Wednesday Mashup (10/12/11)

To begin, I give you wankery from across the pond courtesy of James Delingpole (here)…

One of the worst aspects of living in these apocalyptic times is that whenever you look around the world, wondering where you might escape to, you begin to realise that everywhere else is just as bad if not worse.

Take Australia, an island built on fossil fuel with an economy dependent on fossil fuel. What would be the maddest economic policy a place like that could pursue as the world tips deeper into recession? Why, to introduce a carbon tax, of course. Which, for reasons just explained above, means a tax on absobloodylutely everything. Which is exactly what Julia Gillard's Coalition (why is it that word always makes me want to reach for my Browning?) has just gone and done, obviously.

…

Here, for example, is its Chief Scientist Ian Chubb in action:

"With respect to this cooling stuff, I have seen the claim, but the evidence that I have seen is that the last decade has been the warmest decade that we have ever had on this planet, so I do not know what this cooling stuff means.”

Let's just run that one by you again, in case you thought you'd been overdoing the Cane toad juice. The man who came up with that scientifically inaccurate, historically ignorant, Greenpeace-like enviro-hysteria drivel is AUSTRALIA'S CHIEF SCIENTIST.

In response, I give you the following (here)…

I have come to Australia to see what a global-warming future holds for this most vulnerable of nations, and Mother Nature has been happy to oblige: Over the course of just a few weeks, the continent has been hit by a record heat wave, a crippling drought, bush fires, floods that swamped an area the size of France and Germany combined, even a plague of locusts. "In many ways, it is a disaster of biblical proportions," Andrew Fraser, the Queensland state treasurer, told reporters. He was talking about the floods in his region, but the sense that Australia – which maintains one of the highest per-capita carbon footprints on the planet – has summoned up the wrath of the climate gods is everywhere. "Australia is the canary in the coal mine," says David Karoly, a top climate researcher at the University of Melbourne. "What is happening in Australia now is similar to what we can expect to see in other places in the future."

As (Hurricane) Yasi bears down on the coast, the massive storm seems to embody the not-quite-conscious fears of Australians that their country may be doomed by global warming. This year's disasters, in fact, are only the latest installment in an ongoing series of climate-related crises. In 2009, wildfires in Australia torched more than a million acres and killed 173 people. The Murray-Darling Basin, which serves as the country's breadbasket, has suffered a dec¬ades-long drought, and what water is left is becoming increasingly salty and unusable, raising the question of whether Australia, long a major food exporter, will be able to feed itself in the coming dec¬ades. The oceans are getting warmer and more acidic, leading to the all-but-certain death of the Great Barrier Reef within 40 years. Homes along the Gold Coast are being swept away, koala bears face extinction in the wild, and farmers, their crops shriveled by drought, are shooting themselves in despair.

With Yasi approaching fast, disaster preparations are fully under way. At the airport, the Australian Defense Force is racing to load emergency supplies into Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Entire cities have shut down, their streets nearly empty as I drive north, toward the center of the storm, through sugar plantations and ranch land. Dead kangaroos sprawl by the side of the road, the victims of motorists fleeing the storm.

As noted here, Delingpole once said, "I feel a bit of an imposter talking about the science. I'm kind of -- I'm not a scientist, you may be aware. ... I leave the science stuff to you guys and I think it's good that we stick to our jobs."

Which I suppose begs the following question: aside from being a bought-and-paid-for shill by the climate change denial industry, exactly what is Delingpole’s job anyway?

Continuing, I give you Trying To Construct And Inflate Beyond All Reason Yet Another Supposed Obama Administration “Scandal” 101; your instructor is Matthew Boyle of The Daily Tucker (here)…

As failed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra rides through the investigative ringer in Congress, revelations of another politically-connected company that received what appears to be a less-than-virtuous $1.2 billion loan guarantee are surfacing.

The company, SunPower, received its $1.2 billion loan guarantee in September, immediately before the program’s deadline.

SunPower isn’t as financially sound as the public was led to believe when it secured a loan guarantee twice the size of Solyndra’s $535 million loan. Just this week — less than a month after taxpayers landed on the hook for SunPower’s $1.2 billion loan guarantee — company executives announced that they expect to lower their 2011 earnings projections.

The company also carries $820 million in debt, which is $20 million more than its market capitalization.

Still waiting to find out what the supposed “scandal” is here (and Boyle continues to stack the proverbial deck by reminding us how much of this is taxpayer-funded – it would be nice to see more of that concerning our monstrous defense budget)…

“There is great cause for alarm over political influence contaminating the DOE loan guarantee program,” (Repug House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chairman Rep. Cliff Stearns) told The Daily Caller. “The documents that the White House dumped last Friday reveal a disturbing prevalence of wealthy donors and bundlers littered throughout the loan guarantee process, with direct access to the President’s West Wing inner circle.”

Stearns adds that, because “billions of taxpayers dollars are at stake” in the loan guarantee process, the committee has doubled down on information requests from Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

And how is that different exactly from Departments of Energy in prior administrations?

Last October, President Barack Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Democratic Rep. George Miller toured SunPower’s plant in California. Both touted the company. Miller said SunPower was an example for “renewable energy” production and “America’s future economic growth.”

But, Miller failed to mention how his son, George Miller IV, is SunPower’s top lobbyist in California. Miller’s son was pushing for the $1.2 billion loan guarantee taxpayers are on the hook for now. Miller is a powerful Democratic congressman, and currently serves as the ranking minority member of the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Ummm…still looking for illegality here, people (and I think they are too).

Less than a month after SunPower received the conditional commitment from the Obama administration, a French oil giant, Total S.A., bought majority ownership — 60 percent — of the company. SunPower investors backed the move. A Total S.A. executive told the New York Times the company believed in solar energy, and its move was an attempt to capitalize on it.

“We believe the winners in the solar industry will be fully integrated, financially solid, advanced technology and worldwide,” Total Gas & Power President Philippe Boisseau said. “SunPower has the technology. We already have some of the technology, but we’ve also got the market and the finance. It’s a full industrial combination.”

The Obama administration — which says it was continuing to vet SunPower after it granted the company a conditional commitment for the $1.2 billion loan guarantee — saw the company as promising and continued to move forward.

Then, right before the Obama administration signed the deal giving SunPower its $1.2 billion loan guarantee, SunPower and Total S.A. sold the project — which taxpayers are now responsible for — to NRG Energy, Inc. The loan guarantee still went through, despite the sudden pullout from Total S.A.

Mere weeks before finalizing the deal with the Department of Energy, SunPower announced it was opening a new facility in Mexicali, Mexico — instead of another one in the United States — in order to manufacture solar panels there too.

Sooo…are we now supposed to prosecute every U.S. company that moves its operations to Mexico?

Oh, and Boyle throws in this little tidbit at the very end…

President George W. Bush’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission head Pat Wood II is a member of SunPower’s board of directors.

In response, I give you this on Solyndra, which tells us that “the loan, which was originally pushed by the Bush administration, was 1.3% of the DOE portfolio.” We also learn the following…

The typical conservative-outlet story follows a template of Glenn-Beckian accusations that someone “connected to” Obama has “ties” to something. When you hear the phrasing “has ties to” you should understand this as code-speak for “has nothing to do with but can be made to appear to have some sinister involvement if you twist the wording a certain way.”

But wait, there’s more…

FOX News has been promoting this “scandal” story heavily. (It should be noted here that Fox’s parent company News Corp’s 2nd-largest shareholder is oil billionaire Saudi Prince al-Waleed - an “oil interest” if ever there was one.)

And for the grownup perspective on this, I would ask that you read the following (from here)…

Beginning in early 2009, the Obama administration's use of stimulus money under the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program went not just to help out a handful of businesses, but to jump-start a market. Funds doled out under the stimulus have gone, or are going to, a portfolio of renewables. The complete list of 32 "section 1705" (stimulus-funded) loan guarantees, available on the DOE website, is more than half solar -- it includes four solar manufacturing companies (including Solyndra) and 15 solar generation plants, along with assorted wind, geothermal, and biofuel businesses.

Demand for solar panels rose, partially as a result of this and other government policies. United States solar firms achieved a positive trade flow of $1.9 billion in 2010, mostly on photovoltaic components. Of that, the United States imported $1.4 billion from China, and exported between $1.7 and $2 billion, says a solar industry report [PDF, p. 18].

China's reaction to that trade surplus? Since January 2011, the Chinese government has dumped $30 billion into support for its solar industry. China now dominates solar manufacturing, with 70 percent of the global solar-panel market, and, as Agence France-Presse reports, it is "almost solely focused on exports, with as much as 95 percent of production sold overseas, according to some estimates"...

The U.S. market responded to the flood of cheap solar panels: Solar is booming. The U.S. solar market doubled last year, and it’s expected to double again this year, even though many states are reducing their subsidies. How many other industries are growing that fast in this economy?

But of course, as far as the wingnuts are concerned, why should they do anything to promote actual job growth in this country when there are cheap propaganda points to be scored against the Democrats?

Further, BoBo opined as follows in the New York Times yesterday (here).

President Obama promises not to raise taxes on the bottom 98 percent. The Occupy-types celebrate the bottom 99 percent. Republicans promise not to raise taxes on the bottom 100 percent.

As much as I’d like to expound on the idiocy of that lie, I will choose not to do so and only link here in response; the evidence presented to the contrary is damning enough.

Also, I give you another conservative fever dream from James Jay Carafano (here, about an alleged Iranian plot against a Saudi U.S. envoy that was recently broken up)…

Somebody in the Iranian government backed a planned terrorist attack in America’s back yard? No surprise there. Tehran didn’t earn a reputation as the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism for nothing.

Nor is it terribly shocking to hear that the plot was intended to be carried out on US soil. America these days must appear an open target for the likes of Iran.

This summer, President Obama revealed his new and improved strategy for combating terrorism. Pop quiz: What did it say about Iran? Almost nothing. Despite its record, Tehran merited just one mention in 19 pages.

This wasn’t an oversight. The White House didn’t forget to say something substantial about state-sponsored terrorism. It’s just that talking about states that foster and fund the slaughter of innocents is much too inconvenient a truth for the administration.

Oh, ha ha, get it? “Inconvenient Truth,” the Al Gore movie – and Obama is a Democrat too. Big yuks…

To begin, this tells us that former Bushco U.N. representative “Blow ‘Em Up” Bolton also blamed Obama for not attacking Iran, ignoring Bolton’s own “inconvenient truth” that Number 43 nixed such a disastrous enterprise also (Dubya didn’t get much right, but he “found the nut” on that one).

The post from Think Progress also tells us that Bolton’s old boss nixed the sale of “bunker busting” bombs to Israel, the type of which could be used against Iran (another good move, shockingly enough). Unfortunately, that supposed Iran-loving current White House occupant chose not to honor that precedent (here).

On top of that, I give you the following from here…

Something strange is happening in Washington. In August, the Obama administration is expected to announce whether it will keep the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian group that killed American civilians and officials in the 1970s, on its foreign terrorist organisations (FTO) list.

Known for its cult-like behavior, the MEK (also known as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, PMOI or MKO) fought alongside Saddam Hussein's regime against its own country during the bloody Iran-Iraq war. This is one reason why it has almost no Iranian support, even if it refers to itself as the "most popular resistance group inside Iran" on its official website. It does, however, enjoy the backing of several US heavyweights with high national security credentials.

George W. Bush's attorney general Michael Mukasey has described MEK members as "courageous freedom fighters". President Barack Obama's former national security advisor, General James L. Jones, gave a speech at a MEK conference dominated by non-Iranians. Their events have also been attended by former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The al Jazeera post also tells us that “In 1979, the MEK also supported the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.” And further…

..in January, law professor David Cole wrote that Mukasey, Giuliani, (former DHS head Tom) Ridge and (former Bushie) Frances Fragos Townsend could have committed a crime simply by vocally supporting the MEK's cause in Paris. While proving liability is again the issue, the Patriot Act's material support law makes it a felony to support an FTO by engaging "in public advocacy to challenge a group's 'terrorist' designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances," wrote Cole.

…

MEK supporters' talk of facilitating "democratic change" in Iran through a group that does not have support there recalls memories of the UK-US engineered coup against the government of Mohammad Mossaddegh, who is still revered by Iranians as their first and only democratically-elected prime minister. What resulted was decades of authoritarian rule, from a pro-US but repressive and deeply unpopular monarchy, to a clerical establishment that enforces Iranian independence from foreign control through equally repressive means. This was the US' "blowback", and as the late Chalmers Johnson noted, the term was first used by the CIA in an after-action report about Mossaddegh's 1953 overthrow.

In her book on US-Iran relations, (US foreign policy analyst Barbara) Slavin reports that in 2003 the Iranians offered to exchange some key members of Al Qaeda who had fled from Afghanistan for members of the MEK based at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Some figures in the Bush administration supported this, but Slavin notes that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said that the deal was blocked by neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, who thought that the MEK could be used as a force against Iran. A comprehensive peace offer by Iran was likewise scuttled by the neoconservatives in 2003, thereby discrediting the moderates in Iran and facilitating the ascent of the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

(By the way, I don’t have an update at the moment on MEK’s status on the FTO list.)

So it looks like the MEK has been playing both sides of the aisle, as they say. And it also looks like, in the event that this country attempts military action for real against Iran (makes me hope that our supposed military geniuses brush up on the British Battle of Dunkirk in WWII), MEK would collect the spoils, all in the name of The Now And Forever You Godless Kenyan Marxist Socialist Lovin’ Commie Lu-bu-ruul Global War On Terra! Terra! Terra!

Oh, and by the way, as noted here, Carafano has never let facts get in the way of documenting his delusions, which you can probably attribute to an advanced case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Finally, it seems that “Goodhair” Perry had another tough night at the Repug Presidential Candidates’ Beauty Pageant (here).

And that makes me recall this particularly preposterous recent opinion column…

…The Washington Post officially hit rock bottom and removed all pretense of being an unbiased newspaper with a truly disgusting front-page story on Texas governor Rick Perry which worked overtime to paint him as a racist by twisting a series of clouded, unrelated, and anonymous partial memories about something which was flat-out totally unrelated to Perry. They sent a team of reporters (one hopes they are using as many reporters to investigate “Fast and Furious” and Solyndra) to Texas and then breathlessly “reported ” -- using over 3,200 words -- that there was a rock on some property once leased by the Perry family which had an offensive word written on it.

The Post acknowledges that the painted rock was there years before Rick Perry walked the land and that he had nothing to do with it being there. Governor Perry then stated that right after his family leased that parcel of land in the early 1980’s and as soon as they saw the rock with the offending word, that his father painted over it immediately.

I know most people know what I’m talking about here, so I won’t add anything else about that (besides, I have bigger issues with Perry than the name on a block in front of a ranch).

