December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas

This is a remarkable holiday.

I am a secular humanist both by rearing and by my own choice as a grownup. And yet, I get to celebrate Christmas.

This is the remarkable nature of Christmas, its awesome universality. And, in fact, if you look a little into the history of Christmas, you discover that this universal message is what saved the holiday's life.

People didn't always cherish Christmas, you know. Oliver Cromwell's England tried to outlaw it. They called it "Catholic" and worse. It was restored with the rest of the "restoration," but English clergy were still fishy about the whole thing. By the 1800s, the English were again weary of the holiday.

Then this guy wrote this book. Something about these three spirits coming to visit this mean dude, and the visits really stopped him from being such an asshole. The story doesn't center on the Jesus Toddler, but it does emphasize Christ-like values, no? Generosity? Neighborliness? Good will? Spirit? All that crap?

A Christmas Carol was the realization of the universality of Christmas, the first expression of the idea that it was about more than the Toddler Jesus, and that it can be for anyone.

It was in this spirit that Christmas came to these shores as well.

As much as your reason-for-the-season pals might like you to believe otherwise, Christmas is not an intrinsically American event, at least, from the historical perspective. Some states would fine you for celebrating it. By revolutionary times, Christmas just seemed so damned English and was not generally celebrated here. George Washington in fact used the Germans' love of the holiday as a tactical advantage to kick ass at Trenton. You can bet that Washington never asked anyone for some goddamn figgy pudding.

Then this guy wrote this book.

A collection of stories, actually, called The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, by a fellow named Washington Irving. Some of these stories describe old traditions around the holiday, and their publication revived American interest and, again, put forward the more universal theme.

There are some things humans seem to arrive at universally. We all need to eat. We all seem to gravitate toward belief in a higher power. And societies as well seem to need to recognize and celebrate the winter solstice. It makes sense, especially in a formerly agrarian society. When there is no planting and no harvesting, it is a good time to spill your cornucopia and rejoice. The ancient Romans had Saturnalia. Pagans have Yule. America, it seems, has nearly universally gravitated toward Christmas.

I am fortunate personally to celebrate Christmas with family, specifically, with PB and clan. We have a bespangled Christmas tree. An enormous turkey is in the oven. PB says this one has a nice fat back on it, so it should be quite delicious. PB and I were up until 3 in the wood-shop putting the finishing touches on one mighty amazing gift. Later, he and I will cook an outstanding Christmas dinner, and we will cast a resplendent table.

Not much mention of the Jesus toddler, you’ll notice. Our approach to Christmas is as a generally secular event. This is as it has been in my family since as long as I can remember. Tree. Presents. Santa. No Jesus.

This isn't weird. Check out this here poll numbers here:

More than nine in 10 Americans celebrate Christmas — even if they’re atheists, agnostics or believers in non-Christian faiths such as Judaism and Islam, according to two new surveys.

But the surveys also indicate that while most call Christmas a holy day that’s primarily religious, their actions speak volumes to the contrary.

p>Many skip church, omit Jesus and zero in on the egg nog, according to the polls done by LifeWay Research, a Nashville-based Christian research organization, and USA Today / Gallup Poll.

So. No matter how many exaltations go out about the over-commercialization of it and the complaint that every year we allow Baby Jesus to languish in his crib, guess what? We're still a bunch of fucking idolators anyway.

Lifeway President Ed Stetzer, who is on the record that Christmas is an excellent time to prosthelytize, considers the poll results to be "alarming."

And yet, as we've discussed: It is the very secular and broadly inclusive nature of Christmas that once saved its life and in fact that brought this holiday to us. And, as I've argued here before, it's not actually we seculars who kick up the dust about an alleged "war" on "Christmas." I for one like Christmas just fine and would gladly have all Americans comfortable with "Merry Christmas" as a solstice greeting.

Look. When somebody sneezes I say “God bless you.” I don’t do so because I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will then appear from the vapors and will magically seal your pie hole so that demons won’t enter your bronchial system and cause you to shit mustard. I say it because I speak English. Because I’m an American. Because that’s what you say when a person sneezes.

So it is, or so it should be, with Christmas. But then you have these folks who insist on wringing hands in the public square about the Jesus Toddler, and that makes everyone act weird. I’m telling you, this national awkwardness about Christmas is the fault of the reason-for-the-season folks. Not us. We’re pretty much a live and let live crowd around here.

One more thought, and I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t help but have this cross my mind this morning. I couldn’t help but wonder: I wonder if these fellas are having a nice Christmas today…


Merry Christmas.

August 1, 2010

Who Remembers Judith Miller?

I am fairly certain that this Wikileaks hysteria is just … you know… hysteria. Nothing new has been revealed… at least not anything new to anyone who has been paying any attention at all in the last seven years. We learn that we are killing civilians, alienating the Afghans, fueling a corrupt government and losing the war. Has anyone thought otherwise? Clearly the government has an interest in whining about leaks in general, because the government has spent a lot of time and effort trying to control all the information we get from over there. No surprise the Obama wants to keep as many secrets as Busch… a disappointment, but not a surprise. The best debate in the whole thing is the discussion of who should get leaked stuff and who should not. The government says no one should get it. One New York Times reporter insisted that only members of the Fourth Estate should get access. That's a funny one. The argument is that the Fourth Estate is somehow superior to everyone, and eminently responsible, and would never publish anything that was contrary to our national security interests. They being all wise and smart and everything, we should just rely on the Fourth Estate to tell us what to believe. Just like we should rely on the Pope to talk to God for us. I suspect the Times Reporter has specific notions about who in the Fourth Estate is worthy of getting this swell assignment to have the hot story and protect the people, and I'm pretty sure they are not including anyone from Mother Jones in the mix. Still, the big joke is that the Times is the same institution that put it's imprimatur on the Iraq War by making credible the lies of the Busch monkeys. Thus, on the subject of information, I am a Calvinist. Give me the raw data and I will figure it out. I don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.

July 29, 2010

Stupid Is As Stupid Votes

It is fitting that on the day that The Howard Stern Show reveals the results of its I.Q. challenge (and it's neo-conservative douchebag Scott Depace by a point) that E.J. Dionnemustard asks:
Can a nation remain a superpower if its internal politics are incorrigibly stupid?
Poor, unfortunate nail. You've been hit square on the head by Mr. Dionne. Go read it here. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Leftblogistan: Newshoggers on the bleak job market. Tom Tomorrow's Bizarro World looks mighty familiar... Russell King writes "an open letter to conservatives" that is so comprehensive that we may consider linking to it as a permanent resource. Yet another open letter from BlondeSense. Good news: Shirley's going to sue The Scum Breitbart. Alicia Morgan faces the Grayson. Rude Pundit spies a billboard...Kingfish is alive and well in sunny Louisiana. China's Growing Pains Want to know how obsessive tax cuts can affect an entity's finances? Look no further than Arizona.

July 27, 2010

Would the ADA Pass Today?

Jonathan Cohn asks this question in the New Republic. I says hell no it wouldn't. Cohn notes that the Act passed the Senate in July 1990 with a comfortable margin, passed the House on a fully unanimous voice vote, and was gladly signed by President George H.W. Bush. Can you imagine the rhetoric that would be employed to defeat it today? It would probably be pinned as a Commie-nist plot. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "Conservatives" are no longer conservatives. Barry Goldwater would have been tied up and body surfed out of the 2008 Republigloat Convention, and, as much as they uttered his name in reverence, Ronnie Raygun would be made to sit in a corner wearing a funny hat. These people are not conservatives. They are Bizarro-Utopian Anarchists.

The Bottom Line On Racism

I just wanna say this because it boggles my mind. Racism is more than just one guy calling another guy a bad name because of his hue. Racism is the power that insult hurled has because of the history and because of the institutionalization that makes that power possible. Racism is 400 years of black people allowed to be owned and another 100 years of black people allowed to be sorely mistreated. It's a society that would not allow black people to learn how to read, to dine with the rest of us, to worship with the rest of us, to live with the rest of us. These conditions did not happen between individual people. These conditions happened because powerful institutions colluded to make it so, on purpose. So here's the fact that I wish all people could understand about racism: Black people cannot be racists. Let me say this again in another way so that you might understand it better: If you are a black person in this country, you cannot possibly be a racist. Because when white people mount up with the armor of racism, it's a powerful mace indeed that they grasp, and it's one that no African-American can even reach out to touch. Sorry, white people, but "honky" just isn't drenched with hundreds of years of oppression and terror like that other word is. So. The next time you hear Buchanan or any of these other jive turkeys on the television, and they're accusing Shirley Sherrod—whom I am officially applying today to adopt as my third Grandma—or the NAACP or the Rev. Al Sharpton or whomever of being a "racist?" They're putting their stupid white foot into their stupid white mouth.

July 26, 2010

Profiles in Courage?

