The New York Times reports the Iraqi Parliament passes the “Status of Forces Agreement” allowing US troops to stay in Iraq for another three years. However Peter Juul with the Center for American Progress explains why the US Congress must also approve the SOFA agreement if it’s to hold any legal muster.

New York Times
Iraq Backs Deal That Sets End of U.S. Role
By ALISSA RUBIN and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: November 27, 2008

BAGHDAD — With a substantial majority, the Iraqi Parliament on Thursday ratified a sweeping security agreement that sets the course for an end to the United States’ role in the war and marks the beginning of a new relationship between the countries.

The pact, which still must be approved by Iraq’s three-person presidency council, a move expected in the next few days, sets the end of 2011 as the date by which the last American troops must leave the country.

Its passage, on a vote of 149 to 35, according to a parliamentary statement, was a victory for Iraq’s government as well as for the often fractious legislative body, which forged a political compromise among bitterly differing factions in 10 days of intense negotiations.

Think Progress
Proposed SOFA Agreement Requires Congressional Approval Because It Contains Treaty Commitment»
Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Nov 21st, 2008 at 12:35 pm

William Delahunt (D-MA), who has held a number of hearings on the subject of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement, noted in an opening statement on Wednesday.

… there has been no meaningful consultation with Congress during the negotiation of this agreement. And the American people have been kept completely in the dark.

Even now the National Security Council has requested that we do not show this document to our witnesses or release it to the public…

Now that’s incredible – meantime, the Iraqi government has posted this document on its media website, so that anybody who can read Arabic can take part in the discussion.

Oona Hathaway, a legal scholar and one of Delahunt’s witnesses, argues that the SOFA the administration has negotiated – at least its Arabic translation – amounts to a new authorization to use military force, and that it therefore requires congressional approval.

The Baseline Scenario
International Implications of the Citigroup Bailout
Written by Simon Johnson
November 27, 2008 at 5:20 pm

The Citigroup bailout was a good deal for Citi shareholders…and a great deal for Citigroup management.  But it also has three global implications that perhaps have not yet been fully thought through.

1. The Citi deal shifts pressure from US financial institutions, at least for a while.  But to the markets it raises the question: who or what is next?

2. …the clout of the US financial industry has, if anything, actually increased over the past eighteen months…There is no harm in proposing changes to deficient national regulatory systems and international, rather creaky, Bretton Woods structures.  But strong forces just found out that these structures are completely compatible with rather juicy bailouts (and there may be more to come)…

3. If we are now at the next stage of bailouts and of figuring out who can afford to do the bailing, then existing resources - in and around the IMF - for helping emerging markets are really not enough…IMF available resources, even with the recent loan from Japan, are only around $200bn.  You really cannot save many banks/countries with that amount of money these days - the IMF lent over $40bn this month alone

The Baseline Scenario
And a Volcker on Top
Written by James Kwak
November 27, 2008 at 5:25 pm

[The Obama nominated heads of the Council of Economic Advisors and the National Economic Council include] Christina Romer and Larry Summers, respectively, two of the most prominent and respected economists in the world.

…Obama has named Paul Volcker, now the most respected chairman of the Federal Reserve in recent memory, the hawk who choked off high inflation in the early 1980s, as head of the new Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

…Obama is clearly trying to project the impression that he is bringing overwhelming firepower to bear on the problem, in an effort to bolster confidence in the markets. He is also signaling that his administration will follow a centrist, or at most moderate Democratic line. (Volcker first joined Treasury under Nixon, and was appointed Chairman of the Fed by Carter and then re-appoitned by Reagan; Geithner is an independent.)

Remember those charges of socialism in the last weeks of the election? The few socialists out there are sure to be disappointed.

Econ 101

• The Big Money, presents a Schoolhouse Rock-style video about bonds.

Bank Bailout

• ProPublica.org posts their running tally of banks approved by the Treasury Department for “bailout” money.
• And summarizes today’s The Wall Street Journal article that identifies payoffs to company CEO’s directly linked to the financial crisis

Oil, Trains, and Automobiles

• Many public transit agencies want to pay banks money they set aside years ago for equipment lease payments but banks want to recoup tax benefits they would have enjoyed had AIG not collapsed.
• Planet Money listener, Mike works for an oil & gas company in Tulsa, OK and identifies negative economic repercussions if we end domestic drilling or if continue to support an oil based economy.
• While Jesse Knaak asks why: why doesn’t the federal government take on the responsibility of the medical care for the union retirees?

Continue Reading »

From The American Prospect:

Now that Barack Obama has won the White House, the rapture of those who put him there will be eclipsed only by the countrywide yawp for justice deferred…

These open letters to the next president boast sweeping and ambitious titles: “Investing in America’s Future”; Mandate for Change; “Opportunity ‘08″; Rebooting America; “Making Sense”; “Transitions in Governance” — as do their sponsors: the Campaign for America’s Future, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Progressive Policy Institute, the New America Foundation, USAction, the journal Democracy, the Brookings Institution…

USAction, and the other K Street groups waving binders at the new administration, such nagging is more than ideological inclination — it’s a historic duty…

And there aren’t just a lot of plans. There are a lot of pages in each plan… USAction’s book on the “Next New Deal” was published this July…

Jeff Blum

As this election season winds down, I am amazed at all of the smart, hard, creative work that was done to make democracy work in our nation. Many of us have labored for many years in the vineyards of chipping away and playing defense and fighting against intolerance and oppression and elitism.  This upcoming year will be, I think, a great turning point when we begin to revive our democracy and make progressive values again defining, leading forces in our nation’s civic life.

Being in Missouri and Colorado this week has re-affirmed my deep respect and admiration for people who join together at election time to make a change.  People like Adam, a young organizer in Fort Collins who is running this entire operation here, deploying people onto doors, phones and at polling places. Like Angie in Greeley, who has managed a large operation in the low-income Latino/a community there, despite having lost her voice days ago.  (Angie blew the whistle on County Clerk-inspired Latino voter suppression that became a cause célèbre in the New York Times.)  Like Tahira, who trained me for canvassing Sunday in Denver – and sometimes canvasses with her three-year-old when she can’t find a sitter – but hasn’t missed a day’s work for the entire project.

Driving around Fort Collins, I was also inspired by the overwhelming presence of volunteers on street corners waving Obama signs, and something clicked for me. All year we’ve wondered aloud whether white people would vote for a black candidate. Certainly some did not, but I believe what we witnessed is the stunning movement for change that is sweeping the country.

I believe millions of people – especially young, but not at all only – are trying to make a statement about the America we want to be, a powerful break from the worst parts of the past of a nation built on racial slavery and, more recently, enamored of its unique role in the world to the point of becoming, under this Administration but not for the first time, the world’s bully.

I think one powerful element of what people are saying is about race and about equalizing the roles of all people in this world – a statement that explicitly claims the multi-racial nature of our society, that says it’s time to turn the page toward a future that treats everyone respectfully, regardless of race or nationality.  That, to me, will hopefully be one of the lasting, profound impacts of this election. Paired with the reinvigoration of our democracy, and before any new policies that we will all fight madly for become law, that’s a wonderful delayed start to this new millennium.

I hope you have all enjoyed and been enriched by your participation in this great democratic endeavor. I look forward to these next chapters in the lives of our organizations and our movement and our national community.

Jeff Blum
Executive Director, USAction

On November 5th, I watched Congressman John Lewis giving his reaction to President-elect Barack Obama’s amazing victory. He said that he was jumping up and down, saying “Hallelujah”. And then he wept.

I had the same reaction – and I imagine many of you did also. Later that night, as the giddiness receded, Obama stood up and gave the speech of this new generation:

“I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctors bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.”

Obama’s next words channeled the greatness of Dr. Martin Luther King, echoing the daily bread of our organization:

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.”

This is USAction’s agenda. This is what we fight for every day. This is what we are ready to address – starting now - with the President-elect, with the new Congress, and most importantly, with you. We have already have plans begun planning our campaigns around quality, affordable health care for all, economic recovery legislation, a clean energy economy and responsibly ending the war in Iraq.

Today, I have more hope than I have had in decades of public service. Hope in the American people, hope in our future, and a renewed energy to take on the challenges facing us today. Today, I am ready to make my mark on this moment of history.

New campaign ad urges young people to talk to their grandparents about politics. There are issues in this election that does not just affect you, but affects the life, health, and economic security of your family members.

So watch the video, then turn off the computer and “Tell your granny“.

For weeks USAction and a growing number of the nation’s most respected economists have called for greater financial regulation and government oversight of financial institutions as a result of the Wall Street collapse and $700 billion government bailout package.

Today, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan admitted under pressure that free-wheeling ideology championed by fiscal conservatives is at least partly responsible for the “credit tsunami” that has pushed this country into a recession.

But in a tense exchange with Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Mr. Greenspan conceded a more serious flaw in his own philosophy that unfettered free markets sit at the root of a superior economy.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Questioned by Rep. Waxman, Greenspan said he was “shocked” that the economic philosophy he has championed for the past 40 years has completely failed.

Alan Charney, USAction program director, wholeheartedly agreed. “Reality has proven that the laissez-faire free market philosophy just does not work in the long term,” Charney said. “At a minimum, there must be strict government oversight and regulations of our financial institutions to get this economy moving again.”

“We appreciate Greenspan’s sincerity and realize it is not easy for someone to admit that his view of how the economy works has a serious flaw,” Charney added. “That is why it is time for us to embrace the idea that we need bold, new economic policies to keep things from going from bad to worse. We certainly can’t keep doing what we have been doing.”

Check out these two videos of speakers at Georgia Rural Urban Summit’s September 26th protest and press conference in front of Cigna, Aetna, and Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta. First is Cathy McClure, a supporter of HCAN who a few years ago took the initiative to found VoteHealthCare.org, speaking about her family’s terrible experiences with insurance companies.

Next check out State Rep. Roberta Abdul-Salaam speaking passionately about the need for affordable, quality health care for all Americans. We need more like her!

If you’re in Atlanta, come to our next action. Sign up at

We don’t think America is better off. According to recent statistics, unemployment, inflation and gas prices are up 50% from 8 years ago. Manufacturing levels, real wages and property values are down significantly. Our financial institutions are destabilizing before our very eyes and the quality of our health care system continues to decline.

The overwhelming majority of people know that our nation is definitely on the wrong track and we need a change.

Now that we’ve bailed out the banks, it is time to provide relief for millions of Americans and get our economy back on track. Congress must pass a comprehensive economic recovery package which includes four key aspects:

• Bankruptcy Protection: Allowing responsible people to stay in their homes.
• Aid to State and Local Governments: Offsetting drastic cuts in vital services and massive layoffs.
• Relief for struggling families: Supporting those hit hardest by the recession by extending unemployment insurance and temporarily increasing food stamps.
• Public Investments in Infrastructure and Clean Energy: Ensuring safety on our nations roads, bridges and trains while creating hundreds of thousands of new “green” jobs.

As Congress continues next week with hearings to develop a well-crafted economic recovery package news reports state that the package could be as large as $300-$400 billion. What do you think? What else should be in it and how large?