The conservatives essentially say that the Nobel Peace Prize was given to a man who has done nothing to deserve it and they’re far less than half-right. The part they were right about was lampooned on SNL a little over a week ago.

The Nobel Prize committee says Barack Obama has created “a new climate in international politics.” In reality, Obama’s rhetoric has largely cloaked a continuation and extension of Bush’s foreign policy.

Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.

Since the very outset of the Obama presidency, this global military project has become increasingly pervasive, with the reinforcement of US military presence in all major regions of the World  and the development of new advanced weapons systems on an unprecdented scale.

Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of “democracy”.

Notwithstanding, we have a domestic policy that rewards catastrophic financial failure and ineptitude courtesy of the taxpayer. (This episode of Bill Moyers Journal is must-see TV.) If there were any true conservative brains in media land, they would be praising Obama’s foreign policy, mocking the Nobel Prize committee for giving it to a warmonger in their camp, and focusing on the socialist policies governing U.S. finance. It’s sad and tragic that connecting the dots is such a scorned skill amongst the DC Villagers.

Via TPM, that’s the take-away from Sarah Palin’s speech. On twitter, Ezra Klein advises ambitious bloggers to comb through the speech for other internal contradictions. The headline says it all for me and I hope we’re done with this hack. John McCain was an idiot for putting her on the national stage.

After the jump, there’s a long compilation of Richard’s forwards from the past weeks. Many of the links posted aren’t just opinion pieces from various political blogs… several are legitimate stories from respected news sources.

I’m going to organize these by topic, and older posts first.

Economy: Wall Street and the White House

• Tom Engelhardt tots up everything Obama is in charge of amounting to yet another imperial presidency.
• Russia, China, India, and Brazil increasingly unwilling to shoulder more U.S. debt.
• Robert Reich says Obama’s economic plan won’t work because of the way certain derivatives are still unregulated.
• Banks not worried about the recession being both the cause and biggest beneficiaries.
• Alexander Cockburn runs down how Wall Street is running the White House.

Economy: State Budget Crisis etc.

• Business Week charts private industry job growth over the past ten years; indicates that real recovery is a long way off.
• U.S. states’ budget sets stage for further attacks on the working class.
• A claim that the increase in savings rate indicates deflation.
• Bloomberg: Chase raises rates on outstanding credit card debt to close to 30%.
• Touring the collapse of America’s auto industry.
• U.S. state budget crisis threatens broad social collapse.

Iraq / Pakistan

• The checkered past of Obama’s new man in the Pentagon, General Stanley McChrystal.
• The anti-war Democrats who sold out.

Iran Policy / Iran Election

• The argument that Ahmadinejad really won the election in Iran.
• WSJ: Hard-line Iran policy adviser, Dennis Ross, has Obama’s ear. (Co-founder of WINEP which is dedicated to nuking Iran.)
• More on the possibility that Iran’s “stolen election” is a fraud.
• WSWS picks apart a New York Times editorial on Iran: not too much evidence it was stolen.
• The importance of Twitter and #iranelection called into question.
• More on hardline Iran lobbyist, Dennis Ross, at the White House.
• The Neda video vs. torture images from Iraq. Glenn Greenwald sees deep irony.

Coup in Honduras

• Collection of links and reporting on the Honduras coup.
• Machinations behind the scenes with Hillary Clinton’s hand-wringing and the coup in Honduras.

Healthcare Debate etc.

• Healthcare: If we end up with a public option, insurance companies will be quick to dump high-risk insurers on the government.
• An interesting new campaign advocating for single-payer (not public option) healthcare.
• ABC News: Former health insurance executive blows whistle on healthcare insurance industry. Already dumps high-risk patients.
• Outline of Cuba’s healthcare system.
• Doctors warn: avoid genetically modified foods.

