Links: U.S. Politics & Government

• Chris Floyd, Symbol for Sale: Obama Cashes Cronies' Chips, Empire Burlesque, 29 July 2009.


• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Cameron dare not copy Obama's disastrous economic policies: Should he come to power, the Conservative leader must avoid the calamitous mistakes of the American president, The Observer, guardian.co.uk, 16 August 2009.


• Scott Thill, Why Are Cops Tasering Grandmothers, Pregnant Women and Kids?, AlterNet, 17 August 2009.


• Michael Lind, Liberalism without labor unions?, Salon.com, 25 August 2009.
  
  Lind doesn't quite say so explicitly, but his essay makes clear that there is no Left/Social Democratic/Labor political party in the U.S. As others have observed, the U.S. has two right wing Corporation/Business parties and, with the enablement of the major media, the range of public political discourse is very narrow. I think this is one source the widespread government and policy inaction in the face of obvious injustices, inequalities, and simple inefficiencies (areas where the public good suffers to the benefit of narrow private interests).


• Glenn Greenwald, Thomas Paine v. the Right's torture defenders, Salon.com, 25 August 2009.


• Chris Floyd, Wrist-slap and Tickle: Obama Goes Mild on CIA Torture, Empire Burlesque, 25 August 2009.


• Brian Donohue, The Corporate Person Without a Country: AIG Spits in America's Eye, Again, CommonDreams.org, 25 August 2009.


• Mary Dejevsky, A mean streak in the US mainstream: The US tolerates more inequality, deprivation and suffering than is acceptable here, The Independent, independent.co.uk, 25 August 2009.
  
  via CommonDreams.org.


• Amy Goodman, Who Is Obama Playing Ball With?, TruthDig, truthdig.com, 25 August 2009.


• * Glenn Greenwald, Even The New Republic now calls for a party purge of corporate-owned "centrists", Salon.com, 27 August 2009.
  
  This is one of Greenwald's best summaries of the dysfunctions in American politics; it's one of the best essays I've read in years for understanding how recent American politics works.


• Chris Floyd, Bait and Switch: Using Diversity to Disguise Inequality, Empire Burlesque, 27 August 2009.
  
  Mr. Floyd refers to the essay:
  
  Walter Benn Michaels, What Matters, London Review of Books, vol. 31, no. 16, 27 August 2009.
  
  Mr. Michaels' essay is a review of:
  
  Kjartan Páll Sveinsson, editor. Who Cares about the White Working Class?. London: The Runnymede Trust, 2009.


• Jim Hightower, Holding Wall Street Bankers Accountable, JimHightower.com, 28 August 2009.


• * Money-Driven Medicine, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 28 August 2009.
  
  This documentary broadcast on Bill Moyers Journal is derived from the book:
  
  Maggie Mahar. Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. HarperCollins, 2006.
  (Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)
  
  Glenn Greenwald, Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan, Salon.com, 29 August 2009.
  
  An anecdote:
  
  Joe Goldblatt (patient), From the Patient's Mouth: My Dentist and Why I Believe National Health Care Works, Ysabel de la Rosa, 29 August 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, It's time to embrace American royalty, Salon.com, 30 August 2009.


• Paul Krugman, Missing Richard Nixon, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 30 August 2009.


• Chris Rowthorn, Extremism in Defense of Servitude, The Smirking Chimp, 30 August 2009.


• Dan Froomkin, Cheney Still Manipulating People -- Now In Public, The Huffington Post, 31 August 2009.


• Tom Tomorrow, Once upon a time, the citizens of a large nation turned into monsters ..., This Modern World, Salon.com, 01 September 2009.
  
  Ted Rall, We Have Met the Nazis, And They Are Us., The Smirking Chimp, 31 August 2009.


• Ed Kilgore, The return of the welfare queen: Healthcare reform has brought back the right's favorite wedge issue -- government handouts for the "undeserving," Salon.com, 31 August 2009.


• Scott Horton, American Diplomats Advocated "Nuremberg Defense", The Huffington Post, 01 September 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, Maria Bartiromo shows us how media has helped sandbag health care reform, Taibblog - True/Slant, 02 September 2009.


• Ed Pilkington, CIA doctors face human experimentation claims, guardian.co.uk, 02 September 2009.


• * Dan Froomkin, Paging A Different President Obama, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.


• * Glenn Greenwald, The looming political war over Afghanistan, Salon.com, 03 September 2009.


• Rebecca Boone, John Ashcroft Can Be Sued For Post-9/11 Detentions, Court Rules, The Huffington Post, 04 September 2009.
  
  Glenn Greenwald, Major ruling against Ashcroft highlights evils of preventive detention, Salon.com, 05 September 2009.
  
  Scott Horton, And Now: Fredo, the Opera, No Comment blog at Harper's Magazine, 03 September 2009.


• Bill Moyers, A Bill Moyers essay on health care reform, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 04 September 2009.
  
  Josh Marshall, Adventures in the Rabbit Hole, Talking Points Memo, 27 August 2009.
  
  * Henry A. Giroux, Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle, t r u t h o u t, 02 September 2009.


• Alan Colmes, The Van Jones Story, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, 06 September 2009.
  
  Pareene, Who is Van Jones?, Gawker, 04 September 2009.
  
  * Sara Robinson, Conservative Derangement Syndrome: What Are They Thinking?, Blog for Our Future, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 04 September 2009.
  
  * Jane Hamsher, Van Jones: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen, FireDogLake, 06 September 2009.
  
  David Sirota, Taking the Movement Out of the Obama White House, Open Salon, Open.Salon.com, 06 September 2009.


• Michael Bader, The Psychology of the Right-Wing's Anti-Government 'Death-Panel' Delusions, AlterNet, 05 September 2009.