Thursday Mashup (9/9/10)

Might as well dive right into it (here)…

From Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan to Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, congressional leaders have found a way to work with presidents on policy, even if they were ideological opposites. If Republicans win back the House, will they reach out in good faith to President Obama? NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE recently posed that question to Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee.

“Absolutely,” Ryan says. “But these days, it seems like every time you reach your hand out, you get burned . . . from what I can tell, President Obama has little interest in trying to triangulate like Bill Clinton or Dick Morris.” The president’s ideology, he laments, often gets in the way of negotiations. “Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan,” Ryan says. “At the expense of the American idea, he has doubled down on Chicago-style politics and class warfare, pitting one group against the other.”

All together now – WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Here are the only six words you need to know when considering what the congressional Repugs plan to do if (God help us) they take control of one or both chambers after the election:

1) Make
2) Obama
3) A
4) One
5) Term
6) President

And the proof is pretty much here in this Politico post by the ever-Repug-accommodating Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, particularly the following…

“The goal, obviously, would be to make it a one-term presidency,” said a GOP lobbyist briefed on the talks.

See?

And it’s always hilarious to me to read the corporate media mythology about how President Clinton and Baby Newton Leroy Gingrich supposedly put aside their differences in true Broder-esque fashion, sang “Kumbaya” and passed welfare “reform,” which The Big Dog subsequently signed into law; Ezra Klein brings us the reality point of view here…

…Clinton vetoed the first two welfare reform bills the Republican Congress sent him for their unimaginable cruelty -- they were punitive programs, focused on punishing, not uplifting, poor blacks. The third bill sparked the most acrimonious and intense negotiations of the Clinton White House, with the president proving unable to decide his course till the eleventh hour and 59th minute.

…

Eventually, Gingrich and Co. crafted a bill they thought would split the Democratic Party and sent it to the president. Against expectations, he signed it, gambling that he could repair its most offensive elements during his second-term. On some level or another, he was right. He did improve the legislation. But a bill by Bill -- the welfare reform Clinton wanted -- would have been infinitely better, kinder, more generous, and more successful than the Republican incarnation. Clinton and the Republicans didn't work together -- they worked to undermine him and he sought to foil them. He won.

So much for “bipartisanship.”

And speaking of Congress (the House in particular), the Bucks County Courier Times tells us here that incumbent Dem U.S. House Rep Patrick Murphy debated PA-08 challenger (and former Rep) Mike Fitzpatrick yesterday…

Asked whether an extension of the tax cuts would contribute to the national budget deficit, Fitzpatrick said that similar reductions in the Kennedy and Reagan administrations actually provided increased revenue.

"If you believe in pro growth economic policies you believe that when you cut taxes people will invest in the economy, you create jobs, more people will be working and paying payroll taxes ultimately revenue to the federal government will go up and will not go down," Fitzpatrick said.

Gee, I’m not sure if that gets a “pants on fire” rating or not, but this tells us that The Sainted Ronnie R actually tripled the deficit (the adopted son of The Gipper tried to spread a related fabrication here).

And if you actually care about reducing the deficit (and Mikey apparently does not), this chart from Ezra Klein (good stuff from him, coincidentally) should tell you all you need to know, particularly the area in red (and Princeton economist Alan Blinder disagrees with Mikey here on the job-creation impact of tax cuts – yes, I know this has been pointed out a million times, but as long as sleazy pols like Mikey keep regurgitating this stuff…).

Also, the following should be noted about the debate…

On outsourcing jobs, Murphy called Fitzpatrick out for being the tie-breaking vote to expand disastrous, NAFTA-style trade deals that outsourced American jobs to Central America and the Middle East. Before the vote Fitzpatrick met with constituents like Mary Dunne and promised her he’d vote against outsourcing. Then he walked down to vote, got a call from Dick Cheney telling him to be a “yes,” and he immediately Fitz-flopped.

On the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, Murphy slammed Fitzpatrick for passing tax cuts for the Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohans of the world without paying for a dime of it. Murphy called for extending the middle-class tax cuts – which accounts for 98% of American families - and allowing those for the wealthiest 2% to expire.

On choice, Murphy stated he supports a woman’s right to choose and highlighted Fitzpatrick’s extremist position of opposing that right, even in cases of rape and incest. Fitzpatrick is far outside the mainstream, Murphy said, and seems like much more of an Alabama Republican than a moderate Bucks County Republican.

On stem cells, Murphy reiterated his support for stem cell research while Fitzpatrick tried to dodge his previous record of voting against it, denying the promise of that technology to millions of Americans who suffer from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or other diseases.

To reward our congressman’s good work, click here.

Finally, for some true hilarity (well, sort of), I give you the following from John Feehery (here, waxing nostalgic in part about what a great guy his boss former House Speaker Denny Hastert was – too funny)…

Because Hastert is the kind of guy who never lets go of an issue once he got ahold of it, he took on Colombia as his own personal jihad. He lobbied then-Speaker Gingrich to push the White House to come up with a plan to aid the Colombian government. When he became Speaker, he designed his own plan, later known as Plan Colombia, to provide aid to the government. He worked with President Clinton’s anti-drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, and eventually, through sheer force of his persistence, made Plan Colombia the law of the land.

It wasn’t easy. Neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration later on thought that Plan Colombia could work. Democrats in Congress (who also seem to take the side of the narco-terrorists, for some reason) opposed Plan Colombia, because they didn’t like the politics of fighting drugs at their source, and they didn’t like President Pastrana, his successor President Uribe or either of their tactics.

Just remember that, boys and girls: Democrats = narco terrorists.

With that in mind, I give you the following from The Nation (here)…

Since 2002 Plan Colombia has authorized about $75 million a year for "alternative development" programs like palm oil production. These programs provide funds for agribusiness partnerships with campesinos in order to wean them from cultivating illicit crops like coca, which can be used to make cocaine. These projects are concentrated in parts of northern Colombia that were ground zero for the mass displacement of campesinos.

USAID officials say the projects provide an alternative to drug-related violence for a battle-scarred country. They insist that the agency screens vigilantly for illegal activity and has not rewarded cultivators of stolen lands. But a study of USAID internal documents, corporate filings and press reports raises questions about the agency's vetting of applicants, in particular its ability to detect their links to narco-paramilitaries, violent crimes and illegal land seizures.

In addition to the $161,000 granted to Coproagrosur, USAID also awarded $650,000 to Gradesa, a palm company with two accused paramilitary-linked narco-traffickers on its board of directors. A third palm company, Urapalma, also accused of links with paramilitaries, nearly won approval for a grant before its application stalled because of missing paperwork. Critics say such grants defeat the antidrug mission of Plan Colombia.

"Plan Colombia is fighting against drugs militarily at the same time it gives money to support palm, which is used by paramilitary mafias to launder money," says Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro, an outspoken critic of the palm industry. "The United States is implicitly subsidizing drug traffickers."

And what sweethearts Urapalma are - continuing…

According to reports by the Colombian government and nongovernmental organizations, Urapalma has illegally claimed more than 14,000 acres of dense tropical land in Chocó--land seized with the help of people like (Brig. Gen. Pauxelino) Latorre and his paramilitary collaborators. Latorre, a graduate of the US Army training academy known as the School of the Americas, was charged (in 2008) with laundering millions of dollars for a paramilitary drug ring, and prosecutors say they are looking into his activities as head of the Seventeenth Brigade. Another general, Rito Alejo Del Río…is in jail on charges of collaborating with paramilitaries; he, too, received training at the School of the Americas.

Government reports, legal documents and testimony from human rights groups show that drug-fueled paramilitaries--often in cooperation with the US-funded military--forcibly displaced thousands of Chocó's farmers in the late 1990s, killing more than a hundred. Since 2001 Urapalma and a dozen other palm companies have seized at least 52,000 acres of the depopulated land in Chocó, most of it held collectively by Afro-Colombian farmers…

The damage may be just beginning. In 2005 Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, citing surging markets in food and biofuels, urged the country to increase palm production from 750,000 acres to 15 million acres--an area the size of West Virginia. Critics point out that many of the new palm growing regions exhibit patterns of narco-trafficking and paramilitary violence similar to that in Chocó, including massacres and forced displacement. A report by the international organization Human Rights Everywhere found violent crimes related to palm cultivation in five separate regions--all of which fall within Uribe's initiative. Almost all of these regions have also been targeted for palm cultivation support by USAID.

As noted here, not passing a Colombian Free Trade agreement is one of the few means of leverage trade unionists have to demand justice for the murders of members and organizers; also, as noted here, Feehery’s former boss has a history of “freelancing” when it comes to that country, telling them in 1997 “not to deal with” President Clinton (nice), to say nothing of hostility to human rights abuses.

And in closing, just remember that, amidst tales of rampant murder, seizure of property and trafficking in lethal drugs abetted in no small way by the most recent Republican Speaker of the U.S. House, Feehery still finds the unmitigated gall somehow to blame Democrats for being “unable to do anything constructive in any aspect of American life.”

If that isn’t a “pot, meet kettle” statement, I don’t know what is.

Wednesday Stuff

"Worst Persons" from a week ago (Jonathan Popple of Wisconsin smokes so much weed that he decides to shoot at aliens, at 2:30 in the afternoon - fortunately, no one was hurt, though he was busted of course; Andrew Wellhouse, spokesman for the Wisconsin state Republican party, claims that that state's Dem gubernatorial candidate had a "super, secret fund raiser" with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi which, umm, never like, you know, actually happened; but Howard Kaloogian, chairman of Our Country Deserves Better PAC, gets the nod - as K.O. says "this is the group that heads Tea Party Express. One of its principles, opposition to bailouts. One of the companies it called out for taking a bailout was Bank of America. 'The place,' reports Think Progress, 'where it keeps all its money? The Corona California branch of Bank of America'.”

There are times when the jokes truly write themselves).



...and switching gears totally, I'm sure I speak for practically all of us when I say that I hope Mark Chapman rots in a jail cell for the rest of his days (here, and kudos once more to this great book).

Wednesday Mashup (9/8/10)

I think Kathleen Parker gave us a really good illustration of how the Beltway media enables its Repug “sugar daddies” here (not much else use for her column besides that, I must admit)…

(House Minority Leader John) Boehner must be whistling a happy tune. Even though his critics say he's prematurely measuring for new drapes in the speaker's quarters, Boehner is hardly a household name beyond Washington and political parlors where the chattering class feasts on the latest polls. He's not a lightning rod like Newt Gingrich or Tom DeLay.

More on “the Bugman” later, by the way…

Effective immediately, Boehner is the un-Obama, and that is not a bad thing for Republicans. If the president were confident in his programs, some of which Republicans also support (research and development tax credits, for example), he wouldn't need to challenge Boehner on his own turf. Successful leaders ignore the hecklers and noisemakers.

Memo to self: look for video of the “NO YOU CAN’T” freakout by The Orange One in the House after health care reform was passed; what a shining example of a “successful leader ignoring the hecklers and noisemakers,” particularly when that “leader” is one himself (never mind – here it is).

Oh, and to get an idea of how much the Repugs “support” increased R&D tax credits, I should note that Parker’s link to a WaPo story in her column tells us of “Straight Talk” McCain’s opposition to those cuts as the only mention for the "loyal opposition" (and as far as Boehner himself is concerned, read this…yeah, that’s some “support” all right – and as this tells us, you could argue about the merits of the credits anyway…yes I know, more negative waves; sorry).

Parker continues…

…Obama doesn't even have the support of his own cast these days. Democratic incumbents are running against their own health-care law, de-emphasizing or failing to mention their vote. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon has sought waivers for certain Obamacare rules, even though he voted for them.

I realize this concept is a little “wonky” for a well-kept corporate media scribe like Parker, but as this post tells us, Wyden…

…says that there's both policy and political considerations behind his efforts. The politics first. He thinks the debate can be changed if individual states are given more of an opportunity--and given it sooner--to shape how the exchanges will work in individual states. This, he says, could "put the attorneys general in the states that are suing on the spot--make them innovate rather than litigate" on health reform. He says in conversations with governors around the country, including Republican governors, they recognize that repeal of the Affordable Care Act and successful lawsuits against it aren't feasible, and what they need to do is start working on ways to make the reforms work for their own states.

As far as exemptions from the individual mandate are concerned, as the waiver was written into the law, states can only get an exemption from the federal individual mandate if they can come up with a better way to achieve the federal coverage requirements locally, so this is far from what some on the other side of the aisle seem to be proposing when they say that their states should be exempted from health reform. States will still have to abide by the Affordable Care Act, but would have more flexibility in doing so.

Parker concludes (sort of)…

More people say that Obama's economic plan is making the economy worse (33 percent) than better (30 percent), with 36 percent saying it is having "no real effect." The "Recovery Summer" didn't happen.

The moral of this tale is that Obama is out of touch with the American people -- and he still just doesn't get it. They are sad and mad, and the disappointer in chief is banging pots at a bogeyman that doesn't exist.

Just to let Parker know (concerning her “bogeyman that doesn’t exist”), this tells us that the national unemployment rate is currently 9.6 percent (and this post tells us that, as far as Parker is concerned, women serving in combat is “positioning (them) to become pawns of propaganda, (which) is called aiding and abetting the enemy”).

What exactly was her Pulitzer for again?

Next, former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm tells us the following (here)…

Obama finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having built his political career substantially on being against one war (Iraq), while being in favor of and aggressively prosecuting another (Afghanistan).

Obama is hardly blameless for events in Afghanistan, but the following should be noted from here.

Oh, and get a load of this at the end of Malcolm’s post…

Chicago politicians do not take kindly to pushing -- or, rather, being pushed. So then, with national power at stake, what -- or who -- does the Democratic Party start thinking about for 2012?

I would like to offer the following well-reasoned comment in response:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

Please, Repugs, nominate Sarah Palin for president in 2012. Forget that boring, dog-abusing Willard Mitt Romney or Pawlenty Of Nothing. Just tell the moose-hunting, half-term former governor to put on her red high heels (or something) and start impugning every Democrat/liberal/progressive in sight. It will make the Hindenburg look like a weenie roast.

Update 9/11/10: Oh, and speaking of "T-Paw"...



Yes, I’ve had issues with Obama, but he’s an actual adult who has governed, unlike anyone else in the GOP “stable.”

It’s almost embarrassing to point out what a hack Malcolm is, but like the mosquito buzzing around your face while flipping the grilled burgers during a late-summer cookout, sometimes he needs to be “swatted” every now and then.

(Or, if not Palin, you can always consider this guy :-).

Finally, The Washington Times tells us the following (here)…

NEW YORK (AP) — Kelsey Grammer is an investor and public face supporting a new network that launched Wednesday with entertainment designed to appeal to political conservatives.

RightNetwork, whose first series, "Running," follows the fortunes of some Tea Party-backed candidates for public office, is also trying a new model to establish itself. It is initially making programming available through video-on-demand services, the Internet and through mobile phones, bypassing the approach of a traditional television network with a spot on channel lineups.

Investors hope the support of a conservative audience that has made Fox News Channel and radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh successful could also work for entertainment programming, said Kevin McFeeley, RightNetwork's president.

"We feel the precedent has been set," he said.

Grammer, the Emmy-winning star of "Frasier," said the network represented a desire by him and some political friends "to stop allowing people who hate us to define us."

"If you have NBC, ABC, you have entire networks flooded with a very particular point of view," he said. "They won't admit it, but it's clearly the way it is. There's plenty of room for us."

God, I should have saved that HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! for Grammer, if he really believes that the “particular point of view” from network television is anything but conservative, as noted here, basically.

Still, though, to be a good sport, I’d like to propose the following shows for Grammer’s fledgling propaganda outfit…

Death Valley Daze – This sequel to the film “Gasland” (with a title invoking the program once hosted by The Sainted Ronnie R) is a weekly reality-TV show about families coping with the effects of polluted groundwater on their property, poisoned as a consequence of drilling for natural gas (note the disturbed countenances and permeating sense of futility by program participants hinted at in the show’s title, as well as the state of their formerly healthy surrounding environment).

I Dream of “Greenie” –Wondering what financial crisis the former Federal Reserve Chairman and wunderkind of the investor class is ignoring these days? Follow him through a hectic day of congressional testimony (trying to disappear responsibility for the housing bubble that inflated on his watch) and media pronouncements against tax cuts brought to us by the ruling cabal of our 43rd president (just a few years late on that one, I’d say).

Tips In Sanity “Tea” – Just in time for the “ramp up” of the 2010 congressional campaign season, this program (hosted by conservative notables taking their turns on a weekly basis) provides the viewer with “Haute couture” tips to properly accessorize just in time for disrupting town hall gatherings and other campaign events. First up is Ann Coulter, who cautions against too much eye shadow since it could clash with the black SS uniforms and swastikas in your anti-Obama posters; she also says a pale shade of lipstick works best so as not to contrast with the bright red markings simulating blood on your “No Death Panels in Obama Care!” signs.

Here Come The Bribes – Tom DeLay is back in a weekly comedy-drama about money laundering, influence peddling and proselytizing for fun and profit. In the show’s “pilot,” he worms his way into the good graces of potential House Majority Leader Boehner (ugh) with an offer of a trip to the Northern Mariana Islands, a one-piece-spa hot tub, and a brand new set of Titleist golf clubs. Don’t miss the hilarious outtakes shown during the end credits, including assorted pratfalls during DeLay’s audition for “Dancing With The Stars.”

Oh, and by the way, the Times tells us that the network, thus far, has only one benefactor, and guess who it is?

The only other investor the privately held company has identified is Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor and owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers.

Which makes this post all the more timely as far as I’m concerned; also, as long as we’re talking about the “orange and black,” nice move to sign goon Jody Shelley for $3 million and let Stanley Cup-winning goalie Antti Niemi of Chicago escape to the San Jose Sharks – I’ll remember that the next time Boucher and Leighton are carried off the ice (nothing against those two guys, but let’s be realistic, OK?).

Tuesday Stuff

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.

Tuesday Mashup Part Two (9/7/10)

(Part One is here.)

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.

Well then, allow me to do so here.

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.

Monday Stuff

Hey, sounds like a good idea to me too...



...and I always liked this song and I just found it, so enjoy.

Monday Mashup (9/6/10)

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).

Sunday Stuff

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.

Friday Stuff

(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.

Thursday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

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).

Wednesday Stuff

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.

Wednesday Mashup (9/1/10)

(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.

Update: More from kos here...

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)?

Tuesday Stuff

Hey, congrats to Joke Line on this terrific career development (brought to us by the Onion News Network)...



...getting serious, I would also consider this to be a good ad from Jack Conway (h/t Daily Kos - more here)...



...and oh yeah, about that fraud running against Admiral Joe, check this out (more here)...



...and happy 65th birthday to Van Morrison (from "The Last Waltz," of course).

Tuesday Mashup Part Two (8/31/10)

(Part One is here.)

This is one of the nuttiest opinion columns I’ve seen in a long, long time; basically, the author, Anton Wahlman, says that Net Neutrality is “akin to socialism” (I guess a remark like that was inevitable).

And, doubling down, he actually invokes a comparison to “Cambodia's ‘Killing Fields’ and of every other socialist utopia attempted over the last 100 years or so.”

Wow, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski as Pol Pot?

Is this guy out of his freaking mind (Wahlman, I mean)?

And just for the record, Wahlman says here that "Medicare and Medicaid in particular, are hugely inefficient and unnecessarily bureaucratic ways to induce people to over-consume health care services"...says you, but if Obama were to cut anything, as they're thinking about with Avastin here (second item), then the "death panels" outcry would begin in force anew.

Meanwhile, for the reality point of view, I attempted to bring us all up to date on what is happening with Net Neutrality and the latest Google/Verizon antics here.

Next, I give you Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times today (here)…

The president also said he and his team were “hard at work in identifying additional measures,” including extending tax cuts for the middle class that are scheduled to expire this year, increasing government investment in clean energy and rebuilding more infrastructure.

None of those steps, however, will come close to the $787 billion stimulus measure that Democrats passed at the outset of the Obama presidency. With voters angry about government spending, and economists divided about just what approach is the correct one, such aggressive steps are by now out of the question.

Really? As noted here…

The actual views of the American people are at odds with the corporate media’s portrayal of a nation of deficit hawks. According to a June 11-13 USA Today/Gallup Poll, 60 percent of Americans favor "additional government spending to create jobs and stimulate the economy." Only 38 percent of the respondents opposed the proposal, while 2 percent had no opinion.

Yep, those “bond vigilantes” sure are saddling up, making ready to enslave us all in debt forever unless we bow down before the “catfood commission” and privatize Social Security.

Memo to Stolberg – next time, try reporting.

And sticking with the Times, I came across this great letter on Sunday…

I always find it amusing that politicians who seem to be the most vociferous in their complaints about high taxes and wastefulness in the federal government so very often represent states that, like Alaska, take back significantly more in federal dollars than they provide to the Treasury.

I might actually find some of these politicians credible in their statements if they weren’t so often at the front of the pack feeding at the federal trough.

How about it, fiscal conservatives — why don’t you begin balancing our federal budget by accepting only the same amount in federal dollars that your state sends to the Treasury?

Any takers? Didn’t think so.

Kevin Beauchamp
New York, Aug. 22, 2010

And with that in mind, Ezra Klein tells us here about the states that get the largest proportion of federal dollars and which ones don’t (he compares the map of largesse versus the map of the last election, and there are some eerie similarities).

It should also be noted that this lends itself to some rather humorous story lines, including this one.

Finally, it looks like The Orange One made a funny (here)…

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hours before President Barack Obama marked a symbolically important US draw-down in Iraq on Tuesday, his Republican foes acidly noted he had opposed the "surge" strategy that helped make it possible.

House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner charged that Obama and other senior Democrats who opposed that military escalation, announced in January 2007, are now trying to "claim credit" for the results.

"Today we mark not the defeat those voices anticipated -- but progress," Boehner said in a speech to be delivered to the American Legion veterans group ahead of Obama's own remarks on the matter from the White House.

"Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results," said the lawmaker, who underlined that credit for a more stable Iraq "belongs to our troops."

Obama initially sharply assailed former president George W. Bush's "surge" approach, warning it would fail to stabilize Iraq and could even make things worse, before ultimately saying it had succeeded beyond anyone's expectations.

I’m not going to dignify Boehner’s idiotic remark about the men and women of our military who served bravely when told to execute the war of choice in Mesopotamia upon the orders of Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History.

Instead, I’ll merely point out that, in addition to then-Senator Obama, the surge was opposed by fellow Repug Senators Richard Lugar, John Warner and “Errrr, Errrr” Voinovich, who of course do not merit a mention from Boehner (here).

(Seriously, people, this guy could be House Majority Leader. And why that prospect doesn’t motivate anyone into action is something I utterly cannot fathom.)

Monday Stuff

Earlier, I said that we need to support the Dems - well, along with just about all of the "Bush Dogs," I don't give a fig about what happens to Dame Blanche Lincoln.

Remember the "senior White House official" who said that "organized labor flushed $10 mil down the toilet" supporting Bill Halter, Lincoln's primary challenger here? Well, take a look at this (with Lincoln trailing 2-1).

Looks like "the left" got it right again while the DC politicos badly misread Lincoln's supposed electability.

Oh, and don't strain to hear the supposed geniuses in charge of our party admit that we were right and they were wrong...



...and glad to see the Dems are still reminding everyone how we got into this mess to begin with...



...with most of the same motley bunch ready to do it again, along with some new faces singing the same sorry tune (and how the #@!$ is Ron Johnson even within shouting distance of Russ Feingold?)...



Update 8/31/10: And they're such good sports too, aren't they?

...and is it my imagination, or does Roger Moore appear on that screen?

Monday Mashup (8/30/10) (updates)

(I also posted here.)

The new Public Editor introduced himself over at the New York Times yesterday (here)…

(Executive Editor Bill) Keller also said reporters are encouraged to respond to readers, except in cases of vitriolic attacks and organized campaigns.

But is this enough in the age of Maximum Personal Expression, when readers and other critics chisel away daily at The Times’s credibility with such a potent arsenal of communication tools?

Ok, time out.

If the point of this blog or any other online endeavor of mine all this time had been Maximum Personal Expression or something like it, then I would have to say that I’ve been doing a pretty lousy job. There are a hell of a lot more things I could do, had I the inclination, time, or facility, to publicize myself personally at the expense of generating the best content that I can, and you can take that statement anyway you want.

It’s basically a good thing that the Times has someone serving in this role, but this person does his or her readers a disservice by automatically trying to dismiss anyone who voices a contrary opinion by implying that the only goal of such a person is to draw attention to him or herself. Also, similar comments from Arthur Brisbane about “nitpickers,” “wounded lovers” and “armed antagonists” attempt to trivialize would-be critics of the paper also.

Speaking for myself, I just want to read the story written and reported straight with no spin. And if the paper cares to know this, I should point out that, when I don’t say anything about their coverage and am devoting blogging real estate to the usual right-wing culprits instead, then the Times is doing a good job.

In addition, is it too much trouble for the Times to take on someone for this role who has some kind of an actual familiarity with social media and emerging forms of communication? I kind of get the impression from Brisbane that he has never been to Daily Kos, Think Progress, Huffington Post, or even some right-wing sites (that’s kind of given away in his opening column by his generally dismissive tone towards these entities).

I guess it is too much to ask. Oh well.

Next, we have the following “Foto Funny” from Mark Halperin…

Somehow I don’t think everyone is gong to get the “boomer” references to Richie Rich and late actor Jim Backus as tycoon Thurston Howell III on “Gilligan’s Island,” Mark.

And Obama gave an economic “soliloquy”? Is Halperin kidding us? Did he expect Obama to pose holding a human skull saying “Alas, poor Yorick – I knew him, Horatio”?

