Lobenthal.com

One of the planks of his Senate campaign is a rebuke of Obama’s cuts to Social Security. Sahil Kapur at Talkingpointsmemo has the details.

Lauren McCauley at Commondreams reacts to the study put out jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Campaign for American’s Future.  It demonstrates the way that taxpayer subsidies boost the compensation of those who seek most viciously to cut the already-inadequate benefits Social Security currently pays.

Maureen Dowd’s done great columns in The New York Times recently about Obama and GW Bush, but I don’t agree with her latest, published yesterday.

I, for one, do not want Obama having drinks with Mitch McConnell.

And I do not for one moment blame the current legislative impasse on a reluctance by Obama to break bread with the Republicans.  He has done more than break bread.  He has prostrated himself and he has sold out core, essential Democratic platforms in his zeal to do business with the opposition.

And it must be the fact that ostensible Senate Majority leader Harry Reid needs a fourth for bridge or mahjong or whatever he plays with old Mitch that has sandbagged filibuster reform, thus allowing the Republicans to bring the Senate to a standstill.

I want less bi-partisan comity between the Dems and the Repubs, since that type of schmoozing always seems to result in more Democrat fails and caves.

House progressives firmly request a meeting with Obama to reiterate their opposition to his proposed cuts to Social Security.  Greg Sargent in the Washington Post reports.

While at Talkingpointsmemo.com, Brian Beutler interviews Senator Sherrod Brown, who says, “It’s clear there’s too much Wall Street in this administration.”

While Senator Sanders and Harkin introduce a Senator resolution opposing the President’s Chained-CPI maneuver.  Ramsey Cox in The Hill has the story.

Fascinating transcript of David Benton’s interview with Clay Christensen, David Skok and James Allworth.

Skok:

“There’s a lot of focus on the marketing-driven side of things, in trying to get to that Madison Avenue “18-34 female,” as opposed to trying to fulfill this job, which is, “I need to read something. I’ve got 10 minutes to kill, and help me fill that time.”

In other words, GIVE THE READER SOMETHING TOO GOOD, TOO ESSENTIAL TO MISS!!

Forget the double-think ribbon-cutting–

Houston’s Bayou city Concert Musicals is performing a program of Arthur Schwartz’s song–not as familiar as their merit warrants.  As a kid, I feasted on an assortment of Schwartz’s original-cast-performed songs for 1935’s At Home Abroad.

Could it be totalitarian?  And could we, the United States, be getting closer and closer to joining that particular circle of hellish limbo?

I’m afraid those are exactly the conclusions prompted when our servile “mainstream” news media allows ex-President GW Bush to disclaim any responsibility for the many atrocities unleashed by GWB and his administration.  That interview Dubya did with the Dallas paper was such a snow job that I won’t even link to it.

But Jodie Evans and Charles Davis at Common Dreams are among the many voices–largely excluded, however, from the “mainstream” conversation–who would prefer Bush to explain away his presidency from the defendant’s well of a war crimes trial.

Charles P. Pierce at Esquire’s blog isn’t afraid to speak his mind and vent his disgust as well.  (He has a job and isn’t in jail, so at least we’re still some ways short of the farther shore.)

Outside the commercial “mainstream,” but like Common Dreams very much on the essential rolls of reality-based media is Alternet, where Steven Rosenfeld itemizes 50 awful things GWB did, beginning with instigating a judicial coup d’etat.

I was in St. Petersburg soon after the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority installed W as President.  I remember discussing that example of “Amerikanski Fascism” over a late night Russian repast.

— than it looked at first.

Brian Beutler explains why at Talkingpointsmemo.com.

And according to Politico, the President is doubling down on efforts to get it passed by more attempts at deal-cutting with the Republicans (along with a probable attempt to take an end run around his own Party).

Firedoglake.com’s Jon Walker, who’s done so much to raise the alarm about what Obama is up to, flags that one.

It’s time for the Democratic Party to cut him loose, as painful and anomalous as that may feel to them.   A President who disses his caucus, who insists that they walk the plank for him, is not someone who should be heeded.

Quick, somebody tell the “mainstream” media!

What might do the commercial news media some good is to start a policy of enhanced focus on reporting reality.  Issues of literally world-shattering importance like our environmental crisis might be a good place to start.  And there’s certainly an audience for it:

On CommonDreams.org, Tyson Miller, founder and director of The Project for Improved Environmental Coverage points to data showing that commercial news  media’s neglect of environmental issues is NOT appreciated by its audience and is certainly a reason why it’s potential audience remains just that.

So says The Wall Street Journal’s Pia Catton (ex my editor at the New York Sun, probably one of the few in the city who love ballet).

Today Pia in her “Culture City” column goes deep into the niche, profiling the estimable Hudson Review and doyenne Paula Deitz.

Attention new writers: much of what they publish comes in over-the-transom.