The Rolling Jubilee is just getting started and so far it has raised over $6 Million, which will be used to wipe out medical debt for random Americans. Cutting debt while helping those in need, now there's something everyone can agree on.
Phi Beta Iota: What we find utterly fascinating here is the discount rate on personal debt in the USA: 4%. They have bought and dismissed $6 million in debt for a cost of $304,850. 4% — at a time when most Americans are being hounded by debt collectors, and nothing is being done to help the average person. How hard would it be for the President to sponsor a Jubilee Bill at this rate — instead of trillions for the banks, a billion or less, at 4% [96% leverage] wipes out all individual and small business debt in the USA. A big idea. Mr. President?
The Romney campaign was banking on the Benghazi attack making Obama the next Jimmy Carter, however it has instead blown up in the face of the American right – only problem is, they haven't realized that yet.
Conservatives thought the September 11th attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was the little engine that could. President Obama was ahead in a majority of polls in swing states, and he was leading former Governor Mitt Romney hands down.
Then came reports that the consulate was under attack, after violent protests over a derisive movie entitled Innocence of Muslims which insulted the Prophet Muhammad and decent minded people the world over. Then the news came that Ambassador Stevens were killed along with two CIA security contractors and an IT specialist. The Romney campaign wasted no time issuing a statement even while the embassy staff was still in harms way. The media seemed surprised at their gung ho attitude on the attacks, why was the campaign using this moment of tragedy on the anniversary of another tragedy to attack their opponent, President Obama?
This was their plan. This was their moment. The Reagan revolution was getting a sequel.
The Stand Down
Michael Morell, the Acting CIA Director testified to the Senate that the CIA in Libya never asked for help. This is important in light of what we already know about the attacks. According to the Daily Beast, two hours after the attack on the consulate began Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had multiple plans in place to respond. The plans included sending in a Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST) from Rota, Spain. More plans included two special forces units to deploy to Libya, one from Italy and another from the United States. However the CIA never requested the help, and neither did the State Department.
When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week began taking military action in the Gaza strip against Hamas (as the IDF announced on Twitter), Anonymous declared its own war as part of #OpIsrael. Among the casualties are thousands of email addresses and passwords, hundreds of Israeli web sites, government-owned as well as privately owned pages, as well as databases belonging to the Bank of Jerusalem and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
I wrote this with John Kerry and Michele Flourney in mind, but regardless of who is eventually made Secretary of Defense, the core concept remains: the center of gravity for massive change in the US Government and in the nature of how the US Government ineracts with the rest of the world, lies within the Department of Defense, not the Department of State.
John Kerry, Global Engagement, and National Integrity
It troubles me that John Kerry is resisting going to Defense when he can do a thousand times more good there instead of sitting at State being, as Madeline Albright so famously put it, a “gerbil on a wheel.” Defense is the center of gravity for the second Obama Administration, and the one place where John Kerry can truly make a difference. Appoint Michele Flournoy as Deputy and his obvious replacement down the road, and you have an almost instant substantive make-over of Defense. Regardless of who ends up being confirmed, what follows is a gameplan for moving DoD away from decades of doing the wrong things righter, and toward a future of doing the right things affordably, scalably, and admirably.
Marijuana Legalization for Personal Use Reaches New High in Poll
JUSTIN SINK – The Hill
We should remember that it was the states that ended Alcohol Prohibition. It began just as this is beginning, and went up quite quickly to the Federal level. I am not sure that this will happen the same way. Look for this: When it becomes politically dangerous to be anti-Marijuana. It will happen quicker with Representatives, because of their smaller concentrated populations, district by di! strict. I think this will drive the Senate to change as well.
But the opposition may be so bitter, that it is one of the first of the new development trends shifting power to the states. This is going to depend on what the Obama administration does.
A record 48 percent of Americans support legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use, just one week after three states voted to legalize the drug under some conditions – including Colorado and Washington's historic votes to allow the personal use and sale of pot.
China: Update. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China concluded on 14 November after the Congress elected a new Central Committee and a new Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
Comment:NightWatch will report at greater length as details warrant. The two most impressive themes that emerged from the early speeches were that corruption is a threat to the survival of the party and possibly the communist state itself and that the new leadership will have no latitude to compromise the communist political leadership. Political reform means measures to ease social tension and increase participation within the communist system. Put another way, free market economics with greater individual entrepreneurship will not lead to Western-style democracy or a multiparty system.
There's a flash of hope here: A remarkable U.S. transpartisan group called Represent.Us is promoting a brilliantly designed Anti-Corruption Act. Check it out!
The proposed law pulls together a number of anti-corruption and money-out-of-politics approaches into one piece of national legislation. It exposes and regulates bribery and restricts the “revolving door” of public officials getting high paying corporate jobs soon after leaving their government jobs. It tightens regulations on lobbying and exposes secret donations to public view. It strengthens the Federal Election Commission and even provides a tax rebate for small political donations.
The introduction on its website http://anticorruptionact.org explains: “The Act was crafted by former Federal Election Commission chairman Trevor Potter in consultation with dozens of strategists, democracy reform leaders and constitutional attorneys from across the political spectrum. Mr. Potter was one of the chief architects of the McCain-Feingold law. The Act would transform how elections are financed, how lobbyists influence politics, and how political money is disclosed. It is a bold, sweeping proposal that would reshape the rules of American politics, and restore ordinary Americans as the most important stakeholders instead of major donors. The Anti-Corruption Act’s provisions enjoy support from progressives and conservatives alike. Constitutional attorneys confirm that the provisions are constitutional.”
