan believes Obama could bring together varied interests within this country, and take this country to a place where it is viewed both as a leader and a partner on the global front.  

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.

Goodbye to All That

Talking Points Memo | Dean on Mukasey

John Dean has a few thoughts on the pending approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee of Judge Mukasey 's AG appointment.  I agree with him:

Since Judge Mukasey’s situation is not unlike that facing Elliot Richardson when he was appointed Attorney General during Watergate, why should not the Senate Judiciary Committee similarly make it a quid pro quo for his confirmation that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate war crimes? Richardson was only confirmed when he agreed to appoint a special prosecutor, which, of course, he did. And when Nixon fired that prosecutor, Archibald Cox, it lead to his impeachment.

Before the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee completely cave-in to Bush, at minimum they should demand that Judge Mukasey appoint a special prosecutor to investigate if war crimes have been committed. If Mukasey refuses he should be rejected. This, indeed, should be a pre-condition to anyone filling the post of Attorney General under Bush.

If the Democrats in the Senate refuse to demand any such requirement, it will be act that should send chills down the spine of every thinking American.

Talking Points Memo | Dean on Mukasey

This is a sad time in American history.  And, unfortunately, congressional Democrats have to take much of the blame.  We all know and are saddened by what has happened in the Bush Administration.  But the fact that it is being ignored by our duly elected representatives is sadder still.