Obama-Rama Carries On To Indy

(Well, Guam is technically the next place to vote in the primary - on May 3rd to be accurate.)

I just happened to come across this analysis of the vote last night in the PA primary won by Hillary Clinton, and I have some thoughts (this will end up being a bit repetitive if my comment at the Times blog is approved).

Though the stats cited by Dick Polman of the Inquirer in the Times post are significant, I don’t believe they are that surprising. It was understood that Obama would have had to achieve an astronomical result in Philadelphia to offset Clinton’s wins elsewhere, and of course that didn’t happen. Also, Polman cites that Obama lost among “late-deciding voters,” which again is not surprising given his lack of experience on the national stage versus Hillary Clinton, which I actually think is a plus (though it does concern me – disgusts me, really, to tell you the truth – that 13 percent of the voters in the primary thought race was a deciding issue).

On the whole, I think Obama did well in that he denied Clinton the overwhelming victory she would have needed to alter the delegate and super-delegate math (to say nothing of increasing her campaign contributions). Now, she continues her “must-win” campaign in Indiana (where the numbers here look better for her) and North Carolina (where they don’t…part of me wants to see an endorsement from John Edwards that would help seal it and, in the words on T-shirts circulating throughout Philadelphia yesterday, “End The Drama, (with a) Vote For Obama!”).

Update: If not Edwards himself, then this is the next best thing, I guess.

Also, kos here tells us that Obama made progress in PA relative to the Ohio campaign six weeks ago. When you look at that set of results, you find that Obama actually gained among white voters, voters 68 and older, and those making less than $50K, though he slipped slightly under the “college/no college” voter category and among Catholic voters. And given the firestorm of media nonsense that is not likely to be replicated again (at least, I hope not), I think it’s pretty amazing that Obama was still able to whittle down what was once a 20-point Clinton polling lead to single digits when all was said and done (and this was instructive also).

(And by the way, I think this was a good catch by DHinMI over at The Daily Kos concerning the "other" PA primary; McCain is the all-but-declared nominee and he only gets 72 percent of the vote? And Dr. Paul gets 16 percent?).

“Respectful” McCain’s Rust Belt Ruse

I actually have to give “Straight Talk” McCain a bit of credit here (just a bit, though); this story tells us…

ABC News' Tahman Bradley Reports: A number of Democratic strategists have said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., would be the best presidential candidate to help down-ballot Democrats in the fall, but a new ad set to be released by the North Carolina Republican Party could make a few candidates weary of latching onto Obama's coattails.

The North Carolina Republican Party is trying to use the controversy surrounding Sen. Obama's former Pastor Jeremiah Wright against Democratic gubernatorial candidates in the state.

And do you want to know something? I actually hope they do, because it will boomerang on them. The “attack politics” of the ‘90s and the early part of this decade (the “oughts”?) simply aren’t going to get you elected (that hasn’t dawned on Hillary yet, but I’m sure it will in a couple of weeks, to say nothing of the Repugs who, apparently, will be the last to learn that lesson also).

But given all of this, we read the following statement from the McCain campaign…

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, moved quickly on Wednesday to reject the ad (involving Wright and Obama, yet again – this is a recording). In a statement, spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said, "From the beginning of this process McCain has expressed his intent to run a respectful campaign based on the issues, and we have repeatedly called for all parties to follow his lead."

That’s commendable, and that’s why I’m sure McCain will disavow this also.

And this tells us of McCain’s recent stop at Youngstown, Ohio, preaching the free-trade mantra to a whole bunch of former factory workers now without jobs (I’ve give him points for doing it in front of them as opposed to the chamber of the U.S. Senate, but that’s about it)…

Continuing a weeklong tour of what he calls the "forgotten America," McCain called for the increased use of community colleges to retrain workers and investment in alternative energy technologies to replace the manufacturing jobs that have gone overseas as free-trade agreements made it easier for companies to move to where production is cheaper.

Oh yeah, McCain and alternative energy technologies; want to know how he “supported” such technologies in Congress (from here)?

- McCain Skipped Vote on Green Tax Credits in Stimulus Package.
- McCain Skipped Vote on Renewable Energy.
- McCain Skipped Vote to Establish $32.1B of Tax Incentives for Renewable Energy and Efficiency.
- McCain Opposes Renewable Electricity.

(By the way, I suppose our dear corporate media cousins are going to make an issue of McCain’s abysmal record of missing votes, to say nothing of how he voted when he actually showed up for work, the same day they hold him to account for John Hagee and Rod Parsley…in other words, get used to hearing the sound of crickets.)

And another version of the story by the AP’s Matt Stearns tells us that McCain told the people of Youngstown that “we are in an information-technology revolution.”

Uh, yeah, that’s nice, but I wonder if “Senator Honor And Virtue” is aware of the following (from last May here)…

A new report from the Brookings Institution puts some fresh numbers on the rate of corporate job exporting. According to today’s Bureau of National Affairs Daily Labor Report (subscription required):

Growth in the offshoring of information technology, business office, and other service-providing occupations will cause the loss of an estimated 2.4 million jobs in some 250 U.S. cities between 2004 and 2015, according to a report by the Brookings Institution.

The offshoring of service jobs, including ones held by college-educated professionals who previously thought their jobs were immune to foreign competition, has “created a new source of job insecurity,” and the movement of work to other countries is expected to grow over the coming decade, especially in information services and “back-office” services, the study said.

The Implications of Service Offshoring for Metropolitan Economies finds that metropolitan areas with large concentrations of information technology service jobs or back-office jobs are generally more vulnerable to service offshoring than other metropolitan areas.

Further, 28 metropolitan areas, with 13.5 percent of the nation’s population, are likely to lose between 2.6 and 4.3 percent of their jobs to service offshoring, higher than the average loss among the metropolitan areas studied.

Between 2004 and 2015, service offshoring is likely to cause the loss of 2.6 percent of jobs in metropolitan areas that specialize in information technology services and 2.4 percent of jobs in metropolitan areas that specialize in back-office services but only 1.9 percent of jobs in other metropolitan areas.

And by the way, this tells you just how widespread this insidious practice is (and isn't it a comfort, by the way, to read how CFOs are concerned about "currency risks" and "business climates" but care absolutely zilch about the destruction wrought on individuals, families, and communities by their actions?).

The AFL-CIO story also emphasizes that Bushco has tried to privatize as many government jobs as it can, of course, thus making those jobs subject to offshoring also.

So basically, if you live in a big city and work in IT (and with all due respect to the good people of Youngstown, it’s a stretch to consider many of them stepping into that field from factory work without serious retraining), rest assured that the specter of offshoring will be hanging over your head well into the next decade, at least. And though we expect the Dems to fight against that, we have to be realistic (and I expect nothing from McCain and the Repugs except more of the name, and so should you).

Update: "War On Poverty"? Visiting NoLA's Ninth Ward? McCain's acting like another "John" who was once in this race here, though that "straight-talking maverick" is going to have to convince me these are more than photo-ops, which he can't, of course.

Wednesday AM Stuff

Dubya sets a record; can he go lower still? Unfortunately, we'll find out...



Update: And I would assume that this has a lot to do with it...

To the Editor:

Thank you for calling for greater inquiry into the Bush administration’s violations of the War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, the Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions and other domestic and international laws.

It is not “backward looking” to seek answers and ultimately take legal action where the laws have been violated. We don’t hear prosecutors in this country refuse to investigate and prosecute a criminal suspect because that would be too “backward looking.”

Yet when mounting evidence suggests criminality at the highest level of government, the politicians (both Democrats and Republicans) quickly protect each other with rhetoric about “looking forward, not backward.”

Imagine if every other criminal suspect in this country were given such solicitude!

Daniel Schramm
South Royalton, Vt.
April 20, 2008

...and here's a neat campaign ad for Joe Garcia in Florida's 25th congressional district (h/t Matt Stoller at Open Left).

Tuesday Stuff

The night is yours, Jack, though all you and Hil are doing is prolonging the inevitable...



...and in the matter of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, I think this is some kickass reporting by Dan Abrams...



...and here's "Pennsylvania Stars" from Paul Hipp (h/t HuffPo) which, as he said, is based on far too many true stories...



...and consider this story from "The Onion" as a public service announcement, any members of the "Hillary Youth" in PA; if you decide to party tonight, don't end up like anyone in this report (or if you do, have the courtesy to keep it to yourself, and maybe a few friends).


Study: Nearly 80 Percent Of Roommates Got So Drunk Last Night

Not Worthy Of The Uniform

I have a feeling I’ll be coming back over and over to the landmark story by New York Times reporter David Barstow in that paper’s Sunday edition about the military analysts appearing on TV and in print and other broadcast media selling the Iraq war to feather their own nests under the pretense of objectivity (here and here are two Daily Kos backgrounder posts). And though I am naturally reluctant to criticize anyone in our military, it is impossible not to do that after reading the story.

Simply put, if Bushco had put a fraction of the time into the actual planning and preparation for the aftermath of the ground war as they did into the selling and packaging of it, then I have a feeling we’d be winding down for real by now with much less of a loss of life suffered by our troops and innocent Iraqis (though I don’t mean to actually confer legitimacy on this epochal blunder by saying so).

The article lists many, many generals who allowed themselves to be used and abused by Don (“The Defense Secretary We Had”) Rumsfeld so they could gain access to him and other Pentagon “players” in the name of turning a buck (with Ret. Gen. William L. Nash the only one who walked away, according to the article).

And just to remind us of the type of person Rummy is (as if we could actually forget), Barstow provides the following…

The full dimensions of this mutual embrace were perhaps never clearer than in April 2006, after several of Mr. Rumsfeld’s former generals — none of them network military analysts — went public with devastating critiques of his wartime performance. Some called for his resignation.

On Friday, April 14, with what came to be called the “Generals’ Revolt” dominating headlines, Mr. Rumsfeld instructed aides to summon military analysts to a meeting with him early the next week, records show. When an aide urged a short delay to “give our big guys on the West Coast a little more time to buy a ticket and get here,” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office insisted that “the boss” wanted the meeting fast “for impact on the current story.”

That same day, Pentagon officials helped two Fox analysts, General (Thomas G.) McInerney and General (Paul E.) Vallely, write an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal defending Mr. Rumsfeld.

“Starting to write it now,” General Vallely wrote to the Pentagon that afternoon. “Any input for the article,” he added a little later, “will be much appreciated.” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office quickly forwarded talking points and statistics to rebut the notion of a spreading revolt.

“Vallely is going to use the numbers,” a Pentagon official reported that afternoon.

The standard secrecy notwithstanding, plans for this session leaked, producing a front-page story in The Times that Sunday. In damage-control mode, Pentagon officials scrambled to present the meeting as routine and directed that communications with analysts be kept “very formal,” records show. “This is very, very sensitive now,” a Pentagon official warned subordinates.

On Tuesday, April 18, some 17 analysts assembled at the Pentagon with Mr. Rumsfeld and General Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war.

“I’m an old intel guy,” said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers’ names.) “And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’ ”

“What are you, some kind of a nut?” Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. “You don’t believe in the Constitution?”

Grrrr…..

Even as they assured Mr. Rumsfeld that they stood ready to help in this public relations offensive, the analysts sought guidance on what they should cite as the next “milestone” that would, as one analyst put it, “keep the American people focused on the idea that we’re moving forward to a positive end.” They placed particular emphasis on the growing confrontation with Iran.

“When you said ‘long war,’ you changed the psyche of the American people to expect this to be a generational event,” an analyst said. “And again, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job...”

“Get in line,” Mr. Rumsfeld interjected.

The meeting ended and Mr. Rumsfeld, appearing pleased and relaxed, took the entire group into a small study and showed off treasured keepsakes from his life, several analysts recalled.

When Rumsfeld eventually passes from this earth, I hope he is cremated and his ashes are scattered (preferably all over Iraq). I feel this way because I’m concerned about actually burying his body and contaminating the soil in the process.

Also, it should be noted that Vallely was particularly enthusiastic in doing Rummy’s bidding (and as sort of a freeper litmus test, Vallely involved himself in the Valerie Plame mess here, though his credibility was called into question then as now). He and some of his pals held firm to the belief that the Vietnam War was lost by our media, so they intended to practice some of Bushco’s legendary “message discipline” to make sure that, as far as they were concerned, that “mistake” never occurred again.

However, of all of the generals listed in the story, the one name that stood out for me was that of Retired General James A. “Spider” Marks, employed as a CNN analyst as well as a “rainmaker” of sorts for McNeil Technologies (this also tells us that he went on to work with the now-happily-ended presidential campaign of Willard Mitt Romney).

The reason it stood out for me is because, as noted here by Walter C. Uhler, Marks had firsthand knowledge of the blundering that ultimately led to the catastrophe in Iraq…

According to Bob Woodward, General Marks had been tasked with locating, neutralizing and securing each WMD site, once the invasion of Iraq commenced. And when he asked the "(Defense Intelligence Agency) smart guys" [Ibid] whether site number one was more important than site 946, one of the people…said dismissively: "Of course, General. Why wouldn't it be?" [Ibid, p. 94]

But when Marks asked whether the sites had been prioritized by the certainty of their existence or their importance, "nobody had a real answer." [Ibid, p. 95] And their answers were no more specific, when Marks asked: "Was the first site listed first because they thought it had the most WMD? Or was it because of the type of WMD - chemical, biological, nuclear or missile-related activity or another category? Was it related to the overall threat of the site? Or was it a matter of how quickly or easily Saddam could use the WMD? 'How are these things racked and stacked?' Marks asked." [Ibid]

Marks subsequently told General (David) McKiernan, "I can't get DIA to move. You need to fire me." [Ibid, p. 101] When that didn't work, Marks told McKiernan, "Sir, I can't confirm what's inside any of these sites." [Ibid] And he made that admission during the very period, when President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, (Rumsfeld), Secretary of State, Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were bamboozling Americans into believing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Moreover, unlike our idiotic and malevolent Vice President -- who requires just one percent of supporting evidence to act upon his preconceived biases and who once childishly gushed over a satellite photo purporting to show (but unable to prove) WMD activity -- Marks looked at similar photos only to conclude that, when doing so, "You're a pig looking at a watch." [Ibid, p. 99] Such is the huge uncertainty involved in the process.

And in spite of all of that, General Marks went on TV and sold the war to us anyway once he retired his commission.

I really don’t know what else to say in light of that, General, only that I may add that its denigrating to livestock for you to compare yourself in that manner. And I can’t imagine you actually looking at that metaphorical timepiece unless the numbers had dollar signs next to them (a shame it can’t count to 4,045, isn’t it?).

Update 5/6/08: God, he would have made a good president...

A Lesson In Faith For Our Times

I know the headline of this column must have really excited the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer when it appeared last Saturday, and had the column been written by one of its typical corporate apologists or neocon naysayers, I would heap volumes of scorn and ridicule on it before it disappeared from cached Internet memory forever.

However, “The left has lost its nerve and its direction” was written by Chris Hedges (pictured), who has practiced what he has preached by reporting on some of the worst conflicts on earth for decades.

For that reason, I will take issue with some of what he has to say, but not in the usual manner…

"The mistake of the former left-wingers, from Tom Hayden to Todd Gitlin, is that they want to be players in the Democratic Party and academia," said John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's magazine, speaking of two prominent 1960s activists. "This is not what the left is supposed to be. The left is supposed to be outside the system. The attempt by the left to take control of the Democratic Party failed with [Eugene] McCarthy and George McGovern. The left, at that point, should have gone back to organizing, street protests, building labor unions, and the mobilization of grassroots activists. Instead, it went for respectability."

As important as it is to “build labor unions and organize street protests,” how much good is that going to do “the left” remains, for the most part, outside of political and economic power?

And as far as backing third-party candidates is concerned, again, that is a worthy goal when these individuals truly represent a progressive constituency. But you can only effect so much social change when shouting through a bullhorn at the corporate suites where boards of directors are in session or state and federal legislatures where bills are being debated and/or considered. You have a much better chance of getting the result you want when someone with a similar ideology is actually participating in those locations.

And yes, it is a devil’s bargain, but I believe that is preferable to rendering yourself a human sacrifice before those who would merely step on you anyway versus giving you a second thought for your courage and resolve.

The working class has every right to be, to steal a line from Obama, bitter with liberal elites. I am bitter. I have seen what the loss of manufacturing jobs and the death of the labor movement did to my relatives in the former mill towns in Maine. Their story is the story of tens of millions of Americans who can no longer find a job that supports a family and provides basic benefits. Human beings are not, despite what the well-heeled Democratic and Republican apologists for the free market tell you, commodities. They are not goods. They grieve, and suffer and feel despair. They raise children and struggle to maintain communities. The growing class divide is not understood, despite the glibness of many in the media, by complicated sets of statistics or the absurd, utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals. It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer making enough money to live with dignity and hope.

Yes, but then why is that the fault of “the left” that attempts to make inroads through politics and business (and by the way, Hedges should be careful with invoking Eugene McCarthy, who took a political right turn before the end of his Senate career in 1970). Is it Hedges’ wish that we remain ensconced in a ‘60s mindset, chanting for peace, economic opportunity and social justice while wearing our sandals, bell bottoms and tie-dye and reeking of incense and patchouli?

The failure of the left is the failure of well-meaning people who kept compromising and compromising in the name of effectiveness and a few scraps of influence until they had neither. The condemnations progressives utter - about the abuse of working men and women, the rapacious cannibalization of the country by an unchecked arms industry, our disastrous foreign wars, and the collapse of basic services from education to welfare - are not backed by action. The left has been transformed into anguished apologists for corporate greed. They have become hypocrites.

Perhaps in part, I’ll admit, though we all participate as our means allow. But to say that “our condemnations are not backed by action” is a blanket indictment that is neither appropriate nor correct; also, I cannot think of anyone I interact with online or in-person who would consider himself or herself “an apologist for corporate greed.” Just because we’re not fighting the battle to the same degree Hedges is does not mean that we’re not fighting the battle at all.

"The loss of nerve by the left comes down to this lack of faith," (the Rev. Susan B.) Thistlethwaite (president of Chicago Theological Seminary) said. "Having a soul means there is coherence between our actions and our values. The left can no longer claim this coherence. It has no moral compass. It does not know right from wrong. It has, in its confusion, lost the capacity to make moral judgments."

Hope, St. Augustine wrote, has two beautiful daughters. They are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to see they do not remain the way they are. We stand at the verge of a massive economic dislocation, one forcing millions of families from their homes and into severe financial distress, one that threatens to rend the fabric of our society. If we do not become angry, if we do not muster within us the courage to challenge the corporate state that is destroying our nation, we will have squandered our credibility and integrity at the moment we need it most.

I get the distinct sense that Hedges believes the battle is already lost, and that’s not true. Those who wish to advocate for the causes he states, such as yours truly in my own humble way, do so through a variety of means in the public arena (including exercising our franchise today in PA).

Hedges quoted St. Augustine earlier to a wonderful effect, and with that in mind, I’d like to quote St. Paul, who said that “faith is the evidence of things not seen.”

Anger and courage, when utilized properly, can achieve everlasting results. But without faith in the success of the cause (a shade of difference from hope, I’d argue), we become slaves of a sort regardless, I feel, to a mindset of protest-and-all-else-be-damned that was only slightly more successful in the ’60s than it ever could be again today.

And just because it’s not seen doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

Yes, when you get “on the inside” you can be corrupted. Or you can stand tall also. But it takes faith to believe the latter is possible.

And I have faith. And somehow I have a feeling that, if you’re reading this, you do too.

By The Way, Any Takers For The Blimp?

(You know, the thing I posted about here…)

This article tells us that Dr. Ron Paul appeared at the University of Montana’s UC Ballroom in Missoula yesterday, spouting lines like “the opposite of liberty is big government,” as well as preaching once more that he wants to abolish the personal income tax.

And he’ll get the opportunity to do that when I lead the first manned space mission to the planet Venus.

Further, this tells us that some of the “Paulistas” have further cemented their support for the only Republican presidential candidate to oppose the Iraq war by casting their lot with a certain presidential nominee named John Sidney McCain III.

Uh…wasn’t the entire point of Paul’s candidacy to oppose Washington insiders like “Senator Honor And Virtue”?

And D-Mac at Philadelphia Will Do tells us here that, despite the fact that Dr. Paul was, at one time, the candidate with the most military donations among either party (here), a mock election was held at the Robert K. Shafer Middle School in Bensalem, PA. and Paul did not receive a single vote.

Who knew that those kids don’t want to abolish OSHA or the Federal Reserve and opposed guns in our schools (all noted here)?

Sadly, I think this is a trend that will not be reversed by a massive “Google-bomb” campaign (though I’m still waiting to find out what will happen to Paul’s massive war chest considering that it’s only going to be used to tilt at the proverbial windmills from now on).

Patrick Goes “Green” On PA’s Voting Day

(The weather outside is hardly frightful, people, so there’s no excuse to go to the polls and vote for Obama, as well as other Dems like Steve Santarsiero, and remember to vote for Obama's delegates also – sorry I didn’t mention that earlier...just a handful at my polling place, but turnout appears to be heavier elsewhere for now.)

This Letter to the Editor appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times today…

Congressman Patrick Murphy has co-sponsored HB1590, the Safe Climate Act.

There are several other bills pending, but this particular bill would do far more to improve the condition of the environment and slow global warming. It calls for a minimum of 20 percent of the electricity produced to originate from renewable sources by 2020, and for a reduction of emissions that contribute to global warming by 80 percent by the year 2050. These are both attainable and necessary goals, endorsed by several environmental organizations. The science supports these goals, and the technology exists to achieve them.

Congressman Murphy and the other sponsors must now follow up to see that Congress takes action on this bill as soon as possible.

Nancy Bilheimer
Middletown

Here are links to other Earth Day events and festivities, and as always, to help Patrick, click here.

Tuesday AM Stuff

Who would know better about who to vote for today than this guy, though his words end up unintentionally supporting Obama (h/t The Daily Kos)...



...and one more time, here's the video that got the ball rolling, as they say.

Monday PM Stuff

Some music to help all of us PA folk get into the mood to do our duty tomorrow ("Elected," by Alice Cooper; ends kind of suddenly)...



...and before I forget, let's all welcome Tony Snow Job back to corporate media, in this case CNN (though they're all pretty much indistinguishable at this point- sorry, Keith); he'll be a "conservative commentator," of course, because, after all, they simply cannot have enough conservative commentators, can they now?

Shining A Light On A Great Gipper Gaffe

Right now, Jimmy Carter is getting pilloried by our media over meeting with Hamas (as I’ve said before, Bushco’s policy of thumbing its nose at people they don’t like has worked so well, hasn’t it?), as Prof. Marcus noted here earlier, but I happened to come across the following note from somewhere in yesterday’s New York Times (the source escapes me at the moment).

In an effort to improve energy efficiency (as noted here)…

Carter even had solar collectors installed on the White House grounds to heat the executive residence's water.

Then Carter lost re-election to Ronald Reagan in 1980. The solar panels at the White House eventually came down - and Reagan and his aides gutted the solar research program.

"In June or July of 1981, on the bleakest day of my professional life, they descended on the Solar Energy Research Institute, fired about half of our staff and all of our contractors, including two people who went on to win Nobel prizes in other fields, and reduced our $130 million budget by $100 million," recalls Denis Hayes, the founder of Earth Day, who had been hired by Carter to spearhead the solar initiative.

Reagan and Congress stopped aggressively pushing new auto efficiency standards, acceding to Detroit's desire to leave them at Carter-era levels. They let the solar tax benefit expire, and the nascent solar industry went belly- up.

It was time to let the markets work their magic and stop all this government tinkering, Reagan and conservatives said.

Bad stuff? A recipe for the fix we're in today?

A number of environmentalists and conservationists say so.

Although the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards already were saving 3 million barrels a day, "they could be saving us a further 3 million or 4 million barrels a day" if they had been ramped up, says Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global-warming project.

And that was noted in October 2005, by the way (and as noted here from May of that year)…

Today, despite the best efforts of the Bushies, the bin Ladens, and the rest of the oil industry, Carter's few surviving initiatives have borne fruit.

It is now more economical to build power generating stations using wind than using coal, oil, gas, or nuclear. When amortized over the life of a typical mortgage, installing solar power in a house in most parts of the US is cheaper than drawing power from the grid. (Shell and British Petroleum are among the world's largest manufacturers of solar photovoltaic panels, which can now even be used as roofing shingles.) And hybrid cars that get 50-70 miles to the gallon are increasingly commonplace on our nation's highways. Instead of taking a strong stand to make America energy independent, Bush kisses a Saudi crown prince, then holds hands with him as they walk into Bush's hobby ranch in Texas. Our young men and women are daily dying in Iraq - a country with the world's second largest store of underground oil. And we live in fear that another 15 Saudis may hijack more planes to fly into our nation's capitol or into nuclear power plants.

Meanwhile, Bush brings us an energy bill that includes eight billion dollars in welfare payments to the oil business, just as the nation's oil companies report the highest profits in the entire history of the industry. Americans struggle to pay for gasoline, while the Bush administration refuses to increase fleet efficiency standards, stop the $100,000 tax break for buying Hummers, or maintain and build Amtrak. George Bush Jr. is arguably right that gas prices are spiking because we don't have an energy policy. But instead of blaming Clinton, he should be pointing to the Reagan/Bush administration, and to his own abysmal failures…

I believe the Hummer exemption was recently removed, though standards were relaxed for lighter vehicles. And please don’t remind me again that Obama voted for the energy bill – not a bright move, but it helped his state.

And by the way, oil is now at $117 a barrel.

273 days and counting, people…

Swimming In A Sea Of Medicare Fraud

(The post title relates to a quote from Dem U.S. House member Jim Cooper of Tennessee below.)

This Parade Magazine article tells us…

A whopping $70 billion out of the estimated $400 billion budgeted for Medicare in 2008 may disappear this year due to fraud and mismanagement. The taxpayer-funded system to cover health care for Americans aged 65 or older is projected to lose that amount, which is equivalent to $233 for every American.

“Defrauding Medicare is easy and safe,” says (Harvard University’s Malcolm) Sparrow (who studies Medicare fraud). “The spending is huge. The spending on controls is minimal. Bills are paid and processed by computers, and no human sees them.” In a recently reported case, one firm billed Medicare $170 million for fake HIV drug infusions. Dozens of companies charged a total of $142 million for unnecessary medical supplies, such as prosthetic limbs. Because of repeat invoicing, $5 million was spent on a single wheelchair.

And what does Bushco say in response?

“We process 1.2 billion claims each year,” says Kimberly Brandt of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “We can’t look at all of them.”

Maybe, but you can ensure better controls on the companies that process claims as Sparrow says, can’t you (as opposed to going after Medicare subscribers).

Here’s a link to testimony by Brandt’s boss Mike Leavitt, head of Health and Human Services, to Congress last July in which he asked for more money to fight fraud, and as the story tells us…

Committee member Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said, "One group you've left completely off the hook" in efforts to address fraud is the private companies that process Medicare claims. A requirement that such companies increase efforts to detect fraud and inform HHS officials when fraud occurs could save Medicare billions of dollars, Cooper said, adding, "Today you're talking about small fish, minnows."

As opposed to “sharks” like PRG-Schultz International who, as noted here…

...will end up (receiving) millions of dollars in commissions…even though the firm’s wholesale rejections of Medicare claims from California rehabilitation hospitals are being reversed on appeal.

The rulings by administrative-law judges for the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals will restore money withdrawn from California hospitals, some of which trimmed services to Medicare patients as a result of the reviews.

But PRG-Schultz International, which is paid up to 25 to 30 cents for each dollar of Medicare spending it identifies as wrongly paid, can keep its bounty as long as its findings are sustained through the first two levels of administrative review.

…

One case involved a 77-year-old woman admitted to the rehabilitation unit at Glendale Adventist Medical Hospital in 2002 after knee-replacement surgery. She had heart problems and lived alone.

When transferred to the rehabilitation unit, she could not stand without help, antibiotics were being given to her intravenously and she was in extreme pain. After eight days in the undergoing therapy, she returned home.

Even though Medicare had paid the claim in November 2002, PRG-Schultz sent a letter in June 2006 saying it was reopening the case “due to a recent review and discovery of potential overpayment.”

Nice...

I don’t see this situation improving any time soon, unfortunately, despite the fact that this takes you to information on S 2845, the Medicare Fraud Reduction Act of 2008.

The problem I have with the bill, aside from the fact that it was introduced by Repug Mel Martinez of Florida about a week ago (makes sense given that state’s elderly population; I know PA is second or third in the nation in that category, but FLA is number one) is that it doesn’t appear to contain the needed cost controls for companies processing claims. It appears that funding would be left to the states for anti-fraud enforcement and some streamlining for subscriber bill payment.

Were I in Congress (a scary thought, I’ll admit), I’d get this into a subcommittee and beef it up a bit so it could address the costliest issue here (regulation of claims processors and altering this payment structure whereby they’re compensated the same whether they honor or deny claims).

And I would say this is an issue for the next president as well; based on this, I’m sure Captain Clueless will continue to ignore it on porpoise…

(Get it, the whole “sea” thing – never mind…).

Nothing's The Matter With PA, OK?

(At least, nothing that would interfere with people, for the most part, voting intelligently…)

I came across this post by George Packer of The New Yorker, and even though I got a bit agitated by it, I suppose I should thank him for rehashing some idiotic talking points over the Obama “bitter,” “cling” nonsense that deserves to be utterly destroyed.

Aside from Packer’s scurrilous declaration that Obama “equated guns and religion with racism” (patently untrue), I’d like to note the following excerpt in particular…

If Obama had left out “antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment” (which is what sympathetic pundits and bloggers have done in attempting to explain his comments away), he might not now be sinking in the latest polls from Pennsylvania and Indiana.

How does “antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment” translate to racism anyway? I can assure you that even the most hardheaded among us in this commonwealth aren’t going after illegal immigrants with dogs or water cannons, nor is a Bull Connor or Sherriff Clark knockoff strutting ominously in their presence, threatening to attack them with a billy club or a cattle prod.

(Update: At least, not since former mayor Frank "nightstick in the cummerbund" Rizzo prowled these parts, though at least he evolved politically over time more than either Clark or Connor.)

And I didn’t leave the quote out of anything I said about Obama; I didn’t apologize for him for the simple reason that there is nothing to apologize for. And as far as “sinking in the latest polls” is concerned…well, maybe I’m not smart enough to write for The New Yorker like Packer, but the numbers from here look pretty competitive to me.

Also…

As Democratic political analysis, what he said is hardly new. Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” is a book-length exposition of Obama’s one sentence.

At this point, I believe the following well-reasoned and articulate response is required…

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

(Sorry – needed to vent.)

I am ALREADY SO TIRED of reading and listening to pundits discussing the tendency of rural voters in this state to side with the Republicans and more urban voters to do the opposite as symptomatic of what is described in Thomas Frank’s book.

I don’t know how many times Packer has actually set foot in this state to do reporting, but I’d like to point something out (I haven’t set foot in Kansas either, though I’ve flown over it a time or two, for what that’s worth).

This post from Media Matters explains (among other things) that, except for the northeast, conservative columnists dominate in terms of circulation throughout the rest of the country. And as a result of that utterly depressing fact, voters in these areas are subjected to a steady drone from the usual suspects about how Democrats/liberals/progressives are totally immoral libertines hopelessly out of touch on the “values” issues that REALLY are important as opposed to, y’know, silly stuff like trying to figure out some way of conducting the Iraq war that makes sense while starting to draw down our forces, making sure our jobs don’t disappear, providing health insurance for those who can’t afford it, the climate crisis, sensible immigration policy, and on and on.

(You can also consider the fact that, while many young adults consider Bill Clinton as their "coming of age" President, if you will, many more consider The Sainted Ronnie R to be theirs, so growing up with the "government is bad" propaganda is second nature to them and makes them inherently receptive to the conservative mantra.)

In short, the people of Kansas (among other places) received some really crappy “information” upon which to base their political decisions, though like all voters who don’t do their homework, they must personally shoulder part of the blame also. As a result, they felt an affinity to characters like Sam Brownback, though we’re guilty in this state of sending Little Ricky to the Senate along with him a couple of times. But another barometer to use is voting in presidential elections; in ’00 and ’04, Kansans voted for Dubya big time, while we in PA voted for Gore and Kerry (and sending Santorum packing in favor of Bob Casey was definitely part of a trend, and the voters of Kansas can thank Dem governor Kathleen Sebelius for the progressive turnaround currently underway in their state).

And as the “Real Time” clip from the prior post showed, the voters interviewed by Jeremy Scahill cared less about “wedge issues” (well, maybe not the guy with the loaded Sig Sauer pistol), to the point where some of them were going to vote for Obama after voting for Dubya not once, but twice primarily because of the pitiful state of our economy.

Two other points: it’s funny to read Packer call Kristol mess a propagandist (I mean, he is, but Packer is taking a page from Kristol’s book here as far as I’m concerned), and also, though I suppose you could call me an Obama “devotee,” I’ve never said the man was perfect and corrected him a time or two, agreeing with Paul Krugman who said it was wrong for Obama to lump the economic records of Clinton and Dubya together in that now-infamous statement from San Francisco. If there was anything Obama said that was truly objectionable, that was it, and ONLY that.

But the best part about this is that this whole primary freak show will leave our state tomorrow. God, I’m so sick of the robocalls primarily from the Clinton side, but not exclusively.

And if we vote for Obama, we can effectively end this primary and concentrate on utterly shredding McCain (the numbers haven’t been good for Hillary for some time). If you had told me, say, last October that I’d feel such utter contempt for the way the Clintons have run their campaign, I never would have believed you. But there you are.

Update 4/22/08: Speaking of Sebelius, I was glad to see this.

Monday AM Stuff

Time to snark on that "straight-talking maverick" again...



...and he's so informed also, isn't he? (h/t for both to The Daily Kos)...



...forgot this; I don't know what kind of a kissass party the interview was yesterday, but somehow I'm sure these questions weren't asked...



...and author Jeremy Scahill visits "Real Time" with a clip on PA (this is the reality, as opposed to the typical pundit nonsense).

Friday PM Stuff

Barack Obama returns the dialogue in the campaign to some level approximating reality for about the thousandth time, and he'll probably have to do it a thousand or more times (h/t Prof. Marcus - and no sooner do I finish typing the words...)...



...Patrick Murphy does a fine job here on "The Colbert Report" (yes, I'm biased, but it's true - h/t Atrios - have to turn the volume waaay up here; I hope Comedy Central is trying to figure out how to make better videos)...



...and while it's truly objectionable that John W. McBush, he of the sleazoid letter trying to link Obama to Hamas noted above (and you KNEW that was coming, didn't you?) hasn't agreed to co-sponsor the new G.I. Bill as K.O. tells us, I think the IRS scam is pretty damn repugnant also...



...and this week started with the "bitter" and "clinging" nonsense, and it may end that way; Willard Mitt Romney here called Barack Obama "elitist."

I'll repeat that because it's so unbelievable: Willard...Mitt...Romney...called...Barack...Obama...elitist ("The Mittster," he of the "penumbra of angst," "sanctuary mansion," and the "who let the dogs out" nonsense).

We are now "through the looking glass," people - check your sanity and sense of reason at the door as you descend.


Mitt Romney Defends Himself Against Allegations Of Tolerance

Friday Mashup (4/18/08)

Boy, this didn’t take long…

Spain and Italy were embroiled in a war of words on Wednesday after Silvio Berlusconi criticised his Spanish counterpart for appointing so many women to his cabinet.

In one of the first interviews after being elected Italy's prime minister for the third time, Mr Berlusconi attacked Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government, describing it as "too pink".

Speaking about Mr Zapatero's decision to give nine out of 17 cabinet positions to women, he said: "Now he's asked for it. He'll have problems leading them."

I’m so glad to see “Prime Minister Jesus” back in power. World news was starting to get so boring and repetitive.

And don’t look now, but Dubya has apparently named a competent individual to replace Alphonso Jackson at HUD, and that would be former SBA head Steve Preston (here - Dubya's expression here is only slightly exaggerated from the look on his face in the pic provided by MSNBC).

Only took Incurious George 7 ½ years to get the hang of the whole “putting competent people in charge of agencies who aren’t total party hacks” thing. The mind reels!

According to this story, it sounds like “Click It Or Ticket” as they say in our beloved common- wealth, has come to Iraq…

Later this month, traffic police officers...will start issuing tickets to anyone who drives without buckling up. Violators will be fined 15,000 dinars — about $12.50. “It is part of the healing process of this country and of Baghdad to enforce the law, law by law,” said Brig. Gen. Zuhair Abada Mraweh, traffic commander for the capital’s Rusafah district.

No word on whether or not drivers will receive extra credit for negotiating through endless checkpoints, enduring many blocked roads while trying to commute short distances, avoiding other drivers swerving across lanes, or – oh, I dunno – merely making it through the day alive!!

I applaud the desire of some Iraqis to establish something approximating civilized behavior while crazies exist everywhere trying to blow up whomever and whatever they can (gee, maybe there was a reason Saddam Hussein was such a mean, brutal guy, you know?). But somehow I don’t think it’s wise to waste scarce resources on trying to enforce something like this.

And since Iraq has chosen to model itself after PA this way, I suppose it’s only a matter of time now before someone petitions the Iraqi “government” to make sure no law mandating that motorcyclists wear helmets is ever passed, or to repeal any such law that may exist (And texting? DU NT GO THRE!).

Barack Obama was endorsed today by former Dem senators Sam Nunn and David Boren, and yesterday, he was endorsed by Republican William Ruckelshaus…

Ruckelshaus was serving as deputy attorney general in 1973 when he made history as part of the infamous Saturday Night Massacre. He and his boss, Attorney General Elliot Richardson, were fired after they refused Nixon’s order to dismiss the independent counsel investigating the Watergate break-ins.

The former Nixon FBI director and secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to help Obama defeat Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton in the May 6 primary in Ruckelshaus’ homestate of Indiana. The state has been a longtime Republican stronghold in presidential politics.

“Senator Obama’s ability to attract not only Democrats, but also Republicans and Independents, makes him uniquely qualified to build the broad coalitions needed to address our nation’s challenges,” said Ruckelshaus in a statement.

And as history tells us, though neither Richardson nor Ruckelshaus fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Solicitor General Robert Bork stepped in and did so on Nixon’s orders; in the process, Richardson and Ruckelshaus ended up earning the enmity of movement conservatives for all time (and the thanks of all people of reason everywhere).

Update: Forgot about Robert Reich here...

Speaking of movement conservatives, here’s another “triumph” from perhaps the reddest state of them all…

The Oklahoma Legislature voted Thursday to override Gov. Brad Henry's veto of a bill that would require women to receive an ultrasound examination before receiving an abortion.

By an 81-15 vote, the House voted to override the veto. That followed a 37-11 vote in the Senate.

It is the first time Henry has had a veto overridden in his two terms as governor.

I don’t know what is worse, the fact that this was overridden by such a wide margin, or the fact that Henry vetoed this only because it didn’t exempt victims of rape or incest.

I consider turning this into law an act of torture, and I’m not talking about the unborn life in question, by the way.

In light of the prior story, I don’t know if Eve Ensler has ever performed “The Vagina Monologues” in Oklahoma, but if she hasn’t, I believe she needs to do so if she can.

The Times of London here tells us that the production marked its 10th anniversary last weekend with a performance in the New Orleans Superdome (gosh, I’m sure Faux News was all over this, but drat, I still missed it!).

Explore this penetrating (ahem...) story, as they say…

Few people know that New Orleans is the vagina of America. Few would suggest it. “It is fertile. It's a delta. And everyone wants to party there,” explains (Ensler), activist, feminist icon - and the author of The Vagina Monologues. Never one to act on a small stage when a bigger one would do, last weekend she turned the New Orleans Superdome into the Superlove - a two-day global event to mark the tenth anniversary of her V-Day movement, the campaign to stop violence against women which she founded on the back of her play.

Not everyone got it. “When Eve told me New Orleans was the vagina of America, I was like, oh sweet Jesus,” says the actress Kerry Washington, putting her head in her hands. “Sometimes I think, Eve, do you really want to go there. Really? But now I get it. Its sexy, everybody loves it - but when it has problems nobody wants to know.”

…

With success, she turned her time, and a portion of her profits, over to creating V-Day, a charity aimed at stopping violence against women. And that meant all violence against women in the world. En route, she recruited a cast of A-list celebrities including Oprah, Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, Salma Hayek, Kerry Washington and Rosario Dawson. Kate Winslet was among those who turned out for the first V-Day benefit performance in the UK at The Old Vic in 1999. That was back in the days when Ensler performed the show herself at The King's Head in Islington, London. “Ah, the King's Head,” she says fondly. “I had to pee in a pot because there weren't any toilets.” She returned to London in 2001 for a successful West End run, and annual V-Day performances have continued up and down the country.

Few could have predicted V-Day's spontaneous success - ranked as a top ten charity, it retains only a few staff, working from their own homes, tuning into a global grassroots network of women that have raised more than £25 million.

Kudos to Ensler – her play isn’t really my thing, as they say, but she’s worked hard for the betterment of women in danger across the world, and for that she deserves credit.

I wonder if she’ll receive a congratulatory telegram from Silvio Berlusconi?

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (4/18/08)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

House

U.S.-Colombia trade. By a vote of 224-195, the House delayed indefinitely a U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement that President Bush had sent to Capitol Hill under "fast-track" legislative rules. This vote on H Res 1092 canceled a deadline in those rules for the House to approve or reject the trade pact. The deferral did not require Senate or presidential concurrence and took effect immediately.

A yes vote was to delay the trade agreement.

Voting yes: Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.) Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Not voting: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.).

(I guess Andrews was too busy sucking up to North Jersey fat cats trying to raise money so he can unseat Frank Lautenberg. As I said earlier, that’s his right, but Lautenberg has more integrity in his pinky than Andrews has in his whole body.)

More to the point, here and here are posts from David Sirota to commemorate what will be the 94th anniversary of the Ludlow, CO mining massacre on April 20th; a government militia slaughtered union representatives trying to organize coal miners there in 1914.

What does that have to do with the Colombia “free trade” agreement? Oh, just about everything. As Sirota tells us in Part One…

Colombia resembles Colorado in the early 20th century, only with more frequent slaughters. In the last two decades, over 2,500 Colombian labor organizers have been assassinated, making Colombia the world's most dangerous place for unionists.

…

This situation, like Ludlow, developed not in spite of the governing elite, but thanks to it. As The Washington Post reports, Colombia's "most influential political, military and business figures helped build" the killing machine. Recently, prosecutors connected these paramilitaries to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's allies.

Colombian labor leaders have begged the White House to drop the deal, saying it will undermine their struggle for human rights by validating Uribe's thug-ocracy. Nonetheless, President Bush bolstered Uribe with a pact giving corporations incentives to leave America for the corpse-strewn pastures of Colombia — a union hater's paradise.

Sirota also criticizes Chiquita Brands for collaborating in the anti-union violence; to be fair, I should note that I defended the company in an earlier post because their CEO had brought his concerns about working with a group dubbed a terrorist organization to Mike Chertoff, who, in typical fashion, ignored them, ultimately leading to an action against Chiquita that possibly could have been avoided (embedded in this post - I don’t have an update on that right now). I didn’t mean to imply that the company was innocent, but only that there were other corporate offenders we could have pursued that operate in that country instead.

it may be inevitable that we’ll have to deal with these characters in Colombia in the event that there’s no substantive changes among them or the policy of their government (sorry, but have to plan for that), but to me, that still does not mean this agreement should be ratified any earlier than January 21, 2009 (if at all), particularly when that country’s labor leaders are asking us not to because it would legitimize Uribe and his tactics.

And if the agreement doesn’t get passed, then maybe it will mean that former President Bill Clinton and/or Mark Penn won’t get paid for lobbying on Colombia’s behalf. I think that would be fair – never justifiable to sell out American workers, no matter who we’re talking about.

U.S. landscape conservation. The House voted 278-140 to give force of law to an eight-year-old program designed to preserve landscapes of national significance on Bureau of Land Management acreage in the West. The bill (HR 2016) would codify what are now administrative protections for landscapes of exceptional ecological, cultural or scientific value on the agency's 27 million acres.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Saxton, Schwartz, Sestak, Smith.

Voting no: Pitts.

This week’s obligatory stupid “No” vote by Joe Pitts (and to help Bruce Slater, click here - I LOVE the idea of writing in Bruce's name on the Republican ballots - genius!).

Senate

Housing relief package. In an 84-12 vote, the Senate sent the House a bill (HR 3221) to help mortgage holders, communities and businesses cope with the U.S. housing collapse at a projected cost of $15 billion over 10 years. The bill authorizes $6 billion in tax rebates to homebuilders and other businesses, $150 million for credit counseling to head off foreclosures, and $4 billion for use by localities to buy empty houses.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.), Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

Renewable-energy tax credits. Voting 88-8, the Senate expanded HR 3221 (above) to extend renewable-energy tax credits due to expire at year's end. The amendment would add about $6 billion over 10 years to the national debt. The tax incentives are designed, in part, to promote energy from sources such as the sun, wind, earth and crops and promote the manufacture of more energy-efficient homes, buildings and appliances.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Biden, Casey, Lautenberg, Menendez, Specter.

Voting no: Carper.

He casts a “No” vote like this and then actually has the gall to promote Earth Day – what planet does Tom Carper live on?

Federal land inventory. Voting 30-63, the Senate refused to require the federal government to start publishing an online inventory of all land it owns and the cost of administering it, with the database to be updated annually. This amendment was offered to a noncontroversial bill (S 2739) on public lands that was later passed.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Specter.

Voting no: Carper, Casey, Biden, Lautenberg and Menendez.

How thoughtful of Tom Coburn to try and add this provision to the bill (and thank you, Inky, for deciding for me that S 2739 is “noncontroversial,” by the way) whereby the head of OMB would have to report every year with an inventory on all federal lands; God willing, it will be an OMB director for a Dem president starting next year (one would wonder why Coburn failed to insist on this for Bushco, with Jim Nussle being so talented and all).

This week, the House took up bills on reforming student loans, forgiving poor countries' debt, and controlling beach pollution. The Senate debated a highway bill.

Nice Try, Hil

So I get home from work last night and check our answering machine, and here the Clinton campaign left a message telling me to vote for Hillary this Tuesday in the PA primary because Barack Obama voted for the 2005 Energy Bill.

As HuffPo’s David Roberts tells us here, that was objectionable, but…

The headline of the press release makes it crystal clear why Obama (and fellow Ill. Sen. Dick Durbin) voted the way they did -- ethanol subsidies and "clean coal" research money (recall that as of Dec., the feds' $1.8b FutureGen boondoggle will sited in Ill.).

The post by Roberts notes that even though this was a stumble, Obama has “green cred” and a realistic plan for what’s needed and what’s achievable on the issue of climate change (no one can truly know what any of these people would do as President, but that’s a good sign).

Also, Hillary Clinton did not oppose the fraud 2005 Bankruptcy Bill (Obama voted against it), and that makes a bigger difference to me than Obama’s support for the energy bill.

One more thing...the Obama campaign actually sent a DVD to our house containing an eight-minute production telling us about him and some of what he wants to do as president (believe me when I tell you were are not big party donors; not sure if we did anything to deserve it). It’s pretty slick, to tell you the truth.

Also, as long as I’m discussing Obama, I just want to link to Paul Krugman here who talks about the same thing everyone else has discussed, but he has some original thoughts that, as usual, he can support with evidence. In particular, he takes Obama to task for conflating Dubya and Clinton on the economy, something I confess that I should have thought of myself earlier.

Today's BoBo Blather Against Obama-Rama

I really was going to ignore this, seriously, but I thought I’d better not (I know I always say that, but it’s true); what we’re seeing is the next ever-more-childish media contrivance based on the whole “Barack Obama is an elitist” fiction. And who else to do the “honors” but the New York Times’ own David Brooks here…

(In the pox on democracy debate the other night) Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.

Not only is that wrong, but McCain himself can’t even make up his mind as to whether or not he’s referring to a combat presence of what amounts to a ceremonial one as peacekeepers and nothing else, unless hostilities broke out (a silly notion anyway considering that our very presence is fueling the insurgency).

…(Obama) made an iron vow to get American troops out of Iraq within 16 months.

From Obama's web site here...

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

Also, on the home front...

(Obama) made a sweeping read-my-lips pledge never to raise taxes on anybody making less than $200,000 to $250,000 a year.

I’m not sure what Brooks is referring to exactly, but this tells us about Obama’s desire to create some kind of a “donut,” if you will, between the $96 limit on earnings subject to Social Security withholding and about $200-$250 K in earnings, conceived by Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. Obama’s desire is to increase the amount paid into Social Security by the top 6.5 percent of earners in this country while protecting those whose salaries fall in the “donut” range from having to pay into Social Security if they decline to do so; I have to admit that I myself was wrong when I previously said that Obama wanted to get rid of the cap altogether.

Back to BoBo...

Then there are the cultural issues. Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News are taking a lot of heat for spending so much time asking about Jeremiah Wright and the “bitter” comments. But the fact is that voters want a president who basically shares their values and life experiences. Fairly or not, they look at symbols like Michael Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry’s windsurfing or John Edwards’s haircut as clues about shared values.

(And of course, "voters" wouldn't look at how John McCain's wife Cindy has basically financed their high lifestyle and his entire political career since she's an heiress to a beer fortune, because that's OK since they're Republicans - give me a break.)

At this point, I’m going to defer to Glenn Greenwald who tells us here…

Brooks takes whatever opinions he happens to hold on a topic, and then -- without citing a single piece of evidence -- repeatedly asserts that "most Americans" hold this view, and then bases his entire "argument" on this premise. Thus, the only way for Democrats to have any hope of winning elections is to repudiate their radical, rabid Leftist base and instead follow Brooks' beliefs, because that is "centrism." This is actually a defining belief of the Beltway pundit, and it is as intellectually corrupt as an argument gets.

There is now this new invention called "polling data" which reveal what "most Americans" actually think about virtually any topic. Yet when Beltway pundits claim that "most Americans" think X (and, invariably, X = "the opinion of the Beltway pundit" which = "conventional Beltway wisdom"), they rarely cite polls because those polls virtually always contradict what they are claiming about what "most Americans" think.

Instead, Beltway pundits believe that they are representative of, anointed spokespeople for, the Average Real American, and thus, whatever the pundit's belief is about an issue is -- in their insular, self-loving minds -- a far more reliable indicator of what "Americans believe" than something as tawdry as polling data. Nobody uses this manipulative tactic more than David Brooks.

And in the prior comments from BoBo, just replace the phrase “most Americans” with “voters,” and you’ve got a typical BoBo rehash of his own biased beliefs dressed up in Broder-esque fashion as the opinion of Americans who, for the most part, long since stopped taking BoBo seriously anyway.

A generic Democrat now beats a generic Republican by 13 points, but Obama is trailing his own party. One in five Democrats say they would vote for McCain over Obama.

I honestly don’t know what “Obama is trailing his own party” means, but this tells you that Obama leads McCain currently 49-44 percent, while Clinton leads 48-45 percent (though I’ll admit that I think those numbers are nonsense because its waaay too early to take them seriously – it will only matter when Clinton finally faces reality and gives up, this making way for Obama vs. McCain to begin in earnest).

General election voters are different from primary voters. Among them, Obama is lagging among seniors and men. Instead of winning over white high school-educated voters who are tired of Bush and conventional politics, he does worse than previous nominees. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have estimated a Democrat has to win 45 percent of such voters to take the White House. I’ve asked several of the most skillful Democratic politicians over the past few weeks, and they all think that’s going to be hard.

Yep, we’re dealing with more “conventional wisdom” here, people; some anonymous “skillful Democratic politicians” think the election will turn on high-school educated voters who think that Obama is an elitist over the whole “bitter,” “cling” nonsense.

According to the Gallup poll cited above, though (as Greenwald predicted), it looks like the majority of those surveyed have pretty much put that idiocy behind, unlike our media gasbags.

Well, at least he didn’t say Obama was “the new sex,” as he did here about memory (still don’t get that, honestly). However, there’s still months to go in the campaign, sadly, meaning there’s time for more pointless, stupid media narratives to be concocted in lieu of reality and reporting of substance (but then again, that will just give me more work to do).

Friday AM Stuff

R.I.P., Danny Federici (ugh)...



...and I'll be with you in spirit at the McCarter in Princeton tonight, RT (maybe next year - sigh).

Thursday Stuff

Jon Stewart brings us analysis of the analysis (uh, yup) of the Pope's visit...



...and gee, aren't you glad that that dried up, washed out fossil Imus has learned his lesson; so Obama is "a bigger pussy than (Hillary) is," huh? Go do a hit or two of blow and a few shots of Crown Royal and fall down in a corner somewhere - that's the best public service you could provide (and of course, he thought George and Charlie did a good job)...



...and even the lowlights were painful (I take back a bit of what I said about Imus, actually; he's right about Charlie Gibson and those damn glasses - way past time for biofocals, dude)...



...and this is actually more "serious" than ABC's election coverage...



...and by the way, kudos to Dem Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland for slapping down that idiot Jim Nussle of OMB here; watch and learn, Dems (h/t to "J" Street at The Nation).

Oh My Papa

I lifted this verbatim from The Daily Howler and Bob Somerby - enjoy...

SMILE-A-WHILE: People vote on every conceivable basis. This example caught our eye today. It’s from David Broder’s column, for entertainment purposes only:

BRODER (4/17/08): Another Democratic voter, Ellen Sharm, 49, of Fort Washington (PA), is unequivocally opposed to Clinton “because my father hated Bill Clinton and he hated her.”

Sharm herself is equivocal about Obama and McCain and she said she is "halfway between" their opposing views on Iraq—with Obama urging an immediate start on a pullout and McCain saying the United States should remain there in force until Iraq is stable. Sharm described her own position on the war as "wishy-washy" and, while her disqualification of Clinton "out of respect for my father" dictates a vote for Obama in the primaries, she said “if it’s Obama versus McCain I'll have to consider" what to do in November.

Too funny! People vote for various reasons—including the desire to show their respect for their (late?) father’s sanctified hatreds.

Keep polishing up your flag lapel pin (surely you own one!) and that "Support The Troops" decal on your Hummer, Ellen. A grateful nation thanks you.