Jobs disappear, wages fall, huge deficits for generations, cap and trade rigged to give vlaue to corporations rather than citizens, social security fix no where in sight, no health care in sight, bailout and stimulus money goes to the wealthy like Reich, Obama lied about NAFTA and renegotiation fair trade contracts...

I guess tenured Reich is happy his stocks are going up in his 403b. Does he have to inflict his smug bromides on us?

It's amazing the extent to which the elites have controlled and stifled debate on the economy. At Salon, as at the MSM, Riech pretentiously speaks for workers, as if he actually gave a shit about us.

The value of Obama's "language show" is that he can say one thing, often noble, while contradicting his spoken stance with his actions--and no one notices.

Lyons critique of the Republican response to Obama may be correct. But Lyons, like most of the media, then pours fawning honey on the President and licks it off.

Though Salon won't cover the story: the US stands precariously at the edge of joining a civil war in Pakistan. Whether this is a good war or not, there is even less debate about this potential war than the runup to Iraq. Obama's rhetoric is perilously close to the Bush administration, but no one in the media acknowledges the irony, or seems to have learned any sort of lesson in humility at all.

Our Secretary of State, the Rani of Kuch Nahi herself, seems to have little understanding of the geopolitics of the region. But neither much does the President.

But hey, he does kind of look like Spock. Then again, W tried to sound like Jack Bauer, and didn't that fiction-to-reality show at least raise some questions about the whole genre?

Get real, folks.

I know it's wrong.

But I also feel sorry for him. He's a literary and moral train wreck.

I hope Salon never spends its money on a columnist who can actually write or who actually gives a damn.

Keillor fills a void with his void.

Sotomayer may be a master jurist. She may even have mastered opening hardshell plastic packaging, but who can tell from reading the media?

It's not like Greenwald, or anyone, is using their media platforms to dissect her legal history. I look in vain for reference to any of her opinions with links.

Instead we lay idiots are bombarded with 1) dumb ex cathedra articles demanding that we support her honorable most holy Peurto Rican womanhood etc. 2) silly articles deriding her and 3) way-over-the-top articles like this one and the Times editorial in high dungeon about smears.

It's all pretty whack (and unintentionally funny), but I doubt there would be as many "smears" if the media wasn't ramming Sotomayer up our asses with such vigor.

Obviously the ethnic/woman angle rings hollow at a time when we're dealing with the legacy of Muslim men and boys are the ones being chained to walls and tortured (and not uncommonly tortured by women, even Hispanic women.)

Here's my question: Is Sotomayer just a rubber stamp for Obama's torture enabling policies or not?

How does she treat the fourth amendment, among others?

Cripes, Glenn, focus. What's most important here, quieting the riffraff or getting a halfways brave Justice?

Tanya is right about the use of "torture" in the Times righteous editorial yesterday calling for Muslim torture victims voices to be heard. Credit to the ANNONYMOUS (omg) Times editor who wrote it.

But, I think we won't pass the real milestone until "torture" is used in the news stories,not just the editorial pages.

Greenwald (perhaps a pseudonym) is absolutely right to focus on the obits as a sign of shifting standards. Obits are written long before they appear, and this one was definitely not (and could not) be sensically edited without rewriting entire swaths of American history. Nice catch, Glenn (or whoever you are).

But, I think Greenwald could be more specific in specifying that MUSLIMS are the only party that the NYT won't say were tortured.

That's where many of those critical of torture start pussyfooting. Christopher Hitchens, for example, had a nice review of a book about the British treatment of Nazi espionage agents. Basically he meant to back up Obama's point about Churchill's refusal to torture.

What Hitchens left unsaid, however, is that the British were nasty sons-of-bitches toward Muslims and other relatively melanin-rich colonials. Even Gandhi got beaten in the early South African days.

TORTURE IS BIGOTRY PERFORMED ON THE BODY.

What's weird about Greenwald is that he comes so very close to this understanding, but never writes it out, not even in the context of hate crimes.

Or maybe he has and someone can correct me. It's Friday, it's been a long week, and my brain is slower than Garrison Keillor's after two bottles of rotgut.

Gary, Gary.

"Muslim" and "child torture" may never cross your lips, but it's nice to watch you back backpedal and splutter.

Somewhere, deep down, under all the condescending fake folksiness, you at last acknowledge that your opinions risked your sinecure in the Kingdom of Nice. You're a rich fuck, but not so rich as to risk Lands End cut-and-sewn cash and a lifetime supply of powdermilk triscuits.

Let's join hands on a Leinie's, eh, and sing it out?

Stjärnan ej på himlafästet,

Fågeln ej i kända nästet.