Recently one of the more familiar NPR voices whose name I can't remember honored Dan Schorr as a "courageous cranky monument to a courageous cranky profession. " I will give them that Dan Schorr was courageous and cranky and a monument to what journalism should be. Dan Schorr was hated by Noxin, shut out of Russia by Khrushchev, fired by CBS for leaking a document that CBS would not allow him to report about. His contract with CNN included a clause saying the company would not interfere with his reporting, and CNN put him aside and let the contract expire when they figured out what he really meant by that. Dan Schorr was courageous and cranky and a true hero to anyone who believes the Fourth Estate should be something more than a political tool or a trivial entertainment. Courageous and cranky. I will not give the shills at NPR the right to take the title for themselves or for any other journalist who has not specifically earned it… and there are damned few of them. Rachel Maddow, Ellen Smith, Helen Thomas, Eugene Robinson. The McClatchy newspapers deserve some credit for not caving in to common wisdom on Busch's phony Iraq war. There may be other honest and upright journalists out there, but they are rare. For every Dan Schorr there are a thousand Judith Miller's, willing to sell their soul to the high and mighty for an opportunity to get a front page byline and a mention on 60 minutes. Lies and deceit and bullshit bought and sold by the media have accounted for much of what might rightly be considered our decline. The Whitewater fraud could have been uncovered and exposed. Lazy reporters preferred to take crap they were fed and report it as gospel, even if it made no sense on its face. The real scandal of the Lewinski saga was not that the president got a blow job in his closet but that it was a part of a "vast right wing conspiracy" that was determined to cripple and destroy if possible a moderate presidency. It goes without saying that the fools in the press never seriously questioned the "elections" of The Moron George W. George Busch, never held Congress' feet to the fire on investigating his crimes, and only when it was so obvious the television camera could not miss it was there any serious discussion of his gross incompetence. No member of the Fourth Estate raised any fuss when one of their own bloviators built his reputation and his career on hatred of immigrants, even though most of his claims were false or wildly exaggerated. Bob Woodward wrote two worshipful books about The Moron before he discovered the winds of conventional wisdom were changing and wrote a third to correct the record. Although most press outlets have begun to admit up front that the President's Birth Certificate is real, many still maintain that there is a genuine issue raised there. The Press stood by and watched a brilliant and capable leader, Van Jones, get railroaded out of office by the right wing lie machine. Not one journalist ever investigated the record and came to his defense (neither did the Obama Administration.) The press always found false claims of voter fraud to be reasonable, especially when ACORN was involved, and accepted at face value Andrew Brightfart's lies about that most valuable and innocent organization. Now we have the spectacle of another of Brightfart's lies being accepted from coast to coast and costing an honorable public servant her job, all without a modicum of skepticism from the news media. Courageous my ass! Cowards and whores and mountebanks have only the courage of their ambition.

July 22, 2010

Watch and Laugh



A Special Special Comment

For a long time, our man Keith did everything he could to wear out his signature bit, the "special comment." I suspect that his handlers were impressed with the ratings they bore and egged him on, to the point where for a while he was making a nightly "quick comment." Either at that point, or at the point where he dedicated an entire hour to a "special comment" on health care reform, or at the point where it was nearly successfully lampooned by Ben Afleck on Saturday Night Live, the thing really jumped the shark. You've got to remember how awesome the original Special Comment was. We were in the throes of the stupidest war ever. And the Secretary of God-Damned Defense had just come out and said that anyone who disagreed with the administration's stance on this stupid war was somehow um, morally or intellectually confused. Keith tore the living hell out of that, and a star was born. Luckily, the K-Man has given the Special Comment a bit of a respite as of late, at least comparatively. That is the right move. That "Special Comment" logo should only be dragged out when you've written something truly inspiring about something that's truly and legitimately pissed you off, brother. How to tell when that occurs? You'll know it when you've written it. Like last night. I was concerned when the man started by comparing this Shirley Sherrod thing to the Dreyfus Affair. But man what the hell happened after that was really something. In case you missed it:

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

He tears Fox "News" a new asshole of course, though he isn't dishonest about the thing; he agrees that media in general failed on the Sherrod incident. He also rips into the White House, as they deserve. The killer is the ending, which I'm not giving away for you. It's lovely. And of course, Howard K. Kurtz is in the fucking Washington Post today inexplicably apologizing for Fox "News." Kurtz claims that Fox "News" actually did its homework on this thing actually actually. Howie. Baby. We've seen the tape dude. Does Murdock sign your checks as well?

July 21, 2010

Nip It In The Bud, Bud

A lot of liberals are coming down pretty hard on the White House for its knee-jerk response to the Shirley Sherrod story. I agree with the criticism to a large extent. But I think the critiques do not consider a certain specific perspective. This is a President who was a candidate who in both capacities has seen too often the deleterious effect of a negative story that sprouts legs and walks on its own. The Rev. Wright story. The health care reform town halls. ACORN. This is also a White House that may be running on fumes regarding its own momentum, and yet one with a still ambitious political agenda. It may very well be a White House that doesn't want another damned story to sprout legs and start boogyin'. Little did the Administration know that at mid-afternoon, the tide would change completely on this story, that the farmers Sherrod helped all those years ago would do the decent thing and come swiftly to her defense. Who could have guessed such a thing would have happened? By day's end, all the air had been sucked out of that sucker and Ms. Sherrod was sitting pretty. Yes, for sure, the White House's reflex when it comes to this thing has become absurdly well-honed. The President's staff would do better when this shit hits the fan to take a step back and consider the source. Andrew Breitbart is not a legitimate news source and he probably farts a lot, and a ten minute Google search might have saved them the embarrassment of having to resolve things with Ms. Sherrod now. (Because they do have to do that now.) But. I can certainly understand the impulse. By the way. Three cheers to The Washington Post for successfully burying this story's lead all the way to friggin' China in this morning's edition. The story's resolution; the full context of Sherrod's story and the Spooners' dash to her defense, should have led that story, you numb-nuts, instead of appearing way in the last paragraphs. Shame on ya.

FUTA

At 3:15, Congressman Grayson at last says what I previously said needs said. Senate Republigoats AND BEN NELSON fought long and hard to withhold munny from you that you've already paid in. Once again, Grayson kicks ass and takes names.

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July 20, 2010

Unemployment Insurance

Here's what I don't understand about what's not being said regarding the Senate's asshole behavior on the unemployment extention. If you work, your employer is required to pay state and federal payroll taxes into unemployment on your behalf. This expense is based on your earnings. These benefits are included as part of your gross income for consideration by the Internal Revenue Service. We're not talking about handouts when we're talking about unemployment insurance. We're talking about a legitimate benefit that people pay for through their working lives. The Senate is denying people a benefit they've already paid for. These assholes are stealing from you. Again. Dig? Why isn't anyone saying this, anyway?

July 19, 2010

Stole This From Twitter.

Prudence Palin was just kidding when she used the word "refudiate" in a sentence. She has a wonderful self-defecating sense of humor.

Bloated

I have to say, it really is something when you figure out that the ombudsman to one of the most prestigious newspapers in America is a god-damned liar. In Sunday's edition of The Washington Post, Andrew Alexander chided the paper for its alleged "silence" regarding this idiotic story about these "new black panther" idiots. Here's what Alexander reported in his column:
The story has its origins on Election Day in 2008, when two members of the New Black Panther Party stood in front of a Philadelphia polling place. YouTube video of the men, now viewed nearly 1.5 million times, shows both wearing paramilitary clothing. One carried a nightstick. Early last year, just before the Bush administration left office, the Justice Department filed a voter-intimidation lawsuit against the men, the New Black Panther Party and its chairman. But several months later, with the government poised to win by default because the defendants didn't contest the suit, the Obama Justice Department decided the case was over-charged and narrowed it to the man with the nightstick. It secured only a narrow injunction forbidding him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of Philadelphia polling places through 2012.
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED. The decision not to pursue the case was made under the administration of GORGE DUBYA BUSCH. As Adam Serwer points out: "This means that the case was downgraded to a civil case 11 days before Obama was inaugurated, 26 days before Eric Holder became attorney general, and about nine months before Thomas Perez was confirmed as head of the Civil Rights Division." We're gonna have to start keeping an eye on the ombudsman at the Washington Post. I suspect he's taken the suppository right up his ass.

What About the New Black Panther Lawsuit

There is a lot of misinformation about the fact that the Justice Department dropped charges of voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party. This story spins well for the GOOP, so you might expect a lot of lying bullshit to surround the issue. Surprisingly, the GOOP is stronger on the facts in this case than it usually is, but that does not mean the GOOP is right. Here are the facts. On January 7, 2009, less than three weeks before the Busch era finally skulked its way out of power, the Justice Department brought charges against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members. They were charged with intimidating voters by hanging out at a polling place wearing uniforms. One of them was carrying a nightstick. It is important to note that the precinct in question was a black precinct that had always voted for Democrats and the pretence of the NBPP was that they were there to prevent voter intimidation. It is also worth noting that thhis is the first voter intimidation law suit brought by the Busch Civil Rights Division in eight years despite substantial evidence of voter intimidation in the 2006 and 2004 elections. In all these cases the voters being intimidated were black and the people doing the intimidation were GOOP poll watchers. (The principal focus of the Civil Rights Division during the Busch years was protecting the rights of Evangelical Christians.) On May 15, the DOJ dropped charges against the NBPP and two of the defendants, and brought charges only against the guy carrying the nightstick. Thus, on its face, the GOOP is right. Charges were dropped. That's where the story ends. The fact is that there were no intimidated voters and no actual evidence except the fact that one guy was carrying a weapon at the polls. From a strictly legal standpoint, it was probably not worth the DOJ's time. From a political viewpoint, however, dropping the case was stupid. It was a small matter to pursue it and let the process weed out the lack of evidence and poor facts. The current flap, which is giving the GOOP and its allies in the stupid press a field day, is not necessary. Dropping the charges reinforces the racist fears of the right wing base and gives pause to the stupid independent center, which is as likely to be guided by ancient fears as current thinking. And speaking of screwing up the facts, Keith Olberman reported that the Busch Justice Department had dropped the charges on January 9. I don't know where he got his facts, but a quick trip to the DOJ website revealed that is not the case. I nearly wrote this article entire based on Olbermann's reporting, but the Washington Post's article Sunday, about the failure of the straight press to cover the story, made me do my homework. Olbermann should work harder to get his facts straight, and, while I am usually skeptical of Keith's blather, in the future I will also be more skeptical of his reporting.