To wit, I give you the following (here, in which the feds say Perry’s redistricting plan in TX is discriminatory, and a federal judge apparently agrees).

Also, as noted here…

Duane Buck is one of four men scheduled to die by lethal injection in Texas, where Perry is governor, over the next eight days – an exceptional rate even in this execution-happy state. At Buck's sentencing hearing, the jury that set his punishment was informed by a psychologist that black people had a higher rate of violent behaviour, a statement used by the prosecution as its key argument against giving him an alternative penalty of life imprisonment.

Fortunately, Buck’s execution was halted (and this tells us about Vidor, TX, which had a reputation as a “sundown town,” as in, no blacks on the street after…). And here is still more information on racist names used across southeast Texas.

I don’t know if Rick Perry is a racist or not. Is Texas a racist state? I’ll let you, dear reader, be the judge (and I learned that we in our illustrious commonwealth don’t have room to throw stones about that from the 2008 presidential election).

Did the Washington Post play a game of “gotcha” with Perry on the whole “N-head rock” thing? Yeah, I guess, but as somebody said, politics ain’t beanbag (see John Kerry, 2004). And a supposed “liberal smear” doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the fact that Perry, due to his appalling lack of qualifications (to say nothing of the rest of that motley bunch), has no business campaigning for the most important job in the world.

Tuesday Stuff

(By the way, for those of you keeping score at home, I changed the pithy little quote in the header to something more in the spirit of the "Occupy" protests, not because I'm upset with Joan Ryan for any reason whatsoever. Her great quote came from a column about the Terri Schiavo circus six years ago, and though I'd love to be wrong, I'm not holding out a lot of hope for "thoughtful and rigorous debate" around here.)

The testimony of Anita Hill in the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court then-nominee Clarence Thomas took place 20 years ago today, prompting this item from Cenk Uygur from a related news story earlier this year (Saturday Night Live did a parody of the hearings that I thought was hilarious, back when I still watched the show - my take on Thomas, for what it was worth, was that he had no business even being considered before we even got to Anita Hill)...



...and I think this is an appropriate little selection (I once heard RT do a great cover of this one).

Monday Stuff

Consider this my contribution to help this video (I hope) go "viral" (here...from the "menagerie of malcontents," as a Detroit TV station referred to them)...



...and now for something completely different, as a gang of Brits once said as I recall; RIP Roger Williams.



Update: From the "past is prologue," department, I give you this from Gil Scott-Heron once more (who we lost this year)...ties in a bit to the "Occupy" protests as far as I'm concerned (even though the references are dated, of course...might be just me I guess).



Update 10/11/11: Nice work, Beantown bastards (and in Seattle too).

Monday Mashup (10/10/11)

(Just some random thoughts – I’m getting really fed up with the deification of Steve Jobs now that he’s dead, and I’m more than a little disgusted with the same treatment given to Christopher Hitchens while he’s still alive.)

Continuing, John Harwood of the New York Times wrote the following today (here, on why everybody is mad at Washington and why everybody within the city are mad at each other)…

Intrasquad anger among Democrats, who stand to lose ground in 2012 Senate elections, can be worse.

And as you read this post, you will find no evidence whatsoever to support Harwood’s claim that I highlighted (only his statement at the beginning that “every poll shows it”). And I don't see why I should have to do his research for him.

I don’t really have anything brilliant or interesting to say in response, but I thought I should point that out.

Staying with the Times (and with a similar theme), I think you’d have to go a long way to outdo this bit of jaded corporate media wankery from Jennifer Steinhauer (here, in which she compares the Senate Dems and Repugs to the Sharks and the Jets in “West Side Story,” alleging still more false equivalency)…

WASHINGTON — Of the multitudinous insults that have zinged across the Capitol this year, a taunt most brutal was leveraged by the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on the Senate floor on Thursday night. He accused the Democratic leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, of “fundamentally turning the Senate into the House.”

Which is particularly hilarious since the party of Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao happens to be in charge there – continuing…

Mr. McConnell’s rage — and its expression roughly akin in this town to comparing the Hope diamond to a Joan Rivers baguette sold on cable TV — stemmed from a last-minute tweaking to the Senate’s intricate rules that prevented Republicans from forcing Democrats to vote on a stream of unrelated amendments to a China currency bill.

Ummm – am I the only one who is utterly confused by this cutesy remark (of course, being a guy, I would think sandwich when I hear about a “Joan Rivers baguette”).

How about if I introduce a little bit of actual reporting to this nonsense?

As noted here (from September a year ago)…

WASHINGTON — A determined Republican stall campaign in the Senate has sidetracked so many of the men and women nominated by President Barack Obama for judgeships that he has put fewer people on the bench than any president since Richard Nixon at a similar point in his first term 40 years ago.

The delaying tactics have proved so successful, despite the Democrats' substantial Senate majority, that fewer than half of Obama's nominees have been confirmed and 102 out of 854 judgeships are vacant.

Forty-seven of those vacancies have been labeled emergencies by the judiciary because of heavy caseloads.

…

White House counsel Bob Bauer and progressive groups squarely blame Republicans.

The Senate GOP is obstructing "confirmations across the board, even forcing noncontroversial nominees who passed committee with overwhelming bipartisan support to wait months for a floor vote," Bauer said.

Marge Baker, executive vice president of the liberal People for the American Way, said that stalling votes on judges is "part and parcel of the general obstruction we're seeing right now."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has acknowledged that his strategy is partly payback for Democrats' blocking some Bush appointees.

But McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said the responsibility for the lack of confirmations lies with Obama, who nominated just 33 people to judgeships in 2009, and Reid, who controls the Senate calendar.

"We can't confirm what's not there," Stewart said.

But Republican senators have forced postponements of hearings and votes in the Judiciary Committee and used their power under the chamber's rules to block any easy route to full Senate votes.

Also, this tells us that as many as 100 Obama Administration nominees had “secret holds” placed on their nominations as of April 2010 (if I can track down an update, I’ll add it here).

And in keeping with the judicial appointments, this post from last February tells us the following…

Obama must shoulder part of the blame for his administration's relatively slow pace in judicial appointments. But mostly this is a story of Senate dysfunction and the politicization of judicial appointments. It only takes one senator to put a hold on a prospective judge -- and more than a few Republicans are all too eager to get their hands on Obama's appointments.

It's time for them to let go. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced in January an agreement to quash some of the procedural tactics that have stalled nominations.

(Oregon Federal Judge Marco) Hernandez made it through, but that's hardly a credit to the Senate. Three appointments over three years to get a judge with impeccable credentials confirmed to the federal bench? That's not advise and consent. That's absurd.

Almost as absurd as New York Times reporter baselessly comparing one of our two bodies of the U.S. Congress to a Broadway musical (sounds like Steinhauer is auditioning for the part of Maureen Dowd’s “mini me” – here is a list of other related posts on this topic).

Further, I have some breaking news – Marc Thiessen is still wrong (here)…

(Attorney General Eric) Holder’s bad advice began almost immediately after Obama took office, when he and White House counsel Greg Craig convinced the president to announce the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010 — without even examining the feasibility of doing so. Not only did the president suffer the indignity of missing this deadline, public opinion turned against the decision so sharply that Democrats abandoned the president and joined Republicans in voting 90-to-6 in the Senate to block funds for the facility’s closure. Almost three years later, Guantanamo remains open and the administration has given up hope of closing it.