Well, with that in mind, then, I would guess, if Number 44 were a true thespian, it would sound something like this…

To be or not to be, president – that is the question
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The intransigent obstruction of Republicans and cowering Democrats
Or revolt against financially compromised courtiers Geithner and Summers
And by opposing, end them. To die, to put fall Republican hopes to sleep
And by asleep, I say denying House and Senate majorities
By revealing their plans for inquiries of my office, killing our initiatives
To sleep – perchance to dream that they may yet win!
So I thus say that we need more stimulus, Rasmussen and Quinnipiac be damned!
Especially with historically low rates on treasury notes
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time
With a stalled recovery amidst one active war?
Yea, it would be the Senate and House Minority Leaders
With their insolence of office, I may yet approach them
With a bare bodkin, telling them to approve Elizabeth Warren for the CFPA
And if Chris Dodd, he of Countrywide, continues to oppose
I will dispatch him to The Undiscovered Country, where he will not be a FOA
But nay, shall I tolerate them all into the midterms
Be they elected as I, while others grunt and sweat unto a weary life
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is discolored by the daily TV diatribe from Fox News
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action, depending on my approval numbers.

Yeah, actually I’m starting to think the whole “Hamlet” thing could work. I’d go for a production where Darrell Issa gets the part of Polonius, and ends up standing behind a curtain while Obama makes ready with his sword.

(Only a joke…).

And with the arrival of a new week, we receive pretty much the same as last week (stale propaganda, I mean) from Pancake Joe Pitts (here)…

…in an address this week, the Vice President praised the government weatherization program that has been broadly criticized as a terrible example of government waste. The rules for the program were delayed for months as government bureaucrats had to account for numerous wage requirements written into the bill.

Now that the program is up and running, things have been messy. According to the Associated Press, no home in Alaska has participated in the program yet. In Texas, the contractor receiving the most money in the state did shoddy work on the majority of homes it weatherized. In Biden’s home state of Delaware, the program has been shut down since May after auditors discovered fraud.

I honestly can’t think of a word to note how laughable it is that Pitts has taken it upon himself to offer this critique of the weatherization plan across the country without even telling us its progress in his own district. As noted here, Lancaster has received about $18 million in stimulus funds for low-income households, green energy projects, and local governments and non-profit entities, among other uses.

We know what Pitts is, and I know it gets a little repetitive to keep pointing it out, so I’ll just provide this link to the site of Lois Herr, his Dem opponent for his PA-16 seat, and only add further that, to paraphrase the song, I guess you have to be a weatherization man to know which way the wind blows:-).

Finally, there are a couple of other items I intend to get to at some point, but not this moment, because I want to point out something else. Previously, I commented on Halperin’s note about Obama’s economic “soliloquy,” – well, according to this, it didn’t go well (h/t Atrios).

Yet again, we experienced a moment of vacillation from the White House (including more avoidance from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs) because they apparently don’t plan to go back to Congress for more stimulus. Once more, we witnessed the at-best-mixed signals from Ben Bernanke this weekend over the role of the Fed in trying to stimulate employment (here – with jobs being really the only issue that matters this fall; the war in Afghanistan should factor into it also, but we are where we are…and yes, I realize that Bernanke came from Buscho).

So now, are we all sufficiently bummed to the point where we feel like we should throw up our hands over Obama and the Democrats admittedly not getting it completely right on the “big ticket” items, such as the economy, the environment and our military commitments?

Good. Now hold onto those thoughts for a minute and read Paul Krugman’s column today (here).

Yes, I know the bunch in power doesn’t completely deserve all of our support; Obama is, at heart, a disciple of Milton Friedman more than John Maynard Keynes on the economy, which should be apparent by now to all but single-celled life forms, including those employed at Fix Noise – we needed a much more robust response than we got after he was inaugurated, cries of “socialism” be damned particularly since he would have heard those cries regardless of what he did.

But seriously people, have you considered the alternative (spelled out in horrifically accurate detail in Krugman’s column)?

Endless investigations. A new “revelation” every day about the First Family (get ready for the return of Bill Ayres, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and hearings into the alleged “New Black Panther Party” Philadelphia polling scandal on Election Day 2008, for starters). And no legislation (none of any good to us, anyway).

Privatizing Social Security. Defunding Health Care Reform. The return of Tax Cuts for the Rich which will “pay for themselves.” Bye Bye Cap And Trade. Endless investigations. Testimony of Cabinet members before Congress as to why they’re actually doing their jobs instead of rolling over for the institutions they’re supposed to regulate, as they did under Dubya.

So long Lilly Ledbetter Law. New restrictions on stem cell research. Legislation to enshrine the worst excesses of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. Reopening “K” Street for business. A bill to abolish Net Neutrality forever.

