Cafferty No Likey The Repugs

Sweet Mother of Abraham Lincoln! Check this out (and so true).

Update 9/05/08: Our deepest sympathies, Jack, truly.

The Latest News On "Governor Hottie"

(A big hat tip goes out to one of my senior correspondents for the pic.)

Just to recap briefly (the news on Sarah Palin is coming at us “hot and heavy,” as it were – hat tips to Michael Morrill at Keystone Progress for the links)…

She once ran the 527 group of Sen. Ted (“The Internet – It’s A Series Of Tubes!”) Stevens (here).

The FBI didn’t participate in the screening process - was there one? - before she was offered the nomination (here).

For the record, here is a complete list of those considered for the VP slot from the “2008 GOP Convention Surrogate Background Book” (basically, the individuals considered not worthy versus the Alaska governor):

Nancy Pfotenhauer
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Tim Pawlenty
Lindsey Graham
Sen. Joe Lieberman
Rick Davis
Charlie Black
Carly Fiorina
Frank Donatelli
Mitt Romney
Rudy Giuliani
Tom Ridge
Mike Huckabee
Norm Coleman
Meg Whitman
Michael Steele
Mel Martinez
Charlie Crist
Sam Brownback
Fred Thompson

Also, I wanted to take note of the following item from this article by Adam Nagourney in the New York Times today about Palin and the aftermath of her selection…

In many ways, how the country will react to the pregnancy of Ms. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is more a sociological question than a political one. Yes, many officials in both parties — including Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, Mr. McCain’s Democratic opponent — were quick on Monday to say that the private lives of candidates should be strictly off limits.

But this clearly stands as a challenge to the traditional image of a potential first family, and could well provide fodder for provocative conversations around kitchen tables or sly references in the late-night television comic-sphere. It will test again what voters deem private, at a time when the Web has pulled down so many curtains, and what in these times is considered a normal family life.

Uh…excuse me?

Yes, the proliferation of web content over the last few years and the means of generating, distributing, and accessing that content, for better or worse, is an everyday fact of life. Along with distributing information efficiently, it has changed the nature of that information, allowing incorrect or what you could call salacious material to replicate itself everywhere along with all of the good material that has heightened and informed our dialogue.

However, how anyone could blame “the web” for the lowering of our discourse in the 1990s in the era of the pornographic “Starr Report” is something that I cannot imagine. As nearly as I can determine, blogs didn’t first start springing up until about the end of the previous decade, and they became a cottage industry of sorts under President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History. Basically, the nature of our discourse had been in decline for quite some time before the web accelerated the process.

And even though the subject of this post has since been discredited, what I pointed out here remains an example of thoroughly disingenuous “reporting” by Nagourney that helps to lower our discourse every bit as much as the preoccupation on the part of the media or anyone else with a personal scandal involving a newsworthy person.

Yes, the personal life of Bristol Palin should be off limits, as well as that of any minor who happens to have a governor of a state in this country for a parent. However, what this says about the “values” of people who wish to intrude on people’s personal lives as opposed to practicing actual governance really is what matters here, and that should be noted (as Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky does here).

Voight “Coming Home” To The Repugs Again

I watched TV a bit yesterday to find out what was going on with Gustav as it hit the Gulf Coast (luckily the levees from the Army Corps of Engineers seemed to hold around the Ninth Ward, though Baton Rouge was pummeled), and after CNN and The Beard went to a commercial break, I accidentally stumbled upon Fox Noise (the only way I would do so) and saw Neil Cavuto rhapsodizing on all of the alleged Democratic scandals with actor Jon Voight (don’t have a link).

Voight was claiming chiefly that, when the so-called “Annenberg papers” are released, it’s going to show that Dem presidential nominee Barack Obama was trying to make pipe bombs with former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayres, or something (I had an LA Times blog post on this which I subsequently lost - sorry - still trying to get back the link; here is an excerpt)…

(Chicago’s Annenberg) university has refused to release records related to (Obama’s) presidential nominee's past service for a nonprofit educational project that put him in contact with activist Ayers, a 1960s-era radical who helped found an organization advocating violence for political change.

Ayers is now an education professor at the school.

The university's Chicago campus maintains that the donor of the records that document the work of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge has not officially handed over ownership rights and, therefore, the school cannot open the documents to public inspection.

The story also notes that the university is “aggressively” trying to reach an agreement with the donor of the records, and according to Obama’s public statement, he wants to see this happen also so the records are released.

Of course, Voight was undeterred, you see, implying that these documents would prove some kind of a quid pro quo with Obama and Ayres, even though they’re sealed and Voight could not possibly have been privy to their knowledge (oh, and Tony Rezko also for good measure, as well as a certain African American preacher).

Now I should note again that I once dismissed allegations of marital infidelity by John Edwards out of hand, so I should definitely keep an open mind here also, though someone is going to having to show me the “smoking gun,” as it were. And fortunately, though Voight has the on-air gravitas of Jim Phelps, he has the political acumen of Joe Buck (pictured, and how hilarious is it that, in this Faux News backgrounder, “Midnight Cowboy” is omitted from his film credits?).

However, if it turns out that Voight is right (a shocking development, and I’ll tell you point blank that I think Obama is too smart to have done what Voight alleges), I’ll duly owe up to it here. However, if he is wrong, he should be forced adopt one of the children of his estranged daughter (and here is more Voight silliness).

