Good morning and welcome to Sunday!

Quote of the Day:

“No risk of that, no risk.”

– Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during an interview in April, discussing the risk of the U.S. debt being downgraded.

Some links to go with your morning coffee/tea:

~China, our banker, is angry at the U.S. about the downgrade. I guess more administration-China ass kissing diplomacy is in order.

~The Super Duper Debt Committee will just cause more problems than it solves, for obvious reasons.

~The biggest US single-episode loss of life in the Afghanistan War took place Friday as insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying 38 members of US special forces and 7 Afghan soldiers. More here.

~Also on Afghanistan- The International Crisis Group has issued a report which concludes that despite dumping billions of dollars into nation-building in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its allies have failed to stabilize the country. I think the billions of dollars they are talking about does not include the money spent on the actual war effort there-in other words, just the military and civil rebuilding and stabilization efforts.

~In today’s WaPo there is an article about the origins of the debt showdown and how Eric Cantor took advantage of the House’s new Tea Party recruits to turn the debt ceiling debate into a standoff over the role of government.

~The Wikipedia conference is currently taking place in Israel and the Wikipedia founder talked about how the community tries very hard to keep Wiki entries as neutral as possible. That’s not easy in an era where as soon as there is a political controversy, groups run to the site to get their version of the story out.

~Up to 12 million people’s lives are under direct threat in the Horn of Africa as drought, famine and war take their toll. Much of the world looked away when the predictions of an extreme famine were first put forth. However, the terror group al-Shabab claims there is no famine taking place in Somalia but of course, that could be because the group is preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the men, women and children who are currently starving to death and as a result, they bear direct responsibility.

~A Navy vet and former defense contractor in Iraq explains why he is suing Donald Rumsfeld over the Bush administration’s torture policy- but here’s the thing- in a crazy twist, he was tortured by Americans in Iraq.

~In much of the media’s coverage about the S&P downgrade, there seems to be a tendency to ignore the impact of the refusal to add ANY revenue-generating provisions in the debt deal. There was plenty of blame to spread around to both parties, but there are some interesting tidbits in the S&P statement about revenues. It would seem that the GOP is giddy about the downgrade because throwing a Molotov Cocktail into our already depressed economy was always the GOP plan leading up to 2012.

~While the S&P is certainly correct that Washington is completely dysfunctional and getting them to do anything constructive for the good of the nation is a bit like trying to herd cats, there is no denying the politics of what is taking place. Firedoglake has a good summary of some of the things that may have actually been behind S&P’s decision to downgrade the US credit rating.

~So, how is Saudi Arabia doing on the human rights front? Really, really well. [/sarcasm]

~Despite a lot of people giving Obama props about being willing to put defense cuts on the table, the truth of the matter is that the Obama administration shows no interest in curbing out-of-control defense spending as evidenced by his new Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, publicly complaining all last week about how disastrous defense cuts would be. Once again, fear trumps reason. Interestingly, when asked, Leon Panetta can’t seem to articulate any reason why any proposed cuts would be so dangerous to our nation’s security:

~Over 300,000 people took to the streets in Israel this weekend to protest the high cost of living. Good for them. We need to do that here in the U.S.

~The Obama administration will likely squander yet another opportunity to take a serious stand on environmental issues. The Alberta tar sands pipeline is currently being reviewed by the State Dept. and the review itself has been mired in controversy from the start. The pipeline’s chief lobbyist is a former Hillary Clinton deputy campaign director and Secretary Clinton made the none-too-subtle remark long before the review process even started, that she was “inclined to support” it. That made environmentalists and even many Congressional Democrats hopping mad. Of course, the buck doesn’t stop there and environmentalists and congressional democrats are urging the administration to not approve the project. Good luck with that, the fix is in.

~Speaking of the environment, some say that the current Congress is the most anti-Environment since about the 1950′s. Impressive.

~All eyes are on Wisconsin which is in the midst of the largest number of recall elections in U.S. history. Huge amounts of cash have been flooding in to the state via special interest groups from both the left and the right. Some see Wisconsin as a dry run of sorts for what may happen in 2012, ie. did the Tea Party types go too far?

~Gov. Rick Perry’s prayer rally certainly won’t endear him to moderates or independents but I have a feeling that’s ok with Rick Perry.

~Things are still not well in Sudan/Southern Sudan. There is still a long, long way to go.

~The repressive, human rights-abusing Communist Chinese government continues to throw fuel on the fire of religious freedom with respect to Buddhists in Tibet. Even if Americans know very little about this right now, it is a very big issue and could lead to bloodshed when the current Dalai Lama dies. And when that happens, Washington will be forced to take notice but by then it will be too late.

~The death toll in Syria continues to rise as government forces continue the siege on Hama. As Assad’s forces continue to slaughter his own people, the Syrian foreign minister comes out and makes the ludicrous statement that the Assad government will allow free legislative elections by the end of 2011. Yeah, and unicorns are real.

~Both Palestinian and Israeli security forces are frustrated with the politicians in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Washington DC. This is something I have heard over and over again. The Israeli and Palestinian security forces have been training and had unprecedented security cooperation over the past 8+ years, with impressive results, while the politicians piss away every opportunity for a reasonable solution to the conflict.

~Sean Hannity thinks it’s wrong to require insurers to cover birth control but guess what he thinks they should cover…Viagra. Indeed.

~Fox News is out of control with race-baiting.

~Politico continues with its status quo hackery and prints an op-ed from GOP Representative Duncan Hunter, who fear-mongers about cutting defense spending. Ok, no problem there because people can write opinion pieces from various points of view. The problem is that a) he makes patently false claims about the role of defense spending in our current debt crisis and b) Politico knew, or should have known, that Hunter has a conflict of interest when it comes to defense spending given most of his top campaign contributions come from defense contractors. If Politico readers knew that, they might be a little bit more discerning when it comes to taking Hunter’s claims at face value.

~Demonstrations turned violent in Tottenham, England, as people marched to the police station to protest the shooting of a 29-year old man Mark Duggan by police last week. Racial tensions have historically been high in the Tottenham region and as of last night, the situation was still not under control.

~Some in Israel are concerned about a bill that is poised to pass the Knesset and which seeks to provide guidance to the courts such that they would be expected to privilege maintaining “the state as the Jewish nation state in ruling in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character.” Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf and other critics of the pending legislation have argued that proponents of the bill seem to be saying that maintaining a Jewish state and upholding democracy are at odds. It’s an interesting debate.

~Donald Trump really embodies the corporate greed and entitled attitude that seems to have infected this nation. His most recent stunt is to vow to do everything in his power to prevent the building of an offshore wind farm in Scotland because it will obstruct the beautiful view from the golf course he is currently in the process of building.

~Whatever you do, don’t read Thomas Friedman’s silly editorial about the financial crisis in today’s NYT, it’s five minutes of your life that you’ll never get back which is why I read it for you. It’s loaded with dumb analogies and really obvious points like “[r]egarding growth, we surely need a much smarter long-term fiscal plan than the one that just came out of Washington.”

The End.