Oh, and did I mention Endless investigations? And don't think the "I" word is out of the question either, people.

Basically, we can sit around and mope and let the corporate media narratives define themselves, or we can become involved again as we once were to build the majorities we should be working to defend with all the energy and talent we can muster (I don’t know how many of you were paying attention to the Congressional politics of the ‘90s, but I definitely was, and I never want to see those days again).

If we choose the former path, destruction is imminent, and it will be irrevocable. And despite the ways those we’ve supported have fallen short, we really will only have ourselves to blame if they get turned out (well, maybe not Blanche Lincoln, who will lose anyway; let's work to get them back and then beat on them, so to speak, if they don't do what we want - imagine how silly we will feel while the “Tea Party” Repugs rule the roost and we’re still licking our wounds over the fact that the stimulus was only $787 billion instead of $1.2 trillion).

If we choose the latter path, we can stand the people working for news organizations with initials for names on their heads, as it were, as they search for their next narrative (and wouldn’t it be nice if it were “A Dem Resurgence Confounds The Republican Revival,” or something like it?).

We have work to do, people. All of us. And we’d better do it. Fast.

They can’t win unless we help them by our inaction.

And Dear God, we absolutely must not let that happen!

Update 1 8/31/10: I read stuff like this, and words fail, people, truly.

And I know it’s bad form to call out my “A” list “betters,” but I received this link from Atrios, whose attitude is “we should’ve ‘clapped louder’,” which of course is snark.

And Chris Bowers, someone else I respect, is circulating a petition over at Daily Kos to get the Senate to “reform” filibuster rules. And Jed Lewison, another person I respect, wrote a lengthy post yesterday about how Glenn Beck’s rally couldn’t possibly have drawn the attendance Beck claimed.

Which to me begs the question, why the #@$! are you people bothering with this stuff when our hard-earned Congressional majorities are in danger from our own distracted disinterest and the unending money fueling the Repug fear-and-smear machine?

Don’t bet that the people of this country will sober up on Election Day and vote for us without our strong prodding. Remember, we’re talking about a country that elected (more or less) George W. Bush twice (once after the worst foreign terrorist attack on our soil).

Unless, of course, you actually want to see all of this bad stuff happen.

And in that event, I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with you in any way whatsoever.

Update 2 8/31/10: I’ll tell you what – I’ll put this as simply as I can.

I’m tired of reading blog posts, news articles, opinion columns, etc. telling us how we’re all going to get hit with the metaphorical train on Election Day. Why don’t we all work harder to change the direction of the track instead?

Update 9/3/10: What this person sez here...

Update 9/11/10: A look at the horror that (potentially) awaits (here)...

Update 10/14/10: And I wasn't kidding about the "I" word either, as noted here.

Sunday Stuff

With all due respect to the lady near the end of this clip, she must have accidentally shown up at the wrong place at the wrong time (here - part of me wishes that we could just give these people another country and see how far they get spending their day venting over their crackpot conspiracy theories as opposed to trying to practice actual governance)...



...and yeah, I think this is appropriate for the occasion.

Saturday Stuff

Yes, I know he had his massive “White People Pity Party” today, on behalf of everyone still freaked out by our Kenyan Muslim pre-zee-dint (here)…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
I Have a Scheme
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

(and oh, those nutty teabaggers - more here; and if I were Rush Holt and Frank Pallone, I'd wear that shirt as a badge of honor)

Update 8/29/10: And why am I not surprised by this?

…and I just thought this was a neat little tune.

Friday Stuff

(I also posted some videos here.)

"Worst Persons" (Stupid criminal Preston Renninger of Allentown, Pa. drives the car that he stole right past the police, taking the report from the stolen car's owner - I think we have a "Darwin" candidate here, people; Rudy 9iu11ani can't even answer a question about a minor league baseball game without working in a reference to you-know-what; but Nick Turkal, M.D., the CEO of Aurora Healthcare of Wisconsin, gets the nod for billing Trevor Hill of Zion, IL 2 grand for saving a drowning victim...at times like this, where are the racists with the funny hats screaming about how only "socialized medzin'" from the "gumint" is evil)...



...and we lost SRV 20 years ago today - here is yet another memorable performance (check out playing the guitar behind his back at about 7:50 - unbelievable).

Thursday Stuff

It took Harry Reid long enough to come up with this, but kudos to him for doing it (kind of helps to have an opponent like Sharron Angle, though)...



...and no video, but I just like this new Petty song, so here it is.