









Original
art at top left from 1990's - Flyer for Symposium on International
Relations (LWVCT Ed Fund); NEW FIRST FAMILY, Did Republicans
win even one state in 2008? Yes, they did (21 or more states,
162-349 in the Electoral College - official number to come)!
"You
have to laugh, or you'll cry: department...
HUMOR, ART AND POLITICS:
"...what's
good for
me, Al Frankin" now in the Senate...making the 60th vote to give the
Democrats fillibuster-proof margin to cut off debate...and
how about that "faux politics" scam?
JOKES;
what kind of joke can the President make, or for that matter, can
we make? NOTE: we footnote our
sources now in a lighter tone.
T H E W H I T E H O U S E
: Mixed use property, downtown Washington, D.C. - available
in January 2009. Front and rear entrances - historic 19th century
structure (no visible fire damage); Lincoln
Bedroom (lower left @1960's), helicopter landing pad (not shown are
tennis court, swimming pool and bowling alley)...nice views.
Which leader of the
free world, and previous occupant, did not receive a free crystal bowl?







Answer: Carter (this
practice began after his term). And another
opinion.




PORTRAITS NOT ACCEPTED BY THE NATIONAL GALLERY (and not traced,
either, over someone elses' art),
L.-R.: "The
Pitch" and "The Wink" from primaries; "Would You Buy a Car From
This Man?" and "100
DAYS ON - Broadway" and "One Year In." "Reconciled"- Hawaii
misses a tsunami, health care through the Senate -
POTUS is pleased!
FIFTY-NINTH JOKE
Rod Blagojevich was convicted of one
count of "giving false statements to the F.B.I." by a jury of his
fellow residents of Chicago. Considering what numerous others
have learned about making false statements to the F.B.I., what can be
learned from this episode? Never lie to the F.B.I.
On another note, it is the intention of the Federal Prosecutor to retry
Blagojevich on all the other counts not decided by the first
jury. What do we learn from this?
FIFTY-EIGHTH JOKE
Did you ever get the feeling that the
White House gets its policy directions from...Dick Morris?
Yup. Whatever Morris recommends, they do the opposite.
----------------
Why
we need to let states go broke
NYPOST
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Last Updated: 4:50 AM, August 10, 2010
Posted: 12:19 AM, August 10, 2010
Federal Band-Aids won't cover the fiscal problems of such states as New
York, California, Michigan and Connecticut forever. State bankruptcy
and fundamental restructuring of state and local finance -- and labor
relations -- is at hand.
Take Connecticut. In the current fiscal year, $2 billion in federal
subsidies have helped tide it over the recession -- a hefty share of
its $15 billion budget. But these infusions are one-shot grants,
renewed only if Congress acts affirmatively to do so. Other states
depend on similar manifestations of federal largess.
In Washington, the House is set to pass a $26 billion aid package this
week -- fresh federal aid amounting to about 2 percent of state and
local spending. But if the Republicans win control of Congress this
fall, it is hard to see any legislative willingness to renew these
subsidies.
Instead, GOP lawmakers will point to the examples of New Jersey,
Virginia and Indiana -- where conservative governors have slashed
spending to avoid tax hikes. In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell has
reduced spending to pre-2006 levels.
If Congress fails to renew its subsidies, the more profligate states
will face cash shortfalls in the current fiscal year. They'll threaten
school closures, prison releases and all manner of mayhem if their
subsidies aren't renewed. But the Republicans in Washington are likely
to refuse -- asking why the responsible states should bail out the
spendthrifts in Albany, Sacramento, Lansing and Hartford.
At that point, the bond markets will start eyeing state (and local)
balance sheets more critically -- demanding higher rates or even
refusing to lend. California won't be the only one trying to get by on
IOUs.
But beyond this tale of woe lies a golden opportunity to reform state
governments and redress the imbalance of power between elected
officials and public-employee unions.
Absent endless federal subsidies, states will simply no longer be able
to afford to give the unions everything that they want. And governors
-- many of them newly elected Republicans -- will realize that they
can't even afford to honor agreements their big-spending predecessors
OK'd.
The GOP Congress should then amend the federal bankruptcy law to
provide for a way -- now absent -- for states to declare bankruptcy.
(Municipalities can do so under current law, but states have no such
relief.)
Here's the key: The reforms must require that states abrogate their
public-employee union agreements in the bankruptcy process, just as
private corporations like Delta and Chrysler have done. The wage hikes,
the work rules, the pension plans all go out the window.
Few states will have the starch to cut benefits for those now receiving
them. But most will cut pensions for current workers and all will slice
them for future employees. Even the threat will be a powerful
bargaining tool.
And beyond the fiscal adjustments, the power of the municipal- and
public-employee unions will be broken.
Voters throughout America will loudly applaud if Congress tells the
profligate states, "Work it out on your own. Don't look to us for a
bailout."
President Obama could veto the bankruptcy reforms -- but a Republican
Congress need do nothing to assist states in their plight until he
relents. All of the political and financial leverage will be on
Congress' side.
The result could be the greatest revolution in state and local
governance since public-employee unions came on the scene. The public
and the voters would get their local governments back, and the grip of
public unions will be weakened. It would be the state and local
equivalent of President Ronald Reagan's tough stand against the
air-traffic controllers' strike.
Politically, the unions that fund and fuel the Democratic Party would
be emasculated, dramatically shifting the national balance of power.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's prediction about
socialism will have come true for America's states: "Sooner or later,
they run out of other peoples' money."
FIFTY-SEVENTH JOKE
Why did the First Lady go on
vacation to Spain?
1. To try to show loyalty to the present Spanish government;
2. To help their economy with a direct transfer of payments from
the U.S. to Spain;
3. To check out the plant in southern Spain that has been set
up to harness the power of the sun and cut reliance on fossil fuels.
4. All of the above or none of the above.
------------------------------
The
view from Spain's solar power tower
By Alysen Miller, CNN
March 10, 2010 -- Updated 0712 GMT (1512 HKT)
(CNN) -- Cresting the brow of autovia A-49 in Andalusia, 10 miles
outside of Seville, the world's first commercial solar "power tower"
appears on the skyline like a giant obelisk.
Even on an overcast morning the sun's rays are so intense they
illuminate the water vapor and dust hanging in the air to create a
giant lattice of white lines that appear to emanate from the eye of the
tower.
The tower itself is 115 meters high -- the height of a 14-storey
building -- and, bathed in intense white light, the overall effect
resembles nothing so much as a religious object.
Valerio Fernandez is director of operations for the PS10 platform and
its neighbor, PS20. That means he is responsible for the 624 giant
mirrors -- or heliostats -- that reflect the sun's rays into a receiver
located at the top of the tower.
Each heliostat measures 120 square meters, which gives the entire
heliostat field an area of 75,000 square meters. On a sunny day this
can produce up to 11 megawatts of energy, enough to power a town of
6,000 homes, such as the neighboring community of Sanlucar la Mayor.
But Fernandez isn't satisfied. "Our goal is to operate more than 300
megawatts for the year 2013," he told CNN. "So in a few years we will
be constructing and putting into service new and larger plants in order
to provide huge amounts of solar renewable energy to this area of
Spain."
As Valerio explains the concept ("We just reflect light into the
receiver, which is basically a boiler where we generate steam, and then
we drive this steam through a turbine in order to move a generator and
generate electricity,") we are aware of the faint whirring of 600-odd
motors that allow the heliostats to track the sun on two axes and
concentrate this radiation on the tower.
The effect is incongruously life-like; hundreds of enormous mirrors all
turning themselves towards the sun like a field of giant metal
sunflowers.
We decide to get a better view. Putting aside fears that we will be
fried like ants under a magnifying glass, we ascend the tower. From
here the vista is even more spectacular: a glittering blanket of more
than 600 mirrors winks up at us from the sun-scorched earth.
Here is also where the receiver is located. Composed of four, vertical
5.5 meter by 12 meter panels, arranged in a semi-cylindrical
configuration inside a cavity with an opening of 11 meters by 11meters,
the receiver is designed to deliver 55 thermal megawatts of saturated
steam at temperatures of 257 Celsius. More than 92 percent of the
sunlight reflected at the tower is converted into steam.
To the west lies an even larger tower surrounded by more mirrors.
Although currently closed for maintenance, when PS20 is fully online
again in April it will be the world's most powerful solar power tower.
With a power capacity of 20 megawatts, double that of PS10, PS20 should
produce enough clean energy to supply 10,000 homes.
Valerio is understandably optimistic. "We want to get as much of our
energy from solar power as we can because it's renewable, it's clean
and its contribution to combating climate change is very important," he
said.
"That's why we are working to develop this technology as much as
possible so it can have a large role in the future."
FIFTY-SIXTH JOKE
Now we can all rest easy. The
gourmand in chief has declared that fish from the oil-compromised Gulf
of Mexico are now and will continue to be safe to eat.
Why does this claim not ring true to you? A bit too much oil for
the viniger?
-----------------
Obama pronounces Gulf seafood
safe to eat
YAHOO
14 June 2010
THEODORE, Ala. – President Barack Obama says from the oil-stricken Gulf
of Mexico that seafood from the region is safe to eat and announced a
new coordinated effort to make sure it stays that way.
In remarks from Theodore, Ala., on Monday, Obama said that the
government will step up its inspections and monitoring to help ensure
that the Gulf Coast food industry is getting the kind of protection and
certification it needs to sell its products around the country.
Obama said, "We don't want tragedies on top of the tragedy we're
already seeing."
The president had high praise for the Gulf seafood he ate for lunch in
Mississippi. He is in the region on a two-day trip.
FIFTY-FIFTH JOKE
President Obama has awesome
powers.
He made it rain on May 18, day of the 2010 official visit of the UCONN
women's basketball team rematch.
As someone noted, "Coach Geno" had not done incorrect math, predicting
that his team would go "40 and 0" in 2009-2010, as the President
suggested. Rather, victory #40 was scheduled to be on the return
trip to the White House basketball court in a rematch of "P-I-G"
with the First Leftie.*
------------
* = President Obama is a famous southpaw.
FIFTY-FOURTH JOKE*
Since Spring is here and cow chips
are almost equivalent to the value of Icelandic and Greek currencies,
we thought we'd pass along from Wikipedia the following jokes:
- Socialism: You have two cows. You give one
to your neighbor.
- Communism: You have two cows. You give them
to the Government, and the Government then sells you
some milk.
- Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one
and buy a bull.
- Naziism: You have two cows. The Government
shoots you and takes the cows.
---------------

*They are not
amused.
FIFTY-THIRD JOKE
Did you know that the President and Congress have to sign up for health
care "exchanges?" What is a health care exchange?
Check out the LWV of Weston's website! http://www.lwvweston.org/index.html#fallconference09
FIFTY-SECOND JOKE
AS EASY AS APPLE PIE...CONGRESS DO
SOMETHING QUICK!
An oxymoron, perhaps? Hurry up and pass the Democrat bill on
health care reform before it stops snowing!
Mother Nature, who has enough to worry about with global warming, had
to intercede in behalf of the first woman Speaker of the House in
February. She said "Phil gave us a break with the longer winter -
so pass the thing and lets party!"
Republicans are looking forward to partying, too. They know a
snow job when they see one!
-----------------



GOOGLE
"PIE" AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET ON PAGE ONE!
"When we have a bill," she said, "you can bake the pie, you can sell
the pie. But you have to have a pie to sell." NOTE: Recipe
for blueberry
pie only.
White House OK on health care with or
without GOP
YAHOO
Feb. 28, 2010
WASHINGTON – The White House's top health care official is optimistic
that Democrats will have the votes to pass a major health care
overhaul. Presidential adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle says it makes
sense to have a "simple up-or-down vote" on legislation, now that
Democrats lack the 60 votes necessary to overcome Republican stalling
tactics.
The Senate's Democratic leaders are try to devise a strategy for
passing the legislation with a simple 51-vote majority. There are 57
Democrats in the Senate and two Democratic leaning independents.
DeParle notes that the House and Senate already have passed versions of
health care overhaul.
She tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that she believes "we will have the
votes to pass this in Congress."
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further
information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to
back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their
political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue's massive
role in this election year.
Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the
moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being
broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week."
"We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she
said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."
It took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare,
which eventually became highly popular, she said, "and many of the same
forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this
bill."
It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of
moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health
care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls.
Republican lawmaker unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and
many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the
November elections.
Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her
Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between
urging them to back left-of-center policies and giving them a green
light to buck party leaders to improve their re-election hopes.
Her comments to ABC, in the interview released Sunday, seemed to
acknowledge the widely held view that Democrats will lose House seats
this fall — maybe a lot. They now control the chamber 255 to 178, with
two vacancies. Pelosi stopped well short of suggesting Democrats could
lose their majority, but she called on members of her party to make a
bold move on health care with no prospects of GOP help.
"Time is up," she said. "We really have to go forth."
Her comments somewhat echoed those of President Barack Obama, who said
at the end of last week's bipartisan health care summit that Congress
should act on the issue and let voters render their verdicts. "That's
what elections are for," he said.
The White House says Obama, perhaps on Wednesday, will announce a "way
forward" on health care. He, Pelosi, and Senate Democratic leaders have
left little doubt that they hope to pass a Democratic-crafted bill
under "budget reconciliation" rules that would bar Republican
filibusters in the Senate. It's unclear whether Pelosi can muster the
needed votes in the House.
White House officials say they will redouble efforts to remind voters
that the Senate passed an Obama-backed health care bill in December,
with a super majority of 60 votes. The new plan calls for the House to
pass that bill and send it to Obama's desk, and then use Senate budget
reconciliation rules to make several changes demanded by House
Democrats.
Following a Republican victory in Massachusetts last month, Democrats
now control 59 of the Senate's 100 seats, one vote short of the number
needed to block GOP filibusters.
Pelosi told CNN that "in a matter of days" Democrats will have specific
legislative language on health care to show to the public and to
wavering lawmakers. She predicted voters will warm up to the bill once
they understand its details.
"When we have a bill," she said, "you can bake the pie, you can sell
the pie. But you have to have a pie to sell."
Obama and Democratic lawmakers say they may add several more Republican
ideas to their legislative package, even if it's unlikely to attract a
single GOP vote. One idea, by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., would focus on
battling waste and fraud in the medical system.
The main elements of the Democratic plan are known, and opposed by
Republicans in Congress. It would insure about 30 million more
Americans over 10 years with subsidies for the poor and a new
requirement for nearly everyone to carry health insurance.
It would also bar some insurance company practices, such as denying
coverage to people with medical problems. And it would establish
government-run exchanges to help individuals and small businesses
obtain insurance policies, although it would exclude the "public
option" that many liberals wanted.
FIFTY-FIRST JOKE
CAR-SALESMAN-IN-CHIEF
Have you noticed how President Obama is using his "bully pulpet"
lately?
All we are hearing about is recalls of Toyota and Honda
vehicles, which causes Americans to think about buying a GM
("Government
Motors") car or truck instead. So Toyota just announced the
temporary shut down of its plants in the US.
What we need is a guy who can do his own tuneups. Do you think
Barack Obama knows which end of a wrench to use? He mocks
plumbers and Ford 150 owners, so we would guess he's always outsourced
his car repairs!
------------
Govt demands Toyota recall documents
YAHOO
By KEN THOMAS and STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writers
Feb. 16. 2010
WASHINGTON – The Transportation Department
demanded documents related to Toyota's massive recalls in the United
States on Tuesday to find out if the automaker acted swiftly enough.
Toyota, meanwhile, said it will idle production temporarily at Texas
and Kentucky plants over concerns the recalls could lead to big
stockpiles of unsold vehicles.
The legal documents demand that Toyota tell the government when and how
the company learned of the safety defects in millions of vehicles over
the entrapment of gas pedals by floor mats and sticky accelerators. The
documents were delivered to Toyota on Tuesday and the company must
respond within 30-to-60 days or face fines.
The intensifying government investigation of Toyota and production
halts at its assembly plants represented another sign of the ripple
effect the recall of 8.5 million vehicles has had on the world's No. 1
automaker. Toyota faces separate probes by the Obama administration and
Congress as it struggles to maintain its loyal customer base and its
reputation for safety and quality.
Toyota said it was halting production temporarily in San Antonio,
Texas, and Georgetown, Ky., to address concerns that too many unsold
vehicles may be building up at dealerships because of the large recalls.
Company spokesman Mike Goss said the Texas plant, which builds the
Tundra pickup truck, would take production breaks for the weeks of
March 15 and April 12. The Kentucky plant, which makes the Camry,
Avalon and Venza vehicles, plans to take a non-production day on Feb.
26 and may not build vehicles on three more days in March and April.
In late January, Toyota halted production of recalled brands throughout
the United States for about a week.
The information requests from the government, similar to a subpoena,
follows criticism from consumer groups that the Transportation
Department was too soft on automakers and failed to fine the companies
or seek detailed information from them through subpoena powers.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has defended his department's
handling of the Toyota investigation, calling the Japanese automaker "a
little safety deaf" about the safety problems. LaHood said the
government urged Toyota to issue recalls and sent federal safety
officials to Japan to warn company officials of the seriousness of the
problems.
Under federal law, automakers must notify the DOT's National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration within five days of determining that a
safety defect exists and promptly conduct a recall.
Government investigators are looking into whether Toyota discovered the
problems during preproduction or post-production of the affected
vehicles, whether their recalls covered all affected vehicles and
whether the company learned of the problems through consumer complaints
or internal tests.
Federal officials are focusing on the two major issues behind the
recalls — gas pedals that can become lodged on floor mats and pedal
systems that are "sticky," making it harder for drivers to press on the
pedal or ease up on the gas.
The information requests seek detailed timelines on when Toyota first
became aware of the problems, how they handled complaints, how much
they have paid out in warranty claims over pedal problems, internal
communications about pedals and company officials involved in making
decisions about the issue.
NHTSA also wants to know how seriously Toyota considered the
possibility that electronics of the gas pedal system may play a role.
The company has said tests show that the electronics were not to blame.
But federal safety officials want to know how Toyota dealt with
complaints that might not be related to floor mats or sticking pedals.
Kathleen DeMeter, the director of NHTSA's Office of Defects
Investigation Enforcement, wrote that the agency was "seeking to
determine whether Toyota viewed the underlying defects too
narrowly...without fully considering the broader issue of unintended
acceleration and any associated safety-related defects that warrant
recalls."
Congress is also investigating. The House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee is holding a hearing on the Toyota recalls on Feb. 24
and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a Feb. 25
hearing. Toyota Motor North America chief executive Yoshi Inaba, LaHood
and NHTSA Administrator David Strickland are expected to testify at
both meetings.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has scheduled
a March 2 hearing but has not yet announced its witness list.
Toyota has stepped up its lobbying ahead of the hearings by
highlighting its workers and U.S. production.
It flew production workers into Washington a day before a blizzard last
week to highlight the company's commitment to quality and safety. The
company also received help from the governors of four states with
Toyota plants — including Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear — who called on
Congress to be fair to the automaker.
Toyota has been fixing vehicles under recall. Toyota Vice President Bob
Carter told reporters at the National Automobile Dealers Association
convention in Orlando, Fla., on Monday that the company had repaired
about 500,000 of the 2.3 million vehicles recalled over a potentially
sticky gas pedal.
Toyota president Akio Toyoda is expected to answer questions in Japan
Wednesday about the company's recalls.
FIFTIETH JOKE
PORTRAIT GALLERY
What is the difference
between a portrait and a political cartoon?
One tries to flatter the subject, and the other goes in the opposite
direction. So the drawings of President Obama above are portraits
- the titles are the commentary.
-----------------------
What the
Muhammad cartoons portray
|
By Martin Asser,
BBC News
Page last updated at 04:34 GMT,
Saturday, 2 January 2010
|