July 12, 2010

Hemmed In

The Washington Post today offers yet another reason why media writer Howard Kurtz is, for the most part, useless. Kurtz today spotlights comedian Bill Hemmer, who plays an "anchor" for Fox "News" and previously worked for the Cable "News" Network. Kurtz attempts to provide insight into Hemmer's role at Fox "News." But Kurtz' column simply lets Hemmer spout the Fox "News" party line bullshit and pretty much lets him get away with it. It ledes:
Bill Hemmer, a middle-of-the-road guy from the middle of the country, sees himself as the straightest of straight arrows when it comes to news. "The opinion-makers on our channel have enormous talent," he says in his Fox News office in midtown. "I deal in facts. I deal in evidence. And opinion, frankly, is not my comfort zone. Opinion news is something I'm not good at. It is in the DNA of certain individuals. I'm not one of them."
Kurtz gives Hemmer a pass despite his and his network's insistence on relying almost entirely on "conservative" (damn I have to use a lot of scare quotes when I write about these assholes) guests. He quothes:
"If the booking leans one way, it's the responsibility and duty of me as the host, the presenter, the interviewer, to make sure the topic is evenly treated," Hemmer says.
Ha-ha! Later in the column, Kurtz writes, UNATTRIBUTED:
Despite the guest lineup, Hemmer, 45, takes a generally balanced approach, a style he honed in his native Cincinnati and during 10 years at CNN. After joining Fox as a daytime anchor in 2005, he was paired in the morning with rising star Megyn Kelly; when Kelly got her own 1 p.m. show in February, Martha MacCallum became Hemmer's co-host.
Later, Kurtz gets down on his damned knees. Note again the lack of attribution:
With his infectious grin and golly-gee demeanor, Hemmer exudes boyish enthusiasm both on and off the air. He is quick to sing the praises of his network, his colleagues, Chairman Roger Ailes (a fellow Ohioan), even the Sixth Avenue lobby for its mix of visitors. Has he ever said anything on the air that he regrets? "Knock wood, I think I've been lucky to, as my mother would say, be careful before you speak," says Hemmer, his eyes occasionally wandering to his four television monitors in what he admits is a Pavlovian response.
Yep. Bill Hemmer reports right down the middle, all right:
A turning point, in Hemmer's view, came during the health care debate in the summer of 2009: "We covered those town-hall meetings with greater vigor than our competition, and we were rewarded with viewers. It was better television." ... Another view is that Fox seized upon the footage of angry constituents shouting at Democratic members of Congress because it undermined the president's health-care push. Hemmer begs to differ. "I don't think it was anger toward the Obama administration," he says. "It was an honest insecurity on the part of average Americans." ... Hemmer also feels strongly about federal spending, a constant topic on the show. "The deficit is staggering," he says. His lead-off commentator is often Fox business anchor Stuart Varney, who rarely misses an opportunity to criticize the administration's fiscal policies...
Yep, he's one fair and balanced dude all right. A few days ago, I made light of the fact that Glenn Beck, who is one of that network's most popular opinion leaders, is not aware somehow that C-SPAN is basically a child of the '80s (a quick Internet search reveals that the first C-SPAN transmission was a floor speech by Congressman Al Gore on March 19, 1979). But I think Beck's tremendous error belies a grander problem with Beck, his network, and by association, Hemmer. This is a network that is culturally ignorant of even the most basic knowledge regarding current events, civics, and history. A guy who is unaware that in 1964 TV cameras in the legislature were more than a decade away should not be a major opinion leader in America, and the network that doesn't pull his broadcast off the air immediately should not have "news" anywhere in its moniker. But this is what happens when you decide that media is just another fucking commodity to be bought sold and traded.

Are We All Bozos On This Bus II

We believe ourselves to be a meritocracy. We have for the most part made merit, as measured by test scores and academic performance, the key to every career-making decision at every level. In theory, our government and our universities and our corporations are be led by the best and the brightest. So why are we beset by incompetence? Would we expect that the smartest guys in the room would fail to notice that Bernie Madeoff was bilking thousands of investors out of billions of dollars with a scheme as old as…. Ponzi? What kind of moron would conclude that the appropriate response to a terrorist attack by a small band of radical Islamists was to invade the only non-religious country in the Middle East? Why, when alternative technologies have existed for decades, would we continue to design our lives around a carbon-based energy economy? And finally, how is it that no one in the universe could have foreseen that if you are drilling for oil a mile below the ocean's surface you might one day have a blow out? Wouldn't some smart guy at least have done some research to figure out how to fix the problem before the problem actually happened? However the world ends, whether by fire or ice or oxygen deprivation or famine, it will have been caused by incompetent smart guys.

July 11, 2010

More Idiocy From Fox 'News'

Mickey Spillane's son has died after falling from the sixth floor of his apartment building. In other news, Fox "News" thinks that Mickey Spillane was an "infamous monster." Here's the screen shot to prove that I am not making this up: And yet, there are still people who receive the majority of their current events information and, indeed, a good deal of their historical background and civics lessons, from this shoddy "news" organization. I made fairly light the other day of Glenn Beck's weird and quite serious insistence that it was somehow conspiratorial that there's no tape of the late Sen. Robert Byrd filibustering the Civil Rights Act. You've seen the tape, folks. He's not kidding. But the fact is that Beck and his cronies at Fox "News" are constantly exposing themselves as people who don't even have a handle on the most rudimentary concepts in historical matters and civics. If you sincerely don't know that C-SPAN is a fairly recent phenomenon, then you have no business being an information leader on the complex and difficult issues that comprise public policy. None. And yet, many such "leaders" reside over at Fox "News," where they think that one of the great American authors, whose stories and lead character were quite visibly produced as network television during the late 1950s and in the mid-1980s, they have now categorically stated that Mickey Spillane was an "infamous mobster." For fucking gravity's sake, Spillane became a Jehovah's Witness in 1951. Mobster? This is where you get your news from? Really?

July 8, 2010

The Stupidest Thing Ever Said Has Finally Been Said

Like Glenn Beck, I am nonplussed that, no matter how hard I search on YouTube and Google and the vast B-Roll archives we maintain here at the imaginary think-tank Crack Whores for Good Government, I cannot find any footage of Sen. Robert Byrd filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's an outrage. Someone should invent a time machine and go back to 1964 and force a television camera into those proceedings. Damnit Jim! I hereby RETIRE the "If It Weren't For My Horse" category here at KIAV. It's useless now. I'm bleeding out my damned nose, Lewis! There goes my friggin' aneurysm! GLENN BECK HAS AT LONG LAST SAID THE STUPIDEST THING THAT CAN EVER BE SAID. "If It Weren't For My Horse" lives and breathes; it is no longer Lewis Black's second-hand news. It's like on the one hand, there's Einstein writing "E=MC(2)" on a blackboard, and, on the other hand, BOOOOOM!

July 1, 2010

Meyerson's Got It

Spotted today in sunny Georgetown: The Rev. Al Sharpton, in front of Barnes & Noble, talking on his cell phone. Sometimes, living in this city can lead to good sightings indeed. Anyway, I think everyone in America today should read Harold Meyerson's column. He's got it exactly right:
Germany and China don't have a lot in common. Germany has a mature economy and is a stultifyingly stable democracy. China has a rising economy and remains disturbingly authoritarian. What sets them apart from the world's other major powers, purely and simply, is manufacturing. Their predominantly industrial economies meet their own needs and those of other nations, and have made them flourish while others flounder.
I would only add this to his thoughts of today regarding the importance of manufacturing and this country's gleeful willingness to toss it out with the baby and the bathwater: Manufacturing is, by definition, creating wealth. It is the process by which you take an otherwise useless raw material and convert it into something that people want to buy. A country that does not work at retaining its manufacturing sector does not work at retaining the economic sector which quite literally creates real wealth. We have been entirely too eager to sell out this vital portion of our national infrastructure. Read Meyerson today. It's damned good.