Gee, I gave up trying to count the deadlines that Obama’s predecessor (and Thiessen’s former boss) kept missing on when we would be all done with Number 43’s Not So Excellent Iraq Adventure (more on him later...talk about "indignity").

The next unneeded firestorm came with Holder’s decision to release classified Justice Department memos on the CIA terrorist interrogation program and reopen criminal investigations into the conduct of CIA interrogators. Holder overrode the objections of five CIA directors, including Leon Panetta. According to The Post, “Before his decision to reopen the cases, Holder did not read detailed memos that [career] prosecutors drafted and placed in files to explain their decision to decline prosecutions.” If he had bothered to do so, he could have predicted the eventual outcome: The special prosecutor he appointed came to the same conclusion as the career prosecutors under the Bush administration and found no criminal wrongdoing by the CIA officials involved in the agency’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program. After two years of wasted resources and needless controversy, Holder came up empty.

As noted here from September 2009…

In response to a public campaign by the CIA, the Obama administration has decided to further scale back an already narrow investigation of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture during the Bush years that was announced last month by Attorney General Eric Holder.

In announcing the probe, Holder had made clear that it would be limited to CIA agents whose torture of alleged terrorists went beyond the bounds laid down by Bush administration directives. It would target neither the Justice Department lawyers who drew up findings providing a pseudo-legal justification for waterboarding, hanging prisoners from walls, placing them in boxes for hours on end, and similar crimes, nor the top Bush administration officials who ordered and oversaw such practices.

The CIA—including the current director and Obama appointee, Leon Panetta—and former Bush administration officials, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, have denounced Holder’s token probe, claiming that it will hamstring US intelligence operations and give aid and comfort to the terrorists.

Oh, and by the way, as noted here (under the heading of “actions have consequences”), the two Americans released by Iran last month after their illegal captivity, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, said that their captors used the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and the secret CIA prisons as an excuse for their maltreatment (yes, we know what Iran is, but had we not engaged in these odious practices – which also did not, and do not, yield actionable intelligence – we would have denied the Iranians of a propaganda tool).

Also, leave it to the formerly Moonie Times to concoct the following (here)…

The Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill was supposed to protect consumers. Not surprisingly, this “protection” means consumers are going to be nickel-and-dimed to death with brand-new banking fees.

Blame Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, for inserting an amendment into that crony-capitalist law to limit debit interchange fees that large banks (those with more than $10 billion in assets) can charge. Banks typically have provided debit cards free to consumers, and often included reward programs. Interchange fees paid by merchants made this possible. Now that the law has taken hold, the average fee has gone from about 44 cents per transaction to 21 cents. That might not sound like much, but in the first full week the cap was in effect, one of the largest processors in the country, Heartland Payment Systems, returned almost $1.8 million to the merchants in its network.

This adds up to big money. Interchange fees amount to about $16 billion a year for banks, and the Durbin Amendment is expected to cost banks $6.6 billion in revenue, which comes on top of a $5.6 billion loss from earlier restrictions on overdraft fees. Having lost a large chunk of their revenue, the big banks are going to look for other ways to recover.

As Think Progress tells us here, "it’s unclear how (conservatives) thinks a law that hasn’t even been fully implemented could already be killing one of the most powerful industries in the country" (and get a load of how our supposed financial geniuses will be forced to "recover" after reaping double-digit-percentage profit increases in the second quarter).

Besides, as noted here (from Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research)…

Debit cards have a cost; it makes sense to have the people who benefit from using them pay the cost. Under the former system, cash customers effectively were being taxed so that banks could allow people to use debit cards for free. Under the new system, the cost is transparent and people could decide for themselves whether they want to pay it. Market supporters should prefer the current system. [E-mail to Media Matters, 9/30/11]

As noted here, though, the Washington Times should “clean its own glass house” on the issue of financial credibility before it starts throwing stones elsewhere.

Finally, I give you the following truly noxious item…

DALLAS — George W. Bush says that after eight years in the White House, he's happy to be back home in Texas and out of the spotlight.

But the former commander-in-chief tells The Associated Press there's one aspect of his presidency he still misses: interaction with U.S. troops. And Bush, who sent them to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, says that despite his desire to remain largely out of the public eye, he wants to make sure veterans and military members know they still have his support.

"I was a little concerned that our veterans don't think that I still respect them and care for them a lot," Bush told the AP. He added later, "There's nothing as courageous in my judgment as someone who had a leg blown off in combat overcoming the difficulties."

Bush is hosting next week's Warrior Open golf tournament in suburban Dallas, an event featuring members of the U.S. Armed Forces wounded while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, including those who lost limbs and suffered brain injuries. Bush joined more than a dozen wounded military members in the Warrior 100 - a 62-mile mountain bike ride he hosted in West Texas last spring.

I really shouldn’t give Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History credit for anything here, but I suppose what he’s doing is literally better than nothing.

But as far as supposedly “supporting the troops” is concerned, let’s recall the following from here (about Jim Nicholson, Number 43’s former head of the VA, as reported by Joe Conason)…

In contrast to the four most recent VA heads--who had previously held leadership positions with Disabled American Veterans, the Department of Defense, a state-level VA department, and VA itself--Jim Nicholson brings a refreshing lack of experience to veterans' advocacy (note: this is a decidedly tongue-in-cheek remark...)

In Bush's first term, Nicholson was rewarded with the ambassadorship to the Holy See. But he traded vespers for vets last February, joining his brother John, who was already head of the National Cemetery Administration. In June (2005), he admitted that VA had underestimated the number of veterans who would be seeking medical treatment this year by nearly 80,000 because it had failed to take into account the surge in enrollment by veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts--13,700 of whom have suffered blown-off limbs, bullet wounds, and the like. The miscalculation was a surprise to Congress, since Nicholson had written on April 5: "I can assure you that VA does not need [additional money] to continue to provide timely, quality service." Republican House Appropriations Committee Chair Jerry Lewis said VA's failure to identify the problem and notify Congress earlier "borders on stupidity."

Oh, and did I point out that about 26 million Social Security numbers of our veterans somehow went missing, more or less, around Memorial Day Weekend in 2006, creating a rather significant data breach?

And do you want more evidence as to how much Former President Nutball “supported the troops?” As Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated here in 2009, the “stop-loss” policy under Bushco, which basically amounted to a back-door draft, constituted “breaking faith” with our men and women in uniform.

I guess this is what you would expect from a guy who said here he was envious of our service people because he thought war was “romantic” (and based on this, I would say that those who were sent off to war are telling Former Commander Codpiece what they think of his “support”).

Update: Uh, yep.

Sunday Stuff

I realize that Bill Maher first and foremost is an entertainer, and he has to cater to conservatives also from time to time, even though he frequently articulates liberal, Democratic positions and beliefs quite well. However, I truly cannot understand why he continues to give a platform to that washed up, dried out glibertarian sot P.J. O'Rourke, who hasn't spoken or written anything even vaguely amusing for about 20 years.

That is why I am so pleased to provide this clip of former Dem U.S. House Rep Alan Grayson giving O'Rourke the smack-down he deserves over O'Rourke's put-downs of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters (and I'm so glad Grayson didn't do it in a chuckling, "oh, P.J., you rascal," candy-ass kind of way that Maher did a bit at the end...not that I would have expected anything less from Grayson - more here)...



...and boy, assuming supporters of Sarah Palin have any kind of mental sensory apparatus to begin with - well, they should feel pretty damned used, and stupid to boot, as Jon Stewart explains (here)...