Several other newspapers have republished
the controversial images
|
Twelve caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in
2005 had
a huge impact around the world, with riots in many Muslim countries the
following year causing deaths and destruction - so what do the drawings
actually say?
They originally appeared in the best-selling
Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 to accompany an
editorial criticising self-censorship in the Danish media.
After
that some media outlets republished the pictures in solidarity or
outrage, while others - including the BBC - have refrained from
publishing them to avoid causing offence to their audiences.
The
issue arose after Danish writer Kare Bluitgen complained he was unable
to find an illustrator for his children's book about the Prophet
because he said no one dared break an Islamic tenet banning the
portrayal of his image.
Jyllands-Posten asked cartoonists to "draw the Prophet as
they saw
him", as an assertion of free speech and to reject pressure by Muslims
groups to respect their sensitivities.
The paper chose as its
central image a visual joke about the Prophet among other
turban-wearing figures in a police line-up and the witness saying: "I
don't know which one he is".
It is presumably an ironic appeal
for calm over the issue, the suggestion being that, if a Danish
illustrator were to portray the Prophet, it is not known what he looks
like and is therefore a harmless gesture.
The humour comes from
the fact that the line-up also includes people like Jesus Christ, the
far-right Danish politician Pia Kjaersgaard and Mr Bluitgen himself.
'PR stunt'
Eleven
other cartoons are printed around the edge of the page showing the
Prophet in a variety of supposedly humorous or satirical situations.
One seems to criticise Mr Bluitgen for exploiting the issue
for publicity to sell his book.
He
is portrayed holding a child's drawing of the Prophet, while an orange
inscribed with "PR stunt" drops into a turban he is wearing. (The
expression "orange in the turban" connotes a "piece of luck" in
Danish.)
Other images appear not especially critical of Islam in their
content.
One
shows the Prophet wandering through the desert with the sun setting
behind him. In another his face merges with an Islamic star and
crescent.
Several cartoonists, however, do seem to take the
Jyllands-Posten commission as an invitation to be deliberately
provocative towards Muslims.
Critical views
The
most controversial image shows the Prophet Muhammad carrying a lit bomb
in the shape of a turban on his head decorated with the Islamic creed.
The face is angry, dangerous-looking - a stereotypical
villain with heavy, dark eyebrows and whiskers.
Much anger has been directed at
Jyllands-Posten newspaper
|
Another shows Muhammad brandishing a sword ready for a fight.
His
eyes are blacked out while two women stand behind him with their
Islamic dress leaving only their eyes uncovered.
Two of the
critical cartoons do not show the Prophet at all. One uses crescent
moons and stars of David to form repeated abstract shapes, possibly
showing women in Islamic dress.
A poem accompanies the shapes, that one translator has
rendered as: "Prophet, you crazy bloke! Keeping women under yoke."
In
the other, a schoolboy points to a blackboard on which it is written in
Farsi: "The editorial team of Jyllands-Posten are a bunch of
reactionary provocateurs".
The boy is labelled "Mohammed, Valby
school, 7A", suggesting he is a second-generation Iranian immigrant to
Denmark. "The future" is written on his shirt.
Humorous views
Other
cartoonists have clearly attempted a more humorous approach - as with
the central image - although the images will be no less offensive to
Muslims.
For example, one shows Muhammad standing on a cloud
holding back a line of smouldering suicide bombers trying to get into
heaven.
"Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins," he says.
This
is a reference to the supposed reward of 72 virgins in heaven for
Muslim martyrs, although Islamic scholars often point out that there is
no specific belief of this kind.
Another drawing shows Muhammad looking at a sheet of paper,
but holding back two sword-wielding assassins.
"Relax guys, it's just a drawing made by some infidel South
Jutlander (ie from the middle of nowhere)," the figure says.
One
cartoonist portrays Muhammad with a kind of halo around his head, but
it could be a crescent moon, or a pair of devil's horns.
Anger and confusion
The
last cartoon on the page goes back to the theme of artistic freedom: a
cartoonist draws an Arab face with headdress, inscribed "Mohammed", but
he crouches over the drawing and shields it with his hand.
The
Jyllands-Posten cartoons do not include some images that may have had a
role in bringing the issue to international attention.
Three
images in particular have done the rounds, in Gaza for example, which
are reported to be considerably more obscene and were mistakenly
assumed to have been part of the Jyllands-Posten set.
One of
the pictures, a photocopied photograph of a man with a pig's ears and
snout, has been identified as an old Associated Press picture from a
French "pig-squealing" contest.
It was reportedly circulated by Danish Muslims to illustrate
the atmosphere of Islamophobia which they say they live under.
There
is no doubt that the some of the original Jyllands-Posten cartoons are
sufficiently hostile in nature to be taken as provocative by the Muslim
community, whatever their intention.
But some critics have said all the drawings and the manner of
their publication betray European arrogance and Islamophia.
Muslim
writer Ziauddin Sardar likens them to anti-Semitic images published in
Europe in the 1920s and 30s, with Muslims being demonised as violent,
backward and fanatical.
"Freedom of expression is not about doing whatever we want to
do because we can do it," he wrote in the Independent on Sunday.
"It is about creating an open marketplace for ideas and
debate where all, including the marginalised, can take part as equals."
FORTY-NINTH JOKE
Pork
"You should never see how pork or sausage is made" is an old
political piece of advice re: watching Congress (so no watching
permitted*).
Pork products are front and center in Washington as 2009 comes to an
end. Some say the eventual health care compromise will be similar
to a balloon mortgage - unaffordable in the out years! President
Obama was going over his list of accomplishments that he made up while
flying back from Climate event; and here it is, after checking it
twice:
1) Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men Department - DONE (I got the
Nobel Prize, Copenhagen agreement)
2) Health Care to (Almost) All - DONE (when the Senate and
the House get together, they don't need 60 votes to OK the joint
compromise, I think...**)
3) Blessings to the Rules Committee - DONE
--------------------------
*
H.RES.847
Title: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that any
conference committee or other meetings held to determine the content of
national health care legislation be conducted in public under the
watchful eye of the people of the United States.
Sponsor: Rep Buchanan, Vern [FL-13] (introduced
10/20/2009) Cosponsors (151)
Latest Major Action: 10/20/2009 Referred to House committee. Status:
Referred to the House Committee on Rules.
**
We'll see
about the " nuclear option"...
Conrad: House must stick close to Senate bill
Washington Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally published
10:49 a.m., December 20, 2009, updated 11:25 a.m., December 20, 2009
The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee says the House must stick
close to the Senate's version of health care reform or risk losing the
60 votes needed to pass it in the Senate.
Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat, said on "Fox News Sunday" that
the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster would not hold together unless
the Senate bill emerged largely intact from a House-Senate conference.
Once the Senate approves the bill, conferees would have to work out a
compromise that would be submitted to each house. The House bill
includes a government-run public option; the Senate bill does not.
In addition, Senate Democratic leaders made concessions to some of
their members to get them on board, most recently Sen. Ben Nelson of
Nebraska.
The White House, meanwhile, is defending President Obama's stand in
support of the health care legislation amid concern from liberals that
Mr. Obama is giving up too much to get a deal done.
Senior presidential adviser David Axelrod said the legislation that
Democrats in the Senate are poised to pass on Christmas Eve matches the
goals that Mr. Obama has set. He said those include affordable choices
for people without health insurance and more protections for people who
already have coverage.
Mr. Axelrod said no major law in the nation's history has been passed
without compromise.
He spoke Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
FORTY-EIGHTH JOKE
Lists
It is almost Christmas. Time for
lists. What do you think President Obama wants?
Here's a non-offficial draft of that
Xmas list: 1)health care bill passed 2)redistribution of
TARP to the unemployed, underemployed and unemployable 3)peace on
earth, especially in Afghanistan - then we can come home and not spend
any more money on the war there so that we can pay for health care here.
FORTY-SEVENTH JOKE
Spell Check
Perhaps the most upsetting action taken at the White House
recently, at least to this website, is the blatant use of "spellcheck"
or "spell check" or however that poor excuse for using a dictionary
spells its famous oversimplification of writing style and words.
Does it bother you that the White House social office uses spell
check?
We thought that the social office had sufficient breeding and education
as to be perfect but not obvious. So sari.
---------------------
*
A Stylish State Dinner, With Typos
NYTIMES
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
November 25, 2009, 12:24 am
The White House pulled out all the stops in preparation for President
Obama’s first state dinner on Tuesday night, hiring a new florist,
selecting a renowned guest chef and even inviting a number of
high-profile musicians to perform.
But one person the White House apparently neglected to hire was a spell
checker.
The special dinner menu — a lavish mélange of Indian and
American favorites as well as several excellent wines — was rife with
typos.
The second course of the evening was paired, for example, with a
delicious 2006 Brooks Riesling, which, the menu noted, was bottled in
“Wilamette Valley, Oregon.”
A diligent copy editor would have changed that to the proper spelling,
“Willamette Valley.”
For their third course, the 320 guests were offered a dish that,
according to the menu, included potato dumplings with tomato chutney
and “chick peas,” which should in fact have been “chickpeas.” That
course, the menu noted, was paired with an excellent red wine, a “2007
Granache” from Beckmen Vineyards. The correct spelling of the popular
varietal, one of the most widely planted types of red grape in the
world, is actually “Grenache” with only one “a,” not two.
The last bottle of the night was equally impressive, a sparkling
chardonnay from Virginia. It was listed as a “Thibaut Janisson Brut,”
missing a hyphen between the first two words. And last but not least,
the dessert may have been free of error in taste, but not so in
spelling. It included, according to the menu, passion fruit and vanilla
“Gelees,” the French word for “gelled,” which, when written correctly,
includes an acute accent on the second “e.”
FORTY-SIXTH JOKE
Fortune Cookie
At a formal banquet in his honor in
China, President Obama received 3 fortune cookies. Which one's
message, shown below, do you think he liked least?
1) Your country will grow and prosper if it spends more
2) Your wisdom will lead the people out of their tired democratic
convictions
3) Neither a borrower nor a lender be, but especially not a
borrower
FORTY-FIFTH JOKE
Census haiku*
What will April 1, 2010 bring?
Recorded huddled masses.
Making change count.
-----------------------
*
From Thomas Friedman's column (in part - full column here) in
Sunday's E-NYTIMES:
...I’ve always believed that Mr. Obama was elected because a majority
of
Americans fear that we’re becoming a declining great power. Everything
from our schools to our energy and transportation systems are falling
apart and in need of reinvention and reinvigoration. And what people
want most from Washington today is nation-building at home.
Many people, including conservatives, voted for Barack Obama because in
their hearts they felt he could pull us all together for that project
better than any other candidate. Many are what I’d call “Warren Buffett
centrists.” They are not billionaires, but they are people who believe
in Mr. Buffett’s saying that whatever he achieved in life was due
primarily to the fact that he was born in this country — America — at
this time, with all of its advantages and opportunities.
I believe that. And I believe that without a strong America — which, at
its best, can deliver more goods and goodness to its own citizens and
to the world than any other nation — our kids and many others around
the world will not have those opportunities.
I am convinced that this kind of nation-building at home is exactly
what Mr. Obama is trying to deliver, and should be his unifying call:
We need universal health care because it would strengthen our social
fabric and enable our businesses to better compete globally. We need to
upgrade our schools because no child in 21st-century America should be
left behind and because we cannot compete for the best new jobs without
doing so. We need a greener economy, not just to mitigate climate
change, but because a world growing from 6.7 billion people to 9.2
billion by 2050 is going to demand more and more clean energy and
water, and the country that develops the most clean technologies is
going to have the most energy security, national security, economic
security, innovative companies and global respect...
FORTY-FOURTH JOKE
Over exposed
He can write, he can use a teleprompter, he's got Ivy League
credentials and he can out shoot UCONN at "P.I.G." He even won
the Nobel Peace Prize after 10 days on the job as POTUS!
Did you catch the snipet on YouTube of President Obama at the Latino
American dinner event?
He's got my vote! A great dancer with a natural feel for the
latino rhythm!
So if he can't get Health Care Reform from a Congress when he has a
super-majority in both houses, he can always go on "Dancing With The
Stars."
FORTY-THIRD JOKE
Prize
It is entirely fitting that President Obama, after less than two
weeks in office, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Like
many others, he thought he deserved it for:
1. Winning the election in the bigot-filled U.S.A.
2. Having the coolest resume of any candidate ever for U.S.
President and
3. For beating the UConn women at an abbreviated game of "horse"
which he calls "pig"
What's in a name?
------------------------------
*
The link is from the E-New Yorker to Act Five of
"Othello"
Beware Premature Prizes