June 30, 2010

Yes. History Does Repeat Itself

The scariest thing about the little rumble in the stock market this week is that it happened for good reason. The market slid three percent in one day because it appears that the governments of the world are backing away from support for the economy. If the politicians of the world have forgotten the lessons of history, the market has not. If we do not continue to stimulate the economy with government spending, there will be a depression the likes of which have never been seen. Not that we ever did pay attention to history. If we had we would not be in this mess. We learned an excellent lesson back in the 1920s. Then we had a president who had little more than contempt for the federal government. "If the federal government should go out of existence, the common run of people would not detect the difference in the affairs of their daily life for a considerable length of time," said Calvin Coolidge. (Compare to Ronnie Raygun's "scariest words"... "We're from the government and we are here to help.") Silent Cal set the tone for governing in the 1920s by espousing a partnership between the government and industry. "This is a business country," he said, "and it wants a business government." The GOOP of the 1920s championed tax breaks for the rich and channeled $3.5 billion in tax rebates and waivers to millionaires and their corporations. It opposed labor unions and ensured that the working classes stayed poor while the working classes got richer. High tariffs demanded by business protected the world's most prosperous market from imports while the export market exploded … primarily because European buyers borrowed money to buy American goods from American banks. Business boomed. (And when Europe could not afford to pay its debt, American banks lost, but that wasn't until 1929.) The federal government, which had busted trusts and effectively regulated the economy for years, quit regulating. The Federal Trade Commission walked away from the antitrust laws and replaced them with industry-wide trade agreements. The concept of transparency in the stock market was widely derided. It all made for a robust ride up, a shimmering bubble at the top, and a quick disaster in 1929. Herbert Hoover has been president for six months when the stock market crashed and like all free market thinkers he was sure it would correct itself. He suggested that restaurants give leftovers to needy people and ran Coxie's Army out of the Nation's Capital at gunpoint. The economy was a shambles by 1933, when Roosevelt took over. FDR reregulated Wall Street and stimulated the economy. He did the later by pumping billions into the government projects. He put people to work and built infrastructure. By 1937 the people had forgotten all that. They believed to was time to get back to the balanced budget and stop deficit spending. The economy tanked. The depression was so deep that it took a war to get us out of it. In Washington D.C. it's 1937 again. They want to quit spending money, cut the deficit and let the economy correct itself. Something tells me that history is going to repeat itself again. Good Luck with That!

June 29, 2010

Shaking Hands With The Unemployed

Nobody has summed up the idiocy of the Senate's holdup of the unemployment extension better than Noted Lesbian Rachel Maddow. Nobody.

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

What she points out so adroitly here is that unemployment benefits aren't just good for the jobless. It's good for the economy as a whole. I don't know what the exact stats are exactly, but I've heard it quotated frequently, that for every buck that goes out in unemployment benefits in times like these, $1.35 is generated in the American economy. That's because these are dollars that are turned over so quickly and so efficiently that it's that beneficial to the economy as a whole. So these Republigoats, they're not just being scrooges here to the jobless, and they're not just denying the lazy and shiftless a free lunch, neither. No, friends, they're TRYING EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO STOP THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY IN ITS TRACKS. To make matters worse, they're also taking a big fat dump all over the memory of one Thurgood Marshall. WTF, guys? Thurgood Marshall? Really? REALLY? Why not just drag Bambi into the hearing room and field dress him alive? Huh? And hey, remember how President Obama was going to come over to your house and take all your guns away from you? Well, guess what? John Roberts (who, I have to remind you, looks exactly like Otto from "Airplane!") and his bunch have now made it so you can have a gun or a mace or whatever you want everywhere you go! Yay guns! It just strikes me as so friggin' odd that conservatives are so all about guns even though it was a kook with a gun who very nearly took out their vaunted superhero Ronald Warson Raygun. But, what the hell. Let's just everybody get ourselves all armed up. James Brady be damned. This country. Is losing. Its mind.

June 28, 2010

Robert Byrd

Sure, he was kind of a mixed bag. It's true that he joined the Klan at age 24, that he filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that he was at one time in his life an unabashed racist, that as late as 2001 he was on the record as using a certain word that begins with the letter "n," and that he also really liked to bring money home to West Virginia. But he also castigated his colleagues for the dearth of real debate regarding the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq. He was an unstoppable critic of the previous administration and an utterly outspoken advocate for health care reform. He was also, I think, evidence that even those Americans who succumb to this nation's most base, most vile cultural instinct, that those who opt to hate or otherwise distinguish an entire group of people based on pigmentation and other physical features and the history represented thereby, even those folks, Byrd was evidence that even they can be redeemed. Is the last of the old guard of liberals finally gone?

June 23, 2010

Gen. McChrystal Gets His Life Back

So President Obama told McChrystal to pack his duffel today. I don't think he had much choice in the matter. But one can't help but wonder if Obama actually affected a policy change regarding Afghanistan today as well as a change of personnel. He said he didn't. But we'll see. One thing's for sure: This may be the most powerful thing journalism has achieved in decades. As Sam Stein points out, a little ink managed to give McChrystal the old heave-ho when other scandals, including the cover-up of the death of Pat Tillman, couldn't. Other interesting shouts from Leftblogistan:

June 22, 2010

Read It First

You might wanna read the story first before you figure out what you think. The Runaway General Thing is, this isn't just a story about Obama's point man in Afghanistan talking shit about the CIC. It's an all-out indictment of military strategy in Afghanistan. And McChrystal comes out looking dumber than Westmoreland.

The Infrastructure Expectation and D.C. Metro

One point I failed to make in my previous post regarding infrastructure. I argued in that post that key to solving the energy crisis is the larger issue of infrastructure. I wrote as an example of my own ability to never ever hardly drive because I live in the D.C. Metro region, an area that has historically invested in the public transportation infrastructure. What I failed to write was "what have ya done for me lately." Today is a year since I've been on a Metro train. Metro has been working for years to scare the living shit out of me and to convince me to ride buses instead. A year ago, those trains killed nine people and at last forced me to a more time-consuming but more reassuring commute. I mainly stopped riding because I was sick and tired of the trains stopping underground; I don't like the feeling that gives me, not after I was stuck underground for 20 minutes when Foggy Bottom caught fire a few years ago, and not after 9/11. It's not a rational reason. But it's mine. But then you see some stories. Like how this one train was taken out of service and blasted through like six stops before someone realized that there were two women aboard the train, held hostage by their own attempt to commute. Or, there's the recent story of a bunch of ten-car trains on the track when they're only supposed to use an eight-car train or fewer (this leaves the last two cars of the train stuck in the tunnel). Or, there's shit like this:

So it's not surprising to me that a report by The Washington Post says that, one year following the fatal wreck, Metro's record on safety has not improved, and that this is in part due to a failure to invest in the system and in a failure to regulate it as well. The part I forgot to mention is that the Washington Metro system is in a shambles, and there is precious little being done to improve and invest in this system that I've been riding since I'm 12 years old, even in the wake of nine dead people. That is the sad truth regarding what once was one of the nation's finest commuter rail systems. And it is why I'm likely to be a bus guy for the duration.

Heh.



June 21, 2010

It's Right In Front Of Your Face

Or, rather, north of it. Evidence, that is, that regulation isn't just some silly hogwash come up with by lilly-livered nanny-state homos with nothing better to do than to interfere with good old-fashioned, red-meat capitalism. Blame Canada.
"We should be proud of the performance of our financial system during the crisis," [Canadian] Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said. He recalled visiting China in 2007 and hearing suggestions "that the Canadian banks were perhaps boring and too risk-adverse. And when I was there two weeks ago some of my same counterparts were saying to me, 'You have a very solid, stable banking system in Canada,' and emphasizing that. There wasn't anything about being sufficiently risk-oriented." The banks are stable because, in part, they're more regulated. As the United States and Europe loosened financial regulations over the past 15 years, Canada refused to do so. The banks also aren't as leveraged as their U.S. or European peers. There was no mortgage meltdown or subprime crisis in Canada. Banks don't package mortgages and sell them to the private market, so they need to be sure their borrowers can pay back the loans.
Imagine that.

Something Good About Kansas

It's almost a ritual in every political campaign for the parties to seek the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce. Even if you are a Democrat and do not have a snow-ball's chance of getting the nod from the big money business guys, you play the game and ask for their endorsement. So I have to say I am impressed with Tom Holland, the Democratic Party candidate for Kansas Governor. He told the Chamber to go piss up a rope. Of course, Holland got a big bump in the news cycle for dumping on the Chamber, proof, perhaps, that he is going to be more than a handful for the popular and well-funded Christofacist Sam Brownback, who is running for the GOOP. Holland used the moment to tie Brownback to big business interests that have no interest in the average Kansan. The Chamber made this easy. The Democratic candidate cited Chamber statements last year calling people using government services… who include "the elderly, the vulnerable, school children and struggling families" to "animals feeding at the government trough." He cited Chamber support for a bill that would have stopped enforcement of controls aimed at greenhouse gasses, a measure that was supported by the state utilities because it was seen as a better alternative to federal regulation. The primary reason for supporting the bill, Holland said, was politics, not the best interests of Kansas. It seems the disputed legislation was the brainchild of Tim Huelskamp, GOOP candidate for Congress, and the Chamber wanted to make him look good. Finally, The Chamber opposed a, $8.2 billion transportation plan that Holland said would create jobs and attract new business to the state. The Chamber is putting tax cutting GOOP ideology over the best interests of the state, Holland said. The best thing about Holland is he is he is running a bare knuckled campaign, probably the only way to fight a battle uphill. At the same time it is an object lesson in how Democrats should run. As Brady frequently points out, when Democrats run like GOOPers, they don't win. More Harry Truman, less Tru Deeds.

June 17, 2010

Death Penalty Redux

There is a guy in Utah who is due to be officially killed. He wants it to be done by firing squad, which apparently has caused some controversy. What follows is a post from Papa Bonk in 2006, which still has some relevance. I do not believe in the death penalty. But like a lot of things I don't believe in "the invasion and occupation of Iraq, SUVs, tax exempt churches, criminal penalties for drug use" we have them and we will continue to have them until Americans get as smart as I am. Not likely that will happen in my lifetime. So just a few thoughts on this foolishness about lethal injections that fail. The most humane method of executing someone, from the perspective of the victim, is probably the guillotine. I suspect it is no scarier to be led up to the blade and be laid out on it than being led to a scaffold or an electric chair or strapped to a gurney. You are aware the whole time that you are in your waning minutes, and the devices you see will kill you. At least with a guillotine, it's fast and probably not very painful. I suspect the same could be said of a quick shot to the head with a 12 gauge, or a 30 calibre bullet to the heart (which, as I recall, is what they do in Utah). The problem with these quick and easy methods is that from the perspective of the killer, they leave lasting impressions. I hope I can report with some satisfaction and sense of human progress that we no longer take joy from lifting heads out of the basket and displaying them to the crowds. Still, whacking off a head is a messy business. It would require that someone clean it up, wash down the killing room, remove the separate parts. Same for the shot to the head. Shot to the heart is less messy, but they say they use a full firing squad with only one person having a bullet so that the shooters don't know for sure that they caused the death…deniability, the theory is, spares the conscience. And what if one misses? (And why is it that firing squads are queasier than hangmen?) Hanging was for many years viewed as a humane way to do it if you tied the rope right. It is the oldest of the no muss no fuss methods. So clean, in fact, that lynching crowds in the American south often cut off body parts before the hanging, just for sport, and the Brits did the drawing and quartering thing. In modern times, however, we have sought out "humane" ways to kill that did not leave a mess. The electric chair, for example. No one seemed to be too bothered by the smell of singed hair and cooked brains. In general it left an intact package that could easily be carted off. Gas was used for a while in some states. California used it on Carrol Chessman, and the Feds used it on the Rosenbergs. The lethal injection seems to be the perfect killing tool for those who want to think they are being humane and also want to avoid the problem of mopping up. So why is it so hard? Apparently the guy that first recommended it suggested a complex drug cocktail that would do its work fast and painlessly…but only if administered just right, which of course, no one seems to be able to do. Incompetents are everywhere, even in the killng rooms of our nation's prisons. Let me make a suggestion. Use morphine. Lots of it. 1,000 milligrams. Maybe More. It's clean. It's painless, and if you screw it up the victim won't give a shit. He'll just ask for more.

Regulating Big Oil. Right.

Last night Rachel asked Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) whether he believed that a well-established regulatory program that was dedicated to real regulation would have had actual functional regulations in place that could have prevented the BP Gusher from happening. Markey said sure enough, no doubt, the real problem was a lax regulatory environment at the Mineral Management Service that dates back to it's establishment and a better regulatory structure would have done the job. I have to call more than half bullshit on that. Prior to the recent Disaster in the Deep, it would have been next to impossible to impose the kind of regulations that would ensure a quick and effective plugging of the leak and clean-up. Washington D.C. is still the place where money talks and bullshit walks, and without a massive public disaster to build your regulations around, you will never get reality to prevail over bullshit. .. if at all. This is nothing new. In the 1950s, Lyndon Johnson, at the behest of the gas barons who owned him, destroyed the regulatory capacity of the Federal Power Commission by accusing the chief regulator of being a commie and having him run out of town. The gas companies got their way in Washington ever after, and made millions while the public paid ever higher gas prices. In the 1970s, a well-funded funeral home industry not only derailed an effort by the Federal Trade Commission to curtail sleazy sales practices in the death industry, it also striped the FTC of most of its regulatory clout. Back in the 1980s the lawyers and examiners at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board provided ample warning to their bosses that the duct tape and chewing gum that held the savings and loan system together would come undone. Savings and loan barons, well connected on both sides of Capitol Hill and in the White House, convinced the leadership that the staff was full of crap. Real regulation gave way to conventional wisdom and it cost the taxpayers than $!50 billion (that's just direct payments to the Resolution Trust Corporation) at a time when a billion was real money. In the 1990s, regulators were fully aware that the dot.com bubble was fueled by outrageous valuations placed on IPOs by underwriters and analysts who knew that most of the stocks being offered could not demonstrate an income stream, let alone a profit-making model. Wall Street's big money lobbyists pumped millions into the campaign chests of Congress to stave off any serious regulatory scrutiny until after the bubble burst. And still, it should be noted, no lessons learned from the dot.com bubble were ever applied to the far more disastrous housing bubble that followed. In the face of clear and convincing evidence of the health hazards of cigarettes, the tobacco lobby held off efforts to regulate cigarettes in the interests of public health for years. Ten years ago the regulators of FreddieMac and FannieMae provided fair warning to the Congress that capital was too thin and accounting too creative at the giant secondary market agencies. Fannie and Freddie, awash in cash, bought the most expensive lobbyists in town and a fist full of Congresspersons, on both sides of the isle, and nothing was done until the system collapsed. We might add that it is not yet clear that the financial institutions reform package still being tinkered with in a House-Senate conference committee will address the egregious regulatory short comings that directly contributed to the current financial crisis. Oil is the richest industry on earth. It can outspend any lobby in Washington if it wishes. It has suppressed environmental efforts to regulate auto emissions and auto mileage standards. It owns many of the most important people in Washington. I will concede that with current oil disaster on our southern coast, it may be possible… as it was after the Santa Barbara oil spill of 40 years ago… to obtain some serious and effective regulatory limits on off-shhore drilling. Absent this event, it would never have happend. At the same time. I think it is a good bet that the oil companies will be drilling again long before they demonstrate that they actually have 21st Century technology that can close off a well and clean up the mess.

BP Cares About Midgets!

I was so glad to know that British Petroleum, the international conglomerate that has poked a big, ostensibly irreparable hole into Mother Earth, now seems to care a whole lot about midgets.
We care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies or greedy companies that don't care, but that is not the case at BP. We care about the small people.
Said Carl-Henric Svanberg yesterday. I figure he just figures we "normal" sized people can stand in the oil just fine with problem. But the small people, man, he's worried that they're gonna drown.

June 16, 2010

Oil Company Elitists

I have to confess that I had no recollection of the Ixtoc Oil disaster that dumped millions of gallons of raw crude into the Gulf of Mexico in 1978. I first learned of it watching Rachel Maddow a few weeks ago. She used it to make the point that the technology used by the oil industry to cleanup oil spills has not changed in 40 years. More interesting is the fact that when the CEOs of the top five oil producing corporations in the world were asked about Ixtoc at a congressional hearing yesterday, not one of them had ever heard of it. Not only did they not know of it before the BP disaster, none of them knew of it even though it became a set piece in discussions of the current crises. There have been hundreds of oil spills in the world since 1969… they have a pretty good list on Wiki… the Exxon Valdez is not even in the top ten. The oil industry has been fucking up the environment at will all these years, and they have not spent a nickel on figuring out how to clean up the mess. That's probably because they don't give a damn, a fact donfirmed by the single most amazing statement from yesterday's hearing, which came from the CEO of Exxon. He explained, in the manner of a ppatient teacher revealing the facts of life to children, that as long as there is going to be oil drilling, there will be environmental damage. He did not say and the oil companies should worry about that, or that the oil companies certainly would clean that up. He just said there would be environmental damage and … too fucking bad!! I guess when you are the head of the richest corporation on the planet you get used to saying stuff like that to people. "We're crapping all over your vegetable garden, asshole, tough shit." "Your kids died so we could get more oil out of Iraq, too fuckin bad, asshole." "Who likes oysters anyway." "Let the fuckin fisherman get jobs waiting tables." Oil Company presidents make about a billion dollars a year and they don't have to take crap from anyone. Right?

