A vote of no confidence is in order

What with our president having received the Nobel Peace Prize and leading us in a pivot to Asia, I guess the White House wants to pretend that the humiliating debacle America is suffering — in front of the world — isn’t happening. What’s wrong with asking Congress for authorization to go to war? The Obama apologencia will tell us it is what the president meant to do all along. They will tell us things are going according to plan. What’s the rush? But no, for the first time ever, an American president is saying, “The buck does NOT stop here.”
The president is a spent force, both domestically and internationally. Congress should help by voting to cut our losses; it should resist opening the door to the uncertain consequences of a military campaign conducted, without conviction or clear purpose, by this commander in chief. If Republicans can limit the president’s authority to wander and blunder on the world stage, there is a moral obligation to do so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/09/01/a-vote-of-no-confidence-is-in-order/ 

Reality Catching Up to the Political Class

Official Washington is always a decade or two behind the American people. That was true in 1963 when Martin Luther King, Jr. shared his dream for a better America and it’s true today. 
The 1963 March on Washington came 16 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball. Robinson did more than make news; he won the Rookie of the Year award in 1947, the MVP award two years later and entered the Hall of Fame in 1962. By then, black ballplayers were part of every major league team.
Another big moment took place in 1955 when Rosa Parks courageously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Many other events, big and small, changed the nation’s attitudes on racial issues in the decades leading up to King’s most famous speech. But it had little impact on official Washington until the march forced the politicians to pay attention.
In retrospect, the most amazing thing about that day was the tone of King’s speech. He could have angrily denounced America for its racial practices. Instead, he lifted up a compelling vision of a nation where people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. King claimed the timeless values of the Declaration of Independence were a legacy passed on to all Americans, black and white. 

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/09/02/reality_catching_up_to_the_political_class_119798.html#ixzz2dkD941vm

Syrians opposed to Assad say Obama’s decision will embolden his regime

Syrians opposed to President Bashar al-Assad expressed anger Sunday that President Obama had apparently decided against an imminent strike in Syria, as the country’s state media gloated over an “historic American retreat.”
A day after Obama announced that he would seek congressional approval for any attack on Syria, deferring any possible military action for at least 10 days, opposition activists said they were “deeply disappointed” with the decision. Rebel fighters also have predicted that Assad loyalists would seek to use the delay to escalate attacks on rebel strongholds.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/un-inspectors-leave-syria-as-us-pushes-forward-with-plans-for-military-action/2013/08/31/9d79d88a-121b-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_story.html 

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s

For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.

The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant.

The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.

The project comes to light at a time of vigorous public debate over the proper limits on government surveillance and on the relationship between government agencies and communications companies. It offers the most significant look to date at the use of such large-scale data for law enforcement, rather than for national security. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/us/drug-agents-use-vast-phone-trove-eclipsing-nsas.html?_r=0 

Calls to raise minimum wage return with Labor Day

A recurring call to raise the minimum wage has returned in the run-up to Labor Day in the form of national rallies and a new report that finds Michigan ranks second-to-worst among states for wage growth during the past 30 years.
Fast-food workers in Detroit, Flint, Lansing and elsewhere in the state and country protested on Thursday with demands for higher wages, which followed similar demonstrations by unions and community groups during the past several months. They seek $15 an hour — more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
The nonprofit advocacy group Michigan League for Public Policy released a study a day later that also calls for raising the minimum wage. The report includes analysis of U.S. Census data that finds Michigan's median wage fell by 7 percent between 1982 and 2012 after adjusting for inflation — the biggest wage drop of all 50 states and the District of Columbia after Alaska.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/01/5699124/calls-to-raise-minimum-wage-return.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/01/5699124/calls-to-raise-minimum-wage-return.html#storylink=cpy

Labor Economics 101: Few Jobs Means Bad Jobs

Everyone knows the story about the two old men in a retirement home. The first one complains that, "the food here is poison." His friend agrees with him then adds, "and the portions are so small."
We have been getting this story the last several years in assessments of the labor market. The economy remains far below full employment by every measure. The employment to population ratio is still more than 4 percentage points below its pre-recession level. We are almost 9 million jobs below trend levels. In addition, many have pointed out that a disproportionate number of the jobs that have been created have been low-paying jobs in sectors like hotels and restaurants.
Some analysts have picked up on the latter point to argue there has been a fundamental change in the economy. They claim we are moving to an economy that produces high-paying jobs for highly skilled people (e.g. doctors, lawyers, financial engineers) and bad jobs for everyone else. I have beaten up on this one elsewhere. (The trick for doctors and lawyers is protectionism not skills.)

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/labor-economics-101-few-jobs-means-bad-jobs 

White House Girds for Battle With Congress

The White House is girding for more than a week of battle with Congress over President Barack Obama's plan to launch limited military strikes against the Syrian regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons last month.
To back the administration's position, Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the U.S. had obtained new blood and hair samples from inside Syria that confirmed President Bashar al-Assad's regime used sarin, a powerful nerve agent, against civilians in an Aug. 21 attack on an eastern Damascus suburb.
 Mr. Kerry said he believed this new evidence will help the White House build more support on Capitol Hill and among allies in Europe and the Middle East to take military action aimed at degrading Mr. Assad's ability to conduct chemical warfare.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323932604579048821158553250.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories