Obama fights back

I have mixed feelings about the remarks Obama made about Boehner at a town hall meeting. I'm happy that he's fighting forcefully against the GOP on their own ground. It's a far cry from the placid bi-partisan platitudes of a year ago. But I'm sad our political discourse has been reduced to sparring by meaningless soundbyte. And even sadder that such a large percentage of our population prefers it that way.

On the hand I'm amused that Joe Scarborough took his own swipe at the Boehner this morning, effectively calling him a lazy drunk.

"After five o'clock, six o'clock at night he's disengaged -- at best," Scarborough continued. "You can see him around town. He does not have, let's say, the work hours of Newt Gingrich. ... Every Republican I talk to says that John Boehner, by five or six at night, you can see him at bars."

Of course it means nothing coming from Morning Joe. He plays the same game as Tweety does, alternately trash talking one party or the other, more by design than principle. Their inner script is calculated towards ratings, not on firmly held convictions. Also useful for establishing their neutrality, since they can claim to piss off both sides equally.

That's showbiz I guess but a hell of bad way to inform the electorate.

[ A $5.55 fundraiser. Please help if you can]

Good news -- for banksters

Well here's a shock. After endlessly placating the Republicans and weakening the financial reform bill, two key Republicans are pulling their votes for it. Both Scott Brown and Susan Collins suddenly have severe doubts about whether they can support the bill because of fees that would be charged to the big banks. Who could have predicted that would happen? Much more reaction at Memeorandum.

Meanwhile, there's one sector showing job growth. Those same poor banksters who cry they would be ruined by kicking a little more in the federal treasury.

Firms are adding jobs for the first time in two years, rebuilding businesses cut during the financial crisis and offering guaranteed payouts to lure top bankers. In New York, 6,800 financial-industry positions were added from the end of February through May, the largest three-month increase since 2008, according to the New York State Department of Labor.

Assuming "guaranteed payouts" means more of those multi-million dollar bonuses. Via John Cole who remembers those not so long ago days when these same guys were threatening to "Go Galt" and take middle class jobs instead. Somebody remind me why we didn't let these firms go bankrupt in the first place?

[ Please contribute to my emergency $5.55 fundraiser if you can. Sad story here.]

Ireland reflects reality of austerity cuts

Sobering article in NYT today describing the outcome of Ireland's austerity cuts. They embraced the cost cutting fever long before Greece and the results aren't pretty. They're in much worse condition than they were before and in fact the cuts are costing them more than it would have if they had spent money keeping their people employed. Worse yet, reversing course and trying stimulus spending now that the see the cuts didn't work is no longer an option. They're in such bad shape they don't have any money to spend.


I have a post at DetNews with links to the expert reactions and as I said there, much of the rhetoric coming from the deficit hawks seems to be based on a desire to punish "undeserving" recipients of government largess. A lot of the high profile commentators are well off and won't particularly suffer, but those on the middle rungs of the ladder who have been seduced by rage and fear into supporting this ill-fated strategy, are going end up feeling almost as much pain as those at the bottom before it's all over.

[ Emergency $5.55 fundraiser. Please help if you can.]

Tales from the Gulf

Oil on the water as far as the eye can see along the Mississippi shoreline, but not a single oil skimmer in sight.

People laughed when Kevin Costner came forward, but trial runs proved his centrifuges work and BP ordered 32 of them. Good to see Costner finally get some respect and a return on his 20 years of investment.

And this is pretty shocking. The dispersants appear to be the wild card in the clean up operations. They were used in Alaska on the Exxon Valdez spill and nearly everyone who worked on the that clean up is dead. Average age of death was 51 years old.

[ Emergency $5.55 fundraiser. Please help if you can]

The Unflappable Nancy Pelosi

I have to agree with Gail Collins that Nancy Pelosi doesn't get enough credit for what's she's done since she took the Speaker's gavel.

... Pelosi is an idealist working in the practical now. She genuinely sees her party as a vehicle for good and her pragmatism is not the least bit cynical. She is the most powerful woman in the country, the most fearless person on Capitol Hill and on track to be one of the most productive speakers in history.

She's done a lot to restore some semblence of ethics in the House, against her own interests for the greater good and she's delivered much better bills than Harry Reid. She's gracefully endured the most vile smears and gets the job done to the extent it's possible. She's really one of the best liberals we have in office right now. I sent her a thank you note today. I hope others will too.


[ I'm in real trouble. Please help if you can]

Shredding the social safety net

I sat in on a conference call when billionaire Peter Peterson first launched his propaganda machine, America Speaks. It was clear from the inception, that his intention was to shred the social safety programs like Social Security and Medicare. I intended only to listen but no one was talking, so I started asking a lot of questions. He didn't take it well.

I'm pleased to see now that he's taken the show on the road, the participants in his town meeting type panels, aren't buying the propaganda either.

UPDATE: The propaganda may have wound up being too subtle. Via the America Speaks twitter feed, the top three options at the meetings selected by the participants were: raising the limit on taxable earnings in Social Security, a 5% tax increase on people making over $1 million dollars a year, a carbon tax, and a tax on financial transactions. Whoops!

Thinking the tour is not working out the way he hoped it would. But unfortunately, Peterson is also on the President's deficit reduction committee, so it's not going to be a huge setback for him. He may be failing to sell his narrative to the people, but since he's got the ear of the policy makers, he's still a very dangerous man.

[ I'm in deep trouble. Please help if you can]

I am so really screwed

I am so screwed friends. I'm so desperate for a job I applied yesterday to be a server in a ribs joint for 2 nights a week. The good news is it was a very short application. The bad news is before I left the woman who took it, asked for my birthday. She made it pretty clear that I'm too old for the job. That's not even legal of course, but who's going to sue over a two night job? I didn't get the good bartending job either. I see the ad is out of the paper.

But that's not the worst part. I got a letter from the bank. They cut off my credit card. I was depending on that to pay my bills this month. I won't even be able to afford my medications now, much less buy food. Not that the food is so important. I don't eat much anyway and I have enough in the cupboards to last a while. Besides I'm so upset I haven't been to able to eat anyway. I can barely hold down the food. Not to mention the heat is making me sick. I haven't turned on my AC because I was trying to keep the electric bill down. It averages from 85 to 90 in the apartment and it's too hot to eat anything but pasta salad. It doesn't help that I haven't been able to sleep more than five hours for a week since I was already freaking about the job situation. I wake up in a panic. Sometimes I vomit. I lost five pounds this week.

I don't think I've ever felt this desperate in my life. I have nothing worth selling to raise cash. How I got here is a long story that I'm not ready to tell yet. All I can say for right now is I made a lot of decisions based on promises that weren't kept.

At this point I have no choice but to plead for help. I know times are tough for everyone, and some of you have already helped me before, but I'm hoping people can hit my paypal button and give me $5.55. Why 555? Because paypal takes the extra change to process the donation. Of course any amount will help and if you would rather just send five bucks in the mail, email me for my address.

Thanks in advance if you can help me.

How they would govern

Love this.



[via Anne Laurie]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

So who's the dirty rat?

Not sure why it's so shocking to everyone that Dave Weigel trash talked Drudge for misrepresenting his posts or the guy who outed his girlfriend's personal information at the Washington Examiner. Who wouldn't have under the same circumstances and it was supposed to be a very private, confidential listserv where people were free to speak openly.

Dave often pisses me off with his commentary but he's usually fair about what he says. He's surely no liberal, as is being said around the winger sites. He's a glibertarian at best but he was good fit for that beat. But the real villian here is the scumbag who leaked the emails and FishBowl DC for printing them. FishBowl now saying Dave is going to resign, but I'm not going to give those slimers any more traffic. If it's true, I assume Dave will announce it himself soon enough.

Meanwhile, John Cole weighs in and points out that many commentators have made much worse remarks on the WaPo's public pages, including their star insider Dana Milbank who called Hillary Clinton a bitch. He didn't lose his job over it.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

GOP kills job bill

Third time was not the charm. The Republicans succeeded in their obstruction and the jobs bill is dead. Not coming back to the floor. Not that you could tell from the majority of the tradmed coverage how it happened. In fact the headlines mainly take up the GOP narrative and blame the Democrats for its failure. As Steve Benen points out, the only major newspaper that got the lede right was got the lede right was LAT.

Still thinking, since Harry Reid can't seem to outsmart them procedurally, that the Democrats' best hope it to make clear that the GOPers are preventing an up or down vote. As I recall, the GOPers used that meme themselves very successfully when they were in power.

Of course Harry could make them actually, you know, filibuster for real, so the voters could witness the obstruction in more tangible way. But I guess that would be too much trouble because the Democrats would have to be there too.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Great Minds?

Uncanny. Steve Benen posted this at 3:35 today.

STABENOW: REPUBLICANS 'WANT THIS ECONOMY TO FAIL'.... With Senate Republicans poised to kill the tax-extenders/jobs bill today -- it has 58 supporters, who will be denied a chance to vote, up or down, on the legislation -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) participated in a conference call this afternoon, and was understandably outraged by the GOP tactics.

"It is very clear that the Republicans in the Senate want this economy to fail. They see that things are beginning to turn around.... In cynical political terms, it doesn't serve them in terms of their election interests if things are beginning to turn around."
... Of particular interest, Stabenow said Senate Republicans are "counting on the fact that no one knows what's going on here."

At 2:35 today I posted this at the Detroit News. I love those little synchronicities on the internets.

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Republicans are sabotaging the economy

There's no question about it. It's clear that as the largest part of their election strategy, Republicans are sabotaging the economic recovery. They know the average voter doesn't understand how the filibuster works and will blame the Democrats for any economic failure. These people are monsters. Although they pretend to be open to compromise, there is no concession large enough to get them to vote for anything that will benefit the economy because the Democrats would get credit for it.

This jobs bill is criticial and the Dems already watered it down to placate them to the point where it would hardly be effective. And that's the Dem's failure. The pattern is well established at this point. I would think a better strategy for them is write strong bills, sell the bills to the public, letting them know exactly how they will help and then refuse to compromise at all. And every time the GOPers filibuster they should get on the TV and announce that the bill failed because the GOPers wouldn't allow it to come to a vote on the floor.

Of course that's assuming the establisment media would report it. Which probably wouldn't happen. The tradmed would do the he said/ she said and leave the average voter just as confused as ever. But still if the Democrats just kept to the same message every time, the GOP is not allowing an up or down vote, it could work.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Defense Spending on the Table

This is somewhat good news.

A growing number of centrist Democrats say they’re open to trimming Pentagon spending in the face of record budget deficits and mounting public debt.

Well past time to look at the Pentagon's annual $550 billion budget. And I assume that doesn't include "emergency appropriations." Since it makes up more than half the country’s discretionary spending, it would be good place to look for savings.

But of course, not all the Blue Dogs on board with it.

“No,” Blue Dog Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) responded when asked if he agreed with Hoyer’s stance on the defense budget.

“A lot of the things he said I was not in agreement with,” Altmire said. “The first thing we need to look at are cuts to social programs.”

Sure, let's make those lazy poor people suffer some more since they did so well during the Bush boom. Since his personal worth was between $266013 and $740000 in 2007, why should he worry?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

A win for progressive liberals

I still have some concerns about whether she will be the stronger candidate against Burr, but I'm glad Elaine Marshall won the Democratic primary in North Carolina. I liked Cal, he worked hard, but he was the establishment's hand picked choice and she won decisively. It sent a good message to the DC Dems. And it seems they heard it. National committee is talking to her now and Cal's already pledged his support.

In any event, I'm happy to support her. Even happier to finally have a candidate. Runoff elections make you wait a long time.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Raining Oil? - Updated

Bad day in the Gulf. The underwater robot broke the containment cap and they had to remove it for repairs. Hearing the gusher is spewing harder than ever.

Sinfonian alerts me to a Pensacola Beach just closed to swimming as heavy oil washes up onshore. Heartbreaking to see the black breakers rolling over that pristine white beach, leaving behind it's toxic stew.

And this video via HuffPo just starting to make the rounds. This was taken in Louisiana, well away from the beaches.



Suppose it could be just road oil, but there sure does appear to be a lot of it.

Update: This guy thinks the video is a fake. I have to say my gut reaction was the same. It's very possible they staged it. Don't really see how the thick oil could get absorbed in the clouds or it would have happened before. But the dispersants is a different story and there is a MMS report that says the oil sheen could actually enter the rain system. So who knows. The only thing clear is this is a mess and it doesn't look like it's getting any better.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Not a change in policy

Watched President Obama's presser. It's done. McChrystal is out; Petraeus is in. Really didn't want to hear this from POTUS: "This is a change in personnel but it is not a change in policy."

Recycling the same failed policy, headed by the same General who engineered that policy in the first place isn't going to get us anywhere. But then again, perhaps there's still hope it will all change. It's not like Obama could have fired McChrystal and announced a new policy at the same presser. And on the bright side, at least there's some buzz building again for getting the hell out of there altogether.

Don't really see why they keep putting off the inevitable. This is never going to look like a win, no matter what we do.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The impending demise of CNN

Once it was a great news station. It makes me a little sad to see CNN commit slow-motion suicide.

Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Kathleen Parker will co-host a new hour long CNN primetime news program starting in the fall as the nation prepares for the 2010 midterm election, the network announced Wednesday morning.
The yet-to-be-named “roundtable discussion” program will air at 8 p.m. ET replacing Campbell Brown.

Fair warning. Grab a bucket before you try to read the rest of that link in case the heaves get the better of you. Also, on a related note, I saw a rumor on twitter yesterday that Rupert Murdoch is trying to buy CNN outright. That sound you hear is the death knell tolling...

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Let's just leave Afghanistan

I try to avoid posting "What Obama Should Do" advice. I'm pretty sure he doesn't need me to tell him. But I do agree this McChrystal brouhaha presents a golden opportunity.

Obama should make it now. He should use McChrystal’s transgression to install a general who will publicly and unambiguously declare that America’s days in Afghanistan are numbered. He should use this moment not just to show that he won’t tolerate insubordination, but to take control of his foreign policy, as Truman did in 1951. Calling McChrystal on the carpet isn’t the point; the point is ending a war that could wreck Obama’s presidency.

We've been there too long and it's a loser's game to stay. Corporations don't need us in occupation to exploit the "new," that is really an old well known, discovery of all those minerals. They can easily buy off the corrupt government to get the rights. It's simply not worth the blood and treasure we're expending there. McChrystal's gaffe kicked open the exit gates. I really hope Obama seizes the opportunity to use them. [via]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The OILgarchy rules

Okay, this is really creepy. Corporations are not even pretending that the government runs the country anymore. A local Louisiana cop, along with BP security guy pulls over an environmental activist, and allows BP security to question him and confiscate personal items. Then the activist was followed by two unmarked cars for at least 20 minutes.

All the guy did was film himself standing across the street from the BP/Deepwater Horizon response command building. He was not on BP property. It doesn't appear the building was even in the shot. But BP doesn't like anybody filming anywhere near them so...

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Noooooooooooo NOLA - Updated

This is crazy. A federal judge in NOLA just lifted the moratorium on deepwater drilling, ruling against the Obama administration's temporary ban. Assume there were some legal grounds to do so, but how insane to lift it even as the gusher continues to spew millions of barrels of oil into the gulf. They never should have been allowed to drill in the first place with such unproven, and now obviously under-tested technology. Unsurprisingly, the White House will immediately appeal.

That being said, I think I'm okay with shallow water drilling for existing wells. The tech has been proven and apparently pretty much works. Not that any spill would be good, but they know how to contain it and people do need to earn a living and like it or not, we do need oil to run the country. Also, one might assume that the operators will be extra careful at this point.

But BP should surely never be allowed to operate a rig in US waters, ever again. Thanks to reader Bryan for passing on this link to more proof of BP's criminal, cost-cutting negligence.

Update: This just in. The judge who overturned the drilling moratorium holds stock in drilling companies. A lot of stock apparently, including Transocean, who was operating the exploded BP rig.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

McChrystal stars not so shiny - Updated

Oh boy. Guess General McChrystal is not in the Navy so maybe he never heard that old expression, "loose lips sink ships," and careers. His mindset is pretty revealing in terms of what's wrong with the Obama's administration's Afghanistan policy. While I was willing to give them all the benefit of the doubt, I thought it was a mistake to let the same people run the show after they pretty much screwed it up for eight years. Catch all the commentary at Memeorandum.

Addendum: Hearing that Politico, the news org so "cutting edge" and "important" that it got a seat on the Pulitizer Prize committee, stole the Rolling Stone interview in its entirety without linking back. I understand they've pulled it now, but of course they already got the traffic boost they were looking for by posting it in the first place. But yeah, let's have a blogger's ethics panel.

Update: Rolling Stone has now posted the article on-line. The editor says he had many more damning quotes that couldn't be used because they were off the record.

PressSec Gibbs hints that McChrystal might be fired and speculation running high on the internets that this will happen. Finding the whole thing rather jaw-dropping myself. And no, there is not an analogy between this and Shinseki being fired by the Bush adminstration. Shinseki didn't trash talk Bush and his admin, he simply gave a realistic assessment of the costs in response to a question. Not even in the same ballpark.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Zombie lies

Mr. Krugman is on a roll today. This afternoon he hits the living dead known as the Deficit Commission or perhaps we should call it the Social Security Death Panel, since they appear to be a hit squad tasked with destroying the system as we know it. Their chief weapon being the zombie lie that the fund is about to run out of money. Krugman dispatches the falsehood easily.

OK, so two views, both of some use. But here’s what you can’t do: you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that for the last 25 years, when Social Security ran surpluses, well, that didn’t mean anything, because it’s just part of the federal government — but when payroll taxes fall short of benefits, even though there’s lots of money in the trust fund, Social Security is broke.

And bear in mind what happens when payroll receipts fall short of benefits: NOTHING. No new action is required; the checks just keep going out.

This is no small concern. The commission is rife with members whose lives are dedicated to eliminating the social safety net, like the odious billionaire Peter G. Peterson. Furthermore, they are unlikely to looking at more obvious targets like unnecessary defense spending when the CEO of a major defense contractor joins forces with him on the commission.

Bad move Mr. President.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Eric Cantor loses bet against US bonds

In case you missed this, it's somewhat amusing. Eric Cantor invested heavily in a fund that bet against U.S. government bonds. He's apparently as inept at investing as he is at governance. "The fund is down 31 percent this year."

But Matt Yglesias asked a very good question. Even though Cantor is doing it wrong, it's obvious that our Congresspeople have the ability and the incentive to legislate in a way that would improve their personal investments. Why isn't there a requirement that they place their investments in some kind of blind trust when they take office?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

A new view on the Gulf gusher

The news about the Gulf gusher doesn't change. Every day there's new evidence of BP's criminal negligence and the gusher just keeps spewing more oil into the Gulf. Probably much more than we've been told. And I remain convinced no one knows how to stop it and it will keep poisoning the sea for a very long time.
Meanwhile, I ran across Richard Shephard's website while reading about the latest developments. He hails from my long ago hometown of Cummington, MA. He's a freelancer who went to the Gulf to chronicle the disaster, and has been doing some great aerial photography. He also writes blog posts to go with the photos. He's an interesting guy.

A Briton by birth, Shephard, 53, has led a varied work life. He served seven years in the British Special Forces, went on to serve on British and Canadian oil exploration and drilling rigs and captained private yachts around the world. All those experiences have given him insight into the leak and the human response to it, he said.

Shephard gets his aerial photos using what he describes on his website as a "microlight backpack aircraft."

I never met him since he seems to arrived long after I left Cummington, but I wish I had. He sounds like my kind of people. [Quotes from Daily Hampshire Gazette - sub. only]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Have to spend money to make money

The Democratic party is apparently never going to learn that caving into the fearmongering narratives of the GOP is a loser's game. Take their sudden terror of deficit spending for an example. Paul Krugman points out the obvious.

Penny-pinching at a time like this isn’t just cruel; it endangers the nation’s future. And it doesn’t even do much to reduce our future debt burden, because stinting on spending now threatens the economic recovery, and with it the hope for rising revenues.

Meanwhile, the Dems are dithering over passing a budget resolution because they fear the red ink will scuttle their re-election chances. As if a tanking economy won't?

One might think that they could read the polls and see the public supports spending that creates jobs. They care more about jobs than the deficit. It may be too late to pass anything that will have enough effect by November, but the Democrats would do well to think in the long term. If they ignore the GOPers and pour money into the economy so it's moving again by 2012, it would help them and us. Instead they're cowering in fear of the GOP's false narratives. Pathetic.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

When the left was paranoid

I'm off to spend the afternoon with my Dad so I'm just going to repost something I wrote for the DetNews that's been on my mind for a while:

Commenter Jerry L brings up a point I've been thinking about lately. It's true that some of the paranoid fantasies of the far right sound very much like the fears liberals expressed during the Bush administration. The difference is, it was the Bush administration that put all the policies in place under the theory of unitary executive power.

It was Bush who dismantled habeas corpus. It was Bush who destroyed Posse Comitatus. It was under Bush that the surveillance state was created, civil liberties were diluted and the power for the president to designate anyone, even an American citizen, as an enemy combatant who could be held indefinitely without due process was allowed. It was the Bush administration who gave Halliburton a contract to create detention camps in case of an "immigration emergency." In other words, Bush gave us good reason to be paranoid.

Liberals pleaded with the conservatives to join us in fighting these things. We warned them that the next president would likely be a Democrat and inherit these powers and programs. As I recall, conservatives called us treasonous for criticizing Bush and "stuck on stupid" for suggesting that such precedents were dangerous. Back then they believed Rove when he said there would be a permanent Republican majority.

The far right conservatives are now threatening violence over things that fear might happen, not programs that are actively being created. They want to abolish constitutional amendments and established protections they don't agree with. But they want to create those changes they prefer by force if they can't win a majority by election. Liberals didn't do that. I can't think of one instance where a leading liberal media figure or a Democratic party leader suggested that the solution should be an armed insurrection. Dissent is still patriotic, but calls for a civil war over political losses, simply isn't.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Real Journalism

By a student reporter.



The establishment media could take a lesson from this kid. Dancing Dave, Jake, Tweety, are you listening? [via Glenzilla]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

No more secret holds?

Finally some good news from The Village. At least one Senator is worth her salary.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Saturday she's secured the votes to force a rules change ending the Senate's practice of secret holds.

Long overdue. Only one obstacle to go now.

Whether Reid schedules a vote this year will be key to ending the practice. Bond and Brownback will both leave the Senate at the end of their terms next year, as will Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.), another Republican in support of changing the rule on secret holds.

Harry claims to support the measure so hoping he'll schedule it forthwith. Lord knows since the GOP handed him a dream nutcase opponent in his reelection bid, there's not much other political pressure to put on him at the moment.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Tea Party Black Ops

Some interesting weekend reading. Don't know quite what to make of this long piece in Playboy. It's by an anonymous author who claims to be a K Street Rouge doing black ops for the Tea Party. Some of it reads like a spoof to me, but it does have a ring of credibility for the most part. Couple of the more interesting quotes:

A good piece of mail gets its message across in 10 seconds. Television gives you 30 seconds, maybe. We’re playing to the reptilian brain rather than the logic centers, so we look for key words and images to leverage the intense rage and anxiety of white working-class conservatives. In other words, I talk to the same part of your brain that causes road rage. Ross Perot’s big mistake was his failure to connect his pie charts with the primordial brain. Two years after Perot’s first White House run the GOP figured this out, and thus was born the "angry white man" and with him a 54-seat swing in the House of Representatives. [...]

Causing mayhem is not limited to dealing with the press. We’ve quietly acquired Service Employees International Union shirts to wear at Tea Party rallies. For big labor, that’s like handing out TSA uniforms in Kabul. And at a rally in St. Louis this March, fake SEIU protesters joined the Tea Party protest.

Worth a read in full even if the narrative sort of plays to both sides. [hat tip Southern Beale]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Hmmm, how interesting

No, not this piece on Ann Coulter's failure to make mainstream news. Haven't thought about or listened to her for many years, even when she was still making news. But I'm finding James Joyner's post about it rather fascinating. Is it me or did he just effectively say that Coulter is getting too old to be hot anymore so the wingers have moved on to younger women who do the crazy just as well?

Also thinking that this illustrates something I've believed for a long time. I assume Coulter still has a wingnut fan base, or she wouldn't be getting a soapbox at the big wingnut outlets. Looks to me like she lost her crossover into mainstream news steam when the majority of lefties lost interest in obsessively mocking her. Wingnut blogs also don't have the same influence on the narrative since the left stopped mocking their every post. In other words, attention, snarky or serious, equals influence.

Just saying, but would love to test that theory with Palin and Beck. Something like a month long embargo on linking to any establishment media coverage on Palin and just ignoring Beck altogether. Guess it won't happen though, as long as it drives traffic on both sides.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

He's oh so partisan

Remember the media fetish with bipartisanship during the Bush era? How they labeled every criticism Bush and Cheney made about Democrats, like practically calling them traitors, as partisan? Yeah, I don't either. But that was then. Today The Hill reports that Obama called out the GOP for blocking nearly every single bill of importance and Michael O'Brien's reponse?

It was on these partisan notes that Obama sought to set the stage for a bipartisan meeting on Wednesday at the White House, where he'll look to build consensus with lawmakers on an energy bill that can win enough support to pass through Congress.

Absolutely no mention in the article that what Obama said was -- you know -- true, but was careful to tell us why Republicans didn't like Obama's Oval Office speech. Without labeling their criticism as partisan. And of course this should have been the lede, and wasn't.

"All we ask for is a simple up or down vote," [Obama] said. "That’s what the American people deserve."

Instead it was just thrown in there as an aside. For "balance" I guess.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The butterfly effect

Not sure why this didn't post last night, but here it is now. I'm increasingly convinced the Gulf gusher can't be capped.

"This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," Kessler said.

And nobody knows what kind of monster BP unleashed in the Gulf.

Toxic rain. [via]

It reminds me of that metaphor that starts, "when a butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing..."

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Climate change

I could have simply stolen the graphic, but that doesn't seem right so just click. You won't be sorry. Tole wins the internets today with best political cartoon ever.

Right Wing Welfare

I've often thought about how much easier life would be if I could only have brought myself to become a right wing ideologue. It pays so very well.

Hundreds of influential conservatives gathered Wednesday night at the Kennedy Center to watch political analyst Michael Barone, former FEC commissioner Bradley Smith, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot, and economist John Taylor accept the seventh annual Bradley prizes -- $250,000 awards from the influential Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

As Chait points out, "Basically the Bradley awards are awards for being a member in good standing of the conservative movement. The winners are always orthodox conservatives. And no, nothing like this exists on the liberal side."

Me, I'm still waiting for that check Soros is supposed to be sending...

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Stupid oil spill quotes

I did a post about Barton's apology for the apology at DetNew, so I'm just going to pass on the top ten tone deaf oil spill quotes here. My favorite: Bob Bennett (R-Utah), 6/9, at a press conference: "The bridge to that promised land of renewable energy is built out of fossil fuels."

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

We're so sorry, Tony Hayward

BP's CEO Tony Hayward was called to an investigative hearing before the House Energy Committee for the traditional slice and dice today. Most of the member obliged but not ranking Republican Joe Barton who instead apologized to BP. He told Hayward, "It is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown." [video here].

Of course Barton has received about 1.5 million in campaign donations from the industry during his tenure. And shockingly, his largest donor is a corp directly connected to BP and the exploded rig.

Barton apparently thought he was just pushing the standard party line. Certainly he's one of many GOPers echoing the "slush fund" and "Chicago-style shakedown" narrative. Or trying to frame a voluntary agreement as an unprecendented circumvention of the law. And their usual right wing media spokesmouths reliably lended to the effort.

Still, it's hard to figure why they think sticking up for BP over the Gulf coasters is a good strategy. Certainly the White House jumped on Barton within minutes, along with various leading Dems. And the rapid response turned the storyline. Even though the usual witless wingnut bloggers leapt to Barton's defense, within hours, Barton turned toxic. Several big name GOPers, including Boehner, turned on him with a Florida Rep calling for him to resign his committee assignment. Nice to see the wingnut wurlizter lose a round for a change.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Credit check

If you read nothing else today, in fact if you read nothing else for the rest of your life, read this post. John Cole articulates my frustration with the left wing firing squad perfectly, only with a lot more profanity. I'm only going to give you the opening graf.