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

...and harking back to OWS, happy birthday wishes go out to two individuals who know (and knew) a thing or two about protests - first, JB...



...and this guy (and as for Yoko, I have no idea).



Update: And here's a bonus, by the way - who says I never touch on hot-button "cultural" issues?

Saturday Stuff

Paging Erin Burnett - why don't you finish up in makeup, darling, and then condescend to get your nails and your hairdo dirty by interviewing those untidy little "99 percenters" (here)...



...and here is more...



...oh, and let's not forget that super-duper deficit reduction committee also (based on this, Clyburn, Murray and Kyl should step down immediately)...



...and I'm cleaning out my "in" bin a bit more and just came across this neat tune.

Friday Stuff

Five years ago today, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered - here and here are related posts, and here she is speaking about our old buddy Vlad Putin; she warned the world about him, and paid for it with her life (and as noted here, there are actually new legal developments surrounding her death)...



Update 7/18/12: Maybe this will lead to the truth one day - maybe.

...and keeping with this harrowing theme, happy 60th birthday to John Mellencamp (I actually can take or leave most of his songs...not sure about this one yet...but his politics rock)...



...and changing up the mood more than a little bit, I should point out that Fix Noise started its infernal run on cable TV on this day in 1996; with that in mind, I thought the following particularly hilarious clip deserved another look...



...and RIP Bert Jansch.

Bringing The Pain, Part 8

(Time to end this - Part 1 including the setup is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here, Part 4 is here, Part 5 is here, Part 6 is here, and Part 7 is here.)

U.S. Virgin Islands

As noted here, the unemployment rate “jumped” to 9.5 percent in August. Also, from what I can find out anecdotally online, there seems to be a higher disproportionate amount of repetitive strain injuries and accidents in this territory due probably to lax enforcement of workplace safety regulations, as noted here (and the Isles owe the feds $38.5 billion for loans they took out to prop up their unemployment insurance initiatives based on this).

Utah

Turning to Mormon-land, the state cut unemployment insurance in April “as a motivation to get people back to work” (nice, as noted here), even though the unemployment rate has been stuck at 7 percent for the last 28 months (here).

Still, though, the state is ranked as one of the ten best for unemployment benefits (here), and this recent item tells us that fewer people in Utah and across the country sought unemployment benefits (indeed, the recent numbers show about 103,000 jobs added last month, as noted here…better, but let me know if and when it becomes a trend, OK?).

Concerning the state’s politicians, “Saint” Orrin Hatch wants to supposedly create jobs by repealing “Obama Care,” even though the evidence from the world of reality tells us that won’t happen (here), which I’m sure he said because of this. And Repug U.S. House Rep Jason Chaffetz (who was thought to offer a teabagger challenge to Hatch, though Chaffetz ended up declining) supports eVerify to supposedly create “millions of jobs,” as noted here (again, wonder if John Galloway in PA knows how much he’s of one mind with the “loyal opposition” on this issue?).

Vermont

In the Green Mountain state, unemployment was 5.9 percent in August (here), and this gives details on the “One Away” program for workers 55 and older, aiming to find new jobs or keep existing ones. And on top of that, this tells us that “single payer” health care passed (and the world actually didn’t come screeching to a halt), with Dem Gov. Pete Shumlin claiming it will be a “huge job creator” (we’ll see).

This tells us that the state’s farmers oppose the “Secure Communities” initiative since it could be harmful to the dairy industry, which is a big deal (again, this is an argument for common-sense immigration reform including passing the DREAM Act, providing a “carrot” for people who do the right thing instead nothing but a bunch of sticks).

As far as the other politicians are concerned, Sen. Bernie Sanders helped mark the completion of that state’s National Guard solar project, one of the country’s largest solar installations (here), and Sen. Patrick Leahy (along with Shumlin and Sanders) managed to get housing for residents displaced by Hurricane Irene here (again, not completely relevant to jobs, but still noteworthy...might lead to construction jobs to rebuild from the damage).

(By the way, this also doesn’t have anything to do with jobs in Vermont, but it is the state’s fall foliage report…absolutely gorgeous up there this time of year.)

Virginia

Welcome to the “Let’s Bash House Majority Leader Eric Cantor” Show! And why? Because he completely and utterly deserves it, that’s why…

- Here is Cantor’s supposed plan for job creation (no regulations for business, no taxes of course, and lots of “free” trade agreements).

- This tells us of the Holiday Inn in that state that kicked out progressive groups gathered for a jobs rally (see, that sleazy weasel Cantor was scheduled to speak at that location, and “the rabble” had to be dealt with).

- Here, Cantor called the unemployed a “distraction” and refused to meet with them (of course).

- Oh, and Cantor also says here that the U.S. House won’t vote on the “entire” Obama jobs bill (just the parts Cantor likes, I suppose, which is probably tax cuts and nothing else).

And in case you were wondering, Repug Guv Bob McDonnell is no better on jobs, as noted here…



Looking for good news? Well, based on this, it looks like the upcoming movie on Lincoln will be filmed in VA (kind of interesting since our 16th president really did not have a connection with that state, though his family did). Also, this tells us that the state’s unemployment rate was 6.3 percent in August (and as noted here from July 2010, that supposedly “zero-job-producing” stimulus funded broadband development through 8 VA counties…I see a few “D”’s supporting it, including U.S. Senators Mark Warner and the departing Jim Webb, but no “R”’s of course).

Washington

Gosh, are the residents of this state lucky! It seems that Sen. Patty Murray will serve on the super-duper-Gang-of-6 committee between the U.S. House and the Senate that will bring us sunshine, lollipops and rainbows every day, as noted here (of course, Pat Toomey of PA will also take up space there also – maybe Murray can cancel him out somehow). Murray also deserves credit for funding job retraining programs, as noted here (and as noted here, the state’s unemployment rate was 9.3 percent in August).

And heading through the looking glass once more, this tells us that “Lonesome Rhodes” Beck was cited here for his incendiary language that got this nut case named Charles Wilson all stirred up to the point where he threatened Murray and was stalking fellow Dem U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (and why am I not surprised that Billo has embraced this lunacy also, as noted here?). Again, I know this isn’t related to jobs, but I think it deserves to be mentioned.

So what of work matters, anyway? Well, Cantwell supports the BEER Act to provide excise tax relief to small breweries in the state in the hope of job creation, as noted here (I’ll drink to that – too easy). And here is news of a “Working Washington” protest aimed right at this state’s thoroughly execrable Repug U.S. House Rep Dave Reichert (who is apparently considering a run for governor based on this).

West Virginia

Congratulations to Dem Earl Ray Tomblin, who defeated Repug Bill Maloney and became the governor of the state for real (he had been “keeping the seat warm” after former governor Joe Manchin took over the U.S. Senate seat of Robert Byrd when he passed away). This tells us more about Tomblin’s jobs agenda, which includes lower business taxes (yes, I know it’s corporate blackmail, but I don’t have a better idea at the moment…and by the way, as noted here, the Governor-elect needs to have a chat with “The Big Dog” on the environment).

This post from February, though, tells us about unemployed coal miners in the state installing rooftop solar panels (a step in the right direction), and this tells us that the state could be looking at a “mixed bag” of intermittently rising and falling unemployment over the next year (the state’s unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in August).

The Times West Virginian story also tells us the following...

Most of the job gains have come in the service-providing sectors, like health care, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality. Employment growth is also evident in natural resources and mining, and manufacturing jobs have begun to grow again, (Dr. George Hammond, associate director of the West Virginia University College of Business and Economics’ Bureau of Business and Economic Research) said.

“So for West Virginia, the unemployment rate is down from its peak in part because we’ve seen a bit of a rebound in job growth and partly because we’ve seen the labor force decline,” he said.

Hammond explained that some individuals who were employed have dropped out of the labor force. The decline in the labor force isn’t a particularly good sign and is a factor that must be taken into account.

The contingent of U.S. Senate Democrats includes Manchin, who is absolutely odious, truth be told (remember his campaign ad where he shot a gun at a target that had what was supposed to be regulations from the Obama Administration attached to it?), though he definitely stood out against Repug John Raese in the election for Byrd’s former seat last year (with Raese bringing us such slap-your-open-palm-against-your-forehead moments like this). And this tells us how Manchin, his fellow Dem U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller and U.S. House Dem Nick Rahall all helped to secure a $5 million federal grant to help unemployed workers find jobs.

Wisconsin

At long last, we come to Hosni Mubarak Walker-istan. And to recall how we got to where we are currently at, I give you the following two videos: the first features Ed Schultz with two Wisconsin school teachers and the statement about Walker making public sector workers pay more (along with Ohio and elsewhere)...



...and the second features Rachel Maddow on Scott Walker and Wackenhut (the clowns in Afghanistan), hired to take care of security at the state capitol after Walker canned the public sector security guards, and she connects the dots between the Repugs attacking unions and their support of Democrats (and this may have been Rachel Maddow's finest commentary, by the way).



Continuing, this recent post tells us of 200 school unions in the state that have applied for recertification; this means that those unions would be able to bargain on behalf of their members, but as the post tells us, recertification won’t be easy (and even if a union doesn’t recertify, it will still exist, but it won’t be able to bargain on behalf of its members…to which I say, why exist at all, which definitely is part of the Walker/ALEC/Koch Brothers strategy…also, here is a site containing all manner of articles related to the protests at the state capital earlier this year).

Oh, and lest we not forget, this tells us that Repug U.S. Senator Ron Johnson not only got his business up and running with government help (the same government he now decries when it tries to support the economy), but he staffed his business with prison labor instead of hiring law-abiding constituents from his state and paying them a livable wage.

For anyone who needs a history lesson, there is a reason why the Repugs targeted this state first in their war on workers, and that is because Wisconsin is the state where the progressive movement pretty much began, as noted here. And by the way, the state unemployment rate was 7.9 percent in August (here).

Wyoming

In case you had any doubts about where Repug U.S. Senator John Barrasso stands on the issue of working men and women, this should answer your questions (and as noted here, the state’ s unemployment rate was 5.8 percent in August – not bad, but I wonder if that’s partly due to a dispersed population also?).

Also, this tells us that Barrasso and fellow U.S. Senate Repug Mike Enzi have claimed that building up the Powder River Basin coal reserve will create jobs, when in fact the coal has already been sold to China (nice).

In addition, I know this doesn’t directly relate to jobs, but Repug U.S. House Rep Cynthia Lummis declared here last November that the estate tax is causing her constituents to kill themselves, or something (to which K.O. replied, “well then, wouldn’t a better form of protest be to do just the opposite?” or something).

And for good measure, Bushco’s former Minerals Management Service director Johnnie Burton, who is apparently now a congressional staffer for Lummis, is noted here for the shenanigans that went on during her watch (again, not directly related to jobs, but noteworthy as far as I’m concerned)

Update 1/13/12: And it looks like there are some unresolved workplace safety issues in the state, as noted here.

__

There you have it; I set out to go across the country and look at unemployment in all of our states and territories in an effort to pay more attention to this issue, and I hope that I’ve been successful and maybe, just maybe, spurred some type of positive action on this issue by the politicians who are supposed to represent us. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I have to say that I couldn’t think of a way to wrap this up as I would have liked, but I did manage to come across this item which, I think, helps to reinforce everything I’ve tried to do here. It’s not a real upbeat tune, but given everything going on particularly with the “Occupy Wall Street” and “99 Percent” movement, it might be timelier than we realize.



Update 10/8/11: And this is a reminder as to who "has our back" and who doesn't.

Update 10/20/11: What else could we have expected from the Teahadists (here)?

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words (At Least)

From here...

Update: By the way (for those keeping score at home), there won't be an Area Votes in Congress writeup this week; the House took a break from its non-jobs agenda and only the Senate was in session, and they didn't do much.

Thursday Stuff

(Yes, I know Steve Jobs is dead, and I’m sorry about that, but I don’t have anything to say about it.)

I know I mentioned former presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter earlier; on this day in 1976, Gerald Ford said the following during this debate, which, along with his pardon of Nixon (and the primary challenge from Reagan) may have cost him the election (Ford wasn’t a dope, though he was portrayed that way, and yes, I laughed at Chevy Chase too back then…by today’s Repug standards he’d look like FDR, and as I’ve said before, he was truly heroic in the South Pacific during World War II – I think what Ford meant was that the people in those countries refused to knuckle under to Communism; we’ve all had enough time to parse this over the years, and that’s my guess)…



…returning to the present day, here is K.O. reading the declaration from Occupy Wall Street (and it sounds like “New York City’s Finest” aren’t so “fine” at the moment)…



…and here’s a typically well-done report on raising taxes on the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch (part of what the “Occupy” crowd is trying to accomplish, and those zany Teahadists want it also, believe it or not) from Rachel Maddow (oh, and by the way Senate Dems, it’s waay past time for some of you people to get on board also – here)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

…and I thought this item was a good excuse to revisit this vid, so here it is.

Thursday Mashup (10/6/11)

I have a bit of a backlog to get to after being down for a bit, so let’s get started with J.D. Mullane here (concerning our financial meltdown)…

Who created the conditions in which the money men in the financial sector gave mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, touching off economic calamity that gave us “Dodd-Frank” reform? Why, it was the federal government, with its Community Reinvestment Act. The CRA requires banks to make mortgages available in poor neighborhoods, where risk of default can be quite high.

As noted here by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the CRA did not contribute “in any substantive way” to the economic crisis.

Of course, as Mullane is quick to remind us, it’s his column and he can write what he wants, however fact-free it may be, nyaah-nyaaah (and the Bucks County Courier Times will continue to compensate him for it).

Also, John “Hallucinogenic Drugs” Harwood of the New York Times told us the following recently here (arguing that President Obama will focus on social issues instead of the economy since Number 44 is supposedly vulnerable on that subject, which is specious at best when you consider this)…

It didn’t work in the 2009 race for governor of Virginia. Democrats tried to cast the Republican nominee, Bob McDonnell, as an extremist on social issues; Mr. McDonnell, now governor, focused relentlessly on the economy.

(By the way, here is an example of McDonnell supposedly campaigning on the economy from his contest with Dem Creigh Deeds.)

So what was the first thing McDonnell did after he was sworn into office in January 2010 (him being so “relentlessly focused” on the economy, supposedly)? He told state law enforcement to allow people to bring loaded guns into Virginia’s parks (and let’s not forget HATING TEH GAY too).

(And here is still more on McDonnell's supposed relentless focus on the economy.)

(Yes, I know; lather, rinse, repeat - sigh...)

Staying with the New York Times, this editorial today tells us the following…

By a 6-to-6 vote last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cleared the way for a legal challenge against a dubious legacy of the George W. Bush administration: the wiretapping of Americans’ international communications without a warrant or adequate judicial supervision in antiterrorism investigations.

The tie decision, which allowed an earlier ruling to stand, was a well-deserved setback to the Justice Department’s accountability avoidance strategy. This Catch-22 says that because the wiretaps are secret, no one knows for certain whether they have actually been tapped, and that means no one has a right to sue the government.

We hope the Obama administration does not appeal to the Supreme Court, and allows the legal challenge to go forward. Given its dismal record on this matter, we are not holding our breath.

Neither am I – I’m concerned also for the following reason…

The most troubling opinion I (in favor of surveillance) was filed by the court’s chief judge, Dennis Jacobs, but joined by none of his colleagues. Judge Jacobs launched into a gratuitous attack on the plaintiffs and their lawyers, whom he charged with bringing the “frivolous” case “to act out their fantasy of persecution, to validate their pretensions to policy expertise, to make themselves consequential rather than marginal, and to raise funds for self-sustaining litigation.” He likened the suit to a plaintiff’s claim that the C.I.A. was controlling him “through a radio embedded in his molar.”

Judge Jacobs has expressed similar contempt before. He embarrassed the appeals court he is supposed to lead and cast serious doubt on his judicial impartiality.

Indeed – as noted here, his court issued “a bad reading of federal law” when they let gun manufacturers off the hook in response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s lawsuit, and they also let former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman “skate” as well, ruling that she could not be held liable for assuring residents near Ground Zero that the air was safe to breathe (overturning a verdict against Whitman issued by U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts, who stated that Whitman’s actions “shocked the conscience”).

And Jacobs has also ruled that Medicaid funds could be denied to disabled people, even though he knew that this, in his words, could be “a death sentence for some patients.” And he also thinks free speech claims from a student newspaper are “silly.”

So the best the Obama Administration can do on the issue of warrantless surveillance with a court as staunchly conservative as this one is a tie. If that isn’t a message that they’re on the wrong side here, I don’t know what is.

Returning to our beloved commonwealth, Repug Governor Tom “Space Cadet” Corbett has apparently decided to punt on the issue of taxing the natural gas drillers, promoting instead a plan from Repug state house reps Gene DiGirolamo and Tom Murt to do that “allow(ing) counties to impose an impact fee for up to 10 years to help pay for the regulation of drilling and fixing damage to the environment” (here).

This is chicken-hearted non-governance at best, considering that, as noted here, such a tax is favored by 65 percent of the residents of this state (when you consider how much Corbett has received from the natural gas industry, though, as noted here, this is merely “return on investment”).

Another “parking lot” item I had was to note that we’ve either already passed the 10-year anniversary of the war in Afghanistan or we will do so shortly – here is some reading on this thoroughly depressing (to say nothing of profoundly wasteful) subject.

Update 10/7/11: Good for the Dems calling to end this insanity here.

In addition (returning to local area politics in Bucks County), I give you the following from Gene Dolnick, president of the Pennsbury School Board (here)…

There is a concerted effort to discredit and demonize the current board majority of Goldberg, Sanderson, DiBlasio, Palsky, and myself as being left-wing, union panderers who are not responsive to the needs of the community. This effort is being undertaken by “Better Pennsbury” and certain elements within the Republican Party. The champions of the effort to take control of the school board are Simon Campbell and Allan Weisel. They have actively recruited Steven Kosmorsky, Chris Cridge, and Dorothy Vislosky to unseat incumbents. If only two of their candidates win, they will, with the help of Zawacki, take control of the school board. Their organization has mounted a campaign attempting to portray an image of inadequacies, of secrecy, of deceit, and have recruited a cadre of people to accentuate their agenda at board meetings.

Dolnick goes on to make his case as to the fact that the charges faced by the current majority of the Pennsbury school board are utterly manufactured and typically ridiculous.

We must do all that we legally can to support Goldberg, Sanderson, DiBlasio, Palsky and Dolnick and oppose Campbell, Kosmorsky, Cridge and Vislosky; if any two of the latter bunch wins, the kids in our school district will surely lose (increased class size, less time for teacher/student review, tighter budgets which usually means fewer textbooks, etc., etc., etc.). And that doesn’t even consider the rabid right-wing agenda that usually follows also when these cretins take over.

Also keeping with local area politics, please click here to support Diane Marseglia and Det Ansinn for Bucks County Commissioners (here is more on their development plan for the county), and click here to read about Ken Seda/Ron Schmid who are running for Lower Makefield Township supervisors.

Finally, today marks the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and with that in mind, I give you the following excerpt from “The Unfinished Presidency” by Douglas Brinkley (about former President Jimmy Carter)...

Carter was working in his Plains study on October 6, 1981 when a reporter called to ask his response to the attempted assassination of Sadat. The former president broke out in goose bumps. This was the first time he had heard about the hail of automatic gunfire at a military parade in Cairo that left eleven dead and forty wounded. Reassured that his Egyptian friend had “only suffered minor injuries” in the shooting, Carter gave the reporter a short statement denouncing terrorism, then quickly ended the conversation so he could try to reach Sadat in Cairo. Unable to do so, Carter talked to the American ambassador in Egypt, who reassured him that Sadat was alive and that the failed assassins – an Egyptian army major and two enlisted men – had been apprehended. Carter monitored CNN news reports all that afternoon, expecting to hear upbeat updates, when suddenly the tragic news of Sadat’s death was announced, the assassins having been identified as religious fanatics opposed to Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel and his recent ordered arrest of 1,500 Coptic and Muslim extremists. Carter sat alone in his study and wept. “It was a great personal loss for me and a severe blow to the prospects for peace in the Middle East,” he lamented.

Shortly after the grim announcement, Sadat’s widow Jehan called Jimmy and Rosalynn and invited them to stay at her Cairo home for the funeral. The Carters were, after all, close to Sadat’s entire family, including his children and grandchildren. Shortly thereafter, however, the State Department called. On the grounds that government security agencies deemed it “too dangerous” for (then President Ronald) Reagan and (Vice President George H.W.) Bush to make the journey to Egypt, State officials formerly requested that Carter join ex-presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the official U.S. delegation to the funeral.

This was Alexander Haig’s brainchild, and Carter refused. Incensed that Reagan was afraid to make the journey, he was determined to go to the funeral on his own. The State Department mounted a relentless campaign to change his mind: “Ed Muskie and Cy Vance and Jody Powell and Hamilton Jordan and financial contributors to my campaign all called to say I should go with the official delegation,” Carter recalled. “So after about the tenth call I decided I would go with Nixon and Ford. I was really aggravated about it, though.” Reagan did apologize for staying home at an interfaith memorial service for Sadat at the National Cathedral, where the Reverend John T. Walker, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, eulogized the Egyptian president as a “great prophet” for global peace. Before attending the service, Reagan had signed a proclamation instructing all American flags on government buildings, embassies and naval ships to be flown half-staff. The only foreign citizens previously accorded such an honor were U.N. Secretary Dag Hammarskjold in 1961 and Winston Churchill in 1965.

(By the way, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the former U.N. Secretary General’s death in a plane crash; I read the following remembrance recently, which I thought was well done.)

Stricken with grief, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter flew to Washington, D.C., where they met Nixon and Ford for a helicopter ride at dusk to the South Lawn of the White House. Once inside, they traded stories about Sadat with President Reagan in the Blue Room for more than half an hour. “We had a short but necessary meeting with Reagan.” Ford recalled. “It was a very wise decision on his part to have us former presidents attend the funeral as a display of continued American support of Egypt.” Reagan, in a low-key mood, wished his three predecessors good luck with a toast: “Ordinarily I would wish you happy landing, but you’re all Navy men, so I wish you bon voyage.”

Carter was impressed neither by the occasion, by Reagan’s remarks, nor by his own return to the White House. “The only reason Reagan greeted us was to have a photo of four presidents together,” Carter quipped. And the shot would be a rarity: this was the first time in the twentieth century that three former presidents had meet with an incumbent. What’s more, not since Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and then-vice president Lyndon Johnson attended the funerals of former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn in 1961 and Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962 had so many presidents appeared in the same frame.

It was clear who was in charge on the flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Cairo: Alexander Haig, the official leader of a delegation that included a handful of congressmen and senators, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick, army chief of staff Gen. Edward Meyer, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Motown singer-composer Stevie Wonder, and a fourteen-year-old boy from Liberty, South Carolina who had become pen pals with Sadat. Haig claimed the large compartment in the front of the plane for himself, leaving the three former presidents, Rosalynn, and Kissinger to fight for elbow space in the small press compartment.

Nixon noticed that there was some initial tension between Carter and Ford, so he played the icebreaker. “We were all former presidents who served our country well, so there was no reason for any residual bad blood between us,” Ford recalled. “Nixon brought us all together.” As for the incumbent administration, throughout the flight Reagan’s chief of protocol, Lee (Mrs. Walter) Annenberg, continually interrupted the former presidents’ conversations and naps with firm instructions from Gen. Haig as to his rules once they arrived in Egypt. “One of the instructions was that when we arrived in Cairo, no one was to get off the plane before Secretary of State Haig,” Carter recalled. “He was to get off first, and he was the only one to speak to the news media. It was ridiculous. He treated us like children.”

Why am I not surprised to read this about Al "I'm In Charge Here" Haig, by the way?

Upon landing Haig strode off the plane like Douglas MacArthur returning to the Philippines and addressed the press pool assembled at the airport as the three former presidents stood muzzled on the tarmac. When he was finished, Haig waived the former commanders-in-chief into armor-plated limousines flown in from Washington, which whisked them first to their hotel and then to meet Hosni Mubarak at the Al-Tahara Palace. Cairo was quiet, its streets empty due to the four-day feast of Eld al-Adha, a traditional Muslim observance that not even Sadat’s assassination could disrupt. At the palace Mubarak assured the American presidential delegation that he would carry out Sadat’s policies, including the Camp David peace accords. Carter felt fully confident of Mubarak’s ability to govern Egypt and his own mission to create a Palestinian homeland, as determined at Camp David, in memory of “Brother Anwar.”

As Wikipedia tells us, Sadat was the first Arab leader to visit Israel officially when he met with Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem in November 1977. He then participated in the Camp David Accords with Carter and Begin, which led to the 1979 peace treaty (and as I recall from reading the Brinkley book, Carter expressed his frustration with Begin on numerous occasions for not moving forward as prescribed by the Accords, which ended up driving Carter towards Yasir Arafat and the PLO…as much as I respect Carter, I think he was wrong to help elevate the profile of a thief and demagogue like Arafat, though I can understand the former president’s frustration).

The treaty, however, galvanized Arab opposition to Arafat, which led to his murder (also noted in the Brinkley excerpt…on top of that, it didn’t help that Sadat quite rightly referred to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeni as a “lunatic”). And for that reason, we should take a minute or two today and recall heroism on the part of a world leader the like of which we may not see again in our lifetimes.

Wednesday Stuff

I've been in and out of sick bay over the last few days - hopefully things are turning around...

In the meantime, what else could we have expected (here)...



...and what other tune is more appropriate in response?

Tuesday Stuff

(I'll try again to post tomorrow...)

Happy 150th birthday to acclaimed U.S. artist Frederic Remington - here is a tribute...



...and I wonder what Remington would have thought of "Goodhair" Perry...

...and by the way, I think K.O. and Louise Slaughter mean Silent Clarence Thomas here, not Scalia; they're right all the same, though, especially on the "retroactive recusal" thing...



...and speaking of those zany teabaggers (on behalf of whom Thomas's wife has cleaned up), here's a tune just for them.

Monday Stuff

Once again, the eternal George Carlin explains everything, bad words and all (I wouldn’t go so far as saying “forget the politicians,” though – for all their faults, I believe the Dems are the only shot we have, which is sad I know…here)…



…and this gentleman is definitely someone our “keepers” want for “running the machines,” even though he makes waay too many thoughtful statements for their liking – kudos to him (and this is thoroughly unsurprising)…



…and speaking of Fix Noise, I wonder if they would have edited this from their beloved hero also?...



…and happy 60th birthday to Keb’ Mo’ (takes a few seconds to get going, but it's worth it - you win 50 bonus points if you guess his real name).

Some Random Thoughts On Amanda Knox

I usually don’t post about stuff that’s as topical as the Amanda Knox case, of course, in which she and her boyfriend are now free from an appeal of the guilty verdict in Italy that originally convicted them both of the rape/murder of Knox’s roommate. However, I’m just going to say a word or two partly because I happened to be in the vicinity of CNN when the verdict was handed down, and also because I probably won’t have time today to post about much of anything else.

Also in the background was the radio, and I heard Smerky commenting on the case, having cut off his pundit bloviation so everyone could hear the verdict live. He must have been watching a cable news feed also, since he offered the following utterly witless observations, saying that the courtroom in Italy reminded him of the trial in “The Godfather Part 2” (particularly brainless since the “trial” in the movie was a Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.), and our intrepid pundit also said “Did you notice the crucifix behind the judge’s bench” or words to that effect (uh, we’re talking about Italy, where the Catholic Church has just a bit of a presence, you nematode).

If Knox and her boyfriend are truly innocent, then I’m happy for them both. I’m also sad for the family and friends of the victim, who now have to go through this horrific cycle of despair all over again.

And finally, as I watched the coverage, I couldn’t help but think that, had the same level of examination and adherence to Italian law and investigative procedure been applied in Georgia, Troy Davis would still be alive.

Sunday Stuff

Yeah, what the hell - according to Andrew Ross Sorkin, there are only about "80 people" involved, so what does it matter, right (here)?

Does this look like "80 people" to you?

Oh, and as noted here, the New York Times interviewed individuals from "Occupy Wall Street" who said that the police didn't tell them they couldn't march in traffic lanes across the Brooklyn Bridge. Too much trouble to be proactive, I guess...



...and happy 60th birthday to Sting (and here is the story behind the song).

Friday Stuff

Happy 80th birthday to boomer icon Angie Dickinson (John Cassavetes does something here in “The Killers” to The Sainted Ronnie R that I would like to have tried doing, thought I’m sure the Secret Service would have put a stop to it in short order)…



…and Jeremy Scahill was interviewed by David Shuster on the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki tonight on “Countdown” and made some really good points...can’t find the video yet, but I’ll keep looking for it– in the meantime, here is the “corporate news” version (yes, he was a bad dude, I know, but how many other people realize the “slippery slope” were on legally here with the extrajudicial killing of a U.S. citizen as ordered by our president?)…



Update 1 10/1/11: And I think questions about law and justice in this country are particularly timely in light of this.

Update 2 10/1/11: Here's the Scahill video...



…and Kevin Zeese made some good points as well about the “Occupy Wall Street” stuff and what he’s planning to organize in D.C…



Update 10/1/11: More here.

…and speaking of birthdays, here’s a request from your humble narrator.