Monday Stuff

This is footage of journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now arrested outside of the ReThug National Convention in St. Paul - and still nobody knows exactly why (hat tips to Will Bunch and Avedon Carol at Eschaton - I'd link to Bunch but you have to register at philly.com, so here's Glenn Greenwald)...



...fortunately, Iraq Veterans Against The War apparently had no trouble marching near the RNC site, even though John W. McBush wouldn't meet with them anyway...



...and gosh, I'm just so distraught with myself for not acknowledging McBush's birthday a couple of days ago - I hope this makes amends somewhat...



...Linkin Park ("In The End")

The Inky Does What It Does Best, Again

In today’s AP’s story by Becky Bohrer carried in the Philadelphia Inquirer today with the dubious headline of “Gustav Gives Nagin Second Chance To Do It Right” (and yes, I’ll admit he was partially to blame for Katrina too), we learn the following…

As Gustav gained strength from warm Gulf of Mexico waters and headed toward the Louisiana coast, Nagin's tone wasn't the only thing different from three years ago.

The White House is "showering us with resources," Nagin told a local TV station, and President Bush called him yesterday "to check in."

A third public official who was stained by Katrina, former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, is long gone. Her replacement, rising GOP star Bobby Jindal, has been as visible as Nagin as the storm approaches.

Now, you may be wondering “hmmm, a third public official? Why, I’ve only heard about references both to Nagin and former governor Kathleen Blanco” (Dubya only rated a mention for the call), and you would be right (and further discussion of their roles versus that of Bushco in the Katrina debacle is the subject of a whole other post, I realize).

Fortunately, though, my question about this was answered because I also read virtually the same account in the Bucks County Courier Times. However, they chose to run the AP story intact (here), providing the missing information…

As the storm gained strength from warm Gulf of Mexico waters and headed toward the Louisiana coast, Nagin's tone wasn't the only thing different from three years ago.

The White House is "showering us with resources," Nagin told a local TV station, and President Bush called him Sunday "to check in."

Bush bore even more criticism than Nagin for the federal government's slow and inadequate response to Katrina. This time, the president canceled his planned Monday appearance at the Republican National Convention and instead will travel to Texas, where emergency personnel were staging ahead of the storm.

He opted to stay away from Louisiana "because I do not want my visit to impede in any way the response of emergency personnel."

A third public official who was stained by Katrina, former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, is long gone. Her replacement, rising GOP star Bobby Jindal, has been as visible as Nagin as the storm approaches.

So the two paragraphs that put Dubya in an unflattering light were omitted by the Inquirer, whereas other more professional news organizations ran the story intact.

Which begs the question, “Are you going to believe what you read in the Inquirer, or are you going to believe your own lying eyes?”

Sunday Stuff

Is it my imagination, or does McBush look like he just took a big bite out of a sh*t sandwich (h/t Kagro X at The Daily Kos, and The Jed Report of course)...



...and I actually watched CNN's coverage of Gustav tonight with Anderson Cooper talking to that drone Rick Sanchez, and after Cooper finished, Sanchez brought on Gloria Borger and Alex Castellanos to talk about how the hurricane is affecting the Repug convention so far - sounds like all of the first-night speakers bailed including Dubya, an inadvertent triumph of good taste - and the three managed to talk about how Obama supposedly did not enjoy a post-convention "bounce," with CNN giving Obama a one-point lead as of now.

Two things: 1) I've read polling numbers all over the place at this point, including here where Zogby gives McBush a one-point lead but Gallup/USA Today has Obama up by eight (I'd like to believe that, but I'm sure the real number is somewhere in the middle, maybe 3-4); 2) Given the fact that as many as 10,000 people could still be in NOLA at this moment since they cannot be evacuated, I can't think of a word to describe how truly disgusting it is to be talking politics at this moment (including here).

And by the way, Castellanos is the guy who came up with this item, one of most scurrilous political ads in our history (and Borger this, and Sanchez this).



Update 9/2/08: By the way, as Atrios notes - I got the link from him - this could be a "Palin bounce" also.

...However, shifting gears for a moment, here's an important message from Eli Pariser at Moveon.org...

... Sister Hazel ("All For You"; not the best quality video, but the audio is great)...



...and now, time for the melodic sounds of The Wombats ("Kill The Director"; I liked "Bridget Jones' Diary," for what it's worth).

As Disaster Beckons Once More

I read this quote in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday, and I thought it deserved a mention:

“There are a lot of things that are different between now and what we faced in 2005 when Katrina came ashore. We’ve had three years to put together a plan that never existed before.”

And if you guessed that that came from Mike (“City of Louisiana”) Chertoff in response to the question about FEMA’s preparation for Gustav versus Katrina, you win a free ticket for an Arabian horse courtesy of former FEMA head Mike Brown (he used to be commissioner for the Arabian Horse Association, you see, just to jog our memories).

Well, here is a New York Times editorial that tells a very different story…

Three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, residents there are nervously watching the progress of Tropical Storm-threatening-to-be-Hurricane Gustav. No less nerve-wracking is the knowledge that federal emergency planners have failed to come up with a new strategy for providing housing to disaster victims.

In July — a full year after Congress’s mandated deadline — the Federal Emergency Management Agency produced a skimpy draft proposal. Most of its required topic specialties — including how to house the poor and the disabled, how to house victims close to their jobs and how to manage large camps for evacuees — were left blank. Instead, the proposal called for handing those plans off to a task force of experts. And, oh yes, that task force has yet to be formed.