June 15, 2010

The Infrastructure Expectation

We went to dinner, and I forgot to reset the DVR to record the Prez this evening. So, what I'm writing here might be somewhat disjointed. Which is too bad because it really shouldn't be. I drive a four-door sedan. 'Murcan made. She's eleven years old. And she has 63,000 miles on her. This is a bit of a joke around my family, how little I drive. Now this is not to say that I don't use a hell of a lot of power in its other forms. I run a television in probably unhealthy amounts, a laptop compyooter, an iPhone, and an entire household, not to mention the electricity I use in my office. But. 63K in 11 years. That's pretty impressive, and I imagine it shrinks my carbon footprint somewhat. But I'm only allowed to do that for one reason: I live in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, which, in the past, has thought it vital to fund and build things like subway systems and a system of commuter buses. You can't do that in many other regions of the United States. In fact, it is entirely possible to live in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and—get this—not even own an automobile. This is especially true, I should add, with the establishment of the Zipcar. This is an amazing little service whereby you can reserve an automobile using the Internet, and then, that afternoon, you can hike over and get in your car and drive off. This service, along with the more traditional methods of public transportation, make it the 63,000 mile 11-year-old car possible. Without that infrastructure, that odo would have turned over long ago. But there is another aspect that must be present for such a success. There must be somewhat of a culture that expects to be able to use said infrastructure, a culture that believes in and trusts the infrastructure. There must be some of that population that grows up using the infrastructure, that learns the ins and outs of their hometowns just by getting around. You've got to have the infrastructure, but you've also got to have the infrastructure expectation. As we discuss possible solutions to whatever you think the "energy crisis" is, I think we tend to go around in circles and to speak in terms of fragments. We have special-interest TV commercials, and this one's touting ethanol, and that one seems to be touting solar and other alternatives. We talk about geothermal, conservation, nuclear, offshore drilling, coal, and so on. This method or that method versus that. I hate to keep bringing this up, but we recently had a bridge fall out of the sky. In America. And yet, this President had to compromise his way out of infrastructure stimulus dollars. People hurl around "tax-and-spend" as if the word "bastard" is to immediately follow. The notion that, as a nation, we require a basic infrastructure that government has a larger interest in creating and maintaining than do for-profit fuck-pigs, that notion is now, incredibly, ridiculed and even dismissed as "socialist." The whole enchilada regarding "energy alternatives" rests on infrastructure and the expectation of infrastructure. Without the trains and the buses, and without a general public that intends to rely on those transportation regularly, all you've got is a bunch of people in their own cars. And that leads, too, to its own discussion of infrastructure. Have I written the word "infrastructure" enough times? It may not be a sexy sexy topic, but bricks and mortar, that's the crux of the issue. This discussion should not just reflect what methods we will use to create power or where to put the damned spent nuclear waste or whatever. It should reflect the larger issue of the national infrastructure as well. That's what it's all aboat.

The Lawrence O'Donnell Show

A few years ago, this blogger had fairly accurately predicted within some proximity that Noted Lesbian Rachel Maddow would become a television star. Now it is with utter cheer that I can report that my prediction in that vein regarding one Lawrence O'Donnell were completely wrong. I have always predicted that O'Donnell seems to be more of a jack-of-many-trades kind of guy. But now, as has just been breaking on The Huffington Post, we know that O'Donnell will indeed host his own television program at 10 p.m. on MSNBC. O'Donnell is a POWERHOUSE of a broadcaster and a shrewd analyst. Watch him eviscerate Buchanan.

This is going to be TEH AWESOME.

Boycott Snapple

Employees of Mott's, who make the apple sauce and juice and such, are striking. Seems the company, which made over $500 million last year, wants the employees to take a pay cut so the company can make even more money. Motts also proposes to end the pension plan and cut payments to 401K plans. Mott's is part of the Dr. Pepper/Snapple Group, located in Texas. It is not as though the company is in trouble. The stock price has more than doubled in the last two years, and even the strike has not dinted its value. While it wants to cut worker pay, it boosted its quarterly dividend 67 percent. The company has made no bones about its intention to get rid of long-term employees and replace them with cheaper labor. They believe that unemployment, which is at an all-time high, works in their favor and have told the employees that they are a "commodity," that can be easily replaced. The strike has been going on for over a month and the company is so confident that it is not even mentioning it on it's web page. The workers are getting some substantial support. New York politicians, including Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, Rep. Dan Maffei, and Rochester Mayor Robert Duffey, who is also a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, have all stood picket duty at the Williiamson, NY plant. (How long has it been since we have seen politicians stand with workers on the picket line?) Two Canadian MPs Jack Layton, the Leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, and Malcolm Allen, Deputy Critic Food Security have stood up for the workers. Layton wrote Snapple Group President & CEO Larry Young to express his concern for product safety as the company uses replacement workers. Allen wrote Carole Swan, President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), to "express concerns about a potential food safety risk in a classic Canadian drink." Mott's Clamato juice is the key ingredient of the popular Canadian summer season cocktail named the Bloody Caesar. Allen pointed out that Mott's decision to use "untrained and inexperienced temporary workers" creates a safety risk and breach of health standards that "could have a negative impact on the quality and safety" of products shipped from the plant. He requested the CFIA to "take extra care" when inspecting Mott's products from the Williamson plant as the summer season is in "full swing." There is a boycott of all Dr. Pepper/Snapple products. Boycotting them is hard work… they sell more than 50 brands, including, for example, all the decent tonic water (Schwepps and Canada Dry), root beer (A&W, Hires and IBC), and Snapple, and Dr. Pepper, and a lot of other stuff. For the full list, go here http://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/brands/. Cross them off your shopping list! It's time we all stood up for the American worker!

June 14, 2010

I Don't Know, Dickhead? Who Are You?

I have to say I am surprised by this video of Rep. Bobby Etheridge going apeshit like this. In my former career as a newspaper journalist, I met Etheridge on several occasions. He is the favorite son of a little place near Raleigh called "Cleveland Township." He was always an extremely cordial fellow. Now I don't think our legislators should come to expect to entertain the requests of amateur ambush journalists while they're walking down the street in downtown Washington. But this behavior on the part of Rep. Etheridge renders him no longer worthy of his seat. I hope his constituents will review and consider this tape carefully.

But Lewis, What We Really Need is Instant Runoff Voting

Lewis Black on the American political system.
Our two-party system is a bowl of shit looking in the mirror at itself. ... Basically, the last eight years, I feel, the Republicans stood around farting and the Democrats went, 'Ooh, let me smell it.'


June 11, 2010

12,000 Minnesota Nurses Walk The Hell Out

They returned to work today, but did you know that yesterday marked the largest walkout by nurses in America like, ever? The one-day work stoppage netted 12,000 nurses walking off the job yesterday. That's a humongous labor action. HUGE. And you probably didn't hear about it. Because the corporate media these days thinks it's very important to report on "business" but doesn't seem to think that labor merits the same attention. This is why I will try to start blogging more in this space about the things I learn from catching the Workers Independent News each day. This daily three-minute dose of labor news will put you in the know about what's happening with folks who, like most of my fellow Americans, actually have to live off of a paycheck. Shameless plug: Workers Independent News runs every hour on the hour from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays on my Live365 radio station, Radio B.O.N.K.. Or you can catch it at the ">WIN Web site. But this is a fine news source that more Americans should follow, IMHO. And more power to those Minnesota nurses. Keep fighting!

June 10, 2010

They Quack Up

Here's a little bit of good news. The Coast Guard says BP is now catching up to 630,000 gallons of oil a day. The bad news is that they're catching it with ducks.
—Jimmy Fallon


June 9, 2010

Where Are Those Damn Tankers/

The one oil spill story that has caught my attention and frustrated me more than any is the tale of the retired CEO of Shell Oil who says we should have couple dozen oil tankers out in the gulf sucking up oil. Nothing sounds more simple, and I cannot figure out why Obama hasn't just ordered it done. Now some news. Esquire reported last week that former Shell Chief John Hoffmeister met with the Coast Guard recently to move this thing along. It also reports that there are 47 supertankers located in the Gulf doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Apparently the tankers are being used to store Iranian crude oil, which no one wants because it is not as good as the stuff that is gushing into the gulf. Esquire reports that it would cost BP about $100 million per tanker for six months to lease these big boats for the clean-up effort. Are they gonna do that? No sign yet. Added complications? Maybe. The tankers are fully loaded, and it is obvious that if they are to be used for another purpose, they will have to be emptied. Where to put the oil? The USA keeps a strategic petroleum reserve of 727 million barrels, located conveniently along the gulf coast. Unfortunately, 727 million barrels is all it can handle, according to the Department of Energy, so we can't off load any more. Anyway it is apparent that we could use tankers to suck up the crude if we could just find a place to put the stuff. Notice that gas is cheap these days and the predictions are that summer will not make it much more expensive. That means there is probably plenty of oil being pumped and refineries are at capacity. That may also mean there is no place to put the stuff. There is an irony.

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America's Future. Now, Damnit!

I would be remiss if I did not mention that this week brought the America's Future Now! conference to Washington, D.C., June 7 - 9 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Every year I swear I'm going to go print up a bunch of business cards with this URL on it and take them to this conference and attend, and every year, I don't. But, we can take a look at some of the news that's come out of this meeting of progressive minds. Dana Milbank reports somewhat breathlessly that, apparently, progressives are angry enough with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to heckle her. Albeit, the heckling sounds like it was pretty damned weird:
Just three minutes into her speech—right after she gave the triumphant news that "Change is here!"—two men stood up and spread out a large pink banner in front of the podium demanding "Stop Funding Israel Terror." At that moment, a wheelchair-bound woman named Carrie James began to scream from her table about 30 feet away: "I am not going to a nursing home!" At that cue, about 15 people in the crowd—who, like James, wore orange T-shirts demanding "Community Choice Act Now"—unfurled bedsheet banners and struck up a chant: "Our homes, not nursing homes!"
Look, I've had a chip on my shoulder regarding Madam Speaker since impeachment was yanked off the table in aught-six. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid. Milbank paints this as a demonstration of the "unraveling" of the progressive movement somehow. But that's a rather myopic view. The truth is that, from the "left" in America, a major dynamic we're faced with in the Obama era is that of party politics versus movement politics, with Pelosi representing the former and staunch progressives understanding more and more that the latter is the only refuge they've left. The sobering truth is that the Democratic Party can only take a progressive agenda so far on its own, and that the party as a whole becomes less and less concerned with We the People each year. Look for that trend to worsen dramatically in the next decade as we enter the post-Citizens United decision era. But it's not just Pelosi drawing the ire of progressives. These folks are plenty mad at President Obama, too. Which I think is understandable to some extent, though I have to continue to query them as to what in the living hell they expected. News flash, kids. "Change" and "hope" were terrific marketing bytes for Obama, and they weren't lies considering the dread and horror foisted upon the American people by the Bush administration. But this guy is not a liberal; he is not a progressive, and he did not run as either one of those things. He did not run on ending our never-ending war. He did not run on all-out universal health care. He did run promising to do something about DADT, but he flat out came out and told Rick Warren that he's not in support of marriage rights for everybody. We were unable to nominate Dennis Kucinich, the most progressive of the bunch, and we did not nominate John Edwards, who talked a lot more like a progressive than most of them, and thank goodness for that. We elected a moderate. And he is governing moderately. So why are you surprised and would you be happier with a President McCain? Again, for those of us interested in moving the envelope forward in a dramatic fashion, party politics can only go so far for us. That is the unfortunate reality of American politics. Party politics is ruled by money and is not established in such a way that third-party options can make even a dent. Movement politics may offer a more effective tool for change, but then, it brings out the nut-bars who for some reason think it's a good idea to heckle the Speaker of the House. I mean, what do you reckon the chances are that she'll ever come back to your stupid conference again? Anyway. Look, kids. That's politics. Politics is sometimes you, a person, playing tug-of-war with a building. The point though is to keep tugging anyway. Ya know?

Arkansas Runoff

Couple notes on the Atkansas runoff. First, a look at the primary vote should tell anyone that the swing vote was going to be the many people who voted for the very conservative third candidate, and they were likely to vote for Liincoln if they voted, which rhey apparently did. So this shouldn't be a surprise, regardless what the pungents say. Second, a lot is being made of the Garland County vote suppression scam. I still think its voter suppression, and I still think that stinks, but Lincoln only trailed in the Garland county primary by 600 votes, and the conservative candidate got 1,800. Lincoln won the runoff with a 10,000 vote margin. Garland County couldn't have given Halter an edge big enough to win in any case. Third, Bill Clinton will have a hard time getting off my shit list for having supported Blanche.

June 8, 2010

Oy Vey Iz Mir

A last thought from me regarding Helen Thomas. I listened to Randi Rhodes yesterday defend the hell out of Thomas, saying that 27 seconds of video or audio on the YouTube shouldn't instantly mitigate a 67-year career. I disagree, frankly. Here is, specifically, the exchange that got Thomas "retired."
Thomas, White House correspondent for Hearst Newspapers, showed up at the White House's May 27 Jewish Heritage Celebration, where she gave an interview to Rabbi David Nesenoff of RabbiLive.com. Late last week Nesenoff posted a clip from the video on YouTube. Here's the transcript: Nesenoff: Any comments on Israel? We're asking everybody today-- Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Nesenoff: Ooh. Any better comments? Thomas (cackling): Remember, these people are occupied, and it's their land, not German and not Polish. Nesenoff: So where should they go? What should they do? Thomas: They should go home. Nesenoff: Where is home? Thomas: Poland. Germany. Nesenoff: So you're saying the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany? Thomas: And America, and everywhere else.
According to The Washington Post, Nesenoff was accompanied at the time by his two sons, both sporting the kippah. As noted, she was at the White House for an event that likely shadows Shavuot, a little-known holiday remembering the Old Testament events at Mount Sinai. And in that context, Helen Thomas is approached by an Ashkenazim looking fella with two boys in tow bearing yarmulkes, and she says wha? THAT THE JEWS SHOULD "GO BACK TO POLAND AND GERMANY?" Specifically, she chose those countries specifically? What Thomas revealed in those 27 seconds was that, despite all of her hard work and years and years of holding the noses of presidents to the grindstone, I'm sorry, but Helen Thomas has revealed that she is simply too ignorant to any longer deserve her seat in the press room. I do not think she was being hateful or anti-Semitic. I think that what Helen Thomas revealed about herself with her comments is that she is a buffoon who has gotten much farther on a tank of gas then she should have been able to. Buh-bye Helen. Why don't you do a little reading with your time off, dear? You should start with André Schwarz-Bart's "The Last of the Just" and go from there. Moron.

June 7, 2010

Is it just me...

...or did Big Eddie just refer to Prudence Palin as "Caribar Boobie?"

Washington Media Frenzy Consumes One Of Its Own

If you want to look at a media circus in action, check out the Helen Thomas foot in her mouth story. I didn't watch news all weekend so missed a lot of it. Had to go to YouTube to find exactly what she said, since not one of the written references I found this morning had an exact quote. Here is what she said: "They (the Jews) Should Get the Hell Out of Palestine." You would think that, this story being about a bunch of journalists, it wouldn't be that hard to find the right quote, but it was. It's harder to find an exact context. I saw a couple references to a radio show with a Rabbi, but the You tube thingy looks like a random person on the street interview… except of course, its Helen who was on the street, and she is not random. One Helen apologist insisted she was talking only about how Israel should abandon it's policy of making new settlements in Palestine. The same story insisted that the follow-up question… "Where would they go?" "Back where they came from, to Germany and Poland and Brooklyn," meant that she was pointing out that the settlements are being filled by newcomers to Israel who came directly from Brooklyn and Poland and Germany, and we would be better off if they went back to a place where they recently had homes than if they stayed in Palestine, where their presence poses a challenge and a menace. (I have to give some credence to this version, since she said Palestine, not Israel.) Helen's media fellows are feeding on this like cats on mice. Right wingers and Israeli apologists claim she wants to turn back the clock and force all Jews to go back to Germany and Poland and somehow relive the Holocaust. They claim it is proof that she is an anti-semite because she obviously does not know anything about the horrors of the Holocaust and such. Better, and I really like this one, the right wing also claims the Washington media establishment is circling the wagons to protect Helen, PROOF that the left wing supports fascism. In the meantime, the straight media, often referred to as the left wing media by the paranoid monkeys of the right, has been very busy proving the right wing media is completely wrong. Poor old Helen has been thrown under the bus by everyone who has been, had been or ever wanted to be a big cheese inside the media circus. That's about everyone she ever worked with who is still alive. This is, after all, the kind of gaff that causes all of Washington, particularly the press corps, to run as far as possible from the splatter. Her agent was the first to go. (I suspect it was more because her dollar value dropped than principled opposition.) Then her "co author," Craig Crawford, who was too happy to hitch his wagon to her highly respected star when his own career seemed to be running out of gas, no longer knows her. The White House Press Association is talking about censoring her, and every pundit in the industry is working overtime to get in front of the story. Where's the old lady? Where's the bus? I don't think Helen Thomas said anything a lot of people have not thought, some of which I have written here, and which some other people are saying. I don't think she really wants the USA to abandon it's support for Israel or means that all Israelis should go back to Europe. I certainly so not believe she is unmindful of the history of Jews in Europe. LIke many of she is frustrated that Israel has taken a number of actions that appear to ignore international sentiment and which have made it appear that they are as much the problem as is Hamas. More importantly, Helen Thomas is the only reporter who has lately asked any useful or penetrating questions about our little war in Afghanistan, proving she has not lost her chops as a reporter. She has been a stalwart of the journalism community for decades and it is a sad thing to see her treated with so little respect. If you are leading pack of Washington journalists, you have to expect that they will turn on you eventually. (I was going use a simile here, comparing journalists to whores, but I refrained out of respect for whores.)

Afghanistan't

History's made today! Yay! Longest. War. Evar. Eight Years and Eight Months! Take that, Vietnam! Wouldn't it be great if President Obama could simply admit what I think is true, that he made a commitment to Afghanistan for cynical political reasons, because for some reason, you can't get elected to the White House as a Democrat these days unless you sign on to the bipartisannally stupid idea that never-ending war is awesome. It's so weird. Presidents are not allowed to campaign on the promise of peace anymore. You know what presidents campaigned on the promise of peace? Liberal commie homo ones like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Mailbox Noxin, that's who. Nowadays, though, if you're running for President, it's all "I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth...eat dead burnt bodies..." and whatnot. The war in Afghanistan is intractable, folks. There's no winning to be had. We're never going to find UBL. And regardless, it's just a continuation of the classically awful foreign policy stance that we're gonna "fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here." On that note, it's time to note the untimely retirement of Helen Thomas. That's right, yet another person's entire career has been run off the road by the YouTube, apparently. Thomas flapped her gums about Israel and said something very very stupid, and now out she goes. One could argue that she's past her prime, but considering that she was recently the only reporter with the balls to confront President Obama about our presence in Afghanistan during a recent press conference, I'd say we're losing a hell of a great resource, perhaps the last reporter with the actual nuts to put it to the POTUS. Let's raise a glass and remember what I think was her finest moment:
[George W. Bush] is the worst President ever. He is the worst President in all of American history.
And that's the way it is.