This
1000 times this:

I think the frustration that supporters of the president have (at least it is for me) is that his critics give him credit for nothing. NOTHING.

It's not that I don't support the whole idea of "making him do it" by keeping pressure on Obama to adopt more liberal positions but I don't know anyone who is going to respond to relentless criticism absent any acknowledgement of what they do right. It reminds me too much of my first marriage.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

A new Dawn

I haven't watched Tweety in years, not even when I still had cable TV, so I missed his special on the rise of the new right. Guess it was pretty good. The Tea Party people were very upset with the program. They are now launching a boycott of Dawn dishwashing liquid and Proctor & Gamble. Thinking it would be fun if everybody wrote to them and let them know we'll be using nothing but Dawn from now on, thanks to Tweety's special. I just did anyway.

I almost wish I could watch the program. Even PM Carpenter gave it a good review and he hates everything. (kidding about that last part). His review is worth reading in general for the historical info. Loved the last line.

At their pathological core, passionate Tea Partyers despise and would even overturn, if given half a chance, the American political tradition of freely elected government.

All too true.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Billy Kennedy Statement on BP

I will be so happy when we get rid of Virginia Foxx and Billy Kennedy is my new Congressman. His press release about BP's gusher is pitch perfect.

"If we commit ourselves to a goal of energy independence, we will ensure a better life for our children and for their children as well. We owe them, and ourselves, nothing less. We have an opportunity at hand. We have the technology to use clean and renewable energies. We just have to find in ourselves the commitment to make it happen. I have faith we can if we elect leaders in Congress who will stand up to lobbyists and corporations."

Read it all here.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Last word on Obama's speech

I'm not going to talk about the damn speech anymore after this. I made my slightly less cranky, somewhat more rational defense at DetNews today. But the new guy at Balloon Juice, who actually works in the energy industry said about the same things I did, only much more eloquently.

And on a totally unrelated note, it looks like John Cole has a new dog.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Ed Henry on the waterslide

This might be a good time to remember that all those media commentators who were so bitterly disappointed in Obama's "vapid speech" have a little problem with substance themselves. The Veep's little afternoon watersports fete for the press is old news but this interview with Ed Henry is new to me. He "manfully" tries to explain why it's not big deal is truly remarkable. It was hard to choose only one quote.

ED HENRY: Well, there’s no doubt that you need access to get information, but I think that you've got to be careful assuming that just because you go to somebody’s house it’s, quote, unquote, “cozy.” People we cover are not one-dimensional characters, and when you stand afar and say, I'm never gonna get a drink with someone, I'm never gonna have a meal, I'm never gonna go to a party at the Vice President’s house, it is - seems a little odd to think that somehow you lose all scruples.

I think having a meal with someone that you cover actually gives you a lot more perspective on not only who they are but why they're attacking a certain issue, a certain way.

I mean, some people want to cover, whether it’s the White House or the mayor’s office or whatever, from thousands of feet away without really getting to know the people they cover. That may be their approach. It’s not mine.

Seriously, read the whole thing. It's short, but it left me speechless. These are guys who think being hand fed gossipy sound bytes is real journalism. And they're fit to judge leadership skills? Right.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Reality Check

This is what reality looks like. The sea isn't blue or green or gray anymore. It looks like this for thousands of miles.

They're now admitting that roughly 2.5 million gallons of oil a day are spewing into the Gulf. Chances are that's still a lowball estimate and it's probably been that big from day one. There is no known fix or you can be sure that they would have used it.

People forget how anti-science the Bush administration was. They didn't just refuse to fund research unfavorable to corporate exploitation, they actively punished scientists whose conclusions conflicted with their agenda. They drove out the honest researchers and installed hacks who didn't have qualms about fudging the statistics.

Nobody can plug the gusher, because there isn't any technology to do so. They're inventing it as they go and it takes time. Expecting Obama to talk tough to BP and make them fix it is a fool's hope. It's like criticizing Bell for not inventing the iPhone a week after his invention made its first call. Like expecting the delivery of iPods even ten years after the invention of the phonograph.

People need to wrap their heads around the reality. This isn't a political ploy, it's a crisis of unimaginable magnitude and almost unspeakable consequences. The Gulf is screwed. The residents are screwed. We're all screwed by extension and it's going to last a very long time. We're all going to have to calm down and find a way to deal with that inescapable fact. [enlarged photo]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

What Obama actually said last night

I just read Obama's speech and just about everything that people were saying last night on twitter that he didn't say, he actually did say. The only accurate criticism was that he failed to use the words "global warming" or "climate change." It strikes me if he had, he would have lost the fully half of the country that doesn't believe those things exist and the narrative today would have been he used the speech to push that tree-huggers agenda.

He did explain what measures he's taken to direct the efforts. He did put forward whatever plan exists right now, and it's constantly evolving as the reality becomes known. And he did issue a call for action.

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.

Not getting the criticism that he should have used more direct or outraged language. Do they mean like Jimmy Carter did? He was absolutely right, and nobody listened. He called for actions that required sacrifice and nobody wanted to make them. He's still being pilloried today for those gas lines.

I'm thinking people from whom I would expect a more reasonable reponse are just scared and it's making them hysterical. Mostly younger people who grew up receiving, and now expecting instant gratification. But sometimes there just isn't an easy or fast solution to a problem. And this is a complicated set of problems where the solution to one aspect exacerbates another.

That being said, I did uncover a few level headed responses to the speech worth reading. The NY Daily News and of all people, Anne Applebaum made sense. As did Steve Benen who quotes Chris Hayes tweet noting the White House doesn't have a message problem, it has a fact problem. As Steve wisely added, "The speech wasn't going to plug the well or change votes on cap-and-trade; it was going to keep the ball moving forward." That unfortunately is the best case, and only possible, scenario at the moment.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

My reaction to the reaction to Obama's speech

I had to go out so I missed the speech. After reading the reactions on twitter, I wished I had skipped those too. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but I'm getting impatient with demands for a quick fix where none exists. I'm sick and tired of insta-reactions where people engage their mouths before their brains. I've had it with claims that it's one's duty to criticize when it's done purely for sake of criticism, without offering a realistic alternative. And I really hate when the left starts adopting right wing blathering about failure of leadership and demanding better optics. How is that going to solve anything?

John Cole pretty much summed up my reaction and since he's better at swearing, I'll just quote him.

Of course, if anything positive was going to happen, Obama would have to stand up there and say “Those penguins pelicans coated with oil and shrimp that taste like wd-40? You stupid motherfuckers can expect more of that until you stop voting for assholes who oppose alternative energy sources and any move away from fossil fuels. Until then, I hear dental floss works ok removing tarballs from your teeth, you dumbasses. Also, this response IS big government, you teabagging shitheels.”

That would probably be deemed partisan, though. Just shoot me.

Read the rest at the link. A prettier, or angrier, or more inspiring speech that makes the left or the apolitical feel better, or vindicates ignored warnings, isn't going to plug the gusher. It just won't. And isn't that what's really important?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Think I better knock on wood - Updated

Very strange thunderstorm here. Started out on only one side of the house, thankfully the north where most of the windows are so it will blow some cooler air into the apartment. Meanwhile, it's been much too long since I made the rounds on my blogroll so let's see what the other fine bloggers in my world are talking about these days.

