I Love Bill Maher

Bill Maher opened his show with, “Now that it’s become clear that the Republicans, the fiscally conservative strong on defense party are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense, they have to tell us what exactly it is they’re good at. It’s not defense. 9/11 happened on your watch, and you retaliated by invading the wrong country, and you lost a 10 year game of hide and seek with Osama Bin Laden, and you’re responsible for running up most of the debt, which more than anything makes us weak.”

Maher continued, “You’re supposed to be the party with the killer instinct, but it was a Democrat who put a bomb in Gadhafi’s bedroom, and bullet in Bin Laden’s eye like Moe Green. Raising the question how many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass? Let’s look at some facts. Now for you Fox News viewers feel free to turn down the sound until the flashing facts light at the bottom of your screen disappears.”

He then rolled out the facts, “When Bill Clinton left office in 2001, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that by the end of the decade we would have paid off the entire debt and had $2 trillion surplus. Instead we have a ten and a half trillion dollar public debt and the different in those two numbers is mostly because Republicans put tax cuts for the rich, free drugs for the elderly, and two wars on the layaway plan, and then bailed on the check, so so much for fiscal responsibility.”

Bill Maher then destroyed the idea that Republicans are strong in national security, “But hey, at least they still had the defense thing right? The public still believed Republicans were tougher when it came to hunting down dark skinned foreigners with funny sounding names. But Bush had 7 years to get Osama, he didn’t. He got Wesley Snipes. Only 6 months after 9/11 Bush said he didn’t spend that much time on Bin Laden that he was no longer concerned about him. Just as he wasn’t before 9/11 when he blew off that mysterious inscrutable memo titled Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States. In under a year Bush went from who gives a shit, to wanted dead or alive, back to who gives a shit.”

After calling out the Republicans for criticizing Obama for during the 2008 campaign for saying that he would go into Pakistan to get Bin Laden, and asked Republicans, “Why can’t you just admit that Barack Obama is one efficient, steely nerved, multitasking, black ninja gansta president? In one week he produced his birth certificate, comforted disaster victims, swung by Florida to say hey to Gabby Giffords, did stand up at the Correspondents’ Dinner, and then personally repelled into in Bin Laden’s lair and put a Chinese star though his throat without waking up any of his 13 wives. That’s how it went down, I saw it on MSNBC.”

The truth is that the 30% of America that Bill Maher mentioned will never support Obama no matter what he does. Unlike Democrats who did rally behind President Bush after 9/11, many Republicans can only view the Obama presidency with bitter jaundiced eyes that are only capable of seeing all the vast conspiracies that explain why they were not able to keep the presidency, which they believe they are entitled to.

Maher had it right. Obama had an incredible week last week, but within 48 hours the right was back hard at work trying to delegitimize his accomplishments while at the same time taking credit for themselves. What is absolutely eating the Obama haters up inside right now is that he got Bin Laden. Since 9/11 Republicans have treated the issue of national security as their birthright, but Obama showed them what a real commitment to keeping America secure looks like.

Barack Obama is one bad ass gangsta president. He is everything Republicans wish they were, but don’t have the guts to be

FRACKING - My Water Is On Fire

Find out what the oil companies are doing to your drinking water before it's too late.

Court: Chicago must hire 111 black firefighters

By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Don Babwin, Associated Press

Fri May 13, 4:54 pm ET

.CHICAGO – A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 African Americans who passed a firefighters entrance exam 16 years ago and pay millions of dollars to thousands more who took and passed the same test.

The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling was the latest blow to the city, which has been on the losing end of court decisions regarding the 1995 test for years, including a 2005 ruling by a federal judge who said the test discriminated against black applicants and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that the candidates did not wait too long to sue the city.

An attorney for the black firefighter candidates said that the 111 jobs would be filled from the applicants who passed the 1995 test and their pensions would be adjusted as if they'd been firefighters since 1995. And, said Joshua Karsh, 6,000 others who also passed the test will divide "tens of millions of dollars" that would have been paid 111 firefighters from 1995 until today.

A spokeswoman for the city's law department called the decision a "partial victory" for the city because it reduced the number of African Americans the fire department must hire from 132 to 111. "Reducing the number of plaintiffs who are eligible reduces the damages," said Jenny Hoyle.