FEMA officials told Congress that the draft was not a plan “but a precursor to a plan.” In other words, procrastination is still the definitive disaster strategy of the Bush administration’s heckuva-job FEMA.

FEMA executives insist there’s no intent at all to punt the problem to the next administration. “We go beyond the point of just kicking this down the road,” one official declared in defending the proposed task force. Taxpayers should be outraged that this is all the administration can manage to come up with, three years down the road and as another hurricane season is under way.

Even those pages in the plan that weren’t left blank offer little comfort. FEMA officials had vowed in an earlier bout of scandal that trailers would no longer be used as housing. Far too many of Katrina’s victims ended up stranded in FEMA trailers contaminated with high levels of formaldehyde, a suspected carcinogen that can cause breathing problems even in healthy people.

Nevertheless, the proposal allows FEMA to house victims in trailers as a last resort “if we had a Katrina again.” Officials stress that that last resort would be limited to six months and the trailers would have to meet safety standards for formaldehyde. Five times the normal levels were measured in the Katrina trailers.

FEMA’s draft has been two years in the making, yet state emergency managers complain that they were never consulted for their on-the-ground expertise. The agency promises a finished and effective plan sometime this fall, well after Gustav makes his move.

Ugh…

Here is a link if you can help out in the event of landfall in the Gulf Region (that’s anticipated as of now, according to this story).

And God willing, we’ll never see scenes like this again.

Broder “Labors” To Produce Another Obama Farce

I have a lot of issues with the latest attack on Obama by “The Dean Of Beltway Journalism,” but I just want to highlight a few in particular…

Obama's disappointing speech (in Denver Thursday) also reflected what I had thought was the one conspicuous failure of the convention program -- the missed opportunity to introduce the country to others in the younger generation of Democrats than just Obama and his dazzling wife, Michelle.

Gosh, apparently Broder was watching a different convention than I was, because I saw some terrific speeches from Illinois State Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, and of course, Congressman Patrick Murphy (and I thought Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown did a nice job hosting a sort of “town hall” kind of forum with three pre-recorded questions that were answered by a panel of experts).

The convention hall was full of bright, attractive men and women serving as governors or mayors or in other posts. Obama knows many of them from his campaign travels, and he gave the keynote spot to one of them, Virginia's Mark Warner.

But the prime-time spots on the convention program went to Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Hillary Clinton, former president Bill Clinton and Sen. Joe Biden, the vice presidential nominee. All are comfortably familiar figures to members of my generation, and all are part of a Washington that is hardly the favorite of most voters.

Putting aside the ridiculous “hardly the favorite of most voters” charge, I can’t think of a word to describe Broder’s utter failure to note the incredible outpouring of sympathy for Sen. Ted Kennedy given his illness. To imply that his appearance was “business as usual” is just about disgusting beyond words.

And before Broder took the opportunity to fluff the memory of The Sainted Ronnie R once more, he snuck in this drivel…

(Obama) is not the first Democrat who has promised a new day. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, in different ways, tried to change Washington, and both wound up frustrated. The status quo forces -- the interest groups, many in Congress and parts of the media -- all are powerful.

Oh yes, Broder, I know how you and your utterly insulated Beltway fourth-estate pals imagine that you have an all-encompassing force and weight on our national dialogue, as noted here by Glenn Greenwald; in response to an online Q&A, you basically considered the lies that represented the case for the Iraq war to be no big deal, yet you never had any qualms about sneaking around inside Hillary Clinton’s underwear drawer (part of that mentality captured in your evergreen quote about Bill Clinton, noted here: "He came in here and he trashed the place. And it's not his place.").

And rather than waste any more of my time on Broder, I’ll just let Cenk get in the last word here.

A Sunday Deep Thought

I wonder if Gov. Sarah Palin will be able to correct John W. McBush the next time he says that Iran's Shiites are helping Iraq's al Qaeda Sunni insurgents?

Discuss...

(Oh, and I forgot to note this earlier, but here and here is more related corporate media nonsense.)

Today's Palin Post

Doesn't this little audio item speak volumes (h/t Atrios)?



And also, I thought this was an exceptionally clear-eyed look at what the selection says about McBush (the following excerpt in particular)...

...He’s desperate. Let’s stop pretending this race is as close as national polling suggests. The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state that matters — and too close for comfort in several states like Indiana and Montana the GOP usually wins pretty easily in presidential races. On top of that, voters seem very inclined to elect Democrats in general this election — and very sick of the Bush years.

McCain could easily lose in an electoral landslide. That is the private view of Democrats and Republicans alike.

McCain’s pick shows he is not pretending. Politicians, even “mavericks” like McCain, play it safe when they think they are winning — or see an easy path to winning. They roll the dice only when they know that the risks of conventionality are greater than the risks of boldness.

The Republican brand is a mess. McCain is reasonably concluding that it won’t work to replicate George W. Bush and Karl Rove’s electoral formula, based around national security and a big advantage among Y chromosomes, from 2004.

“She’s a fresh new face in a party that’s dying for one — the antidote to boring white men,” a campaign official said.

Palin, the logic goes, will prompt voters to give him a second look — especially women who have watched Democrats reject Hillary Rodham Clinton for Barack Obama.