Semi-regular thoughts on foreign affairs, politics, and books, from
George Packer
October 9, 2009
President Obama should thank the Nobel committee and ask them to hold
on to the Peace Prize for a couple more years. The prize should be
awarded for achievement, not aspiration, and so far Obama’s main
achievement has been getting elected President, which is in a different
category. He shouldn’t contribute to the unfair accusation that he is
all talk by accepting an award based on speeches he gave in Berlin,
Prague, and Cairo. Europeans’ relief in seeing the last of George W.
Bush and their adoration of Obama are entirely understandable, but in
the U.S. we've moved on from November 4, 2008, and these days Obama
is—in a way that's both inevitable and healthy—a working President,
with his share of troubles and mistakes, who is trying to get some
difficult things done but hasn’t come close to accomplishing them yet.
This seems like a prize for Europeans, not Americans, and I worry that
at home it will damage him politically by reinforcing the notion that
he is—and will be—a world icon rather than a successful President. I
don’t mind him being the former, but I most want him to be the latter.
Not even a Rookie of the Year is ready to be elected to the Hall of
Fame. I’m afraid this prize will be bad for Obama. For political
reasons and on the merits, he should paraphrase Shakespeare to the
Nobel committee: “As you shall prove me, praise me."
FORTY-SECOND JOKE
When is a tax not a
tax? *
When it pays for social programs
that are good for you, in
President Obama's opinion.
-------------------
*
FACT CHECK:
Coverage requirement enforced with tax
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Ricardo
Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press Writer
September 22, 2009
WASHINGTON – Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax.
Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring
people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don't —
isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic
bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both
the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state
that the fines would be a tax.
And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the
coverage requirement.
"If you put something in the Internal Revenue Code, and you tell the
IRS to collect it, I think that's a tax," said Clint Stretch, head of
the tax policy group for Deloitte, a major accounting firm. "If you
don't pay, the person who's going to come and get it is going to be
from the IRS."
Democrats aren't the first to propose that individuals be required to
carry health insurance and fined if they refuse. The conservative
Heritage Foundation called for such a mandate in the 1990s' health care
debate, although its proposal differed from the ones pending in
Congress. Heritage has since dropped the idea and now favors using tax
credits to encourage people to buy coverage — carrots and not sticks.
During the 2008 political campaign, Obama opposed making coverage
mandatory because of the costs. His position has shifted now that it's
becoming clear such a requirement will be part of any legislation that
Congress sends him. Conservative activists are calling it a violation
of his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.
"This is exactly what George Bush Sr. did when he said he wouldn't
raise taxes, and it cost him the next election," said Grover Norquist,
president of Americans for Tax Reform. "Obama is doing the same thing,
but he's insulting people by telling them that if you don't call it a
big purple banana, somehow it wouldn't be a tax."
Some liberals acknowledge that Obama might be vulnerable on the
insurance requirement. But they say most people will understand as long
as the legislation provides enough of a subsidy to make the coverage
affordable. That's a central issue this week as the Senate Finance
Committee starts voting on legislation.
"I think it's a metaphysical question as to whether it's a tax or not,"
said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future.
"The real question that will determine whether people are upset is
whether the insurance is affordable."
In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Obama insisted
that the insurance requirement is not a tax.
"For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health
insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," the president said. "What
it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying
your burdens for you anymore.
"Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto
insurance," Obama added. "Nobody considers that a tax increase.
"You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a
tax increase," he added.
But a Democratic staff description of Sen. Max Baucus' bill calls the
proposed fines an "excise tax." Penalties of up to $950 for individuals
and $3,800 for families would be imposed on those who don't get
coverage. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Monday he expects the family
penalty to be slashed in half to $1,900.
The House bill uses a complex formula to calculate the penalties,
calling them a "tax on individuals without acceptable health care
coverage."
The coverage mandate is part of a political bargain under which the
insurance industry would agree to take all applicants, regardless of
prior medical history.
"If we're going to have coverage without regard to pre-existing
conditions, it makes sense," said economist Roberton Williams of the
Tax Policy Center. "Otherwise people will come in the door the day they
get sick." He sees no distinction between the requirement to get
coverage and the fines themselves.
"The fact that it is imposed on people and they have no choice in
paying it, and the fact that it's administered through the tax system
all make it look like a tax," Williams said. The center is a joint
venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.
It wouldn't be the first asterisk added to Obama's campaign pledge on
taxes. Earlier this year, he signed a tobacco tax increase to pay for
children's health insurance. Even that can be read as a violation of
his expansive campaign promise.
"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12, 2008.
"Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any
form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not
your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
He repeatedly promised "you will not see any of your taxes increase one
single dime."
Making people pay
for health insurance is a not a tax, says President
Obama in TV blitz
DAILY NEWS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated Sunday, September 20th 2009, 1:52 PM
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says requiring people to get health
insurance and fining them if they don't would not amount to a
backhanded tax increase. "I absolutely reject that notion," the
president said.
Blanketing most of the Sunday TV news shows, Obama defended his
proposed health care overhaul, including a key point of the various
health care bills on Capitol Hill: mandating that people get health
insurance to share the cost burden fairly among all. Those who failed
to get coverage would face financial penalties.
Obama said other elements of the plan would make insurance affordable
for people, from a new comparison-shopping "exchange" to tax credits.
Telling people to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax
increase, Obama told ABC's "This Week..."
FORTY-FIRST JOKE
The law is an ass*
What is the most ridiculous part of
the ACORN sting?
That one day ACORN is, we assume, a
chosen implementer of voting
rights, designated so by Congress, receiver of community development
grants, and the next, criminal.
Change you can believe in, right?
----------------
* "The
law is an ass" originates in
Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, when the character Mr. Bumble is
informed that "the law supposes that your wife acts under your
direction".
No Joke: By the Editors
National Review
September 16, 2009, 4:00 a.m.
James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, two guerilla documentarians, have
accomplished what neither the Republican party’s sense of outrage nor
the Democratic party’s sense of decency could: They have inspired the
federal government to begin cutting its ties with ACORN, the shady
“community activist” organization that helped bring Barack Obama to
power.
The set-up was both risible and shocking. Mr. O’Keefe and Miss Giles,
who look for all the world like young Republican country-clubbers
dressed for a tasteless costume party, walked into a number of ACORN
offices and managed to pass themselves off as a pimp and a prostitute.
They informed ACORN staffers that they were looking to set up a
whorehouse and to traffic some children into the country for the
purposes of prostitution. ACORN’s official mission is to facilitate
affordable housing and social services for low-income families, not to
facilitate child trafficking, but the staffers responded with advice on
getting on welfare, claiming their underage victims as dependents,
evading law enforcement, cheating on their taxes, defrauding federal
housing authorities, et cetera ad nauseam. One ACORN staffer advised
Miss Giles to bury her illicit sex-trade earnings in a tin in her back
yard.
Asked about housing assistance, an ACORN staffer explains: “Honesty is
not going to get the house. That’s why you've probably been denied. . .
. Don't say you’re a prostitute thing or whatever.” Similar sagacity
followed.
This was not a single, isolated incident. Mr. O’Keefe and Miss Giles
took their chinchilla cape and hot pants, respectively, to a number of
ACORN offices: in Baltimore, Washington, New York City. The results
were similar for each outing. Mr. O’Keefe says there are more and
yesterday released another video, of a California ACORN office.
The Census Bureau has severed its relationship with ACORN, and House
Republicans are pressing the Internal Revenue Service to do the same.
The Senate has voted to deny any future Housing and Urban Development
funding to the organization. (Whether Nancy Pelosi’s House will follow
suit is not yet known.) Somebody in Washington must be forced to answer
this question: Why would any government agency have anything to do with
this motley crew? Heads already are rolling at ACORN, and they should
be rolling in the offices of the government agencies that approved
these relationships. HUD is bad enough, but letting ACORN within
spitting distance of the IRS bespeaks defective judgment. The group is
deeply tapped into Washington: ACORN relies on government money for
some 40 percent of its revenue, and that fact is a national disgrace.
President Obama’s ties to ACORN are of long standing and are widely
documented. ACORN, which ran a number of voter-registration drives rife
with fraud (Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck being two notable registrees,
along with one Mr. Jive Turkey of Ohio) is at its core a political
operation, one that was an important presence in Obama’s
community-organizing days, as well as in his campaign. The organization
has enjoyed a degree of political protection in Washington: Rep. Barney
Frank was called upon by the Consumer Rights League to investigate
ACORN in his role as an overseer of housing and mortgage matters. He
refused to do so.
ACORN now alleges that the videotapes were altered — but they fired the
employees in question, which does not suggest gross distortion or an
innocent misunderstanding. As more videos come out, this story will get
worse. Not that this story is a story so far as the mainstream media is
concerned: Outside of Fox News, which aired the videos, the media has
abdicated on ACORN coverage. This is the sort of sting video that used
to be the bread-and-butter of 60 Minutes and other investigative
television journalism. Now they look on the story with contempt;
Charlie Gibson sneered that it was the sort of thing better left to
“the cables.”
This is serious business — advising people how to defraud the
government in furtherance of child prostitution and human trafficking —
but it took two twentysomething documentarians to get it on our
national radar. We’d argue that Congress should investigate, but who
would be put in charge? Barney Frank? Nancy Pelosi? A blue-ribbon
committee selected by President Obama? By their fruits (and nuts) ye
shall know them.
FORTIETH JOKE
Dementia
Three brothers were adrift in
a powerboat off the shore
of
Greenwich, having run out of gas. Sharks circled the boat.
The youngest brother, a politician, offered this suggestion:
"Administration policy: Let's all three of us jump in and swim
for shore in three different directions."
The second brother, an agent and publicist suggested that they make a
movie that could have several sequels, assuring royalties forever to
family.
Speaking last, the eldest brother said "Wait for low tide"
Bioethicist
Becomes a Lightning Rod for Criticism
NYTIMES
By JIM RUTENBERG
August 25, 2009
WASHINGTON — Few people hold a more
uncomfortable place at the health care debate’s intersection between
nuanced policy and cable-ready political rhetoric than President
Obama’s special health care adviser, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel.
Largely quoting his past writings
out of context this summer, Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant
governor of New York, labeled Dr. Emanuel a “deadly doctor” who
believes health care should be “reserved for the nondisabled” — a false
assertion that Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of
Minnesota, repeated on the House floor.
Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska
has asserted that Dr. Emanuel’s “Orwellian” approach to health care
would “refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm
and the disabled who have less economic potential,” accusations
similarly made by the political provocateur Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.
In fact, Dr. Emanuel has written
more than a million words on health care, some of which form the
philosophical underpinnings of the Obama administration plan and some
of which have enough free-market elements to win grudging respect from
some conservative opponents.
The debate over Dr. Emanuel shows
how subtle philosophical arguments that have long bedeviled
bioethicists are being condensed, oversimplified and distorted in the
griddle-hot health care debate. His writings grapple with some of the
most complex issues of medical ethics, like who should get the kidney
transplant, the younger patient or the one who is older and sicker?
Perhaps it should come as no
surprise that Dr. Emanuel, an oncologist, has come to personify the
most intense attacks on the president’s plan.
He is the older brother of the White
House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and the Hollywood superagent Ari
Emanuel. As a leading bioethicist at Harvard and at the National
Institutes of Health, Dr. Emanuel had a reputation for pushing limits
while exploring uncomfortable life-and-death issues in starkly academic
terms.
The level of vitriol against him has
led even some conservative opponents to defend Dr. Emanuel while
expressing concern that it is overtaking what they say are more vital
real-world critiques.
“He is a serious oncologist and
bioethicist, so the kinds of charges that have been raised against him
are particularly inappropriate,” said Gail R. Wilensky, a Republican
and senior White House health care adviser under the first President
George Bush who criticizes Mr. Obama’s plan as being too reliant on the
federal government.
Given Dr. Emanuel’s well-publicized
repudiations of doctor-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia, and
his calls for a national health insurance voucher system that would
eventually eliminate Medicare, Medicaid and employer-provided insurance
— nonstarters at the White House — Dr. Emanuel says he is perplexed by
depictions of him as a socialist euthanasia proponent.
“You can only call me someone who’s
interested in euthanizing patients and denying care to patients by
willful distortion of my record,” he said in an interview.
Dr.
Emanuel rose to prominence in the late 1980s with a popular
standardized medical directive that made it easier for terminally ill
patients to share their wishes with doctors before becoming too sick to
speak for themselves.
Concerned with the hard questions
that arise without such directives, Dr. Emanuel included in his 1991
book, “The Ends of Human Life” (Harvard University Press), a critique
of a court ruling upholding a family’s request to end treatment for a
dying, mentally incapacitated daughter. He argued that the ruling, in
the case of Karen Ann Quinlan, did not provide an adequate ethical
framework for such a weighty decision in the absence of a patient’s
stated wishes.
In a 1997 article in The Atlantic,
he argued against doctor-assisted suicide and euthanasia, warning it
would “become the rule in the context of demographic and budgetary
pressures,” and “would make us want to extend the option to others who,
in society’s view, are suffering and leading purposeless lives” —
concerns reflecting the exact opposite of the views his critics now
ascribe to him.
Peter R. Orszag, the president’s
budget director, said in an interview that he had hired Dr. Emanuel on
his own merits, as opposed to his brother’s advice, after he offered to
help with health care policy. Mr. Orszag said he was not surprised that
Dr. Emanuel’s writings had drawn scrutiny.
“You can look at anyone who has
written tons of stuff and play the same game,” he said.
Ms. McCaughey seemed to have
evidence for her conclusion that “he explicitly defends discrimination
against older patients” in a recent New York Post opinion article. She
quoted from a paper he co-wrote for Lancet in January: “Even if
25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65
years now was previously 25.”
But she did not report that the
paper was addressing the allocation of “very scarce resources” like
kidneys or vaccines, not the system in general.
Dr. Emanuel’s argument — that young
adults should take priority in vying for limited health resources
because they will get more years of life from them — is a fairly
mainstream if unpleasant approach to a problem with only bad choices,
ethicists and doctors of varying persuasions say.
“These kinds of dilemmas go on every
day in clinical practice,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a physician and
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research
group. “There’s a very big leap to say his contemplations about how
doctors contend with these issues extends to saying he believes
government should take on these issues.”
Dr. Gottlieb opposes the
administration’s proposals, calling them too prescriptive, too
expensive, and too open to eventual increased rationing.
In a brief interview, Ms. McCaughey
said that either way, because of its Medicare cost cuts, “the
president’s proposal will force hospitals to operate with scarce
resources.”
The administration disputes that
assertion.
Ms. McCaughey, Ms. Palin and others
have based accusations that Dr. Emanuel would direct treatment away
from the disabled on a 1996 paper he wrote for the Hastings Center
bioethics institute.
In it, Dr. Emanuel did not assert
that “medical care should be reserved for the nondisabled, “ as the
critics have said.
The paper laid out what he called a
growing consensus among competing political philosophies about how a
society should allocate health care services. In clinical terms, he
said that consensus held that those who “are irreversibly prevented
from being or becoming participating citizens” should not be guaranteed
the same level of treatment as others.
He cited as an example, “not
guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”
Dr. Emanuel said he was simply
describing a consensus held by others, not himself.
But even some colleagues said in
interviews that the paper did not go far enough in repudiating the view.
“He doesn’t ever endorse it, nor
does he explicitly distance himself from it,” said Thomas H. Murray,
president of the Hastings Center. But, Mr. Murray added, “anyone who
would attribute this isolated sentence to his convictions, it’s just
unfair.”
Dr. Emanuel said he understood some
of the criticisms.
“Maybe if I had been a smarter, more
careful thinker about how people could interpret it, I would have
qualified it and condemned it more robustly,” he said. “In my 1.2, 1.3
million written words, you can’t find another sentence that even comes
close to advocating that in my voice. When I advocate, I’m not shy.
THIRTY-NINTH JOKE
Cicada
central
It has been noted that with the 17-year cicada cycle arrival in
Greenwich, it is hard to hear oneself speak. Democrats do not
have this problem, however, because they just read what the
teleprompter tells them to!
THIRTY-EIGHTH JOKE


Fore!
Did you hear the joke about the Golf Summit? G-8 leaders
met the BRIC countries in Scotland.
President Obama proposed that there be a world-wide system of driving
ranges ("DR") installed in all countries to level the playing field.
PM Gordon Brown proposed that all golf courses worldwide look like
seaside links courses in Scotland, which are already level.
"Who needs golf?" President Chavez, who just happened along, remarked,
"when what we really need
is affordable housing sites?"
--------------
Chávez Loyalists Push to Close
Golf Courses
NYTIMES
By SIMON ROMERO
August 12, 2009
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez’s political movement
has found a new target: golf.
After a brief tirade against the sport by the president on national
television last month, pro-Chávez officials have moved in recent
weeks to shut down two of the country’s best-known golf courses, in
Maracay, a city of military garrisons near here, and in the coastal
city of Caraballeda.
“Let’s leave this clear,” Mr. Chávez said during a live
broadcast of his Sunday television program. “Golf is a bourgeois
sport,” he said, repeating the word “bourgeois” as if he were
swallowing castor oil. Then he went on, mocking the use of golf carts
as a practice illustrating the sport’s laziness.
The government’s broad nationalizations and asset seizures have gone
far beyond the oil industry to include coffee roasters, cattle ranches
and tomato-processing plants.
If the golf course closings go forward, the number of courses shut down
in the last three years will be about nine, said Julio L. Torres,
director of the Venezuelan Golf Federation. A project on Margarita
Island, designed by the American architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. and
intended to be South America’s top course, was halted because of
financial problems.
Most of the closed courses are in oil regions, near Maracaibo in
western Venezuela and in Monagas State, in the east, and were initially
built for Americans working in the oil industry. Mr. Chávez’s
purge of dissidents from the national oil company focused suspicion on
the golf courses, which were seen as bastions of the old elite.
A housing shortage has also pushed the government’s hand, Mr.
Chávez said last month, when he questioned why Maracay had so
many slums while the golf course and the grounds of the state-owned
Hotel Maracay, a decaying modernist gem built in the 1950s, stretch
over about 74 acres of coveted real estate.
“Just so some little group of the bourgeois and the petit-bourgeois can
go and play golf,” he said during his television program...
THIRTY-SEVENTH JOKE
eBay to the rescue? What "best
cars?"
At first we thought it was a
joke. "Cash for Clunkers."
Then it became linked to California,
and the latest effort to get that
great economy moving again. Vote for e-Bay! Sounds like a
plan..."what will you bid for this shiny new GM car?"
Now we know what this Administration
reminds us of...used car salesmen!
-----------------
G.M. Sees eBay as a Way to Reach New
Buyers
NYTIMES
By NICK BUNKLEY
August 11, 2009
DETROIT — General Motors will begin selling cars and trucks on the
auction Web site eBay on Tuesday as it tries to reach new customers and
regain lost market share.
The venture will involve about 225 dealerships in California at first,
but G.M. hopes to expand it nationally as soon as September. As it came
out of bankruptcy protection last month, the company said it wanted to
sell vehicles on eBay, prompting the Web site to quickly deny having a
partnership with G.M. although it said the two companies were in talks.
The companies have since set up a G.M. portal on eBay — gm.ebay.com —
with the slogan “Our best cars. Your best offer.” G.M. said shoppers
can use it to browse dealers’ inventories, ask questions, negotiate
prices and arrange financing.
Vehicles will not be auctioned to the highest bidder but rather listed
at a “buy it now” price equal to G.M.’s supplier price. Shoppers also
can submit a lower offer that the dealer can choose to accept or
reject. Up to 20,000 vehicles will be listed on the site at first, G.M.
said.
“I think we’ll sell quite a few cars in this promotion where the
customer never sees the dealership,” Mark LaNeve, G.M.’s vice president
for United States sales, said.
“We’re making it easier for customers to shop and figure out what the
price is,” Mr. LaNeve said. “If the sticker price is $21,000 and their
budget is 18, a lot of times they’re embarrassed to say, ‘Well, I’ll
offer you 18.’ But now they can do that anonymously online. So we think
it’s going to give us some opportunities we didn’t have before.”
“Together with eBay Motors, G.M. and our dealers are reinventing the
car-buying experience for our California customers,” Mr. LaNeve said in
a statement.
G.M. will be the first automaker to sell new models on eBay, though
more than three million used vehicles have exchanged hands through eBay
Motors; many were listed and sold by individual dealers, some of which
also list their inventory of new vehicles. The program initially runs
through Sept. 8, but Mr. LaNeve said the deadline was meant to control
pricing, not an indication that sales through eBay would stop at that
time.
The partnership with eBay is a crucial part of G.M.’s effort to return
to profitability after five years of heavy losses and to remain the
new-vehicle sales leader in the United States. It is cutting four of
its eight brands, a move that could cause it to fall behind the Ford
Motor Company and Toyota unless it manages to increase sales of the
remaining brands. One surviving brand, Cadillac, is not participating
in the eBay program.
G.M.’s new chairman, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., vowed last week to remain
the top-selling automaker in its home country, but the company conceded
in a regulatory filing on Friday that eliminating half of its brands
would probably reduce its total sales, “possibly significantly.” It
chose California to test online sales in part because G.M.’s market
share in that state is just 13.5 percent, far below its national share
of about 19.5 percent.
G.M. hopes eBay, which claims 84 million active users worldwide, will
help it reach potential buyers who might not otherwise visit a G.M.
dealership. Its new vehicles have been widely praised by critics and
analysts, but getting shoppers — some of which swore off G.M. products
decades ago because of poor quality or bland designs — to actually
visit showrooms and look around has remained difficult.
More than three quarters of new-vehicle buyers in 2008 researched their
purchase online, according to a study by J. D. Power and Associates,
but actually completing a sale through the Internet remains uncommon.
“A lot of them actually end up going to the dealer in person and
test-driving the car before finalizing the transaction,” Rob Chesney, a
vice president for eBay Motors, said. “But there’s a lot of that
purchase process that we can make easier with Web-based technology.”
Mr. Chesney said eBay hoped to expand the G.M. program nationally and
was open to working with other automakers if it was successful.


Already in bed with the banks,
faithful Secretary Geithner lets the President deal with the insurance
companies.
THIRTY-SIXTH JOKE
Promises, promises...the art of
rolling an industry
Did you hear the joke about the lobbyists who believed the
President's assurances on healthcare? What were they thinking!!!
"...Tomorrow is another day" as Scarlet famously stated, with Atlanta
falling all about her...
---------------
Obama Reverses Stand on Drug Industry Deal
NYTIMES
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: August 7, 2009
WASHINGTON — Caught between a pivotal industry ally and the protests of
Congressional Democrats, the Obama administration on Friday backed away
from what drug industry lobbyists had said this week was a firm White
House promise to exclude from a proposed health care overhaul the
possibility of allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices
under Medicare...
Several Senate Democrats said Friday that, in a private
meeting,
White House officials had told them there was no such deal, sowing yet
more confusion. House Democratic leaders vowed to fight against it.
Then,
after contending for two days that the Senate Democrats had
misunderstood the White House aide’s comments, the White House appeared
Friday night to back away.
In a telephone interview, Linda
Douglass, a White House spokeswoman on health matters, said the
question of government drug-price bargaining “was not discussed during
the negotiations.” Asked if that meant such a provision was excluded,
as the top drug lobbyists had previously said, Ms. Douglass declined to
comment, repeating, “It was not discussed.”

THIRTY-SIXTH JOKE
Break in
Taking a leaf from Congressman Rangel's
book, President Obama pointed out that the Cambridge police were
"stupid" and over-eager to incarcerate African-Americans. This
was considered by some to be "playing the race card." It is
perhaps understandable the President made a mistake in his choice
of words, since it obviously was stupid to arrest a Harvard professor
in Cambridge.
How dare the police break in on the Harvard professor in Cambridge -
doesn't the policeman know the faces of the entire Harvard faculty...or
only the ones with rap sheets?
THIRTY-FIFTH JOKE
What foreign policy?
"Speak softly and carry a big shtick" is
one saying that might be recommended to Senator Franken of Minnesota.
"When in doubt, squint" policy in vogue.
Or is the squinting policy because the President can't make out what
the teleprompter says?
----------------
*
"Our age knows nothing but reaction, and
leaps from one extreme to another." Reinhold Niebuhr.
A Good Niebuhr Policy
The realists,
so-called, are back in Washington.
by Matthew Continetti
07/13/2009, Volume 014, Issue 40
Have you been racking your brain these past few weeks, trying to figure
out what makes the Obama administration's Iran policy "realistic"?
It's a good question. "Realism" in foreign policy has purportedly
returned to power after 16 long years in exile. Obama and his allies in
and outside government take great care to distinguish their approach to
the world from the unbridled idealism that supposedly characterized
George W. Bush's administration (and, implicitly, Bill Clinton's).
Brent Scowcroft, the prominent realist and former national security
adviser to President George H.W. Bush, has the current president's ear.
Another realist veteran of the first Bush presidency, Robert Gates, is
the secretary of defense. One of the president's biggest boosters in
the media--but we repeat ourselves--is the realist Fareed Zakaria. In
fashionable coteries of opinion, Woodrow Wilson is out. Reinhold
Niebuhr is in.
This ought to be welcome news. American foreign policy makers should
always be aware of our country's limits and conscious of its
capabilities. It is always good to have people at the helm who
understand that American primacy undergirds an international system
that has produced more wealth, and more peace, for the world's people
than any other in human history, and who therefore seek to promote that
system and protect against threats to its stability. Such people are
aware that the contest between powers does not end, and search for
opportunities to tilt the balance of power in America's (and
prosperity's and tranquility's) favor. Such people, in other words,
recognize that the turmoil in Iran is an opportunity.
Millions of Iranians no longer see the Ayatollah Khamenei and President
Ahmadinejad as legitimate rulers. The violence the regime has deployed
to silence dissent only underscores that illegitimacy. Here is a
moment, you would think, for America and its allies to heighten the
regime's internal contradictions by keeping solidarity with, and
helping wherever possible, the Iranian men and women taking to the
streets. After all, the more time the Revolutionary Guard spends
securing its internal position, the less time it has to obtain nuclear
weapons and pursue hegemony over the greater Middle East. A
forward-leaning U.S. policy would not only further the cause of liberal
democracy, it would strengthen the U.S. position vis-à-vis Iran.
And a weakened Iranian regime is more likely to negotiate in good faith
with America and her allies.
None of this has happened, however. Instead, the realists in power have
adopted a policy of inaction in foreign affairs. They are content to
sit back and pine for a fantasy world where the United States is an
"offshore balancer" that needn't concern itself with protest marches in
Persia. Furthermore, in the face of all contrary evidence, today's
realists clutch to their belief that the only obstacle to an
accommodation with the thugs who rule Iran was George W. Bush. Play
nice, they tell us. Sit back. Everything will work out. Don't ruffle
any feathers. Taking action will do more harm than good.
Faced with a jerry-rigged election and widespread discontent in Iran,
President Obama first downplayed the differences between Ahmadinejad, a
man the Iranian opposition calls a "dictator," and the reformist
candidate Mir-Hussein Mousavi. Then Obama told Americans that their
government's historical legacy of "meddling" in Iranian affairs
cautioned against intervention in the current crisis. When the regime's
brutality in the face of its people's democratic aspirations became
undeniable, however, Obama called "on the Iranian government to stop
all violent and unjust actions against its own people." Too little. Too
late.
The president has intensified his rhetoric. But he hasn't done much
else to support the protests or to sanction the Iranian regime for its
actions. The White House's passive language is revealing. In a June 20
statement, President Obama reminded the Iranians that the "world is
watching," that Americans "mourn each and every innocent life that is
lost," that "we are bearing witness" and will continue to do so. Lovely
sentiments. No question that a 20-something student beaten up by Basij
militiamen appreciates them. But he probably also wants something more.
The Iranian nuclear program, meanwhile, barrels on.
Obama did not say that the United States would take active steps to
help the Iranians conduct free and fair elections. He did not propose
an international conference devoted to the Iranian opposition. He
neglected the opportunity to remind the world that an Iran without
nuclear weapons is a global public good. He took care not to give any
sign that American power or American ideals are involved in the
uprising. The president and his so-called realist advisers' overriding
concern, after all, is that America not "own" the protests.
Why? Because Ahmadinejad is "already accusing the United States and
Britain of interference," writes Fareed Zakaria. "Our strategy should
be to make sure that these accusations seem as loony and baseless as
possible." Historically, the "Tehran government" has appealed to
nationalist feelings in order to cement its power. If Ahmadinejad
successfully portrays the Mousavi revolt as part of "an on going
anti-Iranian campaign," then support for the protestors may collapse.
American action will have a perverse effect. The United States will
frustrate the very end it is trying to achieve.
But Ahmadinejad has already disproved this argument. As Zakaria
mentions, he has been blaming the pro-democracy protests on the United
States and Britain since the day they began. Did the protestors believe
him? They did not. Did a single antigovernment protestor walk away from
the marches when he heard that Obama condemned the violence? Nope.
Would one of them shake her head and say, "Well, now I know Ahmadinejad
won fair and square!" if she heard that Obama supported her cause? Of
course not. The democrats rallied until the guys with the guns showed
up and started shooting.
Obama's muted response might have assuaged uneasy liberal consciences
in New York and Washington. Outside in the world, however, where
nations vie for advantage, Obama neither won America any friends nor
set back any of her adversaries. To the contrary: Ahmadinejad has been
emboldened, harassing workers at the British embassy and demanding an
apology from Obama.
Today's realists are so afraid of America's shadow, so convinced that
the nation is in relative decline, that they counsel inaction even when
solidarity with the Iranian opposition would accelerate the demise of
Iranian theocracy and hence improve America's regional power position.
"[A]t the heart of realist thought today," Robert Kagan wrote more than
a decade ago in Commentary, "is a hostility to any foreign policy which
seeks to foster American ideals abroad--whether it is safe to do so or
not" (emphasis in the original). Little has changed.
The hostility is blinding. It prevents the realists from recognizing
those moments when American interests and American ideals intersect.
Moments when forceful words and concrete actions help the democrats'
and America's cause.
The realists' lackadaisical attitude in the face of democratic fervor
is partly a consequence of their view that a regime's character is
largely irrelevant to its foreign policy. It is partly confirmation
that Obama's team is more interested in restricting the scope of
American ideals, interests, and ambitions than in capitalizing on
moments when history might shift decisively in our favor. But, taken as
a whole, such a mindset isn't "realistic." It's obtuse.
Matthew Continetti is associate
editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
THIRTY-FOURTH JOKE
Eureka! Watt's next?
How many Democrats in the U.S. Senate
does it take to change all our lightbulbs?
60.
-------------------------
*
White House Announces New Lighting
Standards
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:29 p.m. ET
June 29, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Aiming to keep the focus on climate change
legislation, President Barack Obama is ready to talk about making lamps
and lighting equipment use less energy.
On Monday afternoon, Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu plan to
disclose that $346 million in economic stimulus money will help improve
energy efficiency in new and existing commercial buildings.
The White House added the event to the president's schedule at the last
minute, just three days after the House narrowly approved the first
energy legislation ever designed to curb global warming. The measure's
fate is less certain in the Senate, where Democrats lack the 60 votes
needed to block a certain filibuster.
Still, in an interview with a small group of reporters, Obama energy
adviser Carol Browner said: ''I am confident that comprehensive energy
legislation will pass the Senate.'' But she repeatedly refused to say
exactly when the White House expected the Senate to pass the measure,
and she wouldn't speculate on whether Obama would have legislation sent
to his desk by year's end.
The White House is working to keep energy in the spotlight even as Congress
takes a break this week for the July 4 holiday. Obama has spent the
past few days pressuring the Senate to follow the House while also
seeking to show that the administration is making quick, clear progress
on energy reform without legislation.
In February, the president directed
the Energy Department to update it's energy conservation standards for
everyday household appliances such as dishwashers, lamps and microwave
ovens. Laws on the books already required new efficiency standards for
household and commercial appliances. But they have been backlogged in a
tangle of missed deadlines, bureaucratic disputes and litigation.
At the time, Obama said: ''This will save consumers money, this will
spur innovation, and this will conserve tremendous amounts of energy,''
The administration already has released new standards on commercial
refrigeration.
Lamps are next.
The administration says 7 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. is
for lighting, and the new standards, which will take effect in 2012,
will cover fluorescent and incandescent lamps and lighting equipment in
households and commercial buildings.
The White House says the changes will save enough electricity from 2012
through 2042 to power every home in the U.S. for up to 10 months, and
will result in an annual savings for consumers of between $1 billion to
$4 billion over that thirty-year period.
THIRTY-THIRD JOKE
LESSONS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME (from
Emily Post)*
How has Barack Obama failed to comply with etiquette, not to
mention wise foreign policy? Pick one or more.
- He invited someone to a party
one day, with great fanfare, then dis-invited them the next;
- He disrespected the late
Michael Jackson by imitating Michaels dance steps for "moon walking"
poorly (eg. in his Iran election/protests positions reverse backdown);
- He did a good imitation
of former President Carter, in that the above "moon walking" was
similar in principle to saving a few dollars by not using an extra
helicopter or two (in the rescue attempt of the hostages...from
Iran). Foreign policy on the cheap.
----------------
*
TO PUNISH IRAN: A BILL BAM SHOULD BACK
New York Post
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Last updated: 5:53 am
June 26, 2009
Posted: 2:12 am
June 26, 2009
THE Obama adminstration is really playing hardball with Iran now. Faced
with the regime's outrageous conduct in killing its own citizens to cow
them into silence, the State Department has disinvited Iranian
diplomats from the July 4 hot-dog festivals.
That'll show 'em!
If you feel that stronger action may be required, you might want to
consider the Sherman-Kirk Amendment, which a House appropriations
subcommittee just passed with bipartisan support. The amendment,
co-sponsored by Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.),
would require a cutoff of Export-Import Bank financing for any firm
that exports gasoline to Iran or helps it develop new refining
capacity.
For all its vast oil supplies, Iran has to import almost half its
gasoline. This need to import gas is the regime's biggest
vulnerability. Orde Kittre, a senior fellow at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, calls it Iran's "Achilles' heel."
The amendment is largely aimed at Reliance Industries Limited of India,
which has gotten $900 million in loan guarantees from the Export-Import
Bank, of which $500 million is to help expand Reliance's Jamnagar
refinery -- which refines almost a third of Iran's gasoline imports.
Set aside the obvious question of why the US taxpayer is helping to
finance the refining of Iran's gasoline in the first place. This
amendment offers the timid administration a perfect way to show the
anger and outrage it claims to feel at the suppression of democratic
dissent in Iran. It might even be more effective than denying the
mullahs their Fourth of July hot dogs.
This bipartisan bill strikes at the very core of Iran's economy and
sends a potent signal of America's support for human rights and
opposition to totalitarian autocracy.
President Obama has unilaterally repealed the emphasis on human rights
that was President Jimmy Carter's major positive foreign-policy
accomplishment. He has replaced it with a value-neutral policy that
appeases the forces of dictatorship and cowers in their wake.
Swift adoption of Sherman-Kirk would give Obama a real weapon to
discipline Iran and pressure it to reach an accommodation with its own
people. As speculators take their cue from Congress and bet on higher
gasoline prices in Iran, the cost of gas would rise and catalyze
further discontent with the regime.
Iran subsidizes its gasoline prices, holding them to about 35 cents a
gallon. With a falloff in refining capacity, the government would have
to jump through hoops to avoid massive gas-price inflation. Rationing
would ensue.
Through economic, as opposed to military, pressure, Obama can show the
mullahs how seriously we take human rights in the United States and how
little Iran can afford to isolate itself from the civilized world.
Sherman-Kirk could easily become law with administration support. Now
is the president's chance to offer more than words to counter Iranian
repression. We hope he'll seize it.
THIRTY-SECOND JOKE
Appeasement,
21st century style*
Which foreign policy is this administration following?
Speak softly and carry a big stick;
Speak loudly and don't do anything;
Don't speak because you know all about fixed elections since you come
from Chicago.
--------------
*
City of Whispers
NYTIMES
By ROGER COHEN
June 20, 2009
TEHRAN — This has become the city of whispers. Many of
the people I spoke to when I arrived last week are in prison. Stabbings
and shootings punctuate the night. Fear rushes down alleys and dead
ends. Still the whispering continues.
“Tomorrow, Vanak Square.” Or “Four o’clock, Imam Khomeini Square.” Or
“Everyone wear black.”
An election result was announced a week ago that, in the words of the
most senior opposition ayatollah, Hossein Ali Montazeri, “no wise
person in their right mind can believe.”
Force rammed home the false, but still it did not stick. Switches were
flicked to block texting and cell phones. Still the whispering
continued.
From a four-year-old boy: “Ahmadi-byebye” — referring to President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From a young woman with a photograph of Mir
Hussein Moussavi, the opposition leader whose occasional appearances
send jolts of electricity: “Five o’clock, Vali Asr Square.”
The whispering is heard in the throng’s silence. It is the
word-of-mouth switching mechanism of Iran’s uprising. I’ve never seen
such discipline achieved with so little, millions summoned and
coordinated with hardly a sound. “Silence will win against the
bullets,” says one banner.
The odds must still be against that. But Ahmadinejad, in his customary
bipolar (but tending manic) fashion, is making nice. “We like
everyone,” he now says. I suppose he must mean those who are not in
prison, hospital or a cemetery.
However, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, adopted
a harsh tone in a Friday sermon, warning of chaos and bloodshed if
protests continue, blaming “evil media” run by “Zionists” for
unacceptable disturbances, dismissing rigging as impossible, and
charging the United States with meddling. In effect, Khamenei drew a
line in the sand.
Two Irans now confront each other across it. One of the achievements of
the 1979 revolution has been that it brought education to many more
Iranians. I spoke the other day to a doctor. She was wearing a surgical
mask as she marched. She works at a state oil company clinic. She was
20 in 1979 and she marched then, too.
“People are far more educated and cultivated now,” she told me. “They
know the stakes. This is deep. Moussavi will go to the end for our
freedom.”
Iran has sought independence and some form of democracy for over a
century. It now has the former but this election has clarified, for an
overwhelmingly young population, the Islamic Republic’s utter denial of
the latter.
The feeling in the crowd seems to be: today or never, all together and
heave!
A man holds his mobile phone up to me: footage of a man with his head
blown off last Monday. A man, 28, whispers: “The government will use
more violence, but some of us have to make the sacrifice.”
Another whisper: “Where are you from?” When I say the United States, he
says: “Please give our regards to freedom.”
Which
brings
me to President Barack Obama, who said in his inaugural speech: “Those
who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of
dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we
will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
Seldom
was a
fist more clenched than in the ramming-through of this election result.
Deceit and the attempted silencing of dissent are now Iran’s everyday
currency. In this city of whispers one of the whispers now is: Where is
Obama?
The president has been right to tread carefully, given poisonous
American-Iranian history, but has erred on the side of caution. He
sounds like a man rehearsing prepared lines rather than the leader of
the free world. A stronger condemnation of the violence and repression
is needed, despite Khamenei’s warnings. Obama should also rectify his
erroneous equating, from the U.S. national security perspective, of
Ahmadinejad and Moussavi.
Ahmadinejad is Iran’s Mr. Nuclear. He has rapidly advanced the program
and, through preaching in every village mosque, successfully likened it
to the nationalization of the oil industry as an assertion of Iranian
nationalism.
By contrast, Moussavi has not abjured the program, but has attacked
Ahmadinejad’s “adventurist” and “delusional” foreign policy. These are
essential distinctions.
Obama should think hard about whether this ballot-box putsch is not
precisely about giving Ahmadinejad and his military-industrial coterie
four more years to usher Iran at least to virtual nuclear-power status.
He should also think hard about the differences in character:
Ahmadinejad is volatile and headstrong, the interlocutor from hell,
while Moussavi is steady and measured.
Shrugging away these distinctions like a dispassionate professor at a
time when people are dying in the streets of Iran is no way to honor
this phrase in his Inaugural Address: “Know that America is a friend of
each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace
and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.”
When I was here earlier this year, I argued that Iran was an unfree and
repressive society but also a nation offering significant margins of
liberty, at least by regional standards, with which Obama’s America
must engage. After Iraq, I was deeply concerned that facile
stereotyping of a society of “mad Mullahs” bent on nuclear Armageddon
could once again set America in lockstep to war.
I underestimated how brutal the regime could be. But my critics
underestimated how strong and broad the Iran of civic courage and
democratic impulse is, and they misread how important this election
was, dismissing it as the meaningless exercise of a clerical
dictatorship.
I still believe there is no alternative to engagement. But it is not
the time for Obama to talk about talks. He should be talking about his
outrage at the violence.
This is the city of whispers. Its people crave to know that their
hushed voices are being heard. Obama, lover of words, is the message
man. “Message received” is what he must convey.
THIRTY-FIRST JOKE
Ponzi merry-go-round*
The bedrock of
middle-class America has always been, since World War II ended, the
dream of homeownership. Was this, too, a "Ponzi-like"
concept? Read article below.
-----------
*
U.S.
Homes Recovery Distressingly Slow: Reuters / UMich
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Filed at 10:11 a.m. ET
June 19, 2009
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A "distressingly slow" U.S. housing recovery, with
inflation-adjusted home values expected to decline over the next five
years, makes it unlikely that housing wealth will drive consumer
spending in the next decade, a Reuters/University of Michigan survey
found.
Consumers are apt to maintain their renewed emphasis on savings and
paring debt, Richard Curtin, director of the survey, said in a June
home price update on Friday. Housing wealth changes have a lagged
impact on spending, and the influence of declines seen in 2008 will
depress growth in consumer spending in 2009 and 2010, the survey said.
"To be sure, refinancing has reduced the burden of mortgage payments,
giving consumers more discretionary income, but the refinancing impact
on spending will fade as mortgage rates increase," Curtin said.
"Moreover, conventional refinancing is largely limited to consumers
whose home is worth about 20 percent more than their current
outstanding mortgage."
The pool of those homeowners is fast shrinking with each month that
home prices sink. On average, home prices nationally have slumped by
more than 32 percent from mid-2006 highs, based on Standard &
Poor's/Case-Shiller indexes. Sixty percent of homeowners reported
home
price declines in the second quarter Reuters/University of Michigan
surveys. The share of those reporting losses was greatest in the West,
at 77 percent, and least in the South, at 51 percent.
Some signs of sentiment improvement emerged in the second quarter. Just
22 percent of those surveyed expected price declines in the year ahead,
the lowest share since 2007. The share of homeowners reporting
price
declines in the past year and expected further erosion in the year
ahead fell to 28 percent in the second quarter from 35 percent in the
first quarter and 43 percent a year ago.
"Declines in prices have prompted consumers to view home buying
conditions much more favorably, but those same price declines have
prompted the least favorable assessments of home selling conditions
ever recorded," Curtin said.
Most home buyers are also sellers. As a result, many potential
transactions are thwarted because the reluctance to sell at a "loss" is
seen as greater than the advantage of the buying at a reduced price, he
said.
THIRTIETH JOKE
Viva O.J.!* Ankle tackle!
How is the Supreme Court unlike the Superbowl? Wardrobe
malfunctions go undetected on the high court.
And speaking of (juris) prudence...the highlight of popularity with the
general public for former
football great O.J. Simpson might be his "AVIS" commercial - the one
where he runs through an airport, hurdling baggage and other
obstacles. Many remember O.J. in another way - as the individual
who hired the
best lawyers and
managed to get an "innocent" ruling out of an L.A. jury some years
ago.
To combine the thoughts - being plucky in an airport and being
lucky in court, we come to another case.
What was Judge Sotomayor thinking! Of course the airline would
have held
the plane for her! She may be on the Supreme Court soon
enough! Airlines know it is always good to have friends in, no
pun intended,
high places!
Just ask G.M. and Chrysler!
---------------------------
*
While watching "Good Morning America" on the overhead video as she ran
through La Guardia...
Sotomayor Fractures Ankle at Airport
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:39 p.m. ET
June 8, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor broke her
ankle Monday morning in an airport stumble, then boarded her flight as
scheduled and made the roughly hourlong trip to Washington to meet with
senators who will vote on her confirmation.
The federal judge, who has been keeping up a busy set of appointments
on Capitol Hill, tripped at New York's LaGuardia Airport and suffered a
small fracture to her right ankle, the White House said.
She was keeping her six appointments with senators despite the injury.
She entered the Capitol for a meeting with Sen. Charles E. Grassley,
R-Iowa, on crutches, wearing a white cast covered at the foot with a
black soft bootie. Asked how she was feeling, Sotomayor said, ''I feel
fine, thank you.''
Sotomayor has set a relentless pace since her Capitol Hill debut last
week. By day's end Monday, she will have met with one-third of the
Senate in just four days of visits.
The White House is pressing for her quick confirmation, and Sotomayor
wasn't pausing much for distractions, even her own trip-up. She even
stopped at the White House Monday after her arrival in Washington,
before heading to a local medical office for an X-ray.
The George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates treated and
released her, according to a White House statement.
Sotomayor drew praise Monday former first lady Laura Bush, who said she
was pleased President Barack Obama nominated a woman for the Supreme
Court.
''I think she sounds like a very interesting and good nominee,'' Bush
said of Sotomayor. She said on ABC's ''Good Morning America'' that,
''as a woman, I'm proud that there might be another woman on the court.
I wish her well.''
TWENTY-NINTH JOKE
Governmental Motors *
How about this for a strategy: GM produces three cars
only, in any of a million colors as in the rainbow; all use the
hybrid engine from Cadillac STS.
- Car #1 is the
"pimpmobile" or "pompmobile" depending on the use and/or color;
employs the Cadillac wheel base and frame;
- Car#2 is the
"Chebbie" or "Chevrolet" and comes in red, white or blue with a
black or tan interior, no options.
- Car #3 is the
Corvette, because that is the only car that GM ever made that was
exciting to own.
Since all other GM cars looked alike anyway, no one will miss the other
brands.
-------------
*
Op-Ed Columnist
The Quagmire Ahead
By DAVID BROOKS
June 2, 2009
On Jan. 21, 1988, a General Motors executive named Elmer Johnson wrote
a brave and prophetic memo. Its main point was contained in this
sentence: “We have vastly underestimated how deeply ingrained are the
organizational and cultural rigidities that hamper our ability to
execute.”
On Jan. 26, 2009, Rob Kleinbaum, a former G.M. employee and consultant,
wrote his own memo. Kleinbaum’s argument was eerily similar: “It is
apparent that unless G.M.’s culture is fundamentally changed,
especially in North America, its true heart, G.M. will likely be back
at the public trough again and again.”
These two memos, written by men devoted to the company, get to the
heart of G.M.’s problems. Bureaucratic restructuring won’t fix the
company. Clever financing schemes won’t fix the company. G.M.’s core
problem is its corporate and workplace culture — the unquantifiable but
essential attitudes, mind-sets and relationship patterns that are
passed down, year after year.
Over the last five decades, this company has progressively lost touch
with car buyers, especially the educated car buyers who flock to
European and Japanese brands. Over five decades, this company has
tolerated labor practices that seem insane to outsiders. Over these
decades, it has tolerated bureaucratic structures that repel top
talent. It has evaded the relentless quality focus that has helped
companies like Toyota prosper.
As a result, G.M. has steadily lost U.S. market share, from 54 to 19
percent. Consumer Reports now recommends 70 percent of Ford’s vehicles,
but only 19 percent of G.M.’s.
The problems have not gone unrecognized and heroic measures have been
undertaken, but technocratic reforms from within have not changed the
culture. Technocratic reforms from Washington won’t either. For the
elemental facts about the Obama restructuring plan are these:
Bureaucratically, the plan is smart. Financially, it is tough-minded.
But when it comes to the corporate culture that is at the core of
G.M.’s woes, the Obama approach is strangely oblivious. The Obama plan
won’t revolutionize G.M.’s corporate culture. It could make things
worse.
First, the Obama plan will reduce the influence of commercial
outsiders. The best place for fresh thinking could come from outside
private investors. But the Obama plan rides roughshod over the current
private investors and so discourages future investors. G.M. is now a
pariah on Wall Street. Say farewell to a potentially powerful source of
external commercial pressure.
Second, the Obama plan entrenches the ancien régime. The old
C.E.O. is gone, but he’s been replaced by a veteran insider and similar
executive coterie. Meanwhile, the U.A.W. has been given a bigger
leadership role. This is the union that fought for job banks, where
employees get paid for doing nothing. This is the organization that
championed retirement with full benefits at around age 50. This is not
an organization that represents fundamental cultural change.
Third, the Obama approach reduces the fear that impels change. The U.S.
government will own most of G.M. It would be politically suicidal for
the Democrats, or whoever is in power, to pull the plug on the company
— now or ever. Therefore, the current managers can rest assured that
they never need to fear liquidation again. There will always be federal
subsidies for their own mediocrity.
Fourth, the Obama plan dilutes the company’s focus. Instead of thinking
obsessively about profitability and quality, G.M. will also have to
meet the administration’s environmental goals. There is no evidence
G.M. is good at building the sort of small cars the administration
demands. There is no evidence that there is a large American market for
these cars. But G.M. now has to serve two masters, the market and the
administration’s policy goals.
Fifth, G.M.’s executives and unions now have an incentive to see
Washington as a prime revenue center. Already, the union has
successfully lobbied to move production centers back from overseas.
Already, the company has successfully sought to restrict the import of
cars that might compete with G.M. brands. In the years ahead, G.M.’s
management will have a strong incentive to spend time in Washington,
urging the company’s owner, the federal government, to issue laws to
help it against Ford and Honda.
Sixth, the new plan will create an ever-thickening set of relationships
between G.M.’s new owners — in government, management and unions. These
thickening bonds between public and private bureaucrats will
fundamentally alter the corporate culture, and not for the better.
Members of Congress are also getting more involved in the company they
own, and will have their own quaint impact.
The end result is that G.M. will not become more like successful car
companies. It will become less like them. The federal merger will not
accelerate the company’s viability. It will impede it. We’ve seen this
before, albeit in different context: An overconfident government throws
itself into a dysfunctional culture it doesn’t really understand. The
result is quagmire. The costs escalate. There is no exit strategy.
TWENTY-EIGHTH JOKE
Wanted: a new joke writer *
Washington is abuzz with news of a job category of public
employment: forthwith, every member of Congress must hire a team
of humor consultants and a public discretion censor. No more
do-it-yourself, shooting-from-the-hip (you should pardon the
expression)!
Being politically correct while being funny is an art - for example,
everyone knows that President Obama can't go anywhere without a phalanx
of Secret Service! So why make a 20th century, out of date
wiseguy remark?
Or was this a diss of East Harlem (as opposed to West Harlem)?
---------------
*
Rangel’s Obama Quip Makes Waves
NYTIMES
By NINA BERNSTEIN
June 1, 2009
It was an innocuous question, asked of Representative Charles B. Rangel
by a reporter as he left a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a Hudson River
park on Saturday morning: What should President Obama do during his
visit to New York?
The congressman, who had been reminiscing at the podium about his
boyhood when he took the 125th Street trolley to the piers to watch the
boats, responded with an apparent off-the-cuff quip: “Make certain he
doesn’t run around in East Harlem without identification.”
By Sunday morning, that quip with its allusion to the fatal shooting of
a black off-duty police officer by a white officer, was the stuff of
tabloid headlines. “Even Bam May Not Be Safe, Sez Rangel” said a Daily
News headline spread across two pages, reporting the remark as “a
warning” to the president, who made a brief trip to the city on
Saturday, to watch his back. “Rangel’s Sick Joke,” The New York Post
called it.
By midday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had weighed in.
“I have a lot of respect for Charlie Rangel, but in this case, he’s
just plain wrong,” he said in response to a question about Mr. Rangel’s
remark as he marched in the Salute to Israel parade on Fifth Avenue.
“This was a tragedy. Our Police Department is diverse and they train;
sometimes things happen and they’re inexplicable,” the mayor said,
adding, ”There’s no reason to suspect this had any racial overtones.”
Mr. Rangel made the remark to a Daily News reporter after the
dedication ceremony for the West Harlem Piers Park. It was apparently
not made within hearing distance of the many politicians, city
officials and community leaders who were present. The city’s parks
commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said the speeches were followed by a music
for a dance performance that made it difficult to hear any
conversations.
The upset over Mr. Rangel’s remark reflected the high tension and
racial sensitivity surrounding the shooting of Officer Omar J. Edwards
in East Harlem on Thursday night, another chapter in a history of
fraternal police shootings across the color line. Earlier, Mr. Rangel
had called for a federal investigation of the shooting, saying that an
independent inquiry would help assure the minority community that what
happened was a mistake and that such an encounter would not happen
again. Emile Milne, a spokesman for Mr. Rangel, said on Sunday morning
that he was unable to reach the congressman to comment on the reaction
to the Obama remark. Al O’Leary, a spokesman for the Patrolmen’s
Benevolent Association, said that the union would have no comment.
TWENTY-SEVENTH JOKE - Summer limerick:
Flip-flops are not just for the beach (otherwise
known as whip-lash)*
Boxing rope-a-dope can be adaptable.
Fake-right-go-left policy now acceptable.
A "no" becomes yes,
Ain't Congress a mess?
Flip-flops on issues are now expectable.
-------------
*
Senate vote not
last word on Guantanamo
DAY
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
Posted on May 23, 7:46 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- With President Barack Obama showing the way, some
Senate Democrats are signaling a willingness to permit transferring
terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay to prisons in the United States
despite a high-profile vote to the contrary.
Most notably among them is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who spent
the week sending out confusing signals on just where he stood.
"We are wanting and willing to work with" the president to come up with
a solution to the detainee controversy, the Nevada Democrat said
Thursday - a statement that conspicuously left open the possibility
that some detainees would eventually be incarcerated in U.S. prisons.
Only two days earlier, Reid had adamantly told reporters he opposed the
release of any of the detainees into the United States. On Wednesday,
he joined 89 other lawmakers in both parties who voted to prohibit
their transfer.
The 90-6 vote also denied Obama the funds he requested to close the
Navy-run detention center in Cuba, which was set up by the Bush
administration and has become a highly controversial symbol of the
former president's terrorism policies.
Obama and many Democrats favor closing the facility, saying it has
become a recruiting tool for al-Qaida. But doing so leaves open the
fate of most of the 240 men held there.
Some Democrats grumbled that Obama's team had left them exposed
politically in the run-up to Wednesday's vote. Sen. Daniel Inouye, the
Hawaii Democrat who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, spoke
at one point of the administration lacking a "coherent plan."
Initially, Senate Democrats, who hold a majority, had hoped to finesse
the issue. They drafted legislation that allowed Obama's use of the
funds to close Guantanamo after he presented a plan that outlined steps
for dealing with the detainees held there.
But under significant pressure from the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky, and other GOP senators, Democrats backpedaled.
They stripped out the funds altogether and voted with Republicans to
bar the "transfer, release" or incarceration of any Guantanamo detainee
in the United States.
"I think it is a perfect place, given the unique nature of the war on
terror," McConnell said Thursday. "Having said that, the president, I
assume, has the authority to close it if he'd like to. And if he's
going to close it, then he needs a plan."
Within 24 hours of the Senate vote, Obama sought to reframe the issue,
accusing unnamed critics of fear-mongering and resorting to "words
that, frankly, are calculated to scare people rather than educate them."
At the same time, he made it clear he intends for some of the detainees
to be incarcerated in the U.S. "Where demanded by justice and national
security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of
facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent
criminals within our borders - namely highly secure prisons that ensure
the public safety."
Some terrorists, he pointed out, have already been tried in federal
courts, found guilty and sent to prison. "No one has ever escaped from
one of our federal, supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted
terrorists," Obama said.
In addition to Reid, other Democrats who voted to ban the transfer of
detainees to the United States said after Obama's speech, they are
willing to consider the plan the president eventually presents.
"We need for the administration to come to the legislative branch with
a well-thought out plan, and then for us to have a conversation," said
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. Asked whether that meant he was unalterably
opposed to permitting detainees to enter U.S. prisons, he repeated it
was up to the White House to outline its plan first.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said detainees can be incarcerated safely
inside the United States, but added quickly, "Should they be? That's a
far more difficult question to answer."
"It should be a last resort," she said, less preferable than sending
them to other countries.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who also voted for the legislation on Wednesday
and favors closing Guantanamo, issued a statement saying he looked
forward to working with the administration on a "lawful and efficient
system of trials using an appropriate combination of our civilian
courts and military commissions."
What to do with the Guantanamo detainees mushroomed into the biggest
sticking point in a bill that Obama had wanted by Memorial Day to pay
for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the summer. So lawmakers will
be under pressure to quickly complete it when they return in June. But
the Guantanamo issue can be taken up again elsewhere, giving Obama some
time to come up with a plan that could generate a compromise.