Hoyle said that the city was still calculating the damages as result of dividing the back pay of 111 firefighters among the 6,000 applicants, but that officials estimate the payout will be about $30 million.

The ruling stems from a test given in 1995 that was intended to measure an aptitude for firefighting. After the test, anyone who scored 64 or below was deemed not qualified, but officials told those who scored above that number that while they passed, they would randomly hire the top 1,800 who scored 89 or better.  Because only 11 percent of the African Americans scored 89 or better, the overwhelming number of applicants hired from that test were white.

Karsh said the test was discriminatory because there was no evidence that the applicant who scored 89 or better would be any better firefighter than another who scored a 64, and in fact in 2005 a federal judge said the test discriminated against black candidates. In her ruling the judge said the city knew the cutoff point was meaningless and would disproportionately exclude blacks from the pool of candidates most likely to be hired.

"If the city of Chicago had selected firefighters at random from all the people who passed the test it would have gotten a pool of equally capable firefighters and the pool would have been more integrated," said Karsh said. He said he did not know when the hiring might begin, but said that he expected it to start soon.

After the judge's decision, the city, which hadn't given another test since 1995 because of ongoing court challenges, gave another test in 2006. But that test was given on a pass/fail basis and that all passing applicants, and not just the top ones, were processed randomly for additional tests such as physical agility and background checks.

He's MISTER Las Vegas = Everything's Fake

Trump ‘school’ sued for fraud

By Rachel Rose Hartman rachel Rose Hartman

Mon May 9, 3:08 pm ET

Add questions about Trump University to the growing list of potential scandals for which Donald Trump may have to answer if he decides to jump into the 2012 presidential race.

Last year, the real estate mogul's school was forced to change its name from Trump University after the New York Department of Education took issue with its title, claiming the word "University" was misrepresentation. At the time, Trump was marketing his seminar program as an "Ivy-League quality" school.

But a current class action lawsuit against the learning institute--now known as the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative--begs to differ, the Huffington Post reports. The program continues to face accusations it's nothing more than a scam preying on individuals hoping to make it rich in the real estate business, purporting to make participants into "apprentices" of Trump and offer insider secrets.

More specifically, the lawsuit claims that the for-profit institution is a ripoff that pressures individuals into spending money, especially on ventures in which the "school's" mentors and associates have a financial stake. (Trump has filed a $100 million counterclaim for defamation.)

In addition to the class action suit, state attorney generals in six states are also investigating complaints against Trump's program, as is the Better Business Bureau, which in the past has issued it a poor rating, HuffPo reports.

Trump has faced increased scrutiny since floating his name for president.

Recently, he appeared to contradict documentation that he sought draft deferments during the Vietnam war. Trump also faces questions for employing Chinese companies to manufacture Trump goods, for donating to Democrats and for failing to release his financial statements and settle long-disputed claims about his actual net worth.

AND The Fox Sideshow

The main problem with last night’s GOP debate is that most of the diehard political junkies in Washington—yours truly among them—had to be reminded that it was even taking place. The many, many voters who missed this clash of “Governor Tim Pawlenty and the also-rans” can continue their lives without a care.

The real loser of tonight’s South Carolina encounter is Fox News Channel. What on earth possessed the network to host this asterisk-in-the making? Fox wasted airfare, production costs, and the time of some of their marquee names—Chris Wallace, Juan Williams, and Bret Baier—who asked questions of a bunch of also-rans without even pretending to listen to their answers. The first clue this debate was a disaster was when the moderators began to ask the placeholders on stage about candidates who weren’t even there: Mitt Rom-bot, Trump, Daniels, Huckabee, Bachmann, Gingrich, and Trump, again.

Ironically for a network accused of right-wing bias, Fox may have done the Republican Party a monumental disservice. In the midst of one of the Obama administration’s greatest achievements—the killing of Osama bin Laden—the network made the Republican presidential primary look like a low-budget Star Trek convention, where only the guy who played Dr. McCoy and a bunch of extras bothered to show up. And the network’s overuse of a loud, annoying Price Is Right bell to cut candidates off in mid-sentence only added to the aura that this affair was a tawdry game show waiting for someone to mercifully hit a gong.

Since I had to watch this whatever-the-opposite-of-thriller-is, I might as well offer a note or two on each of the candidates who did show up. Soak it up, gentlemen: This is the most attention you will get all year.

Congressman Ron Paul was his usual self, lapping up applause and laughter from his uncontrollable contingent in the audience, while angrily railing against waterboarding, the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, the federal debt, “our militarism,” something about heroin, and monsters under the bed. If you actually listen to him, the congressman does say some sensible things. But somehow he gives off a sense that his true calling is to work in a local library, where he can chastise patrons who go a few minutes over their allotted time on the Internet. Does this man ever smile? Tell a joke? Take a breath? And why am I wasting so many lines on him?

The overuse of a loud Price Is Right bell to cut candidates off in mid-sentence added to the aura that this affair was a tawdry game show.

Since it doesn’t really matter, let’s move, randomly to…oh, Herman Cain, the pizza guy, who despite his national anonymity remains a darling of conservatives. Unfortunately, Mr. Cain did not take advantage of this rare—and likely sole—opportunity in the spotlight to explain why anyone might consider him presidential. I knew little about him when the debate began, and I know even less about him now. Even Chris Wallace finally felt the need to ask him the “who do you think you are kidding?” question. (I didn’t understand his answer.)

Narrowly losing to Fox News for worst idea of the night was the attendance of actual legitimate contender—until tonight, at least—Tim Pawlenty. If I’d been there to watch the governor walk onto the stage, I would have screamed at him, Admiral Ackbar-style: “It’s a trap!” Undoubtedly his advisers thought the Minnesota governor would look like a president standing next to all these . . . I’m running out of synonyms for also-rans. He didn’t. His advisers also must have told Pawlenty to move his hands frequently, as if to give off a sense that he is actually animated. What does it say about our would-be presidential nominee when he couldn’t really outshine Gary Johnson (Who?)?

Former senator Rick Santorum actually offered the best impersonation of a legitimate presidential candidate. The youthful-looking and confident Santorum boasted about all the incumbents he defeated in various elections in Pennsylvania—sort of skipping over that one time when he didn’t. It happened to be his last election, when he was decisively thrown out of office by the majority of voters in his home state. Not exactly a recipe for defeating the Obama war machine.

As for the man on stage identified as “Gary Johnson”: I fear I’ve already said too much. All I remember is that Bret Baier found him so inconsequential that he started to make fun of him.

I’m loath to acknowledge this, but by far the shrewdest candidate of the evening was Mitt Romney, for whatever excuse he had for ducking this mess (perhaps because he couldn’t reschedule his annual tune-up.) For the first time in four years, I actually missed him, his metallic hair, and his traveling Power Point caravan.

The most notable fact of the whole encounter, however, is this: Donald Trump would have outshone any of them without even trying. I’m not sure what that says about the status of the GOP race in 2012, but it definitely isn’t good.

The Trump Sideshow

The Donald Trump steamroller got run off the road last week, and getting back on track may not be easy. 

The wealthy developer surged to the top of the Republican polls with a bombastic media blitz that stunned the political pros, even as many scoffed at the notion that he is seriously running for president. Now he’s been roughed up, ridiculed, and, for the moment, knocked out of the news.

Trump, like every other potential GOP candidate, has been utterly overshadowed by the administration’s triumph in killing Osama bin Laden (forcing NBC, irony of ironies, to cut away from Celebrity Apprentice on Sunday night). But the impact may have been greater for The Donald because it made the issue he was loudly pursuing—Barack Obama’s birth certificate—seem so small.

Trump may have been “very proud of myself,” as he put it, when the president released his long-form birth certificate. But Obama’s move put the allegation that Trump had been peddling to rest, at least among reasonable people. And when Obama said he had “other things to do,” we didn’t know that meant planning a daring helicopter raid to kill the world’s most-wanted terrorist.

Little wonder, then, that Obama leads Trump, 53 to 25 percent, in a Newsweek/Daily Beast poll conducted two days before and two days after the bin Laden mission. (In a CNN survey released Thursday, Trump finished an eyelash behind Mike Huckabee as the top presidential choice of Republicans, but a breathtaking 64 percent of those surveyed had a negative view of him.)

