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Technically, the federal government has now reached the limit of its capacity to borrow money. Raising the debt ceiling used to be a technical adjustment, made almost automatically. Now it's a political football. Democrats should never have agreed to linking it to an agreement on the long-term budget deficit. But now that the debt ceiling is in play, there's no end to what the radical right will demand. John Boehner is already using the classic "they're making me" move, seemingly helpless in the face of Tea Party storm troopers who refuse to raise the ceiling unless they get their way. Their way is reactionary and regressive - eviscerating Medicare, cutting Medicaid and programs for the poor, slashing education and infrastructure, and using most of the savings to reduce taxes on the rich. If the only issue were cutting the federal deficit by four or five trillion dollars over the next ten years, the President and Democrats wouldn't have to cave in to this extortion. That goal can be achieved by doing exactly the opposite of what radical Republicans are demanding. We can reduce the long-term budget deficit, keep everything Americans truly depend on, and also increase spending on education and infrastructure - by cutting unnecessary military expenditures, ending corporate welfare, and raising taxes on the rich. I commend to you the "People's Budget," a detailed plan for doing exactly this - while reducing the long-term budget deficit more than either the Republican's or the President's plan does. When I read through the People's Budget my first thought was how modest and reasonable it is. It was produced by the House Progressive Caucus but could easily have been generated by Washington centrists - forty years ago.

What amazes me most whenever I write about this topic is recalling how terribly upset so many Democrats pretended to be when Bush claimed the power merely to detain or even just eavesdrop on American citizens without due process.  Remember all that?  Yet now, here's Obama claiming the power not to detain or eavesdrop on citizens without due process, but to kill them; marvel at how the hardest-core White House loyalists now celebrate this and uncritically accept the same justifying rationale used by Bush/Cheney (this is war! the President says he was a Terrorist!) without even a moment of acknowledgment of the profound inconsistency or the deeply troubling implications of having a President - even Barack Obama - vested with the power to target U.S. citizens for murder with no due process. Also, during the Bush years, civil libertarians who tried to convince conservatives to oppose that administration's radical excesses would often ask things like this: would you be comfortable having Hillary Clinton wield the power to spy on your calls or imprison you with no judicial reivew or oversight?  So for you good progressives out there justifying this, I would ask this:  how would the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process look to you in the hands of, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann?

LONDON, June 24, 2010 (Reuters) - Radical cuts in social welfare spending by governments intent on reducing budget deficits can cost lives as well as cause economic pain, according to a study published on Friday.

Many of the commenters I admire most have been saying that the Left/Right dichotomy is inadequate to explain current dynamics and that Insider/Outsider along with Incrementalist/Radical are better descriptors. Glenn Greenwald notes this pitch perfect:

The former head of Britain's intelligence agency explains that wars in the Muslim world radicalize domestic Muslims

There's no doubting the conservative bona fides of Bruce Fein. A high-level Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration in the 1980s and previously a resident scholar with the Heritage Foundation, he is a long-time advocate for uncompromising right-wing political principles. Yet paradoxically, Fein has been, and remains, one of the most eloquent and incisive political voices over the last decade. He was one of the earliest and most emphatic critics of Bush and Cheney's radical abuses of executive power. Two weeks after The New York Times revealed in December, 2005, that Bush had ordered the NSA to illegally eavesdrop on Americans without the warrants required by law, Fein used his column in the right-wing Washington Times to warn that "Mr. Bush has adamantly refused to acknowledge any constitutional limitations on his power to wage war indefinitely"; to scorn as "war powers nonsense" the theories assembled "to defend Mr.

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, akaThe Elvis of cultural theory, is given the floor to show of his polemic style and whirlwind-like performance. The Giant of Ljubljana is bombarded with clips of popular media images and quotes by modern-day thinkers revolving around four major issues: the economical crisis, environment, Afghanistan and the end of democracy. Zizek grabs the opportunity to ruthlessly criticize modern capitalism and to give his view on our common future. We communists are back! is the closing remark of Slavoj Zižeks provocative performance. Our current capitalist system, that everyone believed would be smoothly spread around the globe, is untenable. We find ourselves on the brink of big problems that call for big solutions. Whatever is left of the left, has been hedged in by western liberal democracy and seems to lack the energy to come up with radical solutions. Not Zižek. Interview: Chris Kijne Director: Marije Meerman Production: Mariska Schneider /Pepijn Boonstra Research: Marijntje Denters/Maren Merckx Commissioning editors: Henneke Hagen/Jos de Putter

A bunch of right wing congressmen, supported by "pro-family organizations," are trying to close a loophole that allows active duty soldiers to buy pornography on base. "Here's a radical idea: how about we let the men and women that put on the uniform and put their lives on the line every day read whatever they want."

While the Cheneys, father and daughter, continue to hammer away at the accusation that the Obama administration has a "mindset" problem because it (sometimes) chooses to deal with terrorists through the criminal justice system, another bullet-hole has been leveled at their argument by, of all nations, Germany. This isn't France that chose to try terrorist suspects in a civilian criminal court. This is big bad Germany. And these were not just any terrorists. The judge in the case declared, they had dreamed of "mounting a second September 11 2001" by killing US civilians and soldiers by bombing targets like Ramstein Air Base. They were accused of operating as a German cell of the radical al-Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic Jihad Union.

"If I were to describe the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, it would be as that of a trimmer. He represented change - but not the radical kind the left wanted or the revolutionary kind the right still suspects. In the wake of the rigid, white-knuckled George W Bush and Dick Cheney, he appeared as a lithe and nimble, cat-like creature. Time after time he seems to have given way to opponents and to have bent too easily in the prevailing winds.\n\n[...]\n\nAll the way he seemed weak, reactive, vacillating, vague. He has given his supporters as little emotional satisfaction as he has given some of his allies (Britain included). In fact, he has driven his friends a little crazy and allowed his enemies to greet his open hand with contempt. He has bent to the prevailing winds and not picked battles when he was unsure he could win them. But in the end there isn't weakness here. There is a suppleness and pragmatism that is a kind of strength."

SACRAMENTO - In another indication of how frustrated voters have grown with politics as usual, California - home of initiative-happy democracy - is considering a radical overhaul.

Today's remembrances abstract non-violence from justice, colorblindness from racial equity and public service from radical social transformation.

Europe must move beyond mere tolerance of others and resuscitate its legacy of radical and universal emancipation