TWENTY-SIXTH JOKE
Summer reading list - Robin Hood, or
from mighty Acorns grow
After the 100th day, after reading the tablets, better known as
teleprompters, President Obama was struck by how much like the story of
Robin Hood his commander-in-chief role was.
What better way to reward the poor and punish the rich or middle-class
than to make them pay equally for use of credit cards! One class
of borrows only! He forgot one thing...
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be" can work but only if you are
neither - just the chap who pulls the strings. *
--------------------
*

Wall St. Firm Draws Scrutiny as U.S. Adviser
NYTIMES
By ERIC LIPTON and MICHAEL J. de la MERCED
May 19, 2009
The financial crisis has ravaged many a Wall Street giant, but it has
also produced a handful of winners. BlackRock, a money manager that is
much admired but little known outside financial circles, is fast
emerging as one of the nation’s financial powerhouses.
BlackRock, which started in a one-room office 21 years ago, now manages
$1.3 trillion in assets for big private clients, including hedge funds
and foreign governments.
But it is the company’s highly prized role as a government adviser and
contractor that is now drawing attention.
By dint of its expertise and track record, it has won contracts to help
the government manage the complex rescues of Bear Stearns, the American
International Group and Citigroup.
It also won a bid to carry out a Federal Reserve program to stimulate
the moribund housing market, and it has been hired to help evaluate
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-created mortgage finance
giants.
Other firms have been hired by the government to assist with the
bailout, illustrating the increasingly symbiotic relationship between
Washington and Wall Street.
It makes sense for the government to turn to financial experts for
help, but BlackRock has become so ubiquitous that some lawmakers,
federal auditors and watchdog groups are now asking if the firm does
too much, and if its roles as government adviser, giant federal
contractor and private money manager will inevitably collide.
Can a company that is being paid to price and sell troubled assets for
the government buy the same kinds of assets for private clients without
showing preference? And should the government seek counsel from a
company whose clients stand to make or lose billions if those policies
are enacted?
“They have access to information when the Federal Reserve will try to
sell securities, and what price they will accept. And they have
intricate financial relations with people across the globe,” Senator
Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said. “The potential for a
conflict of interest is great and it is just very difficult to police.”
Without naming BlackRock, federal auditors have warned that any private
parties that purchase distressed assets on the government’s behalf
could use generous federal subsidies to overpay, artificially pushing
up the price of similar assets that they manage for their own
portfolios.
“In other words, the conflict results in an enormous profit for the
fund manager at the expense of the taxpayer,” Neil M. Barofsky, the
special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, wrote
in a report last month.
Some of BlackRock’s advice to the government has in fact helped the
company. For example, in its role as an informal adviser, it urged the
Fed to intervene in the markets in a way that made investors feel it
was safe to put money back into money market funds, including
BlackRock’s.
The Federal Reserve will not reveal what it is paying BlackRock,
disclosing only that on one of its five contracts, it will pay at least
$71 million over three years to BlackRock and other firms to manage a
portfolio of mortgage assets once owned by Bear Stearns. BlackRock says
that rate is discounted and that the fees it collects on
bailout-related work are only a tiny portion of its overall revenue.
BlackRock has many admirers for the range and the quality of services
it has provided to the federal government. James R. Wilkinson, who
served until January as the chief of staff to the former Treasury
secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., described BlackRock’s co-founder and
chief executive, Laurence D. Fink, as a “patriot.”
He added, “He is willing to help our country when we need it most.”
Mr. Fink said he was proud that his company was helping pull the
economy back from the brink, and he bristled at the suggestion of
impropriety.
Treasury and Fed officials have begun to take precautions. BlackRock’s
dominance has prompted the Fed to seek an alternative partner as it
prepares to expand its rescue efforts, a government official close to
the situation said, requesting anonymity because the actions could
affect the market.
And Treasury is holding off announcing the winning bidders for perhaps
the most anticipated of all the bailout programs — the $1 trillion
federally subsidized plan to purchase troubled assets from banks — in
part to make sure the bidders cannot game the system. BlackRock is
widely expected to win one of the contracts, in which the government
would be a partner with private firms.
Andrew Williams, a Treasury Department spokesman, said that BlackRock
had no special status and was among a large group of industry players
consulted about bailout programs.
“We take this very seriously,” Mr. Williams said. “We talk to a lot of
people — as we should.”
Now 47 percent owned by Bank of America, BlackRock offers traditional
services like managing other people’s money. But the unit that has
grabbed most of the attention lately is BlackRock Solutions, whose
sophisticated software, fine-tuned over many years, can take apart the
thousands of loans in a mortgage-backed security to estimate what it is
now worth and what it will most likely be worth in the future, helping
investors decide whether to hold or sell the asset.
During one frantic weekend in March 2008, when Bear Stearns was
collapsing, BlackRock’s omnipresence became evident.
On a Saturday, the firm was hired by JPMorgan Chase — which was
considering buying Bear Stearns — to value one type of Bear Stearns
security.
The next day the Federal Reserve hired BlackRock, through a no-bid
contract, to analyze and eventually sell off a $30 billion pool of
risky mortgage securities that JPMorgan did not want.
Those multiple roles created the potential for conflict, BlackRock’s
own executives acknowledge. The company would be trying to sell assets
on behalf of the government that were similar to assets it buys and
sells for thousands of other private investors.
For example, if BlackRock Solutions signaled to BlackRock’s asset
managers the timing of a planned sale, that could benefit BlackRock’s
investors, but harm taxpayers and the Federal Reserve.
“We were very sensitive to it,” said Mark Wiedman, a managing director
at BlackRock Solutions.
To avoid this, BlackRock Solutions and BlackRock asset management
employees are housed in separate buildings, working on separate
computer networks. The firm also sells the Bear Stearns securities only
through an independent broker, meaning BlackRock does not know who the
buyers are. The Fed, in addition, has prohibited BlackRock from
knowingly buying any of the Fed-controlled assets.
But some remain skeptical that such firewalls really protect taxpayers.
“How can one company have so much control over the process?” said Scott
Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a
Washington-based non-profit group. “Isn’t there somebody else they can
turn to?”
The concerns about BlackRock also extend to its role as an informal
adviser. Mr. Fink has been known to call Treasury officials several
times a day, Bush and Obama administration officials said, between
occasional visits.
Last fall Mr. Fink urged the Fed to take action to unlock the frozen
market for short-term lending to companies — a business that
BlackRock’s money market mutual funds played a major role in. Investors
had withdrawn $48 billion from those BlackRock funds, but once the Fed
adopted the policy Mr. Fink was advocating, the money came pouring
back.
Mr. Fink said his advice was for the good of the economy, and that his
was one of many industry voices calling for such a move.
Still, Mr. Fink has not been shy in boasting about his access. “I mean
it is a great seal of approval,” Mr. Fink told Wall Street analysts in
December, as he simultaneously coached the Bush administration and the
incoming Obama team. “We are asked to help navigate new policy. I’m
running out of here to go meet with Treasury to talk about plans later
this afternoon.”
But it is clear that the income from fees is a lesser benefit than the
buffing of its global reputation, a point Mr. Fink has made. “It gives
comfort to our clients that we are being involved in some of the
solutions of our economy, and it allows us to show our clients that we
are being asked in these difficult situations to provide advice,” he
said at the same event.
BlackRock has not been immune to market turmoil, but its stock over the
last year has held up better than its peers’. While BlackRock’s share
price tumbled 33 percent, Federated Investors shares have lost 34
percent and Legg Mason, 65 percent. BlackRock ended 2008, a disastrous
year for Wall Street, with $786 million in profit on $5 billion in
revenue.
Some lawmakers remain wary, even though they cannot cite any specific
impropriety. “The very nature of what we are asking them to do almost
guarantees that it is going to be to the benefit of BlackRock,” said
Representative Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on
the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “You can have
separate pews, but if you go to the same church, it will cross over.”

