wretchard the cat's Library tagged Obama →  View Popular

These days, 24-year-old Delonta Spriggs spends much of his time cooped up in his mother's one-bedroom apartment in Southwest Washington, the TV blaring soap operas hour after hour, trying to stay out of the streets and out of trouble, held captive by the economy. As a young black man, Spriggs belongs to a group that has been hit much harder than any other by unemployment.

Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population. And last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment in the District, home to many young black men, rose to 11.9 percent from 11.4 percent, even as it stayed relatively stable in Virginia and Maryland.

A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise.

David Kilcullen, one of the world's leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama's delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been "messy". He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertainty the Taliban could exploit.

Speaking in an interview with the Guardian, he compared the president to someone "pontificating" over whether to send enough firefighters into a burning building to put a fire out.

The ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee on Tuesday night accused the White House of withholding information on the Fort Hood attack.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) said administration officials delayed
briefing members of Congress about the alleged gunman, raising "red
flags" about what the White House was hiding.

"When they withhold information, you always start asking questions," Hoekstra told Fox News. "That's what raises red flags. What do they know that they don't want us to know?"

The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which
nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on
the country's coast.

Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the
exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus.

The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about
13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.

Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the "potential
aggressor".

The documents state the exercises, code-named "West", were
officially classified as "defensive" but many of the operations
appeared to have an offensive nature.

In a wide-ranging interview in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Daily, air force commander Xu Qiliang said it was imperative for the PLA air force to develop offensive and defensive operations in outer space.

"As far as the revolution in military affairs is concerned, the competition between military forces is moving towards outer space... this is a historical inevitability and a development that cannot be turned back,'' Commander Xu told the paper.

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:


• * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
  

Previous presidents had outsourced their activism to interest groups; Obama was going to create his own. OFA was supposed to be a new kind of permanent campaign: a grassroots network wielding some 13 million email addresses to mobilize former volunteers on behalf of the administration's agenda (and keep them engaged for 2012). "We've never had a political leader who has continued their organizing while in office like this at this scale," Tom Matzzie, former Washington director of MoveOn, told NPR in January.

As right-wing protesters dominated the news this summer, it would have seemed the perfect opportunity for Obama's much-touted organizers to drown out the conservatives with some coordinated agitation of their own. But they barely made a ripple. Where were they? And how could such a formidable grassroots operation--having just put Obama in office--fall quiet so quickly?

Where have all those Obamenthusiasts who were so visible in 2008 been hiding this year? In this New Republic article Lydia DePillis seems to think that the problem is that Organizing For America has been run as a top-down organization, rather than as a bottom-up movement, giving the folks out there no sense of ownership. She asks, “Can a grassroots organization run in the top-down style of a political machine really accomplish much—let alone change the terms of debate on any given issue?”

I think there’s something more going on here. Many Obamenthusiasts were thrilled by the idea of putting Obama in and getting George W. Bush out. They achieved their goal a year ago. What more is left? Did these people really expend all this energy to reduce the percentage of people without health insurance? “We are the change we are seeking,” Obama said during the campaign. Well, the Obamenthusiasts got that change. Now they can go back to gardening or Sudoku. If this view is right, it doesn’t matter much whether Organizing for America is lodged in the Democratic National Committee or not, or whether it’s run top-down or bottom-up—the issues DePillis considers critical. If people aren’t motivated to do an unnatural thing—and engaging in political activity is for most people an unnatural thing—they won’t do it.

Rich and others on the Left are going around the twist because they sense that the political ground is shifting beneath their feet. Their political Messiah is turning out not only to be mortal but also deeply flawed. His policies are generating widespread and intense opposition. The public seems to be rejecting what Mr. Obama is offering; and what he is offering may well cost Democrats politically.

For liberals, Barack Obama was supposed to be (take your pick) our new FDR, our new Lincoln, or “sort of God.” It wasn’t supposed to be this hard — and now that it is, people like Frank Rich are lashing out in desperation. It will only get worse. When thinking about what this all might do to poor Mr. Rich, it’s worth recalling the children’s folk rhyme and the fate of one of the three geese in a flock. One flew East, one flew West, and one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Michael Yon tweets:

Kept it all quiet for NYT. Now why are the NYT endangering British hostages in Somalia? NYT needs to shut up. They are endangering British.about 3 hours ago from web

I have been told by very close sources that ex-CIA officers helped pay off release for Rohde. I knew this while it was ongoing.about 3 hours ago from web

NYT is endangering the hostages in Somalia.about 3 hours ago from web

Am told by good sources Rohde is good guy, but still NYT cannot ask for discretion when they don't use it.about 3 hours ago from web

Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.about 3 hours ago from web

New York Times cannot expect quiet about David Rohde when they blab all: http://www.nytimes.com/2009...about 3 hours ago from web

"Niki, I'm dying. Don't have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble."

A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: "Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe."

A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: "Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe."

Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: "Prepare three envelopes."

In the Barack Obama version, there are 50 or so such blame-Bush free passes before the gig is up.

Hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough over Iran's nuclear programme were dwindling tonight after Tehran demanded changes to a uranium exchange deal that European diplomats described as "unacceptable".

If the deal collapses, as seemed likely, the apparent progress made over Tehran's nuclear programme in recent weeks would evaporate, the diplomats said. It would deliver another critical blow to the Obama administration's policy of engagement, and put international sanctions and Israeli military action back on the table.

DETROIT (AP) -- Federal authorities on Wednesday arrested several members of a radical Sunni Islam group in the U.S., killing one of its leaders at a shootout in a Michigan warehouse, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Agents were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, at a Dearborn warehouse on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Authorities also conducted raids elsewhere to try to round up 10 followers named in a federal complaint.

In the complaint, the FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the United States.

He told them it was their ''duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die,'' Leone said.

Abdullah regularly preached anti-government rhetoric and was trained, along with his followers, in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords, the agent said.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The U.S. military suffered another day of heavy losses in Afghanistan on Tuesday as roadside bombs killed eight soldiers, two military officials told CNN.

An Afghan civilian working with NATO troops also was killed in the attacks in southern Afghanistan, the military said. The officials said that, according to initial reports, one blast took place just outside Kandahar and the other was in neighboring Zabul province.

Seven of the soldiers who died were traveling together in one vehicle, said Sgt. Jerome Baysmore with the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command.