Third Way puts words in my mouth to defend Zell Miller

Third Way leaps to the defense of Zell Miller.

So Third Way took a shot at me today, using Politico as their vehicle, because I guess having no constituency is no barrier to access if you have enough hedge fund managers on your board.

Politico has given me space to respond, so I’ll save my substantive rebuttal for that venue. But I do want to make a couple of quick points. First of all, it’s easy to see why it’s happening.

It happened because Third Way co-founder Jonathan Cowan was once an aide to Andrew Cuomo, who is the second coming of Joe Lieberman. I’ve been beating up on Cuomo lately, so Third Way is leaping to his defense by attacking me. Fair enough.

It happened because Third Way’s efforts to kill Social Security didn’t just run up into a buzzsaw at Daily Kos, but our activism convinced Democrats to run far, far away from what they urged. They even lost a co-chair in the process. Fair enough.

It happened because of this. Fair enough.

But what’s truly funny about their attacks on me is that they have to invent words in my mouth to make a coherent argument. I’ve written over 10 million words the past decade, and yet we get passages like this:

A charge implicit in the Moulitsas post is that moderate Democrats lack political courage—that they would do the right thing if only they were brave enough. This just doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

You rarely see that blatant an example of a strawman argument. It’s actually a thing of beauty. “He didn’t say this thing, but let’s pretend that he did, and OMG that pretend argument that we invented out of thin air fails scrutiny!”

Note that bullshit arguments are part and parcel of Third Way’s repertoire. As they were attacking Social Security, they completely invented a Colorado ballot initiative that wasn’t (claiming it raised taxes on just the rich, when it raised taxes on everyone). So it’s not as if honesty comes naturally to that crowd. But for now, I’ll make one more observation. This appears to be the nut of their argument:

Of the 10 former Democratic senators that Moulitsas identifies, seven were replaced by Republicans, one by Montanan John Walsh, who is in a fight for his political life this year, and another by Democrat Joe Donnelly of Indiana, who is unlikely to make the DailyKos Pantheon of Progressiveness.

Donnelly didn’t replace Evan Bayh. He replaced Dick Lugar. But that simple fact check isn’t the point I want to make. The point is this:

Who cares if seven of the 10 were replaced with Republicans? Ten years ago, Democrats had 49 members in the Senate. Today they have 53 plus Bernie Sanders and Angus King. And even if they lose the Senate this year, which they won’t, it won’t be much more than a rental as 2016 is a stellar map for us (up to 10 potential pickups).

So is it better to have Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller in a 49-seat minority, or is it better to replace them with better Democrats in a 55-seat Democratic majority? Only morons would argue for the former, but apparently, that’s what Third Way wants to be.

Daily Kos

Third Way puts words in my mouth to defend Zell Miller

Ukraine leader puts military on high alert

Troops in unmarked uniforms stand guard in Balaklava on the outskirts of Sevastopol, Ukraine, Saturday, March 1, 2014. An emblem on one of the vehicles and their number plates identify them as belonging to the Russian military. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of sending new troops into Crimea, a strategic Russia-speaking region that hosts a major Russian navy base. The Kremlin hasn’t responded to the accusations, but Russian lawmakers urged President Putin to act to protect Russians in Crimea. (AP Photo/Andrew Lubimov)

Troops in unmarked uniforms stand guard in Balaklava on the outskirts of Sevastopol, Ukraine, Saturday, March 1, 2014. An emblem on one of the vehicles and their number plates identify them as belonging to the Russian military. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of sending new troops into Crimea, a strategic Russia-speaking region that hosts a major Russian navy base. The Kremlin hasn’t responded to the accusations, but Russian lawmakers urged President Putin to act to protect Russians in Crimea. (AP Photo/Andrew Lubimov)

A wounded pro-Western activist sits after clashes with pro-Russia activists at the local administration building in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 1, 2014. Supporters of new Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russia demonstrators clashed in Kharkiv, a mostly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine. (AP Photo/Olga Ivashchenko)

Local residents carry Russian flags and shout slogans rallying over the streets of Crimean capital Simferopol, Ukraine, on Saturday, March 1, 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin asked parliament Saturday for permission to use the country’s military in Ukraine, moving to formalize what Ukrainian officials described as an ongoing deployment of Russian military on the country’s strategic region of Crimea. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

A gunman in unmarked uniform stands guard as troops take control the the Coast Guard offices in Balaklava, outskirts of Sevastopol, Ukraine, Saturday, March 1, 2014. The word in the background reads “To Sevastopol”. An emblem on one of the vehicles and their number plates identify them as belonging to the Russian military. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of sending new troops into Crimea, a strategic Russia-speaking region that hosts a major Russian navy base. (AP Photo/Andrew Lubimov)

An unidentified man guards the entrance to a local government building in Simferopol, Ukraine, on Saturday, March 1, 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin asked parliament Saturday for permission to use the country’s military in Ukraine, moving to formalize what Ukrainian officials described as an ongoing deployment of Russian military on the country’s strategic region of Crimea. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

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Ukraine leader puts military on high alert

North Korea Puts Yorkshire Terriers In Zoo

A zoo in North Korea has reportedly welcomed its newest animal attraction – a pack of Yorkshire Terriers.

The miniature dogs have been introduced to Central Zoo in the capital Pyongyang, according to state media.

Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said the dogs are now learning “several feats”, although it did not elaborate on the type of tricks they might perform.

North Koreans not familiar with ‘Yorkies’, which were bred in Yorkshire to catch rats and mice by scuttling around clothing mills, were given a helpful guide to the pint-sized pet.

“Each one has long hair – tan on its head and legs and blue grey on its body,” KCNA reported.

“It is 22-24cm tall and weighs 2.5-3.5kg. It lives about 14 years on an average.”

A picture released by KCNA appeared to show three Yorkshire Terriers in seemingly good condition.

However, Central Zoo was previously condemned by travel publication Lonely Planet, whose website claims most of the animals kept there “look pretty forlorn”.

“Worst off are the big cats, nearly all gifts of long-dead communist big wigs around the world – the wonderful lions, tigers and leopards are kept in woefully inadequate compounds, and many have lost the plot as a result,” it says.

“The zoo’s two elephants and its hippo all look exceptionally lacklustre as well.”

Footage uploaded to YouTube in December 2012 by documentary maker Alun Hill appeared to show bears and elephants trudging around largely concrete enclosures, and tigers staring at visitors from behind bars.

According to the video, the zoo houses more than 6,000 animals of about 650 different species in 60 animal shed and aquariums.

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North Korea Puts Yorkshire Terriers In Zoo

NAF Puts Anti-Zionism on the Table

The New America Foundation (NAF) is one of the most prosperous and influential think tanks in Barack Obama’s Washington. It’s run by Anne-Marie Slaughter, who was director of policy planning in the Obama State Department from 2009 to 2011. Its executive board is chaired by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and is filled with luminaries of the world of finance like Steve Rattner (Obama’s “car czar”), media stars like Fareed Zakaria, public intellectuals like Francis Fukuyama and even a token centrist like Walter Russell Mead as well as the likes of George Soros’s son Jonathan. In other words, it’s about as connected to the pulse of the Obama-era capital as you can be outside of the West Wing. While the NAF’s positions are predictably liberal, it has tried to position itself as a new age, high-tech group that is in the business of selling the world post-partisan answers to the country’s problems that emphasize “big ideas, impartial analysis and pragmatic solutions.” That generally is translated into programs promoting liberal ideas about education, jobs, investment, and the future of Afghanistan, just to cherry-pick some of the topics explored at events sponsored by the group in November. But next month, the NAF will put something different on the agenda: anti-Zionism.

The occasion is a December 4 book event at the foundation headquarters featuring Max Blumenthal, author of a risible anti-Zionist rant titled Goliath that was brought to our attention by an excellent article by historian Ron Radosh at Pajamas Media. We need not waste much time rehashing the book’s complete lack of intellectual merit or integrity. Suffice it to say its purpose is to libel the State of Israel as not merely an apartheid state but as a successor to the Nazis. His goal is not to force its withdrawal from the West Bank or to reform it in any matter but to work for its abolishment and replacement with a new Arab state in which those of the six million Jews who care to say will be forced to assimilate into Arab society rather than maintain a separate national identity. As I wrote earlier this month, even a virulent left-wing critic of Israel as Eric Alterman dismissed it in the pages of the Nation as the “‘I Hate Israel’ Handbook” and speculated that it would make a worthy choice for publication by “the Hamas Book of the Month Club (if it existed),” though lamentably it was put in print by his own magazine’s publishing arm.

Fortunately, most serious reviewers of books, including those on the left, have ignored Blumenthal’s trash. That is as it should be, not because bad ideas should be suppressed but because hatred and bias such as that advocated by Blumenthal do not deserve to be treated as a serious intellectual proposition up for debate. Yet that is exactly what the NAF is doing by inviting Blumenthal with the sort of breathless prose that is in the announcement on their website, calling the book “an unflinching, unprecedented work of journalism.” That means the issue here isn’t whether Blumenthal is an Israel-hater but how it is that a well-heeled and highly influential organization like the NAF has decided that anti-Zionist screeds are what they want their members to discuss. The point is not that Blumenthal will, even with the NAF’s help, persuade Americans to support dismantling Israel, but what it says about liberal elites that they think this is the sort of thing that should be on their agenda.

Let’s specify that NAF has not explicitly endorsed Blumenthal’s ideas. As Radosh notes, it’s doubtful that their board was consulted about the decision to host his book tour. But all the disclaimers in the world won’t change the fact that by choosing to associate their institution with a book that smears Israelis as Nazis and calls for its destruction, the NAF has crossed a line that no decent individual or group should even approach. Moreover, by doing so they are also sending a dangerous signal in the world of D.C. ideas that talk about doing away with Israel is no longer confined, as it should be, to the fever swamps of the far left or the far right. Instead, thanks to the Nation and its friends at the New America Foundation, open hatred against Israel and the campaign to delegitimize Zionism have now been given an undeserved veneer of respectability in Barack Obama’s Washington.

In one sense, it is hardly surprising that Slaughter’s group would embrace Blumenthal’s book at the same time that the current head of the State Department is counseling Congress to “ignore” Israeli concerns about Iran and betraying its democratic ally with deals that legitimize Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But policy disagreements are one thing; putting anti-Zionism on the agenda as a worthy discussion point is quite another. Just as it would be a scandal if some conservative think tank of comparable stature hosted an author of an openly racist book or one advocating the virtues of slavery, there is something shocking and fundamentally indecent about NAF’s decision to host a writer who is the moral equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan’s David Duke. It may be too much to hope that board members speak up and seek to cancel this event. But if they don’t, the NAF will lend its prestige to a disreputable author and cause and find itself tainted as an aider and abettor of anti-Israel hate.

Commentary Magazine

NAF Puts Anti-Zionism on the Table

Vatican Puts St. Peter"s Bones On Display For The First Time

Vatican Puts St. Peter"s Bones On Display For The First Time
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In the Vatican today, a surreal scene:

That’s Pope Francis, the 266th Bishop of Rome, holding what the church believes are the bone fragments of St. Peter, the apostle and the first bishop of Rome.

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For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, relics of St. Peter the apostle (fragments of bone) are displayed for veneration.

Franco Origlia/Getty Images

For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, relics of St. Peter the apostle (fragments of bone) are displayed for veneration.

Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Pope Francis cradled the relics during a mass at St. Peter’s Square, which marked the end of the global church’s Year of Faith. It was also the first time the Catholic Church has displayed the relics in public.

The Guardian reports there is much mystery and intrigue concerning the eight pieces of bone. No pope has ever definitively said the bones are the remains of St. Peter, but in 1968 Pope Paul VI said the bones found underneath St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican had been “identified in a way that we can consider convincing.”

The AP reports that archaeologists dispute the finding.

But the story is still alluring. The Guardian bases its story on The Ears of the Vatican, the 2012 book by Bruno Bartoloni. According to the book, the relics were discovered in 1939, as archaeologists were excavating in the grottoes of St. Peter’s Basilica to bury Pope Pius XI.