TWENTY - FIFTH JOKE
Photoshop moment?
What did the White House Military Director say when eager
P.R staff asked "Is it O.K. for Air Force One and a half to buzz New
York City?"
1. No, that is a stupid waste of taxpayers' money ($300,000 plus)
*
2. No, it will remind New Yorkers and everyone else of September
11, 2001.
3. "Yes, we can!"
--------------------------
*
WHITE HOUSE AIDE RESIGNS OVER FLYOVER FLAP; PHOTOS OF INCIDENT RELEASED
New York Post
Last updated: 4:54 pm
May 8, 2009
Posted: 3:54 pm
May 8, 2009
WASHINGTON -- A top White House aide resigned today for his role in Air
Force One's $328,835 photo-op flyover above New York City that sparked
panic and flashbacks to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His resignation
was made public at the same time the photo of the flyover was released
by the White House.
Louis Caldera said the controversy had made it impossible for him to
effectively lead the White House Military Office. "Moreover, it has
become a distraction in the important work you are doing as president,"
Caldera said in his resignation letter to President Barack Obama.
The sight of the huge passenger jet and an F-16 fighter plane flying
past the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan financial district
sent panicked office workers streaming into the streets on April 27.
Obama said it would not happen again.
Caldera's office approved the photo-op, which cost $35,000 in fuel
alone for the plane and two jet fighter escorts. The Air Force
estimated the photo shoot cost taxpayers $328,835.
White House officials said the flight was designed to update the
official photo of the plane, known as Air Force One when the president
is aboard. The White House released a photo of the blue-and-white plane
high above the Statue of Liberty, with New Jersey in the background.
The White House released the report late Friday afternoon via e-mail,
with a short written statement from White House press secretary Robert
Gibbs. There was no statement about the matter from Obama, who last
month declared the embarrassment a "mistake" and vowed it would not be
repeated.
Gibbs said Obama has ordered a review of how the White House Military
Office is set up, and how it reports to the White House and the Air
Force.
That review, to be conducted by Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina and
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, will also offer recommendations to
Obama designed to ensure that such an incident will not happen again,
Gibbs said.
Caldera, a former Army secretary, has headed the office that
coordinates presidential travel on Air Force jets.
When Obama appointed Caldera to the job during the presidential
transition, the then president-elect hailed Caldera as having a resume
that was second-to-none. Obama said then: "I know he'll bring to the
White House the same dedication and integrity that have earned him the
highest praise in every post."
His resignation takes effect May 22, but he is done at the White House
Military Office now - not just as director, but in any part of the
office's work. He said he will use the two weeks of his employment to
complete the necessary steps to leave the White House.
TWENTY - FOURTH JOKE

Prez:
hamburger with cheddar cheese and Dijon mustard, no ketchup, bottle of
water...VP: burger plus ketchup swiss cheese and Jalopeno peppers.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, new head of Food and Drug Administration, former
Director of Health for NYC (a place that has restaurants).
Undercover FDA
Inspection?
It was reported on the wire that President Obama and Vice
President Biden traveled by motorcade to an independent fast food
restaurant to get a hamburger for lunch today. Inquiring minds
would like to know how many good practices avowed by this
Administration did they violate? The answer: 5.
- They traveled in the same car
- They wasted gasoline
- They wasted gas and traveled
together across state and municipal borders
- The Secret Service sent "a
motorcade" to protect them, increasing the cost of the hamburger
from $6.95 plus tax to $25,000
- They insulted the White House
cook
Vice President Biden explained
that he was only trying to find the protesters who were expelled from
the Senate Finance Committee session.*
--------------
*
Protesters Disrupt Senate Health Care
Hearing
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:39 a.m. ET
May 5, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Protesters pushing for a government-run health
system have been thrown out of a Senate hearing room after disrupting
the meeting.
It happened at the start of a Senate Finance Committee session on
overhauling the health care system to cover some 50 million uninsured
Americans. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has
said that a
so-called single-payer system -- one that's run by the government -- is
not on the table. Many liberals favor that approach but Baucus and
others say it's not practical or politically feasible.
Single-payer supporters repeatedly interrupted as Baucus tried to
convene Tuesday's hearing.
When one protester shouted ''we want a seat at the
table,'' Baucus
responded, ''We want police.''
Capitol Police removed eight people.
TWENTY-THIRD JOKE
Anti-UCONN Defense
All the teams in womens' college basketball Division 1 learned how to
defeat the UCONN champs after viewing the White House visit and game of
"P-I-G" played against President Obama on his half-court behind the
White House:
Make them wear formal summer dresses and party shoes on court.
TWENTY-SECOND JOKE
More freedoms lost?
On the third request, the U.S. Navy received permission from the
White House to use force against the pirates holding the American ship
Captain for ransom ("if his life was in danger").
Now I know why President Obama was hesitant to act. In his
statement of congratulations and best wishes to the family of the
Captain, the President wanted to make clear "...we are resolved to halt
the rise of privacy in that region." The Horn of Africa today,
New England tomorrow?
TWENTY-FIRST JOKE
CASABLANCA REDUX?
Perhaps an old movie buff, President Obama obviously admires the
line uttered by Claude Rains "round up the usual suspects." The
President scolds AIG derivative folks for taking lavish bonus payments
for 2008. With Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner at his side, the
President thought to declare that the Internal Revenue Service will be
auditing AIG bonus-takers...
TWENTIETH JOKE
How is Bernie Madoff like Barack Obama?
One has a license to print money and the other didn't.
NINETEENTH JOKE
BLOWING IN THE WIND?
Do you think the article below
is legit?
------------
Breaking (Bad) News for Ed
Profs Ayers and Dohrn
National Review online
[Candace de
Russy]
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The following just in from nancy@familysecuritymatters.org (read to the
end for word of a new report concerning a "new SDS" on campuses):
In a sensational letter to be released at a March 12 National Press
Club news conference, the San Francisco Police Officers Association
(SFPOA) tells Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival, Inc., and
FamilySecurityMatters.org contributing editor, that evidence in the
1970 bombing murder of a San Francisco police officer points to Weather
Underground members Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, two associates of
President Barack Obama. The letter will be made public at a news event
that will feature a former FBI informant in the Weather Underground
saying that Ayers told him that Dohrn planted the bomb that killed
Sergeant Brian V. McDonnell. The informant, Larry Grathwohl, has
testified under oath before the U.S. Senate about the bombing plot.
"There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill
Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, members of the terrorist group
'Weather Underground' are largely responsible for the bombing of Park
Police Station and other police stations throughout the United States
during their 'tour of terror' in the late 1960s and early 1970s," the
SFPOA letter states. The SFPOA letter is signed by all five officers of
the SFPOA.
The SFPOA letter says that while “Sgt. McDonnell was the sole fatality
of this heinous and cowardly act," which occurred on February 16, 1970,
eight other policemen were seriously injured. "Those responsible for
the cold blooded murder...and the injuries to the other officers have
never been brought to justice and the case remains open," the letter
notes.
"The San Francisco Police Officers' Association joins Mr. Cliff Kincaid
of America's Survival, Inc. in his valiant and noble effort to urge a
renewed effort by the appropriate Law Enforcement Agencies (Local,
State, and Federal) to bring this case to a close and bring those
responsible for the murder of Sgt. Brian McDonnell and the injuries to
the other officers to the justice they have so long eluded."
In addition to releasing the letter, Jim Pera, a retired San Francisco
Police Officer who was one of the first on the scene after the 1970
bombing, will describe the devastating impact of the blast. In
addition, two reports on the Weather Underground will be released. They
are "What was the Weather Underground?" by former Congressional
investigator Herbert Romerstein, and "From Arms to Education to
Political Power — the Return of the SDS and the Weather Underground,"
by Cliff Kincaid and internationally-renown blogger and researcher
Trevor Loudon. The latter examines how members of the Weather
Underground have regrouped to form a “new SDS” on college campuses.

EIGHTEENTH JOKE
"OMG, HE'S A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT"
How do you think Barack Obama got elected President?
In a time when the economy was in the tank, the media was heading west,
or left, the unaffiliated masses and Republicans who did not want to
back a losing candidate and those who had forgotten why we were in
Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place ("World Trade Center, 9/11 -
what's that?"), were looking for a new President...we elected a smart,
left-leaning Chicago Democrat, graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law
School, as our leader.
Why is anyone surprised at his view of the State of the Union?
----------------
Obama’s
budget facing political obstacles
New Haven Register
Associated Press
Sunday, March 1, 2009 5:51 AM EST
WASHINGTON — Breathtaking in its scope and ambition, President Barack
Obama’s agenda for the economy, health care and energy now goes to a
Congress unaccustomed to resolving knotty issues and buffeted by
powerful interests that oppose parts of his plan. Perhaps the
only things as high as Obama’s goals are the hurdles they must clear.
While tackling the economic crisis, he is asking Congress to enact
contentious measures that have been debated, but not decided, in calmer
times: cut subsidies for big farms; combat global warming with a
pollution tax on industries; raise taxes on the wealthy; make big
changes to health care, including lower reimbursements for Medicare and
Medicaid treatments and prescription drugs.
Standing alone, any one of these proposals would trigger a brawl in
Congress and fierce debates outside Washington. Obama wants the
proposals done largely in concert, as an interrelated plan to undo
major elements of Ronald Reagan’s conservative movement. Obama
outlined the approach in a budget proposal Thursday, a sprawling road
map that will require several hard-fought pieces of legislation.
He launched his campaign for the package Saturday with a fiery,
populist radio and Internet address that depicted his critics as
champions of “the interests of powerful lobbyists” and “the wealthiest
few.”
“I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy,” the president said,
because it “represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.”
“They’re gearing up for a fight,” he said. “So am I.”
If his rhetoric was tough, the challenges he faces are downright
daunting. The economy contracted by a stunning 6.2 percent in the final
three months of 2008, its worst showing in a quarter-century. Obama
says the crisis calls for gutsy actions, and many groups feel he has
delivered. Obama is not simply proposing a budget that assumes a
jaw-dropping deficit of $1.75 trillion this year, a quadruple increase
from the year before. He’s trying to redirect strong currents in
American society.
The wealthiest 5 percent would pay a whopping $1 trillion in higher
taxes over the next decade, while most others would get tax cuts.
Industries would buy and trade permits to emit heat-trapping gases.
Higher-income older people would pay more for Medicare benefits. Drug
companies would receive smaller profits from the government. Banks
would play a much smaller role in student loans.
Obama’s climb is steep. Even with solid Democratic majorities in the
House and Senate, he secured a $787 billion stimulus package only after
accepting compromises that irked liberals but won the support of three
Republican senators.
Not a single House Republican backed it. Judging from House GOP
leaders’ immediate condemnation of his budget blueprint, Obama can
expect more of the same. More troubling for him, however, are the
divisions quickly emerging among Democratic, liberal and centrist
constituencies that either backed the stimulus or stayed on the
sidelines. Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the
House Agriculture Committee chairman, criticized Obama’s plan to cut
direct payments to farms with sales exceeding $500,000 a year.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, one of the stimulus bill’s three
Republican backers, said it is hard to see how Obama can meet his new
deficit-reduction targets. He called Obama’s chief energy proposal
“entirely speculative” and urged the president “to forgo the tax
increases” in the plan.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which also backed the stimulus bill, said
Obama’s budget blueprint “appears to move in exactly the wrong
direction. More taxes, heavy-handed regulations, and
command-and-control government will not hasten recovery. . . . You
don’t build a house by blowing up its foundation.”
“Class warfare” is how Republicans label his plan to raise taxes,
starting in 2011, on households making more than $250,000 a year.
Some liberal-leaning foundations are unhappy about his proposed
reduction in the tax deductibility of gifts to charity from wealthy
people.
On health care, Obama wants to cut payments for Medicare and Medicaid,
the government programs for the elderly, disabled and poor.
On energy, Obama wants to reduce greenhouse gases and raise money for
clean-fuel technologies, such as solar and wind power, by auctioning
off carbon pollution permits. The proposal, known as cap and trade,
will lead to a bruising fight in Congress, which may be divided more by
region than party.
William Kovacs, who oversees regulatory affairs for the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, says Obama is pushing too fast for such a dramatic policy
change.
“Any support that there was for cap and trade from the business
community,” he said, was based on the assumption of “a long-term
transition.”
SEVENTEENTH JOKE
FROM ACROSS THE POND (quotes from
I-BBC Washington report)
Barack Obama is having more trouble picking a cabinet than the New York
Knicks a starting line up.
"The president came to power with a powerful promise of change and a
pledge to end the old politics while ushering in a new era of political
integrity. There was to be political and racial diversity too,
but it has not quite worked out as planned."
"Nominees have already fallen like flies. Out has gone his first choice
of commerce secretary, the New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who is
facing an investigation into his links with big business. The
president's pick for health secretary, Tom Daschle, has had to pull out
too after failing to keep up with his taxes."
"The same problem befell Nancy Killefer, earmarked for the job of chief
government performance officer. The president wanted Tim Geithner for
treasury secretary, and did get his man despite having found another
who has been embarrassed by tax issues."
"...But now there's the case of Judd Gregg, whose sudden departure is
rather different from the rest. To misquote Oscar Wilde: to lose one
may seem unfortunate but to lose four looks more like carelessness."
SIXTEENTH JOKE
BLOW DRY PRESIDENCY
President Obama may have had a brainstorm.
How to positively affect the greatest number of Americans in the
shortest period
of time? How to heat up the economy? No problem.
Go with something you know.
See article below about executive order on small kitchen appliances.
And another...
--------------------

CAPTION: "I wonder if I look like George W. Bush on September 11
- in this case, reading to kids while the economy melts down?"
Obama Ordering Energy-Efficient
Standards
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:03 p.m. ET
February 5, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Eager to show action on the energy front, President
Barack Obama ordered his government on Thursday to establish higher
efficiency standards for everyday household appliances such as
dishwashers, lamps and microwave ovens.
''This will save consumers money, this will spur innovation, and this
will conserve tremendous amounts of energy,'' Obama declared during a
visit to the Energy Department, where he touted his economic jobs plan.
Obama announced he had signed a presidential memorandum directing the
Energy Department to get moving on energy standards for appliances,
including a first batch he will order to be finalized by August. The
fact that Obama is getting directly involved in speeding up household
appliance standards underscores how much he wants to show quick, clear
progress on energy -- part of a broader campaign promise to deal with
economic and energy concerns all at once.
Laws on the books already require new efficiency standards for
household and commercial appliances. But they have been backlogged in a
tangle of missed deadlines, bureaucratic disputes and litigation. In
essence, Obama's intent is to say that legal deadlines must be met,
with priority being given to those standards that are likely to yield
the best pocketbook savings for consumers.
Obama's memorandum orders final rules to be in place by August that
require energy-efficiency standards for a series of products:
residential dishwashers, lamps, ranges and ovens, microwave ovens,
commercial air conditioning equipment, commercial boilers and beverage
vending machines.
His directive also asks the Energy Department to meet all deadlines in
setting energy standards but to evaluate them in priority order and
finish some ahead of schedule.
So far in his presidency, Obama also has taken a major step toward
letting California and other states target greenhouse gases through
more stringent auto emission standards. And he has also ordered new
federal rules directing automakers to start making more fuel-efficient
cars as required by law.
FIFTEENTH JOKE
“We were just tired of being in the
White House,” Mr. Obama told second graders at Capital City Public
Charter School.
Was this a...
1) joke
2) the truth or...
3) through his visit, giving a plug to the Charter School movement?
FOURTEENTH JOKE
ETHICS: IN THE EYE OF THE
BEHOLDER, NO PUN INTENDED?
Everyone was delighted to hear that this new administration would be
transparent and above reproach, like Caeser's wife. Who is the
worst offender proposed for the Cabinet or reported to be, by the same
administration that promulgated this new ethics code? Which have
been approved by the Senate? Who withdrew?
1) Tom Daschle
2) Bill Richardson
3) Hillary Clinton
4) Eric Holder
5) Tim Geithner
6) Other names not mentioned by
the administration
Headlines can be
deceiving department: That was a quick four years!!!
White House: Obama to Return to
Illinois
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:50 p.m. ET
February 2, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama is heading back to his home state for
the first time as president.
The White House says he will travel to Springfield, Ill., on Feb. 12 in
honor of one of his heroes, Abraham Lincoln.
Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that Obama will attend
the commemoration of Lincoln's 200th birthday and speak at a banquet in
Springfield. The spokesman says Obama is returning to Illinois for the
festivities at the request of Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin.
Outlaws
at the Art Museum (and Not for
a Heist)
NYTIMES
By RANDY KENNEDY
January 25, 2009
In 2005, the British artist Banksy — then on the verge of becoming
probably the world’s most famous street artist — walked into the Museum
of Modern Art and three other New York museums done up in a beige
raincoat and fake beard, looking more like a subway flasher than a
“quality vandal,” as he called himself. Once inside he furtively
mounted his own work among the masterpieces, relying on speed and
two-sided tape rather than curatorial consent as his way into the
collections, at least until guards noticed.
“These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of
millionaires,” he wrote later in an e-mail message to a reporter,
explaining his dim view of museums and his desire to see his work
inside one purely to poke fun at the whole idea. “The public never has
any real say in what art they see.”
But as it turns out, there is more than one way into a museum for
street art, the catchall term now used to describe a global explosion
of public imagery that began with graffiti in the 1970s and has morphed
into dozens of wildly different forms, generally united only by their
illegal exhibition on public and private property. On Tuesday, as
Barack Obama was being sworn into office, his portrait by the street
artist Shepard Fairey — reproduced endlessly during the campaign until
it became the defining image of the future president (it towered over a
stage at one of the inaugural balls) — was on view at the National
Portrait Gallery. A collaged poster of it had just entered the
collection along with portraits by artists like Gilbert Stuart (George
Washington), Norman Rockwell (Richard Nixon) and Elaine de Kooning
(John Kennedy).
It is not Mr. Fairey’s maiden voyage into the museum world; a survey of
his work opens next month at the Institute of Contemporary Art in
Boston, and he is in a few other collections. But the portrait
gallery’s decision is arguably the establishment’s most public embrace
of a quintessentially anti-establishment brand of art. So it has been
hailed by street-art fans as a significant moment, the fine-art world
beginning to find a way to recognize a movement that has been growing
apace for more than a decade, propelled by a generation of artists who
grew up with graffiti and now make work on the streets with materials
as varied (and sometimes as ephemeral) as paper, plastic, tape, snow,
rubber bands and knitted wool.
And there’s some evidence the recognition is happening. The Tate Modern
in London devoted a big show to street art last year, letting artists
plaster its facade with the kind of work usually plastered illicitly
all around its Southwark neighborhood. Other big street names are also
starting to pop up in museum collections, like Swoon, whose ghostly,
papery work has been bought by the Museum of Modern Art.
But the Shepard Fairey moment may be less significant for what it says
about how museums view street artists than for how those artists have
come to view museums — how for many younger artists, street and
otherwise, museum enshrinement no longer represents the kind of end
zone it did for many who came before, even those like Keith Haring who
began with street art and deep misgivings about the establishment.
In interviews, Mr. Fairey, 38, has stressed how honored he is to be in
the National Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution and
about as American as a museum can be. He has also stressed that he
doesn’t see it as a place in a hierarchy but instead on a kind of
continuum, right alongside the work he creates with the police on his
trail or album covers for bands or work commissioned by huge companies
like Dewar’s or Saks Fifth Avenue (in the latter case, recently,
militaristic Rodchenko-esque shopping bags that scream “Want It!”).
His view has a parallel these days in the world of digital and video
art, where distinctions between museums and galleries and Web vehicles
like YouTube are blurring for younger artists — why not try to have it
in both places if you can and why does it matter so much which comes
first?
One thing they’re doing is simply adhering to an old graffiti work
ethic: get your work up anywhere, everywhere, any way you can, as long
as you don’t get caught. There’s nothing wrong with getting it into a
museum, as some street artists like Banksy might contend, but a museum
is also just one among many good places to get your work seen, in Mr.
Fairey’s estimation.
“It’s not the audience and the forum that they crave in the way that
somebody in an earlier generation might have,” said Carlo McCormick,
the New York art critic, of museumgoers and museums. “Shepard has a
very predatory gaze,” said Mr. McCormick, who has followed his work and
contributed an essay to a 2006 book about it. “If he comes to a town
he’s looking at it like a criminal. He’s casing the place and figuring
out where he can get his stuff up. And who he really cares about
reaching and the ways he cares about reaching them have remained
remarkably consistent.”
Carolyn Carr, the portrait gallery’s chief curator, said that the
poster acquired by the museum — a 60-by-40-inch mixed-media collage
that Mr. Fairey created after making the initial image — was a
beautiful work of art. But she added that “one of the reasons the
gallery acquired it is that the image — as opposed to the object — is
ubiquitous and it became the image of the campaign.”
“There’s no question that it has lasting resonance,” she said.
For a street artist — who, like many, exults in the essential
slipperiness of outlaw work — it’s undoubtedly all the more gratifying
when you finally make it into a big museum to do so by such epically
serpentine means: an oft-arrested political street artist who’s also a
highly paid commercial artist offers on his own initiative to make a
vaguely Soviet-looking poster for the campaign of an anti-establishment
politician (who, interestingly, can’t officially claim the poster
because of rights concerns about the news photograph it was based on,
snagged by the artist from the Web) and then the politician,
surprisingly, sweeps into the establishment with vows to shake it up,
taking the outlaw’s non-outlaw poster into the establishment with him.
It’s more than most street artists can hope for, but one of them will
probably find a way to top it.
“I’m a populist,” Mr. Fairey said in an interview with a portrait
gallery curator. “I’m trying to reach as many people as possible.”
“I love the concept in fine art of making a masterpiece, something that
will endure,” he said, adding that he understood, too, how unlikely
that is for anyone. “But I also understand how short the attention span
of most consumers is and that you really need to work with the
metabolism of consumer culture a lot of the time to make something
relevant within the zeitgeist.”
Or as he put it more simply, stealing a metaphor from the medium: “It’s
not necessary to paint yourself into a corner with categories.”
THIRTEENTH JOKE
BAD LUCK
According to AP, reporting on the OPRAH WINFREY SHOW,
Vice-President-to-be Biden had been offered his choice of
jobs--Secretary of State or Veep - and he chose to stay in Washington
closer to home, according to his wife, Dr. Jill.
This is the 13th joke, which is why we entitled it "Bad Luck."
Really!
FROM THE NYTIMES...TWO JOKES
#1 - A priest, a minister and a
rabbi walk into a bar and the bartender says: What is this, some kind
of a joke?
#2 - Two guys are walking their
dogs. One has a big German Shepherd, the other a tiny Chihuahua. They
pass by a very fancy restaurant and the guy with the Shepherd suggests
they stop in for a drink. “They’re not going to let us in with the
dogs,” the man with the Chihuahua says. Just do what I do, his friend
assures him. The guy with the Shepherd walks in first and the maitre d’
stops him. “We don’t allow animals in here, sir. Sorry.” This is a
seeing-eye dog, the man says. The maitre d’ apologizes and the man with
Shepherd sits at the bar. Then the man with Chihuahua comes in.
“We don’t allow pets in here,”
says the maitre d’.
“This is a seeing-eye dog,”
says the man with the Chihuahua.
“That’s not a seeing-eye dog,
that’s a Chihuahua.”
And the man says: “They gave me
a Chihuahua?”
TWELFTH JOKE
DID YOU
HEAR ABOUT THE NEW OBAMA TWO - CHINA POLICY?
The joke in the 1960's was "what do you think of Red China?" The
answer, in suburban circles, was allegedly, "it goes great with a green
table cloth."
Inflation and high expectations brings a free gift
($2,500 value) of Lenox Crystal to the President and Vice
President.
We hope they use their bowls wisely.
Here in the 21st century, "Yes we can" means accepting gifts from
Congress - the new President will receive a crystal ball from Congress
after he is Inaugurated!
In a related matter:
CAMPAIGN
FINANCE REPORT
When is a gift not a gift? When
it is two "free" Lenox Crystal bowls from Congress - or was that
crystal balls?



--------------------------
Obama's First Gift as President to Be
Crystal Bowl
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:28 a.m. ET
January 9, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- To Barack Obama, from Congress on behalf of the
American people: One hand-cut, crystal bowl with an etching of his new
home in Washington.
The president-elect will receive the present at a luncheon with members
of Congress after the inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20.
The $2,500 one-of-a-kind bowl weighs nearly 8 pounds and shows an image
of the White House, with cherry trees on each side. As the bowl is
rotated, the president's residence can be seen through the trees.
Congress commissioned the bowl from Lenox, Inc., which donated it as a
gift, a favor permissible under a congressional resolution.
Joe Biden will receive a similar crystal bowl when he becomes vice
president, only his will have an image of the Capitol, with blooming
cherry trees.
The gifts took thousands of hours to make and were designed by glass
cutter Timothy Carder using a combination of etching and hand cutting.
It is 5 1/2 inches high and 9 inches in diameter and sits on a hand-cut
base made of optical crystal engraved with Obama's name and the date of
his inauguration.
''The inauguration of a new president is one of the most solemn and
ceremonial moments in our nation's history,'' said Senator Feinstein
(D-Calif.), Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural
Ceremonies. ''Lenox, a great American porcelain company, has once again
created a beautiful gift that captures the beauty and dignity of this
truly special occasion.''
The company also created the inaugural gifts for former presidents
George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush.
Holy
dictionary, Batman, these guys can make an open window opaque!
And how
about the threatened federal action to bring back the Polaroid camera!!! Two steps foreward,
one step back, cha-cha-cha!
Sen. Daschle calls for
“paradigm shift” during confirmation hearing
OBAMA website
Thursday, January 8, 2009 12:55pm EST / Posted by Dan
McSwain
Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle appeared
before a Senate confirmation hearing this morning and called for bold
changes in the way Americans and their government think about health
care.
“I think we need to change the paradigm in this country on health,”
Secretary-designate Daschle said. “It starts with that big picture
belief. The paradigm needs be changed from illness to wellness.”
Sen. Daschle advocated new approaches to the problems facing American
families, noting that his charge in leading HHS will require working
across governmental lines to fix ailing health care systems.
He noted the importance of “breaking down stovepipes so that the
inter-relationship between these agencies can do a better job of
coordinating this effort.”
When rural health care issues were raised, Sec. Daschle spoke
passionately about solutions to the unique problems many communities
face. He emphasized the need for expanded broadband Internet
access to
facilitate a modernized health care information technology
system.
President-elect Obama has repeatedly stressed the vital role of
increased broadband penetration in improving the quality of a variety
services across America, including health care.
We’ll have more on Secretary-designate Daschle and his Transition
health care team coming up soon.
Obama Team Urges Delay in Digital TV Transition
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:51 p.m. ET
January 8, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama is urging
Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital
television broadcasting.
In a letter to key lawmakers, transition team co-chair John Podesta
warned Thursday that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to
pick up over-the-air broadcasts won't be ready.
The incoming administration is pushing for a delay in part because the
Commerce Department has run out of money for the coupons that subsidize
digital TV converter boxes for consumers. People who don't have cable
or satellite TV or a new TV with a digital tuner will need the
converter boxes to keep their analog TVs working.
Obama officials are also concerned that the government is not giving
consumers enough help with the TV transition.
Obama’s Media Cabinet
NYTIMES
By Mark Leibovich
January 7, 2009, 10:40 am
Reports that President-elect Barack Obama had approached
CNN’s medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to be the next Surgeon
General inspired a parlor game among people who have too much free time
(a k a media types): What if Mr. Obama were to assemble his
administration entirely from TV experts? Scary thought, granted, but
what the heck: here are our nominees from among the best and brightest
of the boob tube:
Interior Secretary: Martha
Stewart
Labor: Tony Soprano
Treasury: Jim Cramer
Agriculture: Mr. Ed (”The
Talking Horse”)
Veterans Affairs: Tom Brokaw
Transportation: “Click and
Clack” (token radio slot)
Drug Czar(s): “Cheech and
Chong” (token movie slot)
State: Amy Poehler
Attorney General: Nancy Grace
Health and Human Services:
Jared (from Subway ads)
Education: Mr. Woodman
(“Welcome Back Kotter”)
Energy: Mr. C. Montgomery Burns
(owner, Springfield Nuclear Power Plant)
EPA: Woodsy Owl (from 70s “Give
a hoot – don’t pollute” PSAs)
Trade Representative: Howie
Mandel (host, “Deal or No Deal”)
HUD: Kevin O’Connor (host,
“This Old House”)
National Security Adviser: Mika
Brzezinski (”Morning Joe”)
Defense: John Madden
Homeland Security: Jerry
Springer’s bouncers (I.N.S.: Lou Dobbs)
U.N. Ambassador: Bill O’Reilly
Commerce: Suze Orman
O.M.B.: Canceled
Spokesman: Bill Moyers
ORIGINAL
POEM
The first.
I wanted change to come in a dress.
Maybe Hillary, or Sarah, a way to clear the slate.
But now we know who we are, having elected Obama.
Not rednecks, newly
smart and hip, one
nation again.
Glass ceiling intact.
ELEVENTH JOKE
SIGNS
There were signs that the nation was is trouble.
First, the economy behaved in the last quarter just the way it did
after September 11, 2001*.
Second, everyone was surprised that greed (remember the "greed is good"
line from a Michael Douglas movie?) in real life could also go with
criminality.
Third, the new Cabinet has an Ivy-League look.
Last time it was so smart we invaded Cuba and got into trouble in
Vietnam.
Plus, President Obama tees up from the other side of the ball,
and his drives slice to the left**!
-------------------
*G.D.P.
Unrevised for Third Quarter
By REUTERS
December 24, 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The economy shrank at a 0.5 percent annual pace
in the third quarter, as expected, after consumers and businesses cut
spending and the country’s recession gathered steam, government data
showed on Tuesday.
The economy entered a recession last December and many economists think
this deepened after the failure of the investment bank Lehman Brothers
in September, which froze credit and sent households and companies into
a defensive crouch.
The Commerce Department, in its final revision, said the decline in
gross domestic product in the third quarter versus the previous three
months was the steepest since the third quarter of 2001, in the
aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted the report would show G.D.P.
declined by an unrevised 0.5 percent in the third quarter.
Consumer spending shrank by 3.8 percent for the sharpest pull-back
since 1980, when a global oil crisis tipped the economy towards a
prolonged slowdown, while investment in equipment and software slumped
7.5 percent for the largest decline since early 2002.
** from the NYTIMES:

TENTH JOKE
DID
YOU HEAR ABOUT THE INAUGURATION
PROGRAM?
The only thing that all of the runup to Barack Hussein Obama's
inauguration seems to be missing is...select from this list:
1. A crossing of the Delaware by boat;
2. Relocating the Statue of Liberty to D.C. for the events;
3. The Rolling Stones performing "...Satisfaction" (Aretha
is going to sing "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" - the other meaningful song with
similar lyrics).
NINTH JOKE
DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT THE "GOVERNORS'
WING" AT AN ILLINOIS PRISON?
Not to be outdone, Mayor Bloomberg of New York offered sections of
Staten Island for a tri-state regional prison for convicted public
employees and elected officials. This residence would be known as
the "Fresh Kills Political Swamp" and be open to private sector
offenders where their misdeeds involved corrupting government officials.
Why is this not funny?
1. Because it is a good idea for reuse of dumps.
2. Because it is an example of Regional Cooperation.
3. Because it would require too many different disciplines to
cooperate (i.e. environmental, corrections, etc.), and that is sad.
INTERNET JOKE
Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has
discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.
The new element, Governmentium (Gv),
has one neutron, 25 assistant
neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving
it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together
by forces called morons, which
are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called
peons.
Since Governmentium has no electrons,
it is inert; however, it can be
detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into
contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would
normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to
complete.
Governmentium has a normal half-life
of 2- 6 years. It does not decay,
but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the
assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
In fact, Governmentium's mass will
actually increase over time, since
each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming
isodopes.
This characteristic of morons
promotion leads some scientists to
believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical
concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical
morass.
When catalysed with money,
Governmentium becomes Administratium, an
element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has
half as many peons but twice as many morons.
EIGHTH JOKE
NOT A TRICK QUESTION
How many economists does it take to figure out how to get us out of
this present economic mess?
1. As many as it takes to make the right decisions.
2. A team consisting of: one who can communicate in
multiple languages, one who's made the wrong decisions before (so he
won't make the same ones again) and one who is too young to have
grandparents who lived through the Great Depression.
3. One lucky one.
LUCKY SEVENTH JOKE
SNL
How will "Saturday Night Live" manage to make any jokes between 2009
and the end of President Obama's first term?
By concentration on international affairs and the Department of
State. Or if Al Frankin doesn't win his U.S. Senate contest,
adding him to the cast!
SIXTH JOKE
CHICKEN
How is a GAME of chicken different
from BEING chicken?
One involves a contest of wills and really reckless behavior. The
actual "game" of chicken is most commonly illustrated by two
automobiles
driving toward one another, the "chicken" being the one that turns away
first. The other is what politicians, such as Congressional
Majority leaders, do when they don't have the votes.
FIFTH JOKE
JUSTICE
So why did the Democrats not punish Senator Lieberman in Congress?
1. They rewarded him for turning the other cheek on CT Dems
during re-election fiasco...
2. Nothing he had said wasn't true.
3. They are learning Chicