Happy 80th birthday to Sonny Rollins - I don't have as many jazz clips as I'd like to have because it's frequently hard to get a really good performance of an entire piece of music - this is only an excerpt also, but it's really good stuff, IMHO (and no, I don't know who the guy is at the beginning and the end)...
...and I don't know if President Obama was chanelling Jimi here or not, but if he was, that's pretty hip.
Ross Douthat of the New York Times tried to be clever yesterday (here – basically, this post deals entirely with “The Old Gray Lady”)…
To some extent, partisans persist in these arguments — “your side encourages extremists!”; “no, your side encourages extremists!” — because America really is rife with wild and crazy sentiments. The belief that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim (apparently held by nearly 20 percent of the country) gets the headlines. But as the George Mason law professor Ilya Somin has noted, national opinion polls reveal support for numerous far-out or noxious-seeming notions.
There’s the 32 percent of Democrats who blame “the Jews” for the financial crisis. There’s the 25 percent of African-Americans who believe the AIDS virus was created in a government lab. There’s support for state secession, which may have been higher among liberals in the Bush era than among Republicans in the age of Obama.
Gee, that’s a new one.
I will give Douthat a bit of credit for bothering to link to a poll supporting his claim about liberal support for secession (it’s a crap Zogby poll, but still a poll, giving us a number of 22 percent), but he doesn’t bother to link to a poll about Republican support for secession under Obama.
Now I will grant you that it’s a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, so it’s probably as incorrect as the Zogby poll. And the number turns out to be 23 percent support for secession among Repugs under Obama.
So it’s basically a wash, people (of course, I don’t recall any stories such as this under Dubya, but that’s another matter…and by the way, Governor “Goodhair,” I’m still waiting for you to deliver on your threat).
Next, John Harwood tells us the following (here – more Dem doom and gloom, of course)…
"...the economic arguments for allowing the top rates to return to Clinton-era levels have weakened amid rising anxiety about potential impediments to a recovery."
In response, I give you this, telling us the following…
The latest CNN/Opinion Research poll shows that 69% of Americans support ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy--they like the idea of higher taxes for people earning more than $250,000 a year. Go figure.
See you later, Harwood.
Finally, The Moustache of Understanding concocted a doozy of a column on Sunday (here)…
…America has gone from being the supreme victor of World War II, with guns and butter for all, to one of two superpowers during the cold war, to the indispensable nation after winning the cold war, to “The Frugal Superpower” of today. Get used to it. That’s our new nickname. American pacifists need not worry any more about “wars of choice.” We’re not doing that again. We can’t afford to invade Grenada today.
Sooo…Tom Friedman’s example of an American “war of choice” is…GRENADA??!!
I wonder why he didn’t cite the obvious one: you know, the place where President Obama just announced the official end of combat operations.
Do you think it could have something to do with this?
And as long as Friedman is telling this country, basically, to get used to eternal debt and a standard of living eroding before our very eyes, maybe it’s time that we listened once more to two individuals who were ridiculed in some quarters for claiming that the war would cost at least $3 trillion (if anything, that was a conservative estimate, if you'll pardon the expression – here)…
There is no question that the Iraq war added substantially to the federal debt. This was the first time in American history that the government cut taxes as it went to war. The result: a war completely funded by borrowing. U.S. debt soared from $6.4 trillion in March 2003 to $10 trillion in 2008 (before the financial crisis); at least a quarter of that increase is directly attributable to the war. And that doesn't include future health care and disability payments for veterans, which will add another half-trillion dollars to the debt.
As a result of two costly wars funded by debt, our fiscal house was in dismal shape even before the financial crisis -- and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn.
…
The global financial crisis was due, at least in part, to the war. Higher oil prices meant that money spent buying oil abroad was money not being spent at home. Meanwhile, war spending provided less of an economic boost than other forms of spending would have. Paying foreign contractors working in Iraq was neither an effective short-term stimulus (not compared with spending on education, infrastructure or technology) nor a basis for long-term growth.
Instead, loose monetary policy and lax regulations kept the economy going -- right up until the housing bubble burst, bringing on the economic freefall.
Saying what might have been is always difficult, especially with something as complex as the global financial crisis, which had many contributing factors. Perhaps the crisis would have happened in any case. But almost surely, with more spending at home, and without the need for such low interest rates and such soft regulation to keep the economy going in its absence, the bubble would have been smaller, and the consequences of its breaking therefore less severe. To put it more bluntly: The war contributed indirectly to disastrous monetary policy and regulations.
It is beyond belief even for a neocon simpatico Iraq war cheerleader like Friedman that he can say anything at all about this country’s current dire financial straits and utterly ignore the mess in Mesopotamia. However, he continues to do so with impunity, and is handsomely rewarded by the “newspaper of record” for it, I’m sure.
Friedman concludes with this (aside from his characterization of Europe as “rich but wimpy”)…
An America in hock will have no hawks — or at least none that anyone will take seriously.
Though, when it comes to warmongering corporatist politicians and their imperialist designs, I’m sure Friedman will do his very best to make us believe that we should continue to take them seriously anyway.
As I read this recent New York Times column by Sheryl Gay Stolberg on Michelle Obama, I kept remembering all of the columns from that paper’s former Public Editor Clark Hoyt about how the Times’ reporters aren’t supposed to use anonymous sourcing (hint: what Stolberg concocted is full of “Drudge bait”)…
WASHINGTON — After 18 months of careful image-making and bipartisanship, Michelle Obama is shifting course as first lady, stepping up her policy agenda and dipping into election-year politics to campaign and raise money for Democrats.
Despite stinging criticism of her summer vacation to Spain with daughter Sasha — aides warned her not to go, and the backlash was fiercer than they had imagined — Mrs. Obama is the most popular member of her husband’s administration.
Stolberg might as well be criticizing Michelle Obama’s “optics” for her trip to Spain here, and in response, Media Matters tells us the following here…
Right. And how were the “optics” when First Lady Laura Bush got a $700 haircut for the 2005 Inauguration? Or when Laura Bush went on vacation with her girlfriends along with an entourage of 25 in tow? And how were the “optics” when the taxpayers spent more than $20 million flying the Bushes back and forth to their vacation retreat in Crawford, Texas?
How were those “optics”? They were just fine because nobody in the Beltway press corps ever cared about Laura Bush’s “optics.” Instead, for eight years she was, without question, deemed off-limits to any sort of sustained scrutiny. First Lady Bush was off-limits in a way that her Democratic predecessor, Hillary Clinton, was not. And she was off-limits in a way that her current Democratic successor most certainly is not.
Oh, and here are more Laura Bush “optics” (and please, spare me the explanation that she was on a trip on behalf of fighting AIDS and malaria or something – I’m sure the safari was all about combating disease…riiiight).
Continuing…
…it is Mrs. Obama’s decision to campaign that poses the biggest risk for the first lady, who arrived at the White House as the self-described “mom-in-chief” and has pursued, until now, a relatively risk-free path.
…
…Mrs. Obama has confounded professional women and scholars who thought that with her Harvard law degree and background in hospital management she might take a more aggressive stance.
Sooo…after Stolberg tells us everything Michelle Obama has done “behind the scenes,” she then says she could be blamed both for “taking a risk” and pursuing “a relatively risk-free path” and for not taking “a more aggressive stance” in making appearances as First Lady until now.
Please.
Anyway, here’s more…
With her husband’s poll numbers sliding, and many Democrats distancing themselves from him, Mrs. Obama, political analysts say, is the White House’s best hope for exciting the party’s lethargic base.
As you may have guessed if you’ve read any of my most recent posts, the “lethargic base” thing is definitely a sore point for me. But whoever these “many Democrats” are who think that Michelle Obama will get these people off sitting on their hands…well, they must be living on another planet (or they’re spending too much time inside the Beltway).
Oh, and here's something for the "lethargic base" to check out, along with this (no, the man and his policies aren't perfect, but do you honestly believe the Repugs would be an improvement??!!).
And it gets better (well, worse actually), believe it or not…
…as Mrs. Obama discovered in Spain, she is not immune to criticism. Aides say privately that they warned her there would be a cost to the trip, but she overruled them, insisting it was a rare chance to spend time with Sasha and with a friend whose father had died. But the intensity of the uproar — including accusations that she was a “modern-day Marie Antoinette” — caught the White House and Mrs. Obama off guard.
I’m sure it did “catch the White House off guard” because such suggestions are so patently stoo-pid (and more fool Stolberg for repeating them ad nauseum – again, Media Matters has more here).
And actually, I take back what I said earlier about the problem with anonymous sourcing; the main fault with this dookey from Stolberg is the fact that she was too lazy to cite them at all.
Next, I need to get something straight, OK?
The Delaware Republican Party is ganging up on Christine O’Donnell, the newest darling of the teabaggers who is challenging incumbent Republican House Rep Mike Castle; he is running for that party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Dem Ted Kaufman (here). And one of the charges against O’Donnell is some of her financial problems (noted in this post - third item).
However, we have Carly Fiorina running for the U.S. Senate in California, another professed admirer of the teabaggers, who was forced out of her job as Hewlett Packard CEO for poor performance, yet received a severance package of $42 million; still, we hear nary a word about her own financially related issues (here).
Sounds to me like we have more than a little bit of a double standard going on here.
Finally, I have to admit that I was a bit shocked by this Times column ostensibly on Net Neutrality by Joe Nocera (unpleasantly, I should note)…
Net neutrality, of course, is the principle that Internet service providers should not be allowed to favor some Internet content over other content by delivering it faster.
Really, who could be against such a thing? President Obama came out for net neutrality during his presidential campaign. Julius Genachowski, his former law review colleague and basketball buddy, who helped him arrive at that campaign position, is now the chairman of the Federal Communication Commission.
Right-thinking public interest groups, like Public Knowledge (“Fighting for your digital rights in Washington”) are fierce, unyielding proponents of net neutrality, viewing its goodness as obvious. Google professes to be a champion of net neutrality. So does Skype. Even the Internet service providers say they favor it.
…
Data networks, after all, have to be managed. The engineering is complex. The capacity is limited. Inevitably, some form of prioritization is bound to take place. Rules also have to be created that will give companies the incentive they need to spend the billions upon billions of dollars necessary to extend broadband’s reach and improve its speed, so we can catch up to, say, South Korea.
As noted here, South Korea has relied on a public/private partnership, overseen by that country’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), that has increased Internet literacy in that country, and the delegation of services to basically six ISPs controlling market share, to the point where “Korea now has the highest penetration of broadband in the world.”
And meanwhile, in this country, we are still wrangling in court between our ISPs and the FCC as to who can regulate broadband and implement principles of Net Neutrality.
Even though Nocera then tells us the following (actually, without snark for a change)…
Thus, the public interest view that all data traffic on the Internet should be treated the same is unrealistic.
Really? I suppose Nocera, then, has no issue whatsoever with the ISPs deciding however many tiers of content should exist whereby wireless would have a priority in terms of bandwidth and transmission speed, thus hogging up whatever Internet capacity can exist for humble blogger types such as yours truly to do their thing.
This whole scenario reminds me of what happened before the mergers of communications companies in the 90s (AOL,Time Warner, GE, Disney, etc.), which led to a greater consolidation of the corporate voice than ever before. If, somehow, “Net Neutrality” rules emerge that differentiate between wireless and other broadband media, with the ISPs prioritizing content into “tiers,” you can basically kiss goodbye to about three-quarters of the blogs out there (including this one, I’m sure) since it will be impossible for anyone to read them due to connectivity issues.
And I love Nocera's overall dismissive tone of the Bit Torrent issue, in which Comcast interfered with their downloads, because his "kids" use to get movies for free, or something (that’s not all that is available through Bit Torrent, it should be noted, based on this). He also says that we already have Net Neutrality now, utterly ignoring the fact that the battle is over the future (and his argument that ISPs should be able to tier Internet content because cable TV can tier its service is absurd).
Also, I wonder if Nocera is aware that the FCC's Net Neutrality plan, the subject of the lawsuit by Comcast which led to a Federal Appeals Court opposing it, would permit the Bit Torrent blocking that started all the wrangling to begin with (here)? Now, though, the issue is the ISPs fighting with the FCC to determine who will decide whether we will have a level online playing field or not.
Nocera concludes that this is “much ado about very little.”
Spoken like someone who enjoys the protection of one of the largest and most formidable online news and editorial presences in the world (would that we were all so lucky).
Good to see this ad from John Kitzhaber against that fraud Chris Dudley in the Oregon gubernatorial election (more on Dudley here - last item)...
...and I'll give you a little bit of insight into how, as a Roman Catholic, our parish treated the unemployed of the Great Recession at Mass on this Labor Day - basically, they pretended they didn't exist (no mention in a homily, no general intercession...nothing). Of course, there were no shortage of patriotic tunes played to a deafening church organ accompaniment.
Well, anyway, this goes out to everyone working and aspiring to work - even though relief does not appear to be imminent, let's work, hope and pray for a miracle anyway.
(I have a feeling that there will be a couple of no-posting days next week also, just to let you know.)
Yeah, you go Christine O’Donnell and your references to “Democrat” policies, or whatever – do your best to utterly screw up what would be a highly likely “R” U.S. Senate pickup for “70-year-old, bad heart Republican” Mike Castle (And a quarter-million-dollar ad buy, huh? Aaah, I can smell the Astroturf)…
…and I know I’m a little late with this, but I didn’t want to let the week go by without showing this clip of K.O. interviewing Jeremy Scahill of The Nation about the “thanks” that Bushco is supposed to get over Iraq (spare me – kudos to Scahill for expressing the outrage we all should feel, though many do)…
…and here is my little “tribute” to Number 43 and his gang of pirates (and here is another item about Commander Codpiece)…
Update 9/4/10: And here is more "credit" for Iraq.
…and finally, I should let you know that The Philadelphia Inquirer plans to do something truly unbelievable this weekend; they plan to publish a Sunday edition without an Op-Ed section...
Yes, that’s right. The only published-everyday newspaper for the city of Philadelphia plans to go to press without their incredibly-inaptly-named “Currents” section.
And though it will be good to give their readers a break from Kevin Ferris, Smerky (who has been “phoning it in,” and I’m trying to be kind here) and whatever DC-simpatico, slightly-left-of-center pundit they feel like rewarding with black and white real estate, to say nothing of Bill Lyon waxing nostalgic in the wrong section, it all still begs the following question: what the hell is a newspaper anyway if it doesn’t provide a vehicle for reader feedback?
Geez, if you’re going to do that, do it on Monday and spare some of the Inky’s readers the agony of another Krauthammer whine about Obama and the Democrats, willya?
Well anyway, this goes out to the Inky, doing its part to enhance blog readership everywhere.
So, reporters who use anonymous sources are "limp" and "impotent," former governor Palin (here)? Gee, it looks like you have the same thing on your mind that Rich Lowry had in the clip below; maybe you two should get together (don't tell Todd, though)...
...and this one goes out to Sister Sarah (tongue in cheek, of course - didn't get the hair thing quite right, but nothing a bottle of peroxide can't fix).
Maybe that idiot Alan Simpson should go out and talk to some real people on Social Security, as Sam Seder did here (h/t Daily Kos)...
...and on September 2nd, 1965 (getting ahead of myself a bit), The Doors recorded their first demo recordings at World Pacific Jazz Studios in Los Angeles, California, where they cut six Jim Morrison songs; this probably wasn't one of them since it showed up on a recording later, but here it is anyway.
(Posting is questionable for tomorrow and Friday, by the way.)
I give you the very latest from Tucker Carlson’s crayon scribble page…
Well, I suppose it makes a bit of sense that you would go to this location to read both a story like that and editorial commentary from Joe Pitts.
Also, how about giving a hearty welcome to J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times, having just returned from vacation.
Did you check out President Obama’s speech on Iraq, J.D. (here)?
Gosh, J.D., what happened to your sense of journalistic curiosity (full disclosure: I didn’t see it either, but then again, I don’t make my living as a news professional).
I mean, I thought J.D. would want to take a look if, for no other reason, to find fault with the fact that our commander in chief is doing his best to put an end to the mess in Mesopotamia, one of many handed to him by his predecessor.
And speaking of Former President Nutball, this post recalls how Mullane positively gushed when 43 brought his little fear-and-smear show to Bucks County (J.D. didn’t have “better things to do” for this occasion)…
Bush spoke of the stakes for the world in the global war on Islamo-fascist terror.
He spoke of Afghanistan and how, for the first rime in its 5,000-year history, it had held democratic elections to choose a president, and the first voter was a 19-year-old woman.
"Freedom is on the march," Bush said. "The world is changing because of our deep belief in freedom. We believe everybody wants to be free. Freedom is not America's gift to the world. Freedom is the almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world."
The crowd went nuts - the loudest and longest ovation of the night. Bush's words weren't Lincolnesque, but his presence made up for it.
And as a note to the Patrick Murphy campaign, I should point out that the post above from May ’06 contains the following quote from Mikey Fitzpatrick: “If Bush had 50 percent or better job approval marks, Fitzpatrick estimated his victory spread in November would be as high as 10 points.”
So, to sum up as far as J.D. is concerned, right-wing triumphalist warmongering is good, but statesmanlike and reasonably intelligent leadership is bad.
Actually, with this in mind, I think Mullane should get more vacation time. If that’s one way to shut down his wretched blog, then that would be a triumph for adult discourse.
Next, it seems as if those zany teabaggers have now set their sights on Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Castle of Delaware, running for that state’s U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Joe Biden; they’re ready to mount yet another incumbent primary challenge, this time with Christine O’Donnell, who actually ran against Biden two years ago (here).
And, like all teabaggers, she apparently lives in an accountability-free world (here)…
- She has an almost $12,000 tax lien from the IRS from 2005 - She has a campaign debt of $24,000. She has raised $11,000 for this race so far. - She has an unpaid settlement to her alma mater of Fairleigh Dickinson which dates back to 1994. Fairleigh Dickinson is withholding her degree. Is she reporting herself as a college graduate in her resume? - She lives in a house owned by a campaign staffer. At least half of her rent is paid by her campaign donations. - She had a well-known dispute with a previous employer, ISI. She sued them for gender discrimination and they accused her of running a for-profit PR business on the company’s time. That suit has been dropped by O’Donnell. - A house she bought in Hockessin went into foreclosure. She owed $90,000 on the house. The house was about to be sold by auction when she sold it to Brent Vasher, her boyfriend at the time for $135,000.
And as noted here, Tea Party Express spokesman Levi Russell says that they plan to spend “six figures” in Delaware (and, ever classy, O’Donnell’s campaign manager called Castle a “70-year-old, bad heart Republican”).
So let’s all root for Christine O’Donnell anyway. We haven’t seen a brand new, utterly vacuous, clueless-on-the-issues teabagger candidate emerge for a few weeks or so now; I would say that her timing is perfect.
Continuing, MoDo of the Times (speaking of vacuous and clueless) brings us the latest imaginary Obama scandal (here, also reported here today by Sheryl Gay Stolberg)…
If we had wanted earth tones in the Oval Office, we would have elected Al Gore.
(Oh, yeah, we did.)
On the night we were reminded that George W. Bush ended up in the White House and heedlessly, needlessly started the war with Iraq, President Obama did his Mission Relinquished address from his redecorated man cave.
The Oval Office was done over by the chichi decorator Michael Smith, who was previously paid $800,000 for his part in refurnishing the lair of the former Merrill Lynch C.E.O. John Thain (a $1.2 million project featuring the notorious $35,000 antique cabinet, or commode).
…
The recession redo, paid for by the nonprofit White House Historical Association, was the latest tone-deaf move by a White House that was supposed to excel at connection and communication. Message: I care, but not enough to stop the fancy vacations and posh renovations.
Oh, please – am I supposed to point out for the umpteenth goddamn time that there are plenty of places on Martha’s Vineyard that aren’t “fancy” and “posh”?
And by the way, when it comes to “fancy” and “posh,” I hereby submit the following (here, concerning the Obama inaugural parties last year)…
The hottest party so far was held by Maureen Dowd, whose Georgetown house was like one big Washington keg party Sunday night as guests packed in like sardines to fete David Geffen. By the time Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa showed up around 8, the place was so crowded none of them could even get through the front door. “My party’s a total failure,” bemoaned the hostess. Actually, it wasn’t. Those who did make it inside included Larry David, George Lucas, Anderson Cooper, Rahm Emanuel, and Diane von Furstenberg. Also present was Alan Greenspan, who’s apparently just as ubiquitous on the party circuit as he was before his role in creating the subprime mortgage crisis was revealed. “Why shouldn’t he show up at parties?” said one partygoer. “This is Washington. There’s no shame in Washington.”
Is there anything wrong with Dowd hosting a swanky party? No, it’s her business.
Is there anything wrong with Obama redecorating the Oval Office with private funds? No, it’s his business.
So let’s do a deal, MoDo – you don’t carry on about this supposed misbehavior from Obama, and I won’t tirelessly point out that journalism, as opposed to the way you practice it, is supposed to be a craft devoted to comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, not one where you become one of the “comfortable” yourself.
In addition, we have this story from the New York Times today…
A reputed former top adviser to Osama bin Laden who stabbed a federal jail guard in the eye with a sharpened comb in 2000, leaving the guard with severe brain damage, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday.
The defendant, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, was a founding member of Al Qaeda and helped manage Mr. bin Laden’s businesses, prosecutors have said. He was arrested in Germany in 1998 after the bombings of two American embassies in East Africa, and extradited to the United States, where he was awaiting trial on broader terrorism charges at the time of the assault.
Mr. Salim has not been tried on the broader charges, which remain open. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to the stabbing of the correction officer, Louis Pepe, 52, and was sentenced to 32 years in prison. But a federal appeals panel overturned the sentence in 2008, agreeing with prosecutors that the judge had failed to apply a provision of sentencing guidelines related to terrorism that could have led to a longer term.
On Tuesday, the judge, Deborah A. Batts of Federal District Court in Manhattan, imposed the life sentence, calling Mr. Salim’s attack on Mr. Pepe “unusually cruel, brutal and a gratuitous infliction of injury.”
Mr. Salim participated in the proceeding through a video connection from the so-called Supermax prison in Colorado (where he is being held, according to the print version of the story).
I’m glad this animal got what was coming to him, and even though it’s small comfort to Mr. Pepe and his family, it’s good that Salim will be left to rot in a jail cell.
However, let’s take note of where Salim is being held for a minute, OK?
And that would be a “Supermax” prison in this country, the prospect of which terrified weak-kneed politicians on both sides while we were wondering what to do with the inmates at Guantanamo (including Harry Reid and Jim Inhofe, noted here).
One of these life forms would have to go a long way to do something worse than Salim did. And I don’t recall that there was any furor when he was first moved.
So, can we have a reasonable, mature debate the next time the issue of federal trials for terrorists resurfaces in our corporate media, seeing as how we already have one of the very worst taking up space on our continent already?
Finally, when it comes to Iraq, Senator “Country First” tells us the following about Number 44 (here)…
“When you succeed, you give credit to others, and when you fail, you take responsibility. The President, I guess, never got that lecture.”
Wonder if the President ever got the “lecture” about blaming people for events that aren’t their fault (here)?
I live in the area of Philadelphia, PA, USA, specifically in Bucks County. My blog deals primarily with political matters and current events in the region where I live, my country, and the world (with other stuff thrown in from time to time), and I will comment on all of this as intelligently as I can. I will try to be judicious in my use of language, steering clear of most guttural profanity, but I will respond in what I believe is an appropriate manner to current news and events. My hope is that people across the ideological spectrum will understand that I am trying to see through hypocrisy on as many fronts as possible for the purposes of promoting informed dialogue.
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