“Once you’ve been ridiculed and laid low, it’s hard to scramble back… Right now you’re just a vanity candidate. Right now you’re a sideshow, and you’re going to stay a sideshow. You’ll continue to get headlines, but not the kind of headlines you want if you are in fact a serious candidate.”

The president also seized the advantage at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, where he lobbed a series of zingers in Trump’s direction: “No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald. And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like: Did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?” Trump, a guest of The Washington Post, sat stone-faced during the comedic barrage.

“Very few people have ever been hammered like he was hammered,” says veteran GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who says the Washington Hilton dinner—where Seth Meyers of SNL also called Trump a “joke”—was a key moment. “The message was he’s not a serious guy. It now gives legitimate journalists, not that they needed an excuse, but a reason to look at him seriously.”

Rollins, who broke with his party to work for Ross Perot in 1992, sees similarities between the two tycoons who challenged the system in idiosyncratic fashion. Rollins recalls the moment when Perot pulled ahead of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush in the polls.

“All of a sudden the media started looking at him as a real candidate, and he didn’t like it,” Rollins says. “I don’t think Trump is going to like it. They’re not prepared for the assault that takes place.”

The morning after being skewered at the dinner, Trump called Fox & Friends to say: “You raise to a certain level in the polls and boy does the world come after you… I had no idea it would be to that extent, where you know, it was just joke after joke after joke. It was almost like, is there anyone else they could talk about?”

Trump may sense that he needs to regroup. He hasn’t spoken publicly since bin Laden’s death, limiting himself to a statement congratulating the president, and his office didn’t respond to an interview request.

Insiders may scoff when Trump rails about seizing Libya’s oil or telling the OPEC sheikhs “you’re not going to raise that f---ing price,” as he put it in a widely bleeped speech. But in a bland Republican field, Trump clearly touched a nerve.

“He’s demonstrated a tremendous ability to rally the grassroots,” says Dan Schnur, who runs the political institute at the University of Southern California. “If he’s even semi-serious about running for president, it’s time for him to give a couple of semi-substantive speeches. If his only goal is to build ratings for his television show, then he’s doing exactly the right thing.”

Schnur doesn’t see Trump as having been discredited by the birther controversy because such charges appeal to a certain segment of the party. “Trump can get just as much mileage out of a crusade for Barack Obama’s college transcripts, because a lot of frustrated voters out there are looking for someone who can viscerally channel that frustration,” Schnur says.

As for the butt-kicking talk, Rollins says: “It’s a macho act and not a legitimate discussion of very serious issues. But it’s out there, and he’s tapped into it.”

There are signs over the last two weeks that news organizations, undoubtedly conscious of the polls, are starting to step up their scrutiny of the Trump phenomenon. The Washington Post reported that the recently minted Republican has given 54 percent of his donations to Democrats, including Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton. The cable station NY1 reported that Trump didn’t vote in primary elections for 21 years. And after he claimed a high draft lottery number kept him out of Vietnam, the Smoking Gun website reported that Trump received a series of student deferments in college and a medical deferment after graduation.

Can the real-estate impresario dig out of this hole? Asked what advice he would offer Trump, Democratic consultant Doug Hattaway says: “A smart strategy would be to pivot toward substance, because right now you’re obviously not going to be taken seriously. Once you’ve been ridiculed and laid low, it’s hard to scramble back… Right now you’re just a vanity candidate. Right now you’re a sideshow, and you’re going to stay a sideshow. You’ll continue to get headlines, but not the kind of headlines you want if you are in fact a serious candidate.”

Make no mistake: After decades of fencing with New York’s tabloids, Trump is a master of generating headlines. The man who once called Rosie O’Donnell “a real loser” and “nice fat little Rosie” has brought the same pugilism to his presidential flirtation.

When Jerry Seinfeld, disturbed by the birther rhetoric, canceled an appearance at a charity event hosted by Trump’s son, Trump wrote a letter—“obtained” by the New York Post—slamming the comedian for dropping out and adding that he regretted going on Seinfeld’s show, The Marriage Ref, which he deemed a failure.

And when David Letterman said Trump’s language smacks of racism, Trump fired off another letter, canceling an upcoming Late Show appearance “despite the fact that we have always done so well together, especially in your ratings.”

This stuff is pure catnip for the media. It doesn’t mean Trump can propel himself back into the forefront of the presidential race, but he knows how to make news.

CLEAN AIR: A Comment

.

"Yeah, that'll work fine 'til their parents figure out that the real solution to climate change includes a HUGE change in how we live and an equalizing of wealth around the globe and honest-to-God sacrifice -- such as, no more big old house in the suburbs with two.point.five cars to drive around all the time for every whim, but instead, take public transport -- my God -- to and from work every day, and live closer to work (what? with POOR people and HOMELESS, around, in the city?) and walk a lot, and hang clothes on a line to dry instead of shoving them in a dryer, and waste minimization like the Japanese do, and water conservation (you mean I can't have a green lawn when I live in the desert?), and every house lit up like a Christmas tree 24/7/365 -- and THAT kind of sacrifice ain't gonna happen in THIS country....not unless we all live through another TRUE Great Depression for a generation or two."

Blogger's Note:  I was inspired to run the story CLEAN AIR by a plant.  A plant that a colleague who was on vacation asked me to care for.  This colleague had a large plastic (recycled milk) jug for watering her plants - but the jug had a hole in it, that caused me to spill water all over her desk.  I don't buy milk by the gallon, so I asked another colleague (with young children) if she a jug at home that she could bring in.  And she said, "No, we buy our milk in glass bottles.  It's delivered everyday fresh, and we recycle."  Who knew!

I agree with your comments 100% - well maybe 85%.  But I also think that even small changes in our routines and habits, will make a difference in the long run.  And  I think you'd be surprised by the steps some of your neighbors and co-workers have already taken to conserve, renew and reuse.  We're getting better.  We're not there yet.  But we are getting better.

This is what I'm willing to do:

1.  My house is 2400 sq ft, that's about average for houses in the U.S. It's a single family home, but it is energy efficient.  I use compact flourescents, green cleaning products, white paper products (for the most part :-) and a programmable thermostat.

2.  On occassion, I will take the commuter bus to work; but not when the weather is bad, or if I have other errands to run before or after.

3.  I will hang my sheets on a retractable clothesline in my back yard - not just because it's environmentally correct, but because I love the smell of bed linens that were hung outside to dry. 

4.  Now that we have wheels on our recycle bins, I recycle 5 times more waste than I throw away.

5.  I will support farmer's markets and locally grown produce and dairy products.

6.  I will water my lawn only when I must.  And if I move to the desert (not gonna happen), I'll landscape with cactus.

And this is what I'm not willing to do:

1.  I am not going to live in the city; for all the reasons you mentioned and more - density, noise, crime, and that sense of anonimity that makes people think they can get away with anything - and then try it.

2.  The toilet will be flushed EVERY time.

3.  They will have to take my car keys out of my cold dead hand.

CLEAN AIR

Climate activists target states with lawsuits

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Matthew Brown

 

BILLINGS, Mont. – A group of attorneys using children and young adults as plaintiffs plans to file legal actions in every state and the District of Columbia on Wednesday in an effort to force government intervention on climate change.

The courtroom ploy is backed by high-profile activists looking for a legal soft spot to advance a cause that has stumbled in the face of stiff congressional opposition and a skeptical U.S. Supreme Court.

The goal is to have the atmosphere declared for the first time as a "public trust" deserving special protection. That's a concept previously used to clean up polluted rivers and coastlines, although legal experts said they were uncertain it could be applied successfully to climate change.

Wednesday's spate of lawsuits, led by an Oregon-based nonprofit called Our Children's Trust, are based on "common law" theories, not statutes adopted by state or federal lawmakers. Documents in the cases were provided in advance to The Associated Press.

Conservative opponents warned the effort could overload the judicial system and paralyze the economy with over-regulation.

Attorneys involved in the lawsuits said a victory in even one or two cases would give environmentalists new leverage, leading to new regulations to rein in greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are driving global temperatures higher.

State-level lawsuits were planned in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, organizers said. A federal lawsuit was to be filed in California, while regulatory petitions filed elsewhere would ask state environmental agencies to tighten restrictions on vehicle and industrial plant emissions.

"It's not just a political issue; it's a legal issue. All three branches of government have an obligation to protect that public trust," said Amy Eddy, a trial attorney from Kalispell, Mont., who helped draft litigation to be filed with the Montana Supreme Court. "You have just as much control over emissions into the atmosphere as you do pollution into water."

Getting the courts to agree could be an uphill battle, legal experts said.

Another case that relied on unconventional legal tactics to address climate change got a tepid reception during arguments last month before the U.S. Supreme Court. That matter involved several states that sought to rein in power plant emissions by declaring them a public nuisance.

A ruling is pending, but Harvard Law School professor Jody Freeman said justices had questioned whether courts were the appropriate forum for the issue.

"I am generally skeptical the plaintiffs will succeed in the courts pressing for common law remedies from judges," Freeman said.

Columbia University law professor Michael Gerrard described the public trust suits as a "bold move" by activists looking to use all available options to impose greenhouse gas restrictions. Still, he joined Freeman in saying the pending decision in the public nuisance case would heavily influence the outcome of the state-level lawsuits.

A more optimistic view came from Gus Speth, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Jimmy Carter.

Speth, now at the Vermont Law School, said public trust litigation over climate change could work if its backers can find a judge willing to innovate a new area of law.

Yet that outcome could only result if a judge is willing to buy into what conservative analyst Hans von Spakovsky called "a creative, made-up legal theory."

"This is a complete violation of our whole constitutional system. These kinds of public policy issues are up to either the state legislatures or Congress to determine, not judges," said von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Eddy and others involved in Wednesday's lawsuits credited University of Oregon law professor Mary Christina Wood as laying the legal groundwork for their litigation.

Wood said in an interview with The Associated Press that mainstream environmental groups had approached climate change with the same tactics used to combat industrial developments or protect endangered species. But she said lawsuits based on existing environmental laws had come up short.

What is needed, Wood said, is a sweeping challenge to the government's failure to address climate change. And having young people as plaintiffs in the cases gives added moral authority, she added. The plaintiffs include college students, high school activists, and children of conservationists and attorneys, along with environmental groups.

"We should be getting youths in front of the courts, not polar bears," Wood said, referring to widely publicized attempt to have courts declare polar bears endangered as rising temperatures melt Arctic ice.

I can’t eat an iPad

The Fed may deny it, but Americans know that prices are rising. In this week’s Newsweek, Niall Ferguson takes a look at the Great Inflation of the 2010s.

“I can’t eat an iPad.” This could go down in history as the line that launched the great inflation of the 2010s.

Back in March, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, William Dudley, was trying to explain to the citizens of Queens, N.Y., why they had no cause to worry about inflation. Dudley, a former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, put it this way: “Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful. You have to look at the prices of all things.” Quick as a flash came a voice from the audience: “I can’t eat an iPad.”

Dudley’s boss, Ben Bernanke, was more tactful in his first-ever press conference on Wednesday of last week. But he didn’t succeed in narrowing the gap between the Fed’s view of inflation and the public’s.

I respect Bernanke. As an expert on the financial history of the 1930s, he was one of the very few people in power back in 2008 who grasped how close we were to another Great Depression. But if we’ve avoided rerunning the 1930s only to end up with a repeat of the 1970s, the public will judge him to have failed.

To ordinary Americans, however, it’s not the online price of an iPad that matters; it’s prices of food on the shelf and gasoline at the pump.

To this, the Fed has a stock response. It points to the all-urban consumer price index (CPI-U) and notes that it was up only 2.7 percent in March relative to the same month a year earlier. Strip out the costs of food and energy, and “core CPI”—the Fed’s preferred measure—is just 1.2 percent. When Google unveils its new index of online prices, it’s likely to tell a similar story.

To ordinary Americans, however, it’s not the online price of an iPad that matters; it’s prices of food on the shelf and gasoline at the pump. These, after all, are the costs they encounter most frequently. And with average gas prices hitting $3.88 a gallon last week, filling up is now twice as painful as when President Obama took office.

Sensing a threat to his hopes of reelection, the president last week called on Congress to eliminate “unwarranted” tax breaks for oil companies and set up a Justice Department task force to investigate price gouging and fraud in the oil markets. Give me a break. The spike in gas prices is the result of Fed policy, which has increased the monetary base threefold in as many years, and a geopolitical crisis in the Middle East that the president and his advisers still haven’t gotten a handle on.

And the reason the CPI is losing credibility is that, as economist John Williams tirelessly points out, it’s a bogus index. The way inflation is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been “improved” 24 times since 1978. If the old methods were still used, the CPI would actually be 10 percent. Yes, folks, double-digit inflation is back. Pretty soon you’ll be able to figure out the real inflation rate just by moving the decimal point in the core CPI one place to the right.

It’s not only the BLS that speaks with a forked tongue. Members of the Council on Foreign Relations last week heard Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner say: “Our policy has been and will always be that a strong dollar is in the interest of the country.” Fact: the dollar has depreciated relative to other currencies by 17 percent since 2009. That European vacation is going to cost nearly a fifth more than you anticipated when you booked the flights a year ago.

I grew up in the 1970s. My first-ever publication, when I was 10, was a letter to the Glasgow Herald lamenting the soaring price of school shoes (I genuinely thought my feet were growing too fast). I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation about German hyperinflation. So perhaps I’m also hypersensitive. Maybe in June, when the Fed stops quantitative easing (its program of injecting cash by buying government bonds), inflation will recede. Maybe high fuel prices will, as Goldman Sachs predicts, slow the economy and revive the specter of deflation.

Maybe. Or maybe inflation expectations started shifting when the guy from Goldman—a Marie Antoinette for our times—seemed to say: let them eat iPads!

The Daily Beast

BRING THE TROOPS HOME

The Ghost of bin Laden

William Greider William Greider

Mon May 2, 3:02 pm ET

The Nation -- They dumped his body in the ocean, but I suspect the ghost of Osama bin Laden will hover over Republican super-hawks for some time to come as a stinging rebuke to their incompetence. When they might have captured Osama nine years ago, they let him slip away. They launched two incoherent wars in his name. They used Osama’s phantom existence as a pretext for restarting the cold war with borderless possibilities. This great nation mobilized its awesome military resources to engage in a bellicose version of Where’s Waldo?

Well, finally, it is over. Waldo sleeps with the fishes (literally). The country is at last free of the conceit of endless war inspired by his name. Truly, 9/11 was terrifyingly real. Osama was evil, for sure. His death brings relief, a sense of satisfying vengeance, a job well done. On further reflection, however, I suspect many people will also feel somewhat embarrassed that their reasonable emotions were manipulated by cheap propagandists into something dreadfully exaggerated and irrational. We have a right to resent some of the shameful things done in our name. We have an obligation to make sure they do not continue.

This is another way of saying Americans should take this opportunity to celebrate victory and get out. Politicians and officials naturally insist continued vigilance is required, but I predict they will be unable to sustain the inflated fears of terrorism now that the symbolic demon is dead and gone. Without the resonant mystery about this man, people will begin to see that the dangers of terrorism were never as present or all-encompassing as the war-talkers claimed. Declaring victory is an effective way to demobilize, to announce the born-again cold war over and done.

Barack Obama is the perfectly suited winner for this moment. It is time to address the world as it is, not without potential adversaries but alive with possibilities for peaceful relationships and creative diplomacy that relies more on softer power than continuous war. The president has been playing this card from the start, not without some contradictions, but he now has a new starting point for turning vision into concrete change. He can get out of Afghanistan, for instance, now that Osama is out of the picture.

These events have conferred new authority on the president. He suddenly stands taller as commander-in-chief, looks more competent than his predecessor. If Republicans continue with their mocking ridicule and racially tinted suspicions, they will only sound more childish and unpresidential. Obama, in fact, is relieving the Democrats of the soft-on-defense accusations that that have stalked the party since Vietnam. Peaceful revolutions in the Middle East simultaneously create opportunities no other president has enjoyed in decades. All this, however, creates a vast new political burden for Obama. He has to deliver what he promised.

The Nation