Miscellaneous

• Democracy Now! transcript of a roundtable on how Obama’s secrecy policy adopts and goes beyond George Bush’s e.g., Obama is blocking industrial pollution info.
• Report: Israeli military is beating and torturing Palestinian children.
• File under conspiracy theory: Did Osama die in December 2001? Is there an American Psy-Ops for setting us up with Bogeymen? Iran elections another example.
• Pentagon rebrands “protest” as “low-level terrorism.”
• Media continues to overstate Palestinian violence and understate Israeli violence.
• Obama’s Green Team more of the same.
• Obama preparing order for indefinite detentions.
• A modest proposal for countries tiring of America’s military bases — cash out now!

One thing about tunnels is that to see the light at the end of them, you have to build them before you get to experience the darkness and wonder about the light at the end. If it’s a pedestrian tunnel as part of a bridge and landscaping project, it was an afterthought and there was some extra money lying around. (This is part of the Riverside Drive viaduct over 125th Street built around 1900. Before this, Riverside Drive ended at a cul-de-sac next to Grant’s Tomb. Now you know!)

I haven’t done one of these in a while so the first links are over a week old but of course they’re worth putting in the record. More links than you can shake a Chinese puzzle stick at are after the jump!

• Greg Palast takes a shot at Steve Rattner, Obama’s car czar overseeing GM’s bankruptcy machinations. Bankers trump.
• Glenn Greenwald says that Obama is seeking greater powers of state secrecy than even George Bush had.
• Obama to build giant expensive colonial fortress/embassy in Pakistan mimicking the one in Iraq.
• Obama: a change artist? That’s what Nader called him before the election.
• Apparently, only CNBC covered Chinese students laughing at Tim Geithner’s comments on Chinese assets.
• China will likely be speaking softly and carrying a big stick, Niall Ferguson worries.
• Bigger collapse coming? The economic policy journal also worries.
• Paul Craig Roberts is even MORE alarmist if you can believe it.
• Auschwitz survivor: I can identify with Palestinian youth.
• Obama okays blowing up mountain tops for coal.
• A rising tide of suicides as economic woes and foreclosures continue.
• Many bankruptcies due to healthcare costs. A favorite statistic of mine resurfaces: U.S. health outcomes rank 37th in the world.
• With Democrats like Obama, who needs dictators? Cartoonist Ted Rall rants.
• The detainment camp Obama didn’t mention in his Cairo speech.
• Interesting: Stock market jumps the day GM declares bankruptcy.
• Hiding the rotten sausage: Banks are likely still overvaluing their assets.
• Noam Chomsky writes on what Obama didn’t say in his Cairo speech and how it reflects actual Mideast policy.
• Lots of people are still dancing around the “T” word. Glenn Greenwald again…
• A Canadian debunks myths about the Canadian healthcare system.
• Even Bloomberg News says banks are overvaluing assets and are still bamboozling investors and taxpayers.
• More than you wanted to know about how torture policy has always been don’t ask, don’t tell.
• Profits still king in U.S. healthcare business.

• Steve Rattner, one of the new puppet masters
• Ecuador election results continue leftward tilt in South America.
• Obama administration quietly seeking extraordinary military power in Pakistan.
• Messing with the polls and other tricks to manufacture consent to Israeli apartheid
• Line between espionage and lobbying further blurred in recent acquittal.
• Richardson and Roubini: We can’t subsidize banks forever. (No shit, Sherlocks)
• The doomsday mentality in Washington: Preventing crisis or helping to create it?
• Jiggering unemployment stats? Many people are doubting the stats.
• Sham stress tests put to the test.