Ohio 2004 All Over Again

If you need proof that Blanche Lincoln is a Gooper check out the latest voter suppression scheme at work in Arkansas. Lincoln, the party insider and corporate representative to Big Pharma, has gotten the Garland County elections commissioner to help out by reducing the number of voting places in that key district. Garland is, naturally, the one of the districts where Lincoln's opponent Bill Halter has substantial support. For the primary, they had 42 voting places. For the run-off tomorrow, they have two. Charles Tapp, who heads the election commission in Garland County, told the voters they could vote early, starting Saturday. Then they showed up and learned that was a lie. No early voting. Apparently that is not even legal in Arkansas. Tapp is appointed by the Democratic machine i.e. Blanche Lincoln. Garland is one of the top five counties by voting population, with more than 12,000 Democratic Party voters in the primary. Halter won it with 44 percent of the vote. Lincoln had 40 percent and D.C. Morrison, an arch-conservative, had 15 percent. Lincoln got the most primary votes with 145,000; Harter had 138.000. Morrison got 42,000, enough to tip the runoff balance either way. The leaders split most of the large counties closely, but Lincoln carried Pulaski County (Little Rock), by a significant margin, 52 to Halter's 40 percent. Thus, Lincoln has an edge, but it will be a tight election. (Morrison voters are a wild card. Will they vote? If their vote was a protest, will they use it against Lincoln? If they are real conservatives, will they vote against the Progressive?) Thus, keeping a few hundred Halter voters from the polls can only benefit one candidate. That's the way the GOOP does business. That is how The Moron George Dubya Busch got into office in 2000 and 2004. We would be much better off if Blanche Lincoln came clean and joined the GOOP.

June 4, 2010

Blame the Jews II

Thanks to Crisanthemama for pointing out that the Israeli blockade of Gaza extends to more than weapons. (Read here. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-pasta-paper-and-hearing-aids-that-could-threaten-israeli-security-1635143.html) It does not surprise me that the Israelis are being pigheaded, but I am surprised that they are being small minded and silly. Banning lentils and macaroni for what reason? Still, I don't see anyone who opposes the blockade proposing a solution to the problem of importing weapons, about which Israel has a legitimate interest. As I suggested, it looks like a matter for the UN to handle.

June 3, 2010

Go To Booming School @ Da Daily Kos

If you're watching The Rachel Maddow Show this evening, you're hearing a lot about booming and how ineffectively it's being deployed in the Gulf. If you want to learn all about it, you should go read this immediately. By the by, do you know what moniker British Petroleum once went by? Do you? Huh? The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Formed first as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company following a deal struck with the then Shah in 1901. Then 50 years later Mossadeq took power in Iran and nationalized the oil, pushing the AIOC out. Then in 1953, the CIA forced Mossadeq out. And guess who got to do business in Iran again? Until, oh, about 1979? Yep. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. (Which became the British Petroleum Company in 1954.) Hmmm.

Stop Confusing Us With Facts!

The safest cities in these Untied States of America, that is, the cities with the lowest violent crime rates, are: San Diego, Phoenix, Austin, and El Paso. All of these are cities that border Mexico. One of them is the capital of the state that recently passed a law you might have heard about. The Arizona law is nonsense. As we've covered here at KIAV before, this oft-repeated notion that "the federal government isn't doing anything about illegal immigration" is utter horsey-poo. And may I amend the conclusion of my April 30 post to include "oil gushers of apocalyptic proportions?"

Oh, What You Said!

The President of the United States, speaking yesterday at Carnegie-Mellon, the school what matriculated my very own Grannie G.
In a global economy, we can't pursue this agenda in a vacuum. At the height of the financial crisis, the coordinated action we took with the nations of the G20 prevented a global depression and helped restore worldwide growth. And as we've recently witnessed in Europe, economic difficulties in one part of the world can affect everybody else. And that's why we have to keep on working with the nations of the G20 to pursue more balanced growth. That's why we need to coordinate financial reform with other nations so that we avoid a global race to the bottom. It's why we need to open new markets and meet the goal of my National Export Initiative: to double our exports over the next five years. And it's why we need to ensure that our competitors play fair and our agreements are enforced. This, too, is part of building a new foundation. Now, some of you may have noticed that we have been building this foundation without much help from our friends in the other party. From our efforts to rescue the economy, to health insurance reform, to financial reform, most have sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers. They said no to tax cuts for small businesses; no to tax credits for college tuition; no to investments in clean energy. They said no to protecting patients from insurance companies and consumers from big banks. And some of this, of course, is just politics. Before I was even inaugurated, the congressional leaders of the other party got together and made a calculation that if I failed, they'd win. So when I went to meet with them about the need for a Recovery Act, in the midst of crisis, they announced they were against it before I even arrived at the meeting. Before we even had a health care bill, a Republican senator actually said, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." So those weren't very hopeful signs. But to be fair, a good deal of the other party's opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about the role of government. It's a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges. It's an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations. The last administration called this recycled idea "the Ownership Society." But what it essentially means is that everyone is on their own. No matter how hard you work, if your paycheck isn't enough to pay for college or health care or childcare, well, you're on your own. If misfortune causes you to lose your job or your home, you're on your own. And if you're a Wall Street bank or an insurance company or an oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences for everybody else. Now, I've never believed that government has all the answers. Government cannot and should not replace businesses as the true engine of growth and job creation. Government can't instill good values and a sense of responsibility in our children. That's a parent's job. Too much government can deprive us of choice and burden us with debt. Poorly designed regulations can choke off competition and the capital that businesses need to thrive. I understand these arguments. And it's reflected in my policies. After all, one-third of the Recovery Act we designed was made up of tax cuts for families and small businesses. And when you think back to the health care debate, despite calls for a single-payer, government-run health care plan, we passed reform that maintains our system of private health insurance. But I also understand that throughout our nation's history, we have balanced the threat of overreaching government against the dangers of an unfettered market. We've provided a basic safety net, because any one of us might experience hardship at some time in our lives and may need some help getting back on our feet. And we've recognized that there have been times when only government has been able to do what individuals couldn't do and corporations wouldn't do. That's how we have railroads and highways, public schools and police forces. That's how we've made possible scientific research that has led to medical breakthroughs like the vaccine for Hepatitis B, and technological wonders like GPS. That's how we have Social Security and a minimum wage, and laws to protect the food we eat and the water we drink and the air that we breathe. That's how we have rules to ensure that mines are safe and, yes, that oil companies pay for the spills that they cause. Now, there have always been those who've said no to such protections; no to such investments. There were accusations that Social Security would lead to socialism, and that Medicare was a government takeover. There were bankers who claimed the creation of federal deposit insurance would destroy the industry. And there were automakers who argued that installing seatbelts was unnecessary and unaffordable. There were skeptics who thought that cleaning our water and our air would bankrupt our entire economy. And all of these claims proved false. All of these reforms led to greater security and greater prosperity for our people and our economy. So what was true then is true today. As November approaches, leaders in the other party will campaign furiously on the same economic arguments they've been making for decades. Fortunately, we don't have to look back too many years to see how their agenda turns out. For much of the last 10 years we've tried it their way. They gave us tax cuts that weren't paid for to millionaires who didn't need them. They gutted regulations and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight. They shortchanged investments in clean energy and education, in research and technology. And despite all their current moralizing about the need to curb spending, this is the same crowd who took the record $237 billion surplus that President Clinton left them and turned it into a record $1.3 trillion deficit. So we know where those ideas lead us. And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. And I don't know about you, but I want to move forward. I think America wants to move forward.
What's been missing in the debate over the issue of the day has been swats at the larger issue. He's getting warmer. But it's more like 30 years. And it's far more pervasive and sinister than he's able to acknowledge. The fact of the matter is that government isn't yet drowning in that bathtub, a visual that only a conservative like Grover Norquist would be twisted enough to even put into thought let alone words, but it's certainly treading water. To the point that when Obama made a point of saying that the federal government was actually in charge of BP's attempts to quell the oil geyser, I didn't believe him and still don't. The reason there is an oil geyser to begin with is that the government isn't in charge of anything. I can hope that the President will continue to espouse the long view of things and that he will go even longer. But I suspect that his remarks of yesterday were as broad as he can go. FDR. There's a guy who knew how to take the long view:
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.
I was thinking last night as I took my evening constitutional: There is a part of the FDR Memorial here in Washington that memorializes soup kitchens. Seriously. It looks like this: It memorializes soup kitchens and/or bread lines. As if to say, that was something that happened, you know, "back then." And it won't ever happen again. I dunno about that. Not when you've got people who are apparently willing and able to sit in the hot sun and hold up signs that depict the President of these Untied States as Hitler who are begging for the country to become an all-out plutocracy, unable to understand somehow that doing so simply renders them as supplicants and serfs.