The risks of a backlash from choosing someone so unknown and so untested are obvious. In one swift stroke, McCain demolished what had been one of his main arguments against Obama.

“I think we’re going to have to examine our tag line, ‘dangerously inexperienced,’” a top McCain official said wryly.

And as far as this notion from the McCain camp about Obama or Biden not being able to criticize Palin because, allegedly, women PUMAs who supported Hillary would now flock towards her instead...well, I hope the majority of women voters whom I consider to be clear-headed are offended by that.

Update 1 8/31/08: And I guess it's no surprise that Palin comes down on the side of hunters versus tourism here, even though the latter accounts for significantly more state revenue than the former (hat tip to SG).

Update 2 8/31/08: More from C&L here...

Friday Stuff

Funny thing, Governor, but we thought YOU would be able to tell US at this point, seeing as how you JUST SIGNED ON AS McBUSH's RUNNING MATE (this may be the most craven political maneuver I've ever seen, and anyone who thinks Karl Rove didn't have a hand in it must also believe in the Tooth Fairy)...



...and the TV station in Alaska actually set up a tip line for people to call to figure out what's going on with the whole "troopergate" thing with Palin and Walt Monegan? I mean, don't stations usually do that to find out about a lost pet or jewelry or something? Looks pretty direct to me; somebody's lying, and it isn't Monegan...



...and as far as "the top of the ticket" goes, forget about McBush's homes for a minute; did you hear about his parking lot?...



...and I can't tell who's stupider here, Larry Elder or Ben Stein, trying to reinforce some laughable fiction that Bill Clinton could have prevented 9/11; guess that came from that Mickey Mouse production - being literal here - kudos to Larry King for being a standup guy (h/t Think Progress; I knew one of these clowns would mention "the surge" - hey, if it's supposed to be going so well, why the fluck are our people STILL OVER THERE???!!!!)...



...and lest anyone think I'm giving the Dems a total pass (FISA will be tethered around the neck of every Dem responsible for that cowardly fraud, including Hoyer, but as much as I hate saying it, we have to move on, as it were, for now)...



...and I dedicate the following video to Gov. Palin, and that would be "Over My Head" by The Fray, with clips from "The Human Stain" starring Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins (a nice little homemade vid by YouTuber nicolenut512).

Is This McBush's Veep Selection? (updates)

Oops...wrong Palin.

Update 1: If nothing else, I hope she at least gets a commemorative "Victor The Victory Elephant" (here).

Update 2: I thought this was a terrific post on Palin; her story reads a bit like an Elmore Leonard novel, IMHO (h/t The Daily Kos).

Update 3: A hat tip goes out to Editor and Publisher Online for jogging my memory about Palin's diatribe in the New York Times that I posted about here in which she defended global warming and said that the polar bears could all drown (paraphrasing, I'll admit).

Thursday Stuff

This is the first 16:24 of Obama's acceptance speech tonight. I still can't believe it.

He hit all of the right notes, people. All. Of. The. Right. Notes.

Accuse me of drinking the Kool Aid as much as you want, but that was the best political speech I've ever heard in my life. And what a presidency of promise (hat tip C&L).

(Update: The hell with MSNBC; here's the whole thing courtesy of TPM)...



(Oh, and by the way, here's the predictable corporate media attack, and this from BoBo is not only an insult to the Times, but to journalism itself, to say nothing of the Dems of course.)

...Simple Plan ("Shut Up"); I hereby dedicate this to the loathsome NPR radio team of a woman announcer whose name I couldn't locate from their web site, some supposed gadfly named Bob Smith who thought it was more important to ignore Susan Eisenhower's speech tonight and talk to someone in the stands about the sunset over Invesco Field and buffalo brats (a grinder, as I think they call it out there), and some "Weekly Standard" nothing with a voice named Matt somebody or other whose job it was to shoot verbal spitballs at the Dems for the whole week - I absolve E.J. Dionne because he was getting crowded out to the point where I barely heard him.



Update 8/30/2008: I believe this is the NPR guy, doing what he does best (propagandizing against Dems, that is).

Three Thursday Crybabies

(Note: I said a day or so ago that posting would be problematic, but I’ve been able to do so more than I thought. However, tomorrow is anyone’s guess.)

The Inky wingnuttery has been relentless; yesterday, Smerky told us that political correctness is causing the current baby boom in this country (not to rival the post WWII “surge,” if you will, but still statistically significant), and today, Former Senator Eye of Mordor criticizes Barack Obama twice for knowing how to use a TelePrompTer (here).

He also says…

Obama doesn't limit his denial of human rights just to babies in the womb. When he was an Illinois state senator, it was within his pay grade to vote against the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (a bill I authored that passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate). It prohibits the killing of a child after it is born.

Until last week, Obama contended that he never voted against such a bill. He even called those of us who said he did liars. Now, his campaign concedes that Obama voted against - and was the only senator to speak against - legislation to stop infanticide.

I don’t know who in the Obama camp said that; Little Ricky of course doesn’t cite his source and I’m not going to do any research for him on that. However, I should point out that he apparently “didn’t get the memo,” because I already chastised his ideological “sister” Christine Flowers for repeating what is at best a half truth by not pointing out that Obama voted “present” for SB 1095 and other iterations in the Illinois legislature here because, though he objected to the “personhood” provisions of the bill, if you will, he did not wish to kill it outright (a compromise bill was achieved in 2005).

And Little Ricky was also unhappy for the Dem presidential nominee for the following:

(Reporter Cathleen) Falsani (of the Chicago Sun-Times) asked the candidate, "What is sin?" Obama's response: "Being out of alignment with my values."

Santorum was unhappy with Obama’s invocation of “(his own personal) values” instead of those of God, you see.

Which is funny because, upon reading this, it’s obvious Former Senator Man-On-Dog embodies neither.

I simply must share with you the latest from conservative icon Richard Viguerie in response to John W. McBush’s search for a running mate (got this in my Email - sorry, no linky; Viguerie is just a tad full of himself, for the uninitiated)…

An Open Letter from Richard Viguerie to John McCain: Conservatives Can Also Play the Maverick Game

(Manassas, Virginia) The following is an open letter from Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, to Senator John McCain in regard to news reports that the Republican presidential candidate may select a vice presidential running mate who supports abortions rights:

Dear Senator McCain:

The buzz in recent days has been that some of your key aides were calling national and state GOP leaders to alert them to the possibility that you were seriously considering a pro-abortion running mate and to take their temperature on such a selection.

As Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal asked: Are you politically “stupid” or do you care little for conservative principles?

It also shows that you don’t understand why the Republican brand has taken a massive beating in recent years. You clearly don’t comprehend why millions of conservatives are off the Republican reservation and sitting on the political sidelines.

Your indication that you’re willing to put a person who has a clear, unequivocal pro-abortion record within a heartbeat of the presidency is alarming.

Pro-life conservatives understand that, to change the laws to protect innocent life, first and foremost, we need good, articulate leadership--from the president and vice president.

To put it as simply and clearly as I can, most Republican leaders at the national and state level have betrayed, abandoned, and sold out the principles that define conservatism. Talk of selecting a pro-abortion liberal Republican (Tom Ridge) or, even worse, a pro-abortion liberal Democrat (Joe Lieberman) drives the Republican brand lower and lower.

Your apparent interest in selecting a running mate who is out of sync ideologically with the vast majority of conservatives reinforces the image of the Republican Party as a party without principle and dedicated to one proposition above all others – the seeking, acquiring, obtaining, and holding onto power.

Senator McCain, you are exceedingly proud of being a political maverick – you wear it as a badge of honor.

Well, poke the base of the Republican Party – the conservatives – in the eye one more time by choosing a pro-abortion vice presidential candidate and conservatives will show you that two can play the maverick game.

Conservatives are people with proudly held principles. We’re now waiting to see if you share our principles.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Viguerie
Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

And here I always thought “conservative principles” was an oxymoron; color me astonished (and I’m so “on board” with Attaturk concerning this possible veep selection).

This Inquirer article tells us the following about Unisys Corporation and its intent to place a sign with its hideous logo atop Two Liberty Place (this and the Viguerie thing are a day or so old, I’ll admit).

The story tells us that Unisys CEO Joseph McGrath has threatened to halt its plans to move employees from its Blue Bell, PA offices downtown because the city zoning board ruled against him.

However, as Inquirer architecture writer Inga Saffron notes here…

The best towers, I'd argue, don't need signs in the sky; the design is the sign. But when companies insist, it's not unreasonable to expect them to earn their bragging rights.

Philadelphia has traditionally allowed "major tenants" to advertise their presence with big signs on their building facades. Usually, they're expected to place those signs just above the first level. But if you look skyward, you'll see more corporate logos than you might expect in our self-effacing, taste-conscious town - from the historic, sans-serif graphic masterpiece of PSFS to the brand new, acid-green ExcelleRx logo that crowns the 20-story Three Parkway building.

Unisys, however, is leasing a mere 31/2 floors at Two Liberty, or 7 percent of the building. It calls these offices its "global corporate headquarters," although it expects to send only 225 of its 1,700 Blue Bell employees to Center City. The token presence means the Fortune 500 company won't pay a whole lot in business taxes, while it's the employees who will bear the extra wage-tax burden. Sounds like Unisys got a great deal on a billboard.

I think that’s “the skinny” here too. And since McGrath and his cohorts have decided to kick and scream about their precious sign (though, again, as Saffron notes, they’ll represent little more than a token presence in Two Liberty Place), the city should require the company to sublet the leased space (McGrath apparently noted that as a possibility) with an outplacement service, so this corporate mistake will have to compete for its employees.

I’d love to see Mayor Nutter send a message like that to these other ego-inflated members of the “pay no price, bear no burden” investor class the next time one of them tries to bully his or her way into getting what they want. It won’t happen, I know, but it would be nice for a change.

Update 10/08/08: So the new Unisys CEO has experience "restructuring companies before selling them off," huh (here)? Looks like they definitely won't get that sign now (or maybe under another name?)

More Anti-Dem Beck Dreck

“The Most Trusted Name In News” granted another opportunity for Glenn Beck to spew his drivel today against the Democrats (here). And while I don’t intend to reply all of what he said (even if I wanted to, I couldn’t, because he doesn’t source his claims so I could detect from which bodily orifice he obtained them), I do want to address three points in particular…

…instead of traveling to Denver, Colorado, and reporting on the Democratic National Convention in a fancy suit like a real show, I get to watch the speeches at my house in my boxers. Sorry for that image. Here are my impressions of some of the noteworthy quotes from the convention so far, which I observed from a safe distance.

Nancy Pelosi: "I am very proud of the Democrats in Congress."

Never mind that no Congress in the past 20 years has passed fewer public laws than this one, according to the Wall Street Journal. How could they?

They are spending one quarter of their work week debating and passing symbolic measures such as creating National Watermelon Month. The Journal says no Congress in the past two decades has proposed more symbolic resolutions than this one -- 1,900, for those of you keeping score at home.

Oh yes, that’s one of the new freeper talking points about the 110th Congress (and here’s the column in the Murdoch Street Journal from which it originated).

But it’s a funny thing: according to this link listing public laws passed by prior Congresses as well as this one, I was able to obtain the following totals…

108th 1st Session – 8
108th 2nd Session – 4
109th 1st Session – 8
109th 2nd Session – 10
110th 1st Session – 6
110th 2nd Session – 6

As you can see, the Beck/Journal claim isn’t even correct because the 110th Congress (which, it should be noted, has not concluded) has already passed the same amount of public laws as the 108th, and that would be 12 (granted, the horrid 109th passed more, but what do you expect when the same party controlled all branches of our government?).

Further, the 110th, as noted here, broke the record for the highest number of roll call votes in U.S. congressional history last October!

Continuing…

Hillary Clinton: "John McCain doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis."

She must have missed the update that this number dropped by over a million. While it's still too high, I doubt she would have missed the news if it had risen.

She also missed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, that 37 percent of the uninsured live in households making more than $50,000 a year, most of which can afford health insurance.

Twenty percent aren't even citizens of this country. One in three are eligible for government insurance, but aren't enrolled. So, while our health care is far from perfect, it's much better than Hillary wants you to believe.

Concerning those “households making more than $50,000 a year,” this post tells us that…

…a household at the $50,000 income level with family health insurance coverage is paying over a quarter of its income into the health care system.

…

After you’ve finished gasping in surprise at the share of your income that is already going into health care, you may wonder where all that money goes. One answer is that the United States has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world, including over 1,500 different companies, each offering multiple plans, each with its own marketing program and enrollment procedures, its own paperwork and policies, its CEO salaries, sales commissions, and other non-clinical costs—and, of course, if it is a for-profit company, its profits. Compared to the overhead costs of the single-payer approach, this fragmented system takes almost 25 cents more out of every health care dollar for expenses other than actually providing care.

Of the additional overhead in the current U.S. system, approximately half is borne by doctors’ offices and hospitals, which are forced to maintain large billing and negotiating staffs to deal with all the plans. By contrast, under Canada’s single-payer system (which is run by the provinces, not by the federal government), each medical specialty organization negotiates once a year with the nonprofit payer for each province to set fees, and doctors and hospitals need only bill that one payer.

Of course, the United States already has a universal, single-payer health care program: Medicare. Medicare, which serves the elderly and people with disabilities, operates with overhead costs equal to just 3% of total expenditures, compared to 15% to 25% overhead in private health programs. Since Medicare collects its revenue through the IRS, there is no need to collect from individuals, groups, or businesses. Some complexity remains—after all, Medicare must exist in the fragmented world that is American health care—but no matter how creative the opponents of single-payer get, there is no way they can show convincingly how the administrative costs of a single-payer system could come close to the current level.

Some opponents use current U.S. government expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid to arrive at frightening cost estimates for a universal single-payer health care system. They may use Medicare’s $8,568 per person, or $34,272 for a family of four (2006). But they fail to mention that Medicare covers a very atypical, high-cost slice of the U.S. population: senior citizens, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and people with disabilities, including diagnoses such as AIDS and end-stage renal disease. Or they use Medicaid costs—forgetting to mention that half of Medicaid dollars pay for nursing homes, while the other half of Medicaid provides basic health care coverage, primarily to children in low-income households, at a cost of only about $1,500 a year per child.

Hillary Clinton has forgotten more about the health insurance crisis in this country than Glenn Beck will ever know.

And finally…

Joe Biden: "Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history ... John (McBush) wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks."

Here is the justification behind this talking point:

1.) John McCain wants to cut corporate income taxes for all companies.
2.) Oil companies are companies.

That's it.

Actually, here is the justification behind this fact (a lot more than a talking point)…

According to a study conducted by the Center for American Progress, “The McCain plan would deliver approximately $170 billion a year in tax cuts to corporations, including some corporations that are very large and profitable. Just one of the proposals—cutting the corporate rate from 35 percent to 25 percent—would cut taxes for five largest U.S. oil companies by $3.8 billion a year.” [Center for American Progress, 3/27/08]

While I still have to be sold somewhat on Biden as the VP nominee, I know his plusses far outweigh his minuses, and on this occasion, he hit the bull’s eye, as it were (give or take $.2 billion).

Actually, after reading this, it makes me feel good knowing that Beck plans to “keep his distance” from the Democrats.

If only he would extend that favor to everyone else.

A Campaign Of Ideas? It's "Greek" To McBush

This post from the LA Times blog describes a truly silly development from the Repug nominee for president (R-Too Many Homes)…

Reporters covering Barack Obama are getting style tips from an unexpected source: the McCain campaign.

John McCain spokesman Brian Rogers on Wednesday sent out an illustrated "style guide." It includes detailed directions of how to select and properly wrap a toga -- yes, a toga -- as well as instructions on where to don one: Obama's nomination acceptance speech, which he'll give at Denver's Mile High stadium tonight.

Why the sudden interest in Classical haute couture? Hint: It's not about attire but satire.

See, McBush and his people think it’s funny that Obama’s stage tonight will feature “a podium in front of a backdrop featuring neo-classical columns,” as the LA Times blog tells us, and they’re trying to use that as an excuse to prolong this idiotic “cult of personality” theme about Obama, even though writer Kate Linthicum points out that Dubya accepted the Repug nomination in 2004 against a very similar stage.

This criticism isn’t surprising to me, really, since I think the McBush campaign has “ancient” themes anyway, if you will (meaning tired, stale, trite, overdone…feel free to come up with your own similar adjective).

And considering the fact that foreign policy is supposedly a strength of the Repug Arizona senator, even though he mixed up the timing of the “Sunni awakening” and the “surge” here, stated that Gen. David Petraeus was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff here (that’s Admiral Mike Mullen’s title), stated that there was an Iraq/Pakistan border here, and stated at least twice that Iran’s Shiites were helping Iraq’s Sunni insurgents (here is one example), it’s hard to tell whether McBush’s campaign at this point is a Greek tragedy or a Roman farce.

Update: Gosh, I don't know what to say about this - I'm all choked up. Maybe as a "kiss and make up" kind of a gift, McBush could let Dubya have one of his homes.

Wednesday Stuff

I heard Patrick Murphy on WHYY in these parts (good stuff on Iraq and our vets), and The Big Dog rocked also (loved the line about our country leading by "the power of our example rather than the example of our power," or words to that effect), and Biden did his thing also, but for me, the star of the night was John Kerry, and this is a big part of the reason why...



...Descendents ("I'm The One"; time for a quick "mosh" before the big speech tomorrow).

A Bushco Boomlet, Ready “Orr” Not

I tell you, you really have to hand it to Michael Smerconish; if you’re looking for someone to completely obfuscate and demagogue on a vital issue facing our country, he’s your guy. And he provides more evidence of that in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer here, in which he tells us…

Newly updated census data confirm that the United States is in the midst of unprecedented population growth. Today, we are a nation of about 305 million, and in three decades we will reach the 400-million mark.

Left undeterred, this will be the single greatest growth spurt in our history, as we expand by 135 million additional people by 2050.

I’ve been trying to figure out how Smerky would “deter” a man and woman from “begattin’,” as they used to call it; would he stand next to them with a megaphone and shout at them, telling them to knock it off in that annoying, high-pitched nasally whine of his? Or would he do something similar to that, as he did here?

Continuing…

…what's really driving the population growth is significantly higher birth rates among immigrants and the continued influx of foreigners. That's where political correctness kicks in and politicians go mum, including the presidential candidates.

Oh come on, now; you REALLY didn’t think Smerky was interested in trying to solve this, did you? Not at the expense of plugging his pet cause one more time, anyway. And you also didn’t think he would actually acknowledge the fact that what derailed common-sense immigration reform in this country – something that could have addressed this issue somewhat, if it were crafted with some imagination – was the self-righteous, high-decibel blathering of the wingnuts who typically listen to his show, did you?

Good. I didn’t think so.

And despite what Smerky claims, “non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too,” as noted here.

The story also tells us…

Fertility levels tend to decline as women become better educated and gain career opportunities, and as they postpone childbirth until they are older. Experts say those factors, along with the legalization of abortion and the expansion of contraception options, explain why the U.S. fertility rate dropped to its lowest point -- about 1.7 -- in 1976.

But while fertility declines persisted in many other developed nations, the United States saw the reverse: The fertility rate climbed to 2 in 1989 and has hovered around that mark since then, according to federal birth data.

Kohler and others say the difference has more to do with culture than race. For example, white American women have more children than white European -- even though many nations in Europe have more family-friendly government policies on parental leave and child care.

I readily acknowledge that this is a complicated issue, and there are a lot of factors involved. As nearly as I can figure out from my admittedly limited research, geographic preference plays a role also, with the south, Midwest, and western areas of this country likely to have more children per family.

But please allow me to fill in another piece of this puzzle.

This Think Progress post tells us about Dr. Susan Orr, appointed by Dubya last October to oversee the federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). However, after less than a year on the job, Dr. Orr (who, as noted, referred to contraceptives as “part of the culture of death”) quit (and in typical Bushco fashion, she fought funding for birth control methods every way possible).

And returning to Smerky for a minute, he tells us in his column that he sought advice to combat “political correctness” from Frank Luntz, of all people (again, Smerky believes that’s the problem, instead of the fact that many people in this country lack the knowledge, methods and materials to protect themselves against accidental pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases). And Luntz says…

"You need to personalize and humanize it to the community, so that you don't ask the question generically. You ask the question: How do we add more people to New York, to Miami, to L.A., when they're already packed to the brink? Where's the housing come from? Where's the transportation come from? Be specific. Don't talk about infrastructure . . . infrastructure nobody gets, no one understands."

Of course not (that is, unless the odd bridge or two tends to collapse in Minnesota every now and then).

So what do we take away from this latest bit of high-minded literary claptrap from another of the Inky’s moral scolds? Fight political correctness, blame the immigrants, don’t trouble yourself with details, and end up in circumstances such as this (“gosh, but it was OK in the movies”…).

Such is life under President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History (145 days and counting, people)…

When We Become The Enemy

The New York Times tells us here today that...

In March or April 2007, three noncommissioned United States Army officers, including a first sergeant, a platoon sergeant and a senior medic, killed four Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head as the men stood handcuffed and blindfolded beside a Baghdad canal, two of the soldiers said in sworn statements.

…

After removing the blindfolds and handcuffs, the three soldiers shoved the four bodies into the canal, rejoined other members of their unit waiting in nearby vehicles and drove back to their combat outpost in southwest Baghdad, the statements said.

As I read the horrific details of this story, my mind kept coming back over and over again to one name, and that is Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp.

As this New York Observer story tells us of Beauchamp’s tales that appeared in The New Republic (hat tip to Media Matters for the link)...

The stories Scott Thomas (Beauchamp’s alias) told were almost too bad to be true.

There was the Iraqi boy whose tongue is cut out for talking to Americans; the dog eating a corpse lying in the street; the troops mocking and sexually harassing a woman whose face had been damaged by an I.E.D.; and the soldier who wore a part of an Iraqi boy’s skull under his helmet.

And on July 18 (The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb) said so, asking other military bloggers to check out the stories of the anonymous columnist and find out whether they were true.

“Is it possible that American soldiers would be so sadistic?” Goldfarb asked rhetorically, referring to the mocking of the I.E.D. victim and then, in turn, to each of the stories told in TNR’s “Baghdad Diarist” column.

Soon, the right-wing blogosphere had taken up the cause. Bloggers exploded with rage that an anonymous soldier might be telling tall tales that maligned the dignity of American troops serving in Iraq. Only, it was not completely clear where the doubts were coming from initially—other troops found the stories implausible and wrote in to Mr. Goldfarb and others to say so; to many, the stories were simply too upsetting to be possible.

Just to jog our memories, the Beauchamp story was one full of gray areas, much like war itself. Some of his claims did not hold up to examination (e.g., the burned woman Beauchamp described was in Kuwait before he was stationed in Iraq). And even though five other members of Beauchamp’s company corroborated his anecdotes, the Army Public Affairs office supposedly proved the allegations to be false (according to Goldfarb, though I give him no credence). And The New Republic basically was left with egg on its face over the episode, even though senior publication staffers worked diligently to validate the story (perhaps to cover up some sloppy initial “chain of custody” maintenance on the story, as noted here).

All I know is that this is yet another product of the harrowing, torturous treatment our military has endured in Mesopotamia. Yes, those who committed this crime should received the full weight of the law in their sentence, but I somehow can’t help but feel that a sense of willful blindness we may have towards what our military still endures over there – “success” of the surge or no – makes us complicit to a degree in the fact that they’re stuck in conditions where this behavior could take place (complicit because we’re not all screaming our heads off to start getting them out of there, and I don’t absolve myself when I say that).

And another thing - Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp suddenly looks a lot more credible.

Some End-Of-Summer Labor Pains

The Murdoch Street Journal tells us here (a few days before the holiday) that…

…rewriting federal law to promote union organizing is now near the top of the Democratic agenda. The main vehicle is "card check" legislation, which would eliminate the requirement for secret ballots in union elections. Unable to organize workers when employees can vote in privacy, unions want to expose those votes to peer pressure, and inevitably to public intimidation. This would arguably be the biggest change to federal labor law since the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. The Democratic House passed card check last year, and Mr. Obama has pledged his support. With a few more Senators, it might pass.

Card check is merely the start. Next on the agenda is a campaign to repeal "right to work" laws in the 22 U.S. states that have them. Right to work laws allow employees to decide for themselves whether to join or financially support a union. Former Michigan Congressman David Bonior told a union event in Denver on Monday that limiting right to work laws is essential both to lifting union membership and promoting more Democratic political victories. He pointed out that John Kerry didn't win a single right to work state in 2004, while Al Gore won only one -- Iowa -- and only by a few thousand votes in 2000.

As noted here in a post crediting Oregon Senator Ron Wyden for supporting card check, (and criticizing fellow Repug Senator Gordon Smith for opposing it), card check “(allows) for certification of a union when a majority of workers signed cards designating the union as their bargaining representative.” Such transparency is needed to ensure that employers don’t use secrecy to threaten workers who wish to join a union (actually the complete opposite scenario of the one described by the Journal).

And this AFL-CIO post tells us that “right to work” laws (“right to work for less” is more accurate) actually cheat dues-paying union members because “(they) say unions must represent all eligible employees, whether they pay dues or not. This forces unions to use their time and members’ dues money to provide union benefits to free riders who are not willing to pay their fair share.” And by weakening unions, it makes it harder for them to ensure workplace safeguards for their members.

Also, it should be noted that federal law already protects workers who don’t wish to join unions, so let’s set that “straw man” alight right now, OK?

There are many reasons why the Journal opposes unions, despite their two-faced claim that “if workers want to form a union, they have every right to do so.” One of them is because unions oppose “free” trade agreements, which is anathema to our corpocracy. But as I’ve often said, if you can present evidence to me of a job in this country that was replaced in the same industry with a better paying job with better benefits due to a “free” trade agreement, I’d love to hear about it.

This takes you to more information on the “right to work” scam and the 22 states that have fallen victim to it. And it’s not surprising that Democrats have not done well there, since what the party advocates and represents is completely opposite to this anti-union con.

Update 8/31/08: Here's more from Pete Dreier.