• The new quagmire: Seven questions for Barack Obama on Afghanistan. With hindsight of Mary McCarthy’s Vietnam memoirs and penned by retired Air Force lieutenant colonel.
• Greenwald calls Jane Harman a bunch of names although strangely, hypocrite isn’t one of them. Jeff Stein delves further into the mess.
• Socialist Andre Damon pretty cynical about everything.
• Reese Erlich seems to think loosening policy toward Cuba will bring more illicit drug trafficking.
• Jessie’s bond-trader friend whacks at the Wells Fargo earnings piñata.
• Tom Engelhardt ruminates on the constant stream of civilian casualties that largely go unreported on these shores.
• Dems want to sweep torture hearings under the rug as much as Bush flunkies do.
• Israelis hawking first-class propaganda junket??!?
• Bank stress test: a) too big to fail b) too big to fail…
• Tiny violin playing for pro-torture Judge Bybee.
• Texas sheriff prosecution for waterboarding by Reagan’s DOJ ignored by current torture advocates.
• New York food banks stressed.
• Polish pianist stops the show with anti-U.S. tirade.
• The new terror alert: Swine flu hype conveniently killing off the torture story. Includes a history of “flu oddities.”

There was a great essay (not posted yet) in this month’s Harper’s by Garret Keizer which drills down to the values of conservatism and Democratic values by citing a letter of St. Paul’s to the Galations in the Bible: We need to bear one another’s burden and then some verses on, he says that everyone shall bear his own burden. “These two imperatives, that of self-reliance and social responsibility,of the Republican heart and the Democratic heart in their purest forms, are the crux of any sustainable community. Neither value makes sense without the other, nor can it be fulfilled without the other.” Earlier he says:

“I want the Republican Party to drop dead. Inasmuch as it differs too little form the competition, I want the Democratic Party to drop dead with it. What interests me is the politics that might emerge from their respective deaths and resurrections, what might happen if each were to glance at the yawning sarcophagus of the other and spot a naked body that it liked.”

• Swan song of the UAW likely coming soon.
• Financial Times’ Martin Wolf mostly agrees with Simon Johnson’s Atlantic Monthly piece: US (and the entire bailout) controlled by financial capital. You can also listen to Simon Johnson’s appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air.
• Hard questions about the Goldman Sachs windfall.
• Déjà vu all over again in Afghanistan.
• Joseph Stiglitz says bank plan doomed to fail due to Wall Street/White House ties; “kicking the can down the road…”
• Ken Silverstein explores the secret world of the oil fixer.

The other drug store in my neighborhood is open 24 hours, bitches. What’s with all the red?

• Obama officials embody the corruption he promised to get rid of. Glennzilla reports.
• Boom time for criminal syndicates.
• Robot army deployment.
• Bill Moyers and Michael Winship call for a more serious investigation.

Update: I meant to point out Bob Dylan’s take on Barack Obama…

What can you say about the food sold at the 99¢ store? They got my 99¢, I got some food that tastes different, and the big guys with the obnoxious website did not get my $3.99. These are the same guys voraciously taking over the packaged organic food industry.

From Richard’s Forewards and elsewhere:

• Tom Engelhardt lives in my neighborhood!! I’ve been observing these same buildings lie fallow since 2007, also hoping the influx of rich fresh blood would also help the Ding Dong Lounge.
• Dean Baker pessimistic that Timmeh’s plan will help anyone outside the banking industry.
• Via Atrios, Yves at Naked Capitalism: “Given the lack of any mention of a special resolution regime, or intent to develop one, the point of this bill is NOT, appearances to the contrary, to be able to put more firms into receivership. It is to get broader authority to bail them out.”
• AIG’s ace in the hole?

The Wall Street Journal reports Obama’s poll numbers are really starting to slip. While this may be true, the MSM’s insistence that this has been true all along is false, partly because MSM coverage of the stimulus has been disingenuous. Obama’s centrist approach will keep him afloat for a little while. So the fringe is starting to fray.

Other stuff from Richard:

• Chas Freeman’s on his withdrawal from the National Intelligence Council. Discusses the smear machine in front of the Israel lobby. Politico’s Ben Smith comments.
• CIA reports Israel likely to go the way of South Africa.
• Naked Capitalism still skeptical about bank behavior. The Japan model is just kicking the can down the road.
• The left and the right both fascinated that the FBI’s terrorist watch list has hit 1 million. Keeping track of a million terrorists must be pretty easy!
• Tom Engelhardt gives a history lesson in American imperialism in light of rhetoric over Afghanistan. (very long)
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