RACHEL MADDOW-ECONOMY THEN AND NOW BUSH OBAMA
You know Republicans up the past 8 years so bad, all they have is revisionism and scare tactics . Example, No terrorist attacks happened during the Bush years ? Obama created the deficit ? Things are not getting better ? Republicans have all the answers after a year in exile ? All of this is a desperate attempt by Republicans to gain back power so they can up this country for another 8 years . Rachel Maddow illustrates very well what Obama has done since Bush left office . She also shows why the stimulus though not perfect , did keep a recession from turning into a great depression . Though the down turns not over . I feel we need a second stimulus, only to help home owners, small business, community banks (no big banks) , states to pay down their debt, unemployed . When there is a recession you don’t have a spending freeze (Hoover economics 101) . When a bridge is broken, you place up a temporary one until the bridge is fixed again . You don’t close the bridge .
Duration : 0:9:58
Categories: Obama Pay Freeze Tags: bad, Economy, freeze, Galbraith, idea, james, K., Maddow, MSNBC, news, Obama, pitfalls, Politics, Rachel, Spending, Stimulus
israel; israeli wall is deep in occupied palestinian territories july 10 2009
Five years ago today, the international court of justice in The Hague published its advisory opinion on Israel’s separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The keenly awaited verdict, requested by the UN’s general assembly, was clear: Israel’s wall is illegal, it must be removed and adequate compensation paid.
The wall’s illegality, and Israel’s obligation to dismantle the structure and pay damages for the consequences of the wall thus far, were all agreed by the judges by a margin of 14-1. (The ICJ also accepted the use of the term “wall”, since “other expressions” are “no more accurate”.) There was also confirmation that Israel’s settlements were “a flagrant violation” of the convention, established “in breach of international law” (contrast this with the mealy-mouthed nitpicking over outposts and “freezes” by Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu). Overall, the court found that the route of the wall threatened to create “de facto annexation”, with the wall itself described as severely impeding “the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination”.
At the time, the ICJ decision was hailed by Palestinians and dismissed by the Israeli government. As Yasser Arafat described it as a “victory for the Palestinian people”, a spokesman for the then prime minister Ariel Sharon, Raanan Gissin, opined that “after all the rancour dies, this resolution will find its place in the garbage can of history”.
Both the US and UK had opposed the entire process, on the odd grounds that the UN’s main judicial body for settling legal disputes was not “the appropriate forum to resolve what is a political issue”. In the words of Jack Straw, it was better not to “embroil” the ICJ “in a heavily political bilateral dispute”.
This opposition was rare later that same month, the general assembly voted by 150 to six in support of the ICJ opinion. The decision was also welcomed by the likes of Oxfam and Amnesty International, with Oxfam’s director adding that the ruling was a “step in the right direction” but needed “further action” by the international community.
But meaningful “further action” was not forthcoming, and Israel pressed on with the wall. Five years on, the wall loops around the West Bank and cuts through East Jerusalem, isolating Palestinian communities and devastating lives, and has become an integral part of Israel’s apartheid regime in the territories. About two-thirds of the 700km+ route, featuring a 8m-high wall, electric fences, sniper towers and “buffer zones” up to 100m wide, is completed or under construction. Of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 8.5% will be on the “wrong” side of the wall. In terms of size as well as significance, this would be comparable to the UK losing Greater London and south-east England.
For Israel to consolidate its hold on the illegal colonies in the OPT, many Palestinians find themselves hemmed in and surrounded by the wall’s contortions (pdf). About 35,000 Palestinians with West Bank IDs are to be caught between the wall and the Green Line if you add (pdf) the East Jerusalem Palestinians in the same position, this figure increases to about 260,000.
These are the bare facts five years on from the ICJ opinion. Israel has ignored the judges’ decision, but that’s not a surprise. However, has the Palestinian leadership sufficiently exploited the opinion? Speaking to Palestinians involved in monitoring the wall’s progress, or in directly resisting it on the ground, there is a feeling that Palestinian diplomats have not done as much with the ICJ result as they could have.
Palestinians in communities directly affected by the wall continue to put up resistance, sometimes at their cost of their lives: 18 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during anti-wall protests, the youngest victim a 10-year-old boy. While they fight for survival, the wall has also played a key role in changing the big picture, delineating the borders of the Palestinian enclaves Israel will grant “statehood”.
In 1994, the then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin said that “we have to decide on separation as a philosophy”. However, this is not separation on equal terms the following year Rabin also made it clear that the Palestinian “entity” would be “less than a state”. There is a term for unequal separation in international law apartheid (I will talk about this tonight). The wall urgently needs dismantling; but it is only one part of a bigger whole.
Duration : 0:2:36
Categories: Obama Pay Freeze Tags: abc, ahmadinejad, bbc, cbs, CNN, fights, fox, iran, Israel, Mahmoud, MSNBC, nbc, news, Occupied, Palestinian, protesters, Tehran, Territories
msnbc com video Obama creates WH Council on Women – (http://www.internationalwomensday.com/)
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/
WASHINGTON — President Obama marked International Women’s Month by signing an executive order to create the first-ever White House Council on Women and Girls, a group that will be headed by one of his closest friends. The council will be made up of Cabinet secretaries and Cabinet-level officers. It will be chaired by Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s senior advisers and one of his numerous aides from Chicago.
The council, which will meet regularly, will include members of the Cabinet and of several other agencies and will be led by senior aide Valerie Jarrett. Tina Tchen, deputy assistant to the president and director of the Office of Public Liaison at the White House, will serve as the executive director.
Obama spoke frequently during the campaign about issues like family leave, childcare and equal pay, arguing that they were not just women’s issues but family issues. The first bill he signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act.
Duration : 0:10:16
Obama Twitter Account Hacked from MSNBC TVCategories: Obama Twitter Hack Tags: Account, facebook, hacked, MSNBC, myspace, Obama, profile, TV, twitter, USA, youtube
