Obama’s most “devoted” supporters setting him up for a fall.

Sometimes I think that I’m living in the world of the absurd.

Here’s a great 20+ minute video debate on Al Jazeera between Salon blogger, Glenn Greenwald, Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi, and WikiLeaks critic James Joyner. As always, Glenn completely obliterates the underlying rational of his adversary’s position. Enjoy!

For antiwar activists and pundits, regarding Julian Assange, Wikileaks, sexual harassment charges and Afghanistan, despite the ‘perfect’ conspiracy feel of things, credibility and common sense sensitivity matter.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs became the spokesperson for Obama Administration contempt toward the left on Tuesday. The display of contempt came in the midst of a nearly 70 percent shift in Wall Street executive donations from Democratic candidates to Republican candidates ahead of the November mid-term elections.

Paul Krugman got a lot of attention among leftward tweeters today for following Glenn Greenwald down the road of writing about the de-evolution of the United States into a de-developed nation, because of the irresponsible preference of its ruling elite for lower taxes rather than infrastructure and essential services, and also because of impact of a generation of fantasy anti-government rhetoric on American minds. Again, I was happy to see Paul take this issue up, but would have been much happier if he done so with, perhaps, a little more fire, and a little more insistence on what the Government ought to be doing, and why we need not, ever, worry about deficits in the abstract.

The rich pay next to nothing in taxes, if anything at all, and the result is our nation literally falling apart at the seams. We shouldn’t put up with this.

On Friday, Glenn Greenwald did a piece called “What Collapsing Empire Looks Like,” in which he contrasted the cutbacks in essential domestic spending throughout the country with the “no problem” funding of Homeland Security and our two wars. Among other things he said:

Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights — or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State — that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability? Anyway, I just wanted to leave everyone with some light and cheerful thoughts as we head into the weekend.

As government reaction grows against the whistleblower website Wikileaks, in the aftermath of the release of tens of thousands of Afghan War Logs, showing the real face of the Afghan war, a group of prominent activists has started up a petition to defend Wikileaks, and point out that it is the U.S. government that with the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan that has “blood on its hands.” The article includes the full petition text.

As many Americans suffer long-term unemployment, lose their homes, and wonder how they will pay for the groceries or the utility bill, an urge to find a scapegoat is increasingly common. And it is often Latinos and undocumented workers that are blamed for the nation’s economic ills.