I suppose I'm going to rot in hell for laughing at this.

My pals at the Swashzone are blogging up a storm. Always worth starting at the top and just scrolling and don't miss Captain Fogg who never fails to bowl me over with his eloquence and his eye for underreported stories. Like drones on the US border.

Of course there are legitimate uses for drones, but there are legitimate dangers, not all of which concern collisions and the urge to deploy more eyes in the sky; the insistence that we can and must trust the government with another spy tool seems to make liars out of the people making careers out of telling us we can't trust anyone but them.

And his encounter with the refined wingnuts in the South is somewhat heartbreaking.

I'd ask her to define liberal, but I know she's define it as its opposite. I know she has no awareness of current events, history or anything outside the Yacht Club Republican cocktail-hour school of economics and social criticism.

Avedon is posting a bit less these days but still has posts chock full of not to missed links. Like the comeback of debtor's prisons.

One afternoon last spring, Deborah Poplawski, 38, of Minneapolis was digging in her purse for coins to feed a downtown parking meter when she saw the flashing lights of a Minneapolis police squad car behind her. Poplawski, a restaurant cook, assumed she had parked illegally. Instead, she was headed to jail over a $250 credit card debt.

My friend Dan at Pruning Shears wonders if the Gulf gusher will be a lost opportunity to come together in common purpose, or not.

[Link fixed] And Hart has a fascinating post on a past environmental disaster that created the Salton Sea, that big, impossibly blue body of water in the middle of seemingly nowhere that you might sometime fly over on trips to the West Coast. Addendum: Sorry bad link. Fixed now and there's a part two since I posted.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The good Barbara Bush

This should have been the big story of the day. Barbara Bush, not the mother, the daughter who is not Jenna, apparently co-founded an organization called Global Health Corps, "a group of young professionals promoting global health equality." She had some good things to say about the health care reform bill

BARBARA BUSH: Why do basically people with money have good health care and why do people that live on lower salaries not have good health care? You know, health should be a right for everyone. [...]

WALLACE: What do you think of Obama health care reform?

BUSH: That is a good question. And obviously, the health care reform bill, you know, was highly debated by a lot of people. And I guess I’m glad that, you know, a bill was passed.

Wonder if Fox regrets naming her Power Player of the Week after that speech?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Who Are You?

The big buzz today is this video of Rep Etheridge of the lovely state of North Carolina manhandling a couple of alleged college kids who ambushed him on the street. There's an amazing amount of misinformation in the coverage. It's indisputable that Etheridge is an idiot and should have simply ignored them, but most people are attributing the video to Andy Breitbart. I was about to do it myself, but Dave Weigel unearthed the original video. It got no buzz until Andy's hate site promoted a longer edit of the original footage, but it didn't originate with him.

I follow the chain of how the buzz built at my DetNews post, so all I'll repeat is while Etheridge's conduct is inexcusable, the ambush looks a little shady. The bigger question is the one he asked repeatedly. Who are they? And why do they hide their identity in the video? And adding, do all college kids in DC routinely walk around in business suits?

On slightly different note, an hour after I posted at DetNews, I saw the MSNBC segment on their home page. I'm not saying they stole my framing, but it is uncanny how closely it follows my post. Not that my thoughts were all that original, but it's a funny coincidence.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Not the civil liberties President

While I often think liberals expect too much, too soon from Obama, I admit when it comes to his approach on civil liberties, I'm just as disgusted as the ACLU. That was the one area I thought he would take back the Bush era excesses and instead he's really been even worse than Bush in some ways.

MoJo has a list of ten points of bitter disappointment. These two are especially striking.

His Justice Department has mounted a wide-ranging investigation of the Guantanamo defense bar. That investigation is reportedly led by Patrick Fitzgerald, the US attorney that some civil liberties activists wanted to investigate the Bush administration's torture and detention policies.

He has launched an all-out war on national security whistleblowers and leakers.

I expected a constitutional attorney would not do these things, particularly since he made so many references to being a nation of laws during the campaign.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Not just deep water drilling

The gusher in the Gulf may have provided a nightmarish illustration of the hazards of the deep water drilling, but the danger isn't just in the ocean. It's everywhere. In the latest disastrous result of our oil dependence a pipeline leak sent 400 to 500 barrels of oil into a Colorado river on Friday night. But here's the scary part:

Chevron determined the pipeline broke at 10 p.m. Friday, and police and fire crews were notified of it shortly before 7 am. Saturday.

It doesn't appear that Chevron was even aware of it when it happened.

Employees at the Veteran Affairs Hospital first noticed oil in the stream just before 7 a.m. Officials then traced the spill to the pipe near Red Butte Garden. Freitag said the pipeline was shut off about 7:45 a.m.

Suggests to me that there was no warning system on the pipeline to alert Chevron to the leak. Who knows if one is even required, but even it if is, I'm guessing that it's generally cheaper for the oil corps to pay for cleanups and absorb fines than it is to maintain the equipment properly and install appropriate safeguards.

Meanwhile, instead of figuring out how to move us into a clean energy economy, almost half of our Senators spent last week fighting to disempower the EPA. While I believe that government can be the solution, it's equally clear that bought off politicians are a big part of the problem.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Media hits the beach - again

Yet another confrontation between the media and BP's hired thugs security guards on a public beach. This only two days after BP issued a statement saying they weren't preventing their workers from speaking to the press.

I have to admit I'm conflicted about this incident. It's getting to the point where, once again, the media is making the story all about them. I mean, while it's true that BP has been entirely too heavy handed in trying to limit media access, I would more outraged if they were doing something more than just trying to talk to the workers. These guys cleaning the beach don't know anything about what's going on. They're just out there raking. In a way the media puts them in an awkward position by hounding them for statements. Chances are great the workers really don't want to jeopardize the only job they can get by talking to the media anyway. We already know their job sucks and they're getting sick from it.

What's the point here other than to demonstrate the security guys are kind of jerks? This is old news now. I'd be much more interested in seeing them hound the execs and find out what steps they're taking to end this nightmare and get some explanations of the overall strategy. How about investigating what possible solutions are being overlooked? And by that I don't mean some idiot who made a bunch of substandard booms on spec.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Raft guide arrested for rescue

How stupid is this? A river guide was arrested for reaching a stranded rafter first.

Clear Creek sheriff's deputies on Thursday arrested a rafting guide for swimming to a stranded young rafter who had tumbled from his boat on Clear Creek.

Ryan Daniel Snodgrass, a 28-year-old guide with Arkansas Valley Adventures rafting company, was charged with "obstructing government operations," said Clear Creek Sheriff Don Krueger.

"He was told not to go in the water, and he jumped in and swam over to the victim and jeopardized the rescue operation," said Krueger, noting that his office was deciding whether to file similar charges against another guide who was at the scene just downstream of Kermitts Roadhouse on U.S. 6.

Apparently the guide violated the time limit on rescuing a member of his own rafting trip.

"They should involve themselves up to a point. They lost contact. Whether they want to say they were trying to rescue their customer, when they had lost visual contact and had no idea where their customer has been for 30 to 45 minutes, then it becomes our issue."

Well he's got a point there, doesn't he? I know if I was stranded after being nearly drowned, the last thing I'd want is for the first person to find me to come and see if I was okay.

Sounds to me like the sheriff was disgruntled about being robbed of media attention for being the big hero. This is kind of small-minded government we need to get rid of in this country. And what do you want to bet that this sheriff is a tea party type who is outraged about big government interfering in health care?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Anchor Babies

I hate the stench of bigotry in the morning. Latest volley coming from the "strict constitutionalist" crowd's attack on the foundational document of our government is this move in Arizona to abolish the 14th Amendment.

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona - and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution - to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens.

This latest abomination was birthed by GOP state Sen. Russell Pearce, the same "real white Murkian" who made the racism real with Arizona's Senate Bill 1070 - the "show me your papers filthy brown people" law. Not content with ferreting out undocumented adult immigrants, he's now got the innocent children in his sights.

The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the "anchor" and leave.

While clearly targeted at Hispanics, one might remind Mr. Pearce and his supporters that the majority of Americans have an anchor baby somewhere in their family tree. Wonder how they would feel about it if the law was made retroactive and white people were subjected to it too?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The Blame Game

This is a favorite gambit of my conservative critics at DetNews. Everytime I post something that points out the Bush administration caused a problem, they ask me this same thing.

Asked if there was a statute of limitations on blaming Bush, Pelosi said: "Well, it runs out when the problems go away.

Of course, the same people who demand that Obama must inherit the blame along with the problems, because he's been in office for 18 months, are the ones who trot out Clinton and Carter at every opportunity to "prove" Bush wasn't really to blame for anything.

There's really no way to get through to these people, but that doesn't excuse the media for adopting this vapid narrative. There's no time limit on blame. It belongs to whoever caused the problem. Blaming Obama for the Bush administration's messes is like saying Mayor Bloomberg is to blame for 9/11 because it's been nine years and he hasn't filled in the big hole at Ground Zero yet.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Clean air dodges a bullet

I was pretty sure Murkowski's EPA busting resolution was going to go down, but a win with a 47 to 53 vote is pretty disheartening. Especially the crossovers.

Six Senate Democrats -- Evan Bayh (Ind.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (W. Va.) -- voted in favor of the Murkowski resolution, and no Republicans opposed it.

We're all watching this slow-mo horror show in the Gulf and nearly half the Senate thinks that destroying our land and water isn't enough; that we can all breathe toxic air too? Even more depressing is there's a lot of crazy cons out there that probably agree with them and not all of them are too young to remember why those enviromental protections were enacted in the first place.

Me I remember when rivers caught fire and the California smog was so thick you could rarely see the skylines of the cities from a distance. I remember Silent Spring and Love Canal. Hard to believe there are so many people who want to go back to those "good old days."

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Alvin Greene for Senator - Updated 2X

I don't care if Alvin Greene is a plant, after watching this interview, I'm endorsing him. He's a walking spoof candidate. This guy is a made for internet sensation. Kind of like that Idol contestant that was so bad everyone voted for him to keep him on the show. Greene could actually win if the internets fall in love with him.



I even have a campaign slogan. Alvin Greene for Senate. He couldn't possibly be worse than DeMint. [h/t Mako]

Update: Alvin has now successfully faced down Keith Olbermann in this interview. He's looking a little more comfortable in front of the camera. And you have to admit, his strategy is brilliant. Say as little as possible and the interviewer is left to do all the talking. And the guy is still making more sense than DeMint.

One point that Keith brings up that I didn't know is SC has open primaries so Republicans can vote in the Democratic one instead of their own. That could certainly explain Alvin's big win.

Update Two: Since my dry sense of humor doesn't translate well on the internets, let me be clear that I'm pretty sure Alvin is a scumbag with a lot of dirty secrets that will probably land him in jail eventually. But doesn't that describe just about every Republican officeholder in South Carolina and maybe the whole country? On a personal level, I don't like the guy at all, but as a candidate I see him as a pure win. It's not like any Democrat is going to unseat DeMint anyway and it would make that Senate race fun to watch if nothing else.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The unknown candidate in South Carolina

I'm sure you've heard about Alvin Greene, a 32 year old unemployed Army veteran who pulled off an upset win in the South Carolina primary. All sorts of intrigue surrounds him. He's clearly facing a felony charge that carries a maximum of five years in prison for some hanky panky with a young college woman. And there's suspicion he may have been a plant since it is odd an unemployed guy could come up with 10K, in cash, to file.

But what interests me more is how the hell the guy won the race. It's said that nobody knew who he was and he didn't campaign; yet he won with almost 59% of the vote. I mean who voted for him? Doesn't say much for the intelligence of the average Democrat in SC. Or else, this is the real incumbent back-lash story of the primaries. His opponent was a four term state legislator. Suppose it could have been of case of choosing anyone who isn't part of the establishment. Still very weird.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Fiorina burned by hot mic

This was the most amusing story yesterday. Carly Fiorina, hot off her primary win is making small talk before the show goes on air. She apparently didn't realize the mic was live and her recorded remarks make her look very small and petty indeed. She dissed Sean Hannity and made catty remarks about Barbara Boxer's hair. As if her do is so glamorous. If Boxer is so yesterday, she's so last century with that frumpy bob.

But it's not even really that her remarks were so incendiary. More revealing was the way she said it, than what she said. Her self-absorbed sense of entitlement couldn't be more apparent. Meanwhile, she of course, immediately made a groveling apology to Hannity and will now have to be interviewed by him herself. She won't take back her catty remarks about Boxer though. That's all "part of her game."

Guess the good news is her bitchy, brittle persona should make her easy to beat.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Democrats not getting the message

Matt Bai has a long piece on intercine battling between Congressional Dems and the White House, but they're all missing the point. Democrats aren't in trouble because Obama didn't criticize the Republicans enough, even though arguably he didn't. But neither did they.

Congressional Dems are in trouble because they didn't deliver. They didn't fight back. They caved at every turn to win those lone Republican votes and then they were burned. As we repeatedly predicted they would be. This didn't start with Obama. It's been going on for a long time. They wanted Obama to take all the heat by blasting the GOP, but they didn't do their part either. Seems they're always looking for an reason to excuse their own ineffectiveness.

Obama was right to say Washington is broken. It is. And by and large, the big name power brokers didn't do a bloody thing to fix it. They didn't have to dick around with health care reform for over a year. They should have shown some balls and railroaded it through in the first six months. They didn't have to cut the stimulus bill down to a meaningless amount. Had they passed a bigger bill instead of cowering in the face of GOP fearmongering, they would have had a better economy to run on.

They let the GOPs drive the narrative and delivered the same old kabuki theater that they promised they were going to end when they were elected. It wasn't only Republicans who were slamming the brakes on the drive for good legislation while they kowtowed to their corporate masters. They're still doing it and it doesn't fool anybody.

The internets really did change everything. They don't control the message or the information anymore. Blanche Lincoln was the first meaningful challenge to the status quo from the left. She won't be the last. The establishment Democrats need to realize that if they won't fix what's broken, then they'll be replaced. Liberals may not be parading around in silly costumes and throwing public temper tantrums, but they're just as angry as the tea pot crowd and they vote too.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Mixed (up) media

I'm still annoyed with the idiot media. They just get more vapid every day. This mash-up on un-emo Obama is the best illustration I've seen of that lame narrative. What strikes me the most is how *very seriously* they take themselves. You want to scream, who the f*uck cares what you think.

I'm not the only one irritated but it. One of my favorite tweeps, Misha posts a brilliant rant on her blog. I didn't even know she had her own blog but it's a great one. Check out the rest of her posts while you're there.

I used this in a DetNews post but in case you didn't click over, Stop Beck has a great post on context as related to Glenn Beck.

I didn't watch this segment yet, but people are raving about it. I'm told it's the best Daily Show takedown in a while. The South Carolina bit has them rolling in the aisles.

Meanwhile, sometimes I wish I lived in Detroit. They were doing rolls of a different sort in the Red Bull Air Race over the Detroit River. Amazing photos even if you don't love vintage planes.

And speaking of vintage planes, this WP reporter with a head-cam went for ride in one and filmed the crash landing. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Loved this story. A soon to be married couple are going through old family photos and discover they were both in the exact same place at Disneyworld when they were young tots. Their families didn't know each other, but they were both in the same photo.

And I never get tired of this sort of thing. Amazing Paper Architecture. These are not your childhood paper dolls and snowflakes.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Blanche Lincoln ekes out a win

Not unexpectedly, the tradmed narrative is about anti-incumbent fever and the power, or lack thereof, of union support in Arkansas. But I saw this as the only race that really tested the power of the netroots. And yeah, they lost the race, but it was always a long shot and it was damn close. In a way it was a netroot success. Thinking Marc Ambinder got the message right.

But Netroots pressure and labor pressure DID work. It DID force Lincoln to introduce a tougher derivatives bill.

Most of the rest of the punditry seems to have forgotten that Lincoln was ready to sell out to the corporations and her numbers were tanking because of it. If she hadn't beefed up her bill, I believe the race would have gone the other way. So not a big victory, but still can be counted as a win I think. It established that the netroots power is still growing. The establishment will publicly dismiss it, but I think privately they'll be watching with new respect. It's a good start.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

BP's new logo

Whole lot of people coming up with a new slogan and logo for BP to replace the current beyond petroleum. This one is my favorite.

[original]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Riding the water slide

I'm doing my heavy posting at DetNews so click at the link at the bottom if you want a longer version of this and my take on some other depressing news but I do want to post this full version of the Helen Thomas video that miraculously surfaced today, after her career was prematurely ruined.



Via Balloon Juice where they have some additional dirt on the rabbi who pulled this scam off. He appears to be a James O'Keefe wannabe and probably could have a bright future as a cog in Andy Brietbart's wingnut wurlitzer. As John Cole points out, once again everybody got played by an out of context chop job. I know Helen has a long history of criticizing Israel but there's simply no way to interpret her remarks as a suggestion that the Jews be sent back to the concentration camps. It was graceless, but not deliberately mean.

But the damage to poor Helen is done. Frankly, I thought she should have retired some time ago but hounding her out like this strikes me as unusally cruel. The more I think about it, the more it feels like the pile on was more because everyone wanted her to get rid of her, than about anything she said. It just had the feel of -- time to put the cranky granny into the nursing home.

I mean it's not like there aren't white conservative guys who make much more egregious anti-Semitic and racist remarks every day. Take for instance, Glenn Beck's latest book promotion for an racist author whom one historian described as "the most bigoted woman anti-Semite of the period around World War II." This woman was considered a full fledged, Orly Taitz level nutcase in her day, yet Beck gets paid millions to promote this kind of crap and nobody at, as Jake Tapper once put it, his "sister stations" seem to be the least bit concerned about it.

They are however horribly disturbed first, by the President's cool detachment and lack of emotion about the gusher right up until the moment Obama said he was going to "kick some ass," at which point they throw themselves on the fainting couch because ZOMG, the president lost his cool and said a dirty word. But hey, they got to ride the water slide at Biden's pool party, so they're still important -- right?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Water guns are the new tire swing

I'm not spending so much time on Twitter anymore. The whole high school cafeteria vibe has been starting to get to me. It was especially bad on Friday when Ed Henry from CNN started tweeting about the Biden's pool party that Glenzilla talks about here.

The short answer to Glen's question is -- yes. It's just as disturbing, if not more so, that our media, who are supposed to be watchdogging the government for us, are instead frolicking on the Veep's lawn and posting self-satisfied tweets about how very privileged they are to be playing water gun commando with the powers that be. I would quibble about his characterization of the WHPC as courtiers though. More like court jesters if you ask me.

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Goodbye Helen Thomas

Well it's official. Rather than suffer through the disgrace of losing her seat in the front row, Helen Thomas announced her immediate retirement today. The wingnuts will be pleased. They've been gunning for her for years. I don't suppose the White House will be sorry to see her go either. She's been the one asking hard questions on things that matter through many presidencies. In fact, as it turns out, her last question will have been, "When are we getting out of Afghanistan?"

I'm not definding her thoughtless remark, although I'm sure it wasn't intended to be as ugly as it sounded. But the overreaction from all sides is indefensible too. I mean she makes one blunt comment in the heat of the moment, which she immediately apologized for making, and it's a firing offense? Yet Pat Buchanan can defend Hitler endlessly and everyone just shrugs, cause you know, that's just Unka Pat? So yeah, I'm sorry to see her forced out in disgrace when there are so many worse offenders out there.

Meanwhile, the instant speculation, particularly coming from the White House Press corps, about who is going to get her front row seat is downright ghoulish. If inappropriate remarks are a cause for termination, then a whole lot of people should be fired today.

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Gone cherry picking

Spent the day with my sister. She took me to an orchard just over the state line in Virginia where you can pick your own cherries. Here I am at the very top of a very tall ladder.

Then she drove us all over the mountains. Some gorgeous country up there and I finally got to see Andy Griffith's Mayberry. More going on there than in my little city. She took me to lunch at Goober's restaurant. My sister is really cool. Everybody should be blessed with such a good sister.

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Bad Framing

I'm guessing Eric Holder was speaking to some kind of kind of medical group here. The backdrop looks like part of a giant caduceus, but the framing is bit unfortunate.

Surprised no one picked up on it, except whoever posted it on Twitter. Sadly I've forgotten who that was. Maybe edroso.

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Strange coincidences surround BP gusher in Gulf

This all strikes me as kind of odd. First, I see one of the workers on the oil rig made a will shortly before the explosion. He was worried the construction was being rushed.

"They were getting pressure from someplace higher up to do things that maybe weren't exactly the way Jason thought that they should be," she said. "It was a safety issue."

"Jason's father told us Jason was concerned that BP, which controlled the rig, kept wanting to stray from procedures to finish the well faster, which Jason considered unsafe," Myers reported.

The Transocean CEO sat in the Anderson kitchen and told Shelly how he would take care of her family. But even before the memorial service could take place, Transocean went to court to limit their overall damages.

Second, is the odd timing on this sale of BP stock.

The brokerage firm that’s faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.

According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010.

And third, even more strange, is BP CEO Tony Hayward's cashout of his own stock.

Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.

Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2million.

I'm not implying or assuming anything, but I'd bet a good conspiracy buff could come up with an interesting theory about this chain of events.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]