Archive for May, 2008
Jeffrey Toobin of Best Political Team On CNN, “ITS OVER”
Of today’s 19 to 8 vote by the Democratic Party Rules Committee to only give the Michigan Delegates one half votes, he says many of those 19 votes were from Clinton supporters on the committee and that is the signal that it is over.
Additionally, there are only three days to get past the final primaries on June 3 and that the call by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to all the SuperDelegates to place their markers down right after that and indicate who they plan to vote for at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August, does seem to seal Hillary’s long shot continuing campaign because she “is the best candidate”.
He allows for no possibility that there remains a Hail Mary chance for Hillary as president. He did not opine at the same time about the Vice Presidential nomination.
Robert Wexler told Wolf blitzer that an Obama/Clinton ticket would be a very exciting ticket but that would be up to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Toobin also said that Howard Dean is to be congratulated for unifying the party and that the Rules Committee Co Chairmen, Jame Roosevelt and Alexa Herman were to be congratulated for pulling together a very unruly committee which contained a majority of Clinton supporters.
Dem Resoluton to “Hijack Delegates” passes 19 to 8.
“I am stunned”
“Gall and chutzpah”
“You bet your ass!” (twice)
Ick….
So says Harold Ickes, long time Clinton loyalist and political operative who said of the motion to seat Michigan Delegates with each getting one half vote, it will hijack delegates and “is no way to seek party unity” and that Hillary “has instructed him to announce that she reserves the right to take the fight to the credentials committee”.
As unlikely as it seems, given clear past rulings that political parties can make up their own rules, it seems like the Clinton campaign will do anything to including taking a run to the Supreme Court, to the credential committee which will not be established until June, to the August convention in Denver in order to what? Ensure democracy? No.
To get the VP nomination or get openly rejected.
That’s all she wants now, so go ahead Barack, either take her as your VP or openly reject her so she and The Democratic Party and indeed the country can move on.
The motion passed 19 to 8. Some could not hear the vote due to hecklers in the audience, this time no doubt of Hillary supporters, although earlier Obama supporters acted similarly.
Wolf Blitzer immediately called it a “Soloman like solution”.
As a result, the nomination now requires a total of 2118 delegates needed and Barack now has 2050 and Hillary has 1877. As I earlier leaked, Obama will get the nomination, and remember you heard it here first.
Barack Obama will not get there with the voters delegates, he will require the some of the superdelegates to push him over to get the nomination. Hillary will claim that she has won the popular votes and this violates the parties principals.
How would she respond to this message in a phone call from the God Father, aka Al Gore, to tell her “it is not about you Hillary, it is about the Party”?
Back Room Deals Are Now Partially Televised
The Democratic Party’s Rules Committee is still out for lunch break at 4:30PM. No wonder we can no longer afford our government.
Could it be they are making back room deals? I sure hope so.
Chris Matthews, before musing that it is a rather late lunch, is publicly wondering, more hoping, if Hillary is going to make a Soft Concession before the final primaries on June 3, as well as the unique one if Puerto Rico on June 1, as graciously as Nixon once did.
Al Gore once said it was not about Howard Dean. Howard Dean today says this is not about “our candidates” it is about our country, about restoring our reputation”. That seems to be about the failed policies of George Bush the Democratic candidates hope to pin on John McCain, but does it also presage that he thinks Obama or Hillary is better capable of doing that? Hint, if so, it is not Hillary he believes in.
Is it about Obama, Hillary or about the Democratic Party or Al Gore?
Rachael Maddow credits Howard Dean with a remarkable moment in the current family feud among Democrats when he admitted that in the 2004 Democratic Primary race he was ranting and raving in his hotel room while talking with Al Gore on the phone about how poorly he was being treated by his party.
He said that Al Gore told him it is not about you Howard, it is about the party at which time the light bulb came on and Howard left the race.
Today, in New York, Al Gore is holding a private meeting to raise funds and pundits are speculating that he is going to raise more than money. Nora O’Donnell thinks it signals that Al Gore is about to publicly cast his vote (who believes it will not be for Obama?).
And most importantly, that Howard Dean is signaling that the Democratic Party should pay attention to the increasingly influential one time Senator and Vice President who has reinvented himself as an international darling, filmmaker and entrepreneur whose nascent mystical power is making him The Godfather of the Democratic Party.
Chris Matthews was in awe of the epiphany that someone like Howard Dean could have that would cause them to put their party ahead of themselves. Message: Quit Hillary, Quit!
Al Qaeda Strategically Defeated
Al Qaeda is nearly strategically defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia , has had significant setbacks globally, and is on the defensive throughout much of the world, CIA Director Michael Hayden said in a Washington Post interview published on Friday. citing major gains against Osama bin Laden’s network and its allies. Successes extend even to the lawless region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where bin Laden is believed to be living. Other Muslims are pushing back against al Qaeda’s extremist form of Islam.
Hayden expressed concern that the progress against al Qaeda could be halted or reversed because of what he views as growing complacency and a return to the mind-set that existed before the September 11 attacks. He did not say one of the concerns involves promises by liberal Democrat presidential candidates to “cut and run” that would allow al Qaeda to regroup, and dishearten allies, and Iraqis.
International media reports generally are siding with Hayden while U. S. mainstream media choses to ignore the good news. Foreign newspapers from Germany to India are calling the progress remarkable since the surge strategy has been in effect. It is difficult to project how many lives and treasure would have been saved had President Clinton taken advantage of either offer by Sudan to arrest and take bin Laden into custody and turn him over to the U. S. before 9-11. Clinton refused both offers and 3,000 were killed on 9-11-2001 and tens of thousands since.
Michigan Primary Flawed or Obama Michigan Strategy Flawed?
Pat Buchanan, who has campaigned previously for President, says the Clinton campaign is now really campaigning in order to get a firm offer or rejection for the Vice Presidential nomination. They are playing Hardball, asking for, in his satirical term, “totus porcus”, the whole hog in Florida and Michigan.
One of the questions of the day is, were the Florida and Michigan primaries flawed or were the DNC punishment decisions flawed or in the case of Michigan, was Barack Obama’s decision to take his name off the ballot flawed?
Or was the my question flawed? I take total responsibility. I am used to carrying the heavy loads.
Levin Says Eliminate Perpetual Privilege
Michigan Senator Carl Levin says the fixed privilege Iowa and New Hampshire have enjoyed for too long should be changed and which he and others have tried to get changed in the past unsuccessfully. He repeatedly mentioned “with all the power that gives them.” Not exactly power to the people, rather power to some people.
He recounted the history of the Michigan delegation attempts to deal with the Perpetual Privilege those two states have enjoyed, despite a national committee ruling that would have put someone between Iowa and New Hampshire. He says that New Hampshire ignored the party committee, refusing to participate in spreading the power by scheduled their primary for the first position. He charges that they were rewarded by “getting a waiver” from the national committee’s own rules.
His and other advocates arguments, were often times persuasive on both sides. I felt like a ping pong ball. All of this demonstrated something most of us give lip service to but understand so little.
The wisdom of our founding fathers.
Before I tell you what part of their wisdom I believe is relevant to this circus, let me first say, the founding fathers were fallible human beings doing their work in a completely different time and under completely different circumstances. While some may think that “fallible human beings” is the definition of any given group of white men, as a conflicted person, I can not yet accept that!
Regardless, I won’t attempt to discuss in detail or even mention everything that can be fairly debated about what they created. However, my grand conclusion is that the world should be grateful for what they created as a way for human beings to govern themselves regardless of it’s flaws. It’s wisdom trumps it’s flaws. One of my recurring rhetorical questions is will our current actions be the same, will our wisdom trump our flaws?
For now, I will only mention that some of the Founding Fathers were slave holders and they denied the vote to both slaves and women partially by silence on the issue. It seems that when they voted for the words “all men are created equal” they specifically meant or at least tolerated and in some cases lived the meaning that the “men” were not mankind, rather it meant white men. In that day, as a colony of England, it was a big step to allow white men who did not own land or have a noteworthy lineage, to vote. Pretty big step at that time.
Advocating the elimination the state level delegate system (yeah, that get’s my vote!) and allowing the direct vote in the presidential primaries by the Democratic Party, Rick Jacobs in the Huffington Post wrote the following:
The framers of the constitution did not trust the public to select the chief executive. They also needed a series of compromises to convince the small states to sign the Constitution. The Electoral College addressed both concerns handily. In today’s world, the prospect of introducing a mechanism by which to buffer the people’s will would be laughable. 2008 should be the last year that any democratic institution insulates itself from the people. While it takes a constitutional amendment to end the Electoral College, it takes only a vote of the Democratic Party delegates to end indirect, manipulated elections. If leaders can’t trust their own members and voters, how can the people trust our leaders? See the entire article here.
Some of us know that the founding fathers did create a pure democracy, but a republic and what that means. Fewer of us know that it is believed by historians that the founding fathers did not think the creation of political parties to be a good thing. For sure, they did think that an indirect system rather than direct voter would be best for President and for the laws we pass.
Neither major party, now that we unfortunately have them, should continue its impossibly flawed electoral system for it’s candidates. It simply rearranges the acknowledged back room practices that enabled a very few to determined the candidate selection in past years and which the current system is designed to fix.
They failed in their purpose even though so much of the process is public, because it is still fraught with unintended consequences. Additionally, given the persuasive skill of our lawyers, the emotion of the issues, and the richness and complexity of our language, all of us would be better off if the members of the private clubs called political parties let their members directly select their candidates.
However, the wisdom of indirect elections at the national level should continue as it exists today. In this environment, no changes should be made to how we elect the President from among the various parties nominees. No changes should be made in this environment to how our House of Representatives or our Senators are elected, who then pass bills by rules they create, another example of how a republic, representative, non pure democratic form of government conducts business.
If there weren’t more important issues facing our country, I might say we should appoint a commission to review the strengths and weaknesses of our current system, for the sole purpose of educating the public. Then maybe someday, decades in the future, that debate can begin.
Not today. We should forget about rearranging any of the chairs in this environment of partisan conflicts so obvious in a failed Democratic Party nomination process to say nothing of the inability of the major parties to be collegial in tehir opposition and find a way to eliminate the acrimony and permanent posturing for an election.
My strong view, is that the most important decision facing us is NOT whether Clinton, Obama or McCain is our president. We can do well as a nation regardless of which becomes President, despite differences that seem to be so pivotal.
What this country needs is a little dose of unity between the parties, regardless of who is president, even a little positive nationalism where in we take a sober non political look at our national interests. We need all of our politicians to stop being so arrogant and to understand our changing place in the world. It is important to understand that we do not site at the near unreachable top of the pyramid in terms of power to protect ourselves anymore.
The world has changed and it is very noteworthy that during this rise of power in other nations, these nations are clearly going to look out for their national interests, and most importantly that their national interest will be determined as interpreted by only a few entrenched leaders already at the top. Putin will never leave. The nominal only communist leaders in China will be unopposed for some time, absent violent revolution. The incredibly rich leaders in the Middle East Countries will bow down to the state religion only because they control the public emotion and if required, the vote in most countries.
All the while we piddle with ineffective Private Party Primary Politics which can legally sell the nomination to the highest bidder under our laws as interpreted by the courts fi they want. Given the money in politics that is almost, not quite, what we already do.
It’s Not As Black and White As It Is Black And White.
May 21-22 study by Princeton Survey Research Associates International finds 72% disapprove of giving preferences to blacks and other minorities in things like hirings, promotions, and college admissions., and 75% believing it sometimes or often leads to less qualified people getting hired, promoted, or admitted. Most, 57%, do not believe America has not gone too far in pushing equal rights but about as many think blacks are losing out 30% as say whites are losing out 26% because of racism.
68% say the “poor” have become too dependent upon government assistance, and 67% say the reason blacks “can’t get ahead” is their own fault.
A CNN/Essence magazine poll finds that while only 11% of whites say discrimination against black is very serious 43% of blacks say that. 46% of Whites and 44% of blacks say it is somewhat serious .
Same-sex Marriage and Abortion To Be on California’s Fall Ballot
Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina , South Dakota and Utah have petitioned California’s Supreme Court to delay implementing it ruling allowing same sex marriages. All except Florida and New Hamphire have constitutional provisions banning such homosexual marriages . Each State would have to determine whether or not they would recognize such marriages likely setting off a maelstrom of litigation.
Governor Schwarzenegger says he supports same-sex marriage putting him at odds with a majority of Califoirnians.That and the state’s inability to act in a fiscally sound way have torpdoed his once sky-high job approval ratings sending him crashng to earth.
If a ballot measure is certified Californians will vote on in November amending its Constitution to ban such marriages the whole thing could be moot. The ballot measure appears ready to be put on the ballot and right now it would pass.
Nationwide a May 21-25 Pew Research poll found Americans oppose same-sex marriage by a 49-38% margin.
Also in California enough signatures have been gathered to require abortionist to notifiy a minor child’s parents before performing an abortion. Right now an abortionist can abort a minor’s fetus without telling the parents. Parents and others say their parental rights are abused and parents have been faced with paying for medical complications because of insufficient and some say even criminal lack of after care. The measure could also be on the November ballot and would be passed according to recent polling.
NBA Pauses for DNC Debacle
The so-called RULES COMMITTEE of the National Democrat Party will meet and rule on the apportioning and seating of delegates from the “bad boy’s and girl’s states” of Florida and Michigan. But, its ruling can be appealed to the CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE TO SEAT OR NOT any delegate or delegation, and such a challenge can apparently be brought by almost anybody and would have to be ratified by the entire Democrat Convention when it meets in Denver, Colorado in August.
Meanwhile there will be more pontificating, puffing, preening and posturing by the pair of champion shadow boxing narcissists continuing their elaborate Kabuki performance “supported” by a veteran vaudevillian troop called PDR (Pelosi, Dean, Reid) with bit players; walk-ons and fly-overs named Edwards, Carter and Gore.
That seems embarrassingly certain to continue to attract and nurture an ever more despicable assortment of lunatic-like actors, costumed as clergy, parading before an exaggeratedly swaying congregation with a seemingly inexhaustible pharmaceutical supply.
Look for code words like “suspended campaign” and “unification” reading ever more like the infamously flaccid League of Nations Charter. Let the hugging and cheek kissing begin; I suppose a remaining question is what cheeks.
Puerto Rico may determine Democratic Nominee (pst, that would be Barack)
Only in America.
Michael Barone in a U.S. News and World report says about the Democratic proportional delegate nomination and Puerto Rico: “And they aren’t likely to be proportionately distributed.”
You might find this four month old article interesting despite the fact that his prognosis for Hillary did not turn out so well, but if he is proven right in the upcoming primary about the Puerto Rican Democrats, you will see some first class irony, unintended consequences and inconsistency. I didn’t say hypocrisy, but you decide. Then take a look at what Wikipedia tells us about Puerto Rican voting in Presidential Elections:
“The major differences between Puerto Rico and the states are:
- Puerto Rico does not have the rights of a state as granted by the US constitution, because it is not a state. These include:
- Lack of voting representation in either house of the U.S. Congress, as the US Constitution provides these rights only to full states. The only delegate to the Congress is an elected Resident Commissioner who represents the people of P.R. in the United States House of Representatives. The delegate may speak but cannot vote for final passage of congressional legislation, and may serve and vote in committees, as well as the Committee of the Whole.
- The ineligibility of Puerto Rican residents to vote in presidential elections, as the US Constitution provides these rights only to full states. (Note, residents the [[District of Columbia only attained this right in 1960 by a constitutional amendment.) P.R. does not have any electors in the U.S. Electoral College, although the Puerto Rico chapters of the Republican and Democratic parties can (and do) have state-like voting delegations to their respective nominating conventions, as well as voting representation in the Democratic and Republican National Committee.
So let’s see here:
1. If Puerto Rican voters and their Democratic Party officials on June 1, 2008 give all their delegates (63) to Barack Obama he will be the Democratic Presidential Nominee is in the primary in June 2008. At the time of this post, he only lacks 43. If Puerto Rico goes all for Hillary, then Barack will have to wait until June 3, 2008 assuming the Rules Committee has not punted.
2. But these Puerto Rican Democrats join their Republican comrades in that they are all ineligible to vote in the general election in November 2008 for that same nominee.
The artifacts of history create interesting situations, to say the least.
Dangerous Religion
It seems one of John McCain’s possible running mates is Mitt Romney, but a possible drawback to his being chosen for that position is that some 12% of the electorate says it would definitely not vote for him because he is a Mormon, and another sizable minority would have to give it some thought. That is, viewed from the perspective of the more mainline religious groups, the feeling is that he must perforce hold to some off-the-wall religious views.
Do I detect just a smidgen of hypocrisy here? Just how mainstream was the combination of Masonic beliefs and Unitarianism of some of the founders of our country? If Mormonism’s misdeeds of the mid-19th century be adduced, what about a notorious kidnaping and presumed murder on the part of some Masonic extremists of the same period? Does that act disqualify Masons forever from running for office? Or shall we talk about some of our recent presidents who at least superficially adhered to the more mainline religious groups but displayed the morals of an alleycat? At last count, a mere 43% of US voters considered moral character an important factor in a candidate.
So let’s see if I have this straight. A moral leper who gives lip service to, say, the Baptist or Roman Catholic faith is acceptable as a candidate, but a faithful member of a religious group outside the mainstream, but who is squeaky clean morally, is rejected out of hand. Okay, got it.
Presumably the fear is that Romney, should he ascend to the presidency, would either openly or, more likely in the nature of the case, underhandedly, impose Mormon doctrine and practice on an unsuspecting nation. I recall a political cartoon that came out just prior to the 1960 election, showing JFK in one panel and the pope in another, each with a phone in his hand. Kennedy is telling the pope, “Unpack. I lost.” Maybe if Romney fails to make it to the presidency we’ll have one showing a line of huge trucks arriving at the White House gate loaded with the disassembled Mormon Tabernacle, with Romney saying to the lead driver, “Take it back. I lost.”
About the most notable attempt to sell Mormon values to the general public that I have seen came about when a Mormon scholar was showing slides of archaeological sites in Mexico and pointed out a young Mexican who had become trail sick by drinking enormous amounts of Coca-Cola. Dangerous propaganda, that.
I confess that I would rather have a resurrected Suleiman the Magnificent as my president than someone who carries an unopened Bible once in a while to a mainline Christian church and uses that as a smokescreen for nefarious personal or political dealings. Suleiman behaved more like a Christian during the Crusades than most of the alleged Christians did, and he was a Medieval Muslim.
My point is that we need to get our electoral priorities straight. That a man such as Mitt Romney, who certainly did not attempt to impose a religious agenda on predominantly Roman Catholic Massachusetts, should be judged for something absolutely peripheral to his likely value as a vice president is simply dangerous. Not many of us doubt that we live in dangerous times, and we had better get serious about our criteria for choosing the people who will lead us through them.
The Obama Daley Brand
Slightly nervous reporters today on CNN had a story on bare knuckles practices used by Barack Obama 12 years ago to eliminate a Lady Democrat, also a progressive on the south side of Chicago, with the last name of Palmer. It was about eligibility on a competitive ballot against him and she was eliminated on what some may think of correctable technicalities and some may say are rules that need to be respected and enforced.
This on the heels of continuing charges that Barack has not been given the detailed scrutiny by the mainstream media (neither left nor right want to be called that nowadays), lavishly granted to McCain and Hillary. It seems that their new love affair with a kinder and gentler Obama, will kill two birds with one stone: Beat the Republicans and heal their own Clinton fatigue.
Now, we all await to some degree, the outcome of the Democrats very own internal Florida non recount, sans United States Supreme Court involvement, SO FAR.
A future reality show or maybe better, an old style daytime soap opera could already be in preproduction planning entitled “Defeat of Lady Palmer, 1996 and 2008.”
Deer Friend
Last night I read this article in our local newspaper, and the act of kindness this unknown fisherman did, deserves to be recognized. There truly are good people in this world who aren’t selfish and uncaring, but compassionate and selfless.
Friday, May 30, 2008
On Thursday morning, on one of my many walks to the Ludington lighthouse, I spotted what appeared to be two large dogs walking out on the south pier. As I neared the lighthouse, I saw that they were actually two deer who jumped into the water and began swimming west.
A lone fisherman who saw their plight pulled in his fishing gear and headed out to where the deer’s heads were barely visible between the waves. He skillfully got them turned around and pushed them on a steady path back toward the pierheads. One deer appeared to be near drowning as his head ducked beneath the water surface for an instant, but both of them were able to climb out of the water onto the south pier. They took a few seconds to gain steady footing, and began a long slow trot back to the safety of shore.
My thanks go out to this unidentified fisherman for performing an act of kindness that may have gone unnoticed on most other mornings. After the incident, he went back to fishing and I’ll bet nothing he might catch would top this fishing story played out on a beautiful Ludington May morning.
— Gary Grams
TOMORROW’S NEWS TODAY!
Fair warning! If you are the kind of person who can’t watch a movie if someone tells you the ending before you’ve seen it, stop reading this column immediately! If you’re the type of guy who TiVo’s the ballgame and then spends the whole day avoiding the radio, the Internet, and people, so some schmuck on the elevator doesn’t blow it for you before you get home, step away from the essay!
Now, let me speak to the few of you who remain, who, like me, can’t take it anymore. If the suspense of current events is taking a toll on your nervous system, if the avalanche of horror stories about earthquakes and elections, Lebanon and Lohan, cyclones in Asia, tornadoes in America, murders, mergers and inquisitions has you quivering in fear or awaiting The Rapture, then read on.
These times are trying—to kill us. Every thing bad is up, everything good is down. Will things be better tomorrow? Will there even be a tomorrow? How does it all come out?
I was at my wits’ end, worrying about the future. So I committed a mortal sin. I ate from the Tree of Knowledge—or at least that’s what the guy on Mission Street who sold it to me called it—and the future appeared to me, as in a dream. I have sinned and glimpsed the future, so you wouldn’t have to. But shed no tears on my soul’s account. When the devil comes calling for me I plan to be in rehab.
The best news about the future is that it could be worse. Let me share with you some of what I saw or hallucinated, which amount to the same thing. Here are a few choice items:
Being unable for health reasons to discharge the responsibilities of her high office, Britney Spears tearfully steps down and George W. Bush ascends to the Presidency of the American Council of Overachieving Mediocrities. “My hopes and prayers are with Ms. Spears,” says the new leader. “She’s left some mighty small shoes to fill and I’m going to try like heck to fill them.”
President Barack Obama holds a press conference at Andrews Air Force Base, where he pins a medal on the last American soldier to return from Iraq. “It is time,” President Obama tells reporters, “for Iraq to grow up or blow up on its own. I have every confidence that peace will return to that Cradle of Civilization, but if the Fertile Crescent continues to need blood to fertilize it, they’ll have to use the local product.”
Rising to the occasion, the Sunni and Shiite leaders of Iraq announce a new ceasefire, pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor on a holy pact to limit civilian deaths to no more than a hundred a day for the next twenty years. The Kurds wish them all the best, then secede.
As his heroic battle with illness ends, Fidel Castro finally goes to meet his maker. Joseph Stalin greets him warmly, and says, “Good dog, Fido, good dog.”
In an deeply humanitarian gesture, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again calls Israel, “a stinking corpse,” the Israeli Air Force sends a cruise missile his way to provide him some much-needed first-hand experience. For his further enlightenment, the IDF paints “Never again means never again, mother*****r,” on the nose of their generous gift.
Racial reconciliation in Africa! Robert Mugabe dictates the removal of all white people from Zimbabwe. Millions of formerly-black residents switch their affiliation to white, reregister as Caucasian, and take advantage of the government’s free, one-way bus ride over the border.
In a shocking development, Hillary Clinton is diagnosed with colorblindness during her post-election physical at the Mayo Clinic. According to her spokesperson, the former candidate’s first words upon learning of her affliction are, “Oh my God! He’s black? I had no idea!”
After lengthy negotiations, Microsoft announces the completion of its long-anticipated purchase of Yahoo. In related financial news, ColecoVision merges with Atari and Studebaker buys Packard.
The Wall Street Journal reports that while the housing crisis is easing somewhat, more and more Americans are losing their cars as the bank forecloses on their gas.
While I’ve only dared offer you a sampling of what I saw, I think I can safely say that the future is not bad at all.
Unless you’re a fan of the Boston Red Sox, in which case … but no, I don’t want to ruin it for you.
You Can Have My Womb When You Rip It From My Cold Dead Body
I am actually stunned and somewhat speechless over the news from Colorado, today. (Warning: “bad words” and cursing lay ahead; not meant for sensitive eyes)
Coloradoans will get to vote on whether or not a fertilized human egg should get the same constitutional rights as a full-term human baby, in November.
This so-called “anti-abortion” measure is an insult to all thinking human beings. It assumes that women are not capable of determining the difference between an egg and a real living baby.
Please note, that the bill is to give a fertilized egg “human” status. Also note, that the egg is fertilized before what doctors consider “conception” transpires (that is, when the egg is implanted in the uterus). Also note, that before “conception” this fertilized egg will most likely be flushed down the toilet before the woman even realizes that “the law” considers her pregnant.
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
Sometimes there just isn’t enough coffee to get you through the news of the day. Today’s Ten Post Round-Up is no exception.
1: GWB stealing more ideas from George Orwell….
Bush says his wars are like WWII ’cause, um, just ’cause–236.com
2: Some tips for those in the job market…
25 Ways You Might Be Sabotaging Your Own Job Search–The Best Article Every Day
3: Economically speaking, we are all in for a very bumpy ride…
4: Well, it was a rather interesting way to meet other single people…
The moment 652 singletons converged for Britain’s largest ever game of Twister–Daily Mail Online
5: Because it’s not like the government nor the police have anything better to do…
Score another undeserved victory for the disseminators of hatred and bigotry
It doesn’t get any more ridiculous than this. Apparently the right-wingers, led by conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, have succeeded in getting Dunkin’ Donuts to pull a Rachel Ray ad for their iced coffee because the scarf she is wearing looks like a kaffiyeh. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s a traditional Arab headdress.
In her syndicated column, Malkin wrote “The kaffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.” But her rant didn’t stop there. She continued on with her brand of misinformation. “Popularized by Yassir Arafat,” she continued, “and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons.”
The only ignoramus in this equation is Malkin and those who think like her. Amahl Bishara, an anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago who also happens to specialize in Middle East issues, said in a phone interview that kaffiyehs “are worn every day on the street by Palestinians and other people in the Middle East — by people going to work, going to school, taking care of their families, and just trying to keep warm.”
In cowardly fashion, Dunkin’ Donuts pulled the ad rather than stand up to the right-wing oppressors that so dominate the discussion in print and on the airwaves. This is exactly the kind of slide into fascism that I spoke about in the first part of my article about America becoming a fascist state.
It’s time to stand up to these reactionary oppressors whose brand of bigotry is rarely based in fact, but almost always based in ignorance. Dunkin’ Donuts is giving Michelle Malkin and her ilk way too much credibility. They ought to bring the ad back.
Interest Rates are heading higher. Unless they move sideways.
Just kidding. They are probably going down (NOT really).
If I may speak seriously, I am pretty sure they are moving higher in the future, at least in fits and starts. So what causes interest rates to move up or down?
Without being too much of a smart alec, I must first say that interest rate changes are caused by the same thing that causes house prices, rental rates, bread and milk prices, the price of copper, the price of oil and the price of most things that are traded on markets or consumed almost anywhere to change. That is about everything.
Supply and demand rules. It really does. Before you object, read on.
Now the tricky part is what causes supply or demand to change. Well, that is an infinitely harder question to answer and it is different for one item than another item.
Oil has gone up for several reasons, including the fact that hundreds of millions of people in Asia, in countries (not yet including Myanmar of Burma Shave Fame) which have embraced something closer to free market capitalism than whatever they had before, are now in the game.
Remember the book, “The World is Flat” by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman? If not, find a summary of it, and read it. Voila, economic life and opportunities improve. For many.
When that happens more people heat their house with some kind of energy extracted from the ground, and do so to a more comfortable level than before, more of them buy manufactured products which contain petro derivatives and more of them buy cars so they can drive to work instead of walk or ride the bicycle or hitch hike and more of them take the family for a drive or a vacation than before.
Not all do this mind you, many are “left behind” or benefit less than others, which seems bad even though it’s possibly better, as always happens in human endeavors. Many go to the store more often and buy more things, all of which stimulates demand and now that entrepreneurs can make money if they CHOOSE to meet the demand, shortages appear and eventually some one meets the demand hoping to make a living or get rich. And businesses need energy too. And when too many businesses supply more than the demand, well some go out of business.
Simple really. But complicated too. That’s why they pay me the big bucks. To figure it all out.
I have been predicting interest rates for more decades than I like to admit, but, and this is the important part to understand and remember: I have never been wrong when predicting the future direction of interest rates. I have often been early or late, but NEVER WRONG. They always go up or down eventually. So far at least.
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
GlassGiant.com” hspace=”0″ vspace=”0″ width=”125″ height=”83″ />After, what amounts to seven days on the road, I feel like I am out of practice with this blogging thing. Obviously, from today’s Ten Post Round-Up the rest of the world did not stop finding trouble to get into, while I was away from my keyboard:
1: Hmmm…I never thought of it that way before….
Why Courts Are Reluctant To See Marriage Discrimination As Sex Discrimination–Alas, a blog
2: That’s precisely it: I quit dieting because I knew I had to do “something” to help the environment!…
Sick Planet: Our Obsession with Dieting Boosts the Economy But Destroys the Earth–AlterNet
3: The continuing Bush “legacy” in Louisiana…
Children in Katrina trailers may face lifelong ailments–The Associated Press
4: An explanation for why “Girls Rule, Boys Drool”?…
European Sociology in the News: Why Girls Do Better in Schools–The Democratic Daily
5: With friends like Scotty, who needs enemies?…
McClellan Throws Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rove, Libby, . . . Under Bus–Firedoglake
6: ACLU comes to the defense of a Southern Baptist. Will this help their rep with the fundies?…
St. Louis Woman Says She Lost Job over Harry Potter Dispute–KSDK NewsChannel 5
7: Humor or racism?….
8: If you are gay or if you are a POC or if you are anything other than Christian, you might want to scratch Oklahoma off of your vacation itinerary…
The Klanservative Utopia of Oklahoma. White, Christian Hets ONLY–Reconstruction 2.0
9: In case you don’t want to be a Franken-food guinea pig…
10: Separated at birth, united in a lawsuit…
Separated twins in Spain find each 28 years later: lawyer–Yahoo! News
235 días al final de un error…
The Bankrupting of America
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No matter where you get your news, it seems that the pitiful state of the American economy is the front and center story. One day it’s the foreclosure rate. On another day it’s about a major financial institution getting bailed out by the Fed. The most telling, however, was the article I found about tent cities going up in the Los Angeles area. This is particularly disturbing, especially when you look back at where this country was before George Bush took office.
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When President Clinton took office, we were operating in deficit mode in part because of the disastrous economic policies of the Reagan-Bush (George H.W.) years. In August of 1993, President Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers and lowered the taxes on 15 million low-income families. It also made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses and reigned in spending. By 1998, the United States had its first surplus in 42 years. Now, everyone knows that all administrations take credit for these kinds of statistics, and the Clinton administration was no exception. While it was a number of converging factors that led to the surplus, such as the economy outperforming estimates and cutting the interest on the federal debt, the Clinton package was certainly one of the factors that contributed to the economic recovery. In 2000, the year George W. Bush was elected, the United States had a surplus of $237 billion dollars. It was Clinton’s third consecutive surplus year, and the largest surplus in history.(1) Fast-forward eight years and look around. What do you see?
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A fiscal meltdown of titanic proportions
A $237 billion dollar surplus is now officially a $9+ trillion deficit. Some estimate that national debt has increased an average $1.65 billion per day since September 29, 2006. Another web site, http://www.truthin2008.com, states that the government keeps two sets of books and the actual deficit number is $55 trillion and growing. The site is not merely an offspring of the “liberal media.” It is a product of the Institute for Truth in Accounting and the information on the site has been confirmed by the outgoing Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker, who states, “we have been diagnosed with fiscal cancer.” The institute calls for openness in dealing with the deficit issue and calls for the American public to find out if the candidates know how much we are really in the hole for and what plans each has to deal with it.
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Whether the real deficit number is $9 trillion or $55 trillion, the economy is in dismal shape all the way around. As he has done with so many issues facing the American people during the past seven years, President Bush continues to minimize the situation. He touts the 52 months of uninterrupted job growth that his administration has delivered. The fact is that his job growth performance is anemic. Bush has created only 5.9 million jobs in seven years (or 72,000 jobs per month). By this time in his administration, Bill Clinton had created 20.2 million new jobs (or 246,600 per month) and he did it by investing in America. Our own Mr. Optimism is competing with his father for the worst record of job growth since the presidency of Herbert Hoover. He goes on insisting that his ineffectual economic stimulus package will take care of bolstering the sagging economy.
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How did things get this bad?
How we got here is a bone of contention. Bush supporters say we can’t lay all of the economic woes at his feet. Some want to blame the sub-prime mortgage meltdown entirely. It is certainly one factor, but beware laying the blame here as some economists are tying Bush’s tax cuts to this folly. Yet, even if we take the position that the economy was slowing down when George Bush took office, his fiscal irresponsibility on a number of fronts has directly led to this economic meltdown. Furthermore, anyone who believes that the money we are funneling into Iraq and Afghanistan has nothing to do with the failing economy is out of touch. Prior to the Iraq invasion, President Bush went on national television and insisted that this war would be quick and inexpensive as wars go. We were going to be greeted by the Iraqi people as liberators. We’d be in and out. I still have the image in my mind of George Bush in airman get-up landing on the deck of a carrier and proclaiming “Mission Accomplished.” That was the furthest thing from the truth.
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Today the endless war in Iraq is being waged at a price of $12.5 billion per month. When you add in the long-term bills as a result of the war, such as disability payments for veterans, it looks more like $25 billion per month. The total economic cost for the Iraq war through 2008 is estimated at $1.3 trillion. This war is not creating jobs for the American people. It is, however, creating tidy little profits for businesses like Halliburton, Blackwater USA (our own freelance mercenary army), and KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown & Root). To add insult to the economic injury, KBR, our leading Iraq contractor, avoids paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring employees through two Cayman Island shell companies. The Defense Department has known this since 2004 and approves because it means KBR can do the work more cheaply. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s worst fears about an out-of-control military-industrial complex are coming to fruition.
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Simultaneous to waging this fiscal albatross, President Bush has handed out $2 trillion in tax relief over the past seven years, primarily to those who need it the least. This has never been done while the United States was at war. The revenue from the tax cuts should be going toward offsetting the war’s staggering costs. What is most disturbing of all is that this president does not include the total amount needed to fight the war in his yearly budgets. Instead, he routinely handles this as “emergency spending” which keeps it out of the normal budget channels. At the time of this writing, President Bush is about to ask the Congress for another $107 billion for the war. Where does this emergency money come from? We borrow it from China and other countries, compounding the size of the deficit. These deceptive practices, and Bush’s disastrous fiscal policies, are carried through in his $3.1 trillion budget for 2009.
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Bush’s bunker busting 2009 budget
The 2009 budget calls for President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to be made permanent. These cuts are aimed at the top 20% of earners in the country and not at the majority of American families whose income has remained