As they worked, they discovered a casket with an engraving in Greek that read, “Peter is here.”

The Guardian continues:

“The scholar of Greek antiquities Margherita Guarducci, who had deciphered the engraving, continued to investigate and learned that one of the basilica workers had been given the remains found inside the casket and stored them in a shoe box kept in a cupboard. She reported her findings to Paul VI, who later proclaimed there was a convincing argument that the bones belonged to Peter.

“Leading Vatican Jesuits and other archaeologists strongly denied the claim, but had little recourse.

“‘No pope had ever permitted an exhaustive study, partly because a 1,000-year-old curse attested by secret and apocalyptic documents, threatened anyone who disturbed the peace of Peter’s tomb with the worst possible misfortune,’ Bartoloni wrote.”

Rocco Palmo, who runs Whispers in the Loggia, the blog of record on the Vatican, writes that today’s mass brings to an end what’s been an extraordinary “year of faith” for the church in an extraordinarily surreal way.

During the past year, Palmo explains, we saw the first papal resignation since the 14th Century and then the College of Cardinals chose the first pope “from outside Europe in over a millennium.”

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Shutdown threat puts pressure on House Republicans

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013. Heat is building on balkanized Republicans, who are convening the House this weekend in hopes of preventing a government shutdown but remain under tea party pressure to battle on and use a must-do funding bill to derail all or part of President Barack Obama’s health care law. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013. Heat is building on balkanized Republicans, who are convening the House this weekend in hopes of preventing a government shutdown but remain under tea party pressure to battle on and use a must-do funding bill to derail all or part of President Barack Obama’s health care law. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013. Heat is building on balkanized Republicans, who are convening the House this weekend in hopes of preventing a government shutdown but remain under tea party pressure to battle on and use a must-do funding bill to derail all or part of President Barack Obama’s health care law. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers from both parties urged one another in a rare weekend session to give ground in their fight over preventing a federal shutdown, with the midnight Monday deadline fast approaching.

But there was no sign of yielding Saturday in a down-to-the-wire struggle that tea party lawmakers are using to try derailing President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Obama, in his weekly radio and Internet address, accused House Republicans of being more concerned “with appeasing an extreme faction of their party than working to pass a budget.”

With pressure mounting on splintered Republicans, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, scheduled a closed-door, lunchtime meeting of GOP lawmakers to see what, if any, legislation he could push through that might prevent large parts of the government from shuttering.

Failure to pass a short-term measure to keeping the government running would mean the first partial closing in almost 20 years.

With nothing much to work on, House members took to their chamber’s floor and mixed name-calling with cries for compromise.

“I’ve got a titanium backbone. Let ‘em blame, let ‘em talk, it’s fine,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., about Democratic claims that the GOP would be at fault if the government must close.

She said the GOP wanted to keep the government open, but also wanted to reduce its size and “delay, defund, repeal and replace Obamacare,” as the health law is known.

Should the House approve legislation on the looming shutdown, a vote seemed most likely Sunday, leaving little time for the Senate to respond on Monday.

Senators on Friday sent a bill to the House that would keep the government’s doors open until Nov. 15. But Democrats removed a provision to defund the health law, officially called the Affordable Care Act.

The Senate’s 54-44 vote was strictly along party lines in favor of the bill, which would prevent a shutdown of nonessential government services.

That followed a 79-19 vote to cut off a filibuster by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that exposed a rift among Republicans eager to prevent a shutdown and those, like Cruz, who seem willing to risk one over the health overhaul.

All 52 Democrats, two independents and 25 of 44 Republicans voted in favor. That included Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and most of the GOP leadership.

Cruz was trying to rally House conservatives to continue the battle over heath care. He was urging them to reject efforts by Boehner and other GOP leaders to offer scaled-back assaults on the law such as repealing a tax on medical devices as the House response.

Some conservatives were taking their cues from Cruz rather than party leaders such as Boehner hoping to avoid a shutdown. Closing down the government could weaken Republicans heading into an even more important battle later in October over allowing the government to borrow more money.

“We now move on to the next stage of this battle,” Cruz said after the Senate vote. He told reporters he had had numerous conversations with fellow conservatives in recent days.

“I am confident the House of Representatives will continue to stand its ground, continue to listen to the American people and … stop this train wreck, this nightmare that is Obamacare,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned that the Senate will not accept any House measure that contains provisions opposed by Democrats.

He knows better than anyone that any single senator could slow down the Senate’s ability to return yet another version to the House.

“This is it. Time is gone,” Reid said.

If lawmakers miss the deadline, hundreds of thousands of nonessential federal workers would have to stay home on Tuesday.

Critical services such patrolling the borders, inspecting meat and controlling air traffic would continue. Social Security benefits would be sent and the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs for the elderly and poor would continue to pay doctors and hospitals.

The new health insurance exchanges would open Tuesday, a development that’s lent urgency to the drive to use a normally routine stopgap spending bill to gut implementation of the law.

___

Associated Press writers Josh Lederman and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

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Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Shutdown threat puts pressure on House Republicans

NY Case Puts N-word Use Among Blacks on Trial

A federal jury has rejected the argument that use of the N-word among blacks can be a culturally acceptable term of love and endearment, deciding its use in the workplace is hostile and discriminatory no matter what.

Jurors last week awarded $ 250,000 in compensatory damages to a black employment agency worker who was the target of an N-word-laced rant by her black boss, and they return to a Manhattan federal court Tuesday to decide on punitive damages.

The case against Rob Carmona and the employment agency he founded, STRIVE East Harlem, gave legal airing to what some see as a complex double standard surrounding the word: It’s a degrading slur when uttered by whites but can be used at times with impunity among blacks.

But 38-year-old Brandi Johnson told jurors that being black didn’t make it any less hurtful to be the target of what her attorney called Carmona’s “four-minute nigger tirade” about inappropriate workplace attire and unprofessional behavior.

Johnson, who taped the March 2012 remarks after her complaints about his verbal abuse were disregarded, said she fled to the restroom and cried for 45 minutes.

“I was offended. I was hurt. I felt degraded. I felt disrespected. I was embarrassed,” Johnson testified.

In closing arguments, Johnson’s attorney Marjorie M. Sharpe said Carmona’s use of the word was intended to offend “and any evidence that defendants put forth to the contrary is simply ridiculous.”

“When you use the word nigger to an African-American, no matter how many alternative definitions that you may try to substitute with the word nigger, that is no different than calling a Hispanic by the worst possible word you can call a Hispanic, calling a homosexual male the worst possible word that you can call a homosexual male,” Sharpe told jurors.

But defense lawyers said the 61-year-old Carmona, a black man of Puerto Rican descent, had a much different experience with the word. Raised by a single mother in a New York City public housing project, he became addicted to heroin in his teens and broke it with the help of drug counselors who employed tough love and tough language.

Carmona went on to earn a master’s degree from Columbia University before co-founding STRIVE in the 1980s. Now, most of STRIVE’s employees are black women, defense attorney Diane Krebs told jurors in her opening statement.

“And Mr. Carmona is himself black, as you yourselves can see,” Krebs said.

In his testimony, Carmona defended his use of the word, saying he used it with Johnson to convey that she was “too emotional, wrapped up in her, at least the negative aspects of human nature.”

Then he explained that the word has “multiple contexts” in the black and Latino communities, sometimes indicating anger, sometimes love.

Carmona said he might put his arm around a longtime friend in the company of another and say: “This is my nigger for 30 years.”

“That means my boy, I love him, or whatever,” he said.

He was asked if he meant to indicate love when he called Johnson the word.

“Yes, I did,” he responded.

The controversy is a blemish on STRIVE, which has been heralded for helping people with troubled backgrounds get into the workforce. Its employment model, which was described in a CBS’ “60 Minutes” piece as “part boot camp, part group therapy,” claims to have helped nearly 50,000 people find work since 1984.

Sharpe told jurors that STRIVE’s tough-love program cannot excuse Carmona’s behavior.

“Well, if calling a person a nigger and subjecting them to a hostile work environment is part of STRIVE’s tough love, then STRIVE needs to be reminded that this type of behavior is illegal and cannot be tolerated,” she said.

© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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NY Case Puts N-word Use Among Blacks on Trial

G20 puts growth before austerity, seeks to calm markets

1 of 2. (From R-L) Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and France’s Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici attend a news conference, part of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ meeting, in Moscow, July 19, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Grigory Dukor

By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Alessandra Prentice

MOSCOW | Sat Jul 20, 2013 2:52am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Group of 20 nations put growth ahead of austerity as it seeks to rebalance a multi-speed global economy, pledging to shift policy carefully so that recovery is not derailed by volatile financial markets.

Finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Moscow on Saturday will put the finishing touches to a joint communique that delegates said was not changed after they met for dinner on Friday night.

Indications that the U.S. Federal Reserve would scale back its monetary stimulus were the focus of intense interest, especially from emerging economies hit by an ensuing selloff in stocks and bonds, and a flight to the dollar.

While the U.S. recovery is gaining traction, China’s export motor is sputtering, Japan’s bid to break out of deflation has not reached escape velocity, and demand in the euro zone is too weak to sustain a job-creating recovery.

“We do not see any revival of growth in Europe yet, and Japan – we’re keeping our fingers crossed,” said Indian Finance Minister Chidambaram Palaniappan.

“The best case scenario for today would be for the advanced economies to get growth going. They must keep in mind the impact of their actions on the large emerging economies.”

A final draft, obtained by Reuters, said an action plan to boost jobs and growth, while rebalancing global demand and debt, would be readied for a G20 leaders summit hosted by President Vladimir Putin in September.

“We remain mindful of the risks and unintended negative side effects of extended periods of monetary easing,” the draft said. “Future changes to monetary policy settings will continue to be carefully calibrated and clearly communicated.”

In return for its pledge to ‘message’ its monetary policy intentions clearly, Washington managed to ensure that the text contained no binding fiscal targets, saying that consolidation should be “calibrated” to economic conditions.

Sources at the meeting said Germany was less assertive than previously in seeking binding targets to reduce borrowing to follow on from a deal struck in Toronto in 2010, with the improving U.S. economy adding weight to Washington’s call to focus on growth.

With youth unemployment rates approaching 60 percent in euro zone strugglers Greece and Spain, the growth versus austerity debate has shifted – reflected in the fact that G20 finance and labor ministers held a joint session on Friday.

The crisis in the euro-zone periphery has been exacerbated by capital outflows, and the communique pledged to move “decisively” towards creating a banking union in Europe that could revive cross-border lending.

“The priority in the short term is growth, growth, growth,” French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told reporters.

Unlike at previous G20 gatherings, exchange rates and the threat of competitive devaluations barely figured, delegates said.

TREAD WITH CARE

A paper that International Monetary Fund staff prepared for the Moscow meeting warned financial market turmoil could deepen unless policymakers were careful.

“The current market turbulence could continue and deepen,” the paper, seen by Reuters, said. “The eventual exit from low rates and unconventional monetary policy in advanced economies could pose challenges for emerging economies, especially if it proceeds too fast or is not well communicated.”

Ben Bernanke’s announcement two months ago that the Fed may start to wind down its $ 85 billion in monthly bond purchases sparked a panicky sell-off, particularly in emerging markets.

Investors were calmed by testimony to Congress this week by Bernanke, who is not in Moscow, although he said the exit plan from money-printing remained on the cards.

The G20 accounts for 90 percent of the world economy and two-thirds of its population – many living in the large emerging economies at greatest risk of a reversal of capital inflows that have been one of the side effects of the Fed stimulus.

China is under pressure to encourage domestic demand-driven growth and allow greater exchange rate flexibility as part of wider efforts to rebalance the global economy which features a huge Chinese surplus and matching U.S. deficit.

Beijing offered an early olive branch, removing a floor on the rates banks can charge clients for loans, which should reduce the cost of borrowing for companies and households. Yet this was not discussed at the G20 talks.

Delegates said the G20 ministers would discuss China’s policy mix on Saturday. Also on the agenda will be the state of play with global financial regulation, including the need to look at “too big to fail” insurers, and energy sustainability and climate finance.

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso labeled China’s move a step in the right direction. Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he would “strongly pursue” quantitative easing policies to lift growth and end deflation.

Japan, which holds an upper house election on Sunday, in turn drew criticism for giving little detail on structural reforms billed as the ‘third arrow’ of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic turnaround plan, G20 sources said.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly, Maya Dyakina, Jan Strupczewski, Gernot Heller, Katya Golubkova, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Alessandra Prentice in Moscow, Anna Yukhananov in Washington. Writing by Douglas Busvine/Mike Peacock)

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G20 puts growth before austerity, seeks to calm markets

“The Newsroom” puts itself on trial

This Sunday brings back “The Newsroom,” an HBO show about things you wouldn’t believe happened in 2011. For Season 2, the news events of that very newsy year are framed by the news-making consequences they have in 2012 for the staff of the American cable news show “News Night.” And if after those two sentences you’re sick of the word “news,” I do not recommend this program.

Conveniently, Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” has skipped over the June 2012 debut  of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” so that we are now in the long nights leading up to Obama’s November 2012 reelection. What we know: Something happened. It had something to do with Genoa. The story went wrong or was a lie, the ensuing lawsuit is massive, and the network’s lawyer — played with brass tacks and wisecracks by the excellent Marcia Gay Harden — is prepping each staffer to give a deposition. “The Newsroom” is itself on the stand.

Continue Reading…

Salon.com

“The Newsroom” puts itself on trial

“The Newsroom” puts itself on trial

This Sunday brings back “The Newsroom,” an HBO show about things you wouldn’t believe happened in 2011. For Season 2, the news events of that very newsy year are framed by the news-making consequences they have in 2012 for the staff of the American cable news show “News Night.” And if after those two sentences you’re sick of the word “news,” I do not recommend this program.

Conveniently, Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” has skipped over the June 2012 debut  of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” so that we are now in the long nights leading up to Obama’s November 2012 reelection. What we know: Something happened. It had something to do with Genoa. The story went wrong or was a lie, the ensuing lawsuit is massive, and the network’s lawyer — played with brass tacks and wisecracks by the excellent Marcia Gay Harden — is prepping each staffer to give a deposition. “The Newsroom” is itself on the stand.

Continue Reading…

Salon.com

“The Newsroom” puts itself on trial

In Historic Victory for Community Radio, FCC Puts 1,000 Low-Power FM Frequencies Up For Grabs

In a major victory for the community radio movement after a 15-year campaign, the Federal Communications Commission has announced it will soon begin accepting applications for hundreds of new low-power FM radio stations in October. This means nonprofits, labor unions and community groups have a one-time-only chance this year to own a bit of the broadcast airwaves. It is being heralded as “the largest expansion of community radio in United States history.” We’re joined by two guests: Jeff Rousset, the National Organizer of the Prometheus Radio Project, which has led the campaign to challenge corporate control of the media and open up this space on the dial; and by Ramon Ramirez, the president of PCUN, the largest Latino organization in Oregon. In 2006, Prometheus Radio Project helped PCUN establish the low-power FM station “Movement Radio,” which has helped inform farm workers about labor rights, as well as the larger Latino community about immigration reform efforts, health issues, and other community-related topics. The FCC’s short application window for new stations will run from October 15 to October 29. “This is a one-shot opportunity,” Rousset says. “The work that we do over the next four months will really help shape the course of this country’s media landscape for the next 40 years.”

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In Historic Victory for Community Radio, FCC Puts 1,000 Low-Power FM Frequencies Up For Grabs

U.S. puts jets in Jordan, fuels Russian fear of Syria no-fly zone

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United States said on Saturday it would keep F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles in Jordan at Amman’s request, and Russia bristled at the possibility they could be used to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria.

Reuters: Top News

U.S. puts jets in Jordan, fuels Russian fear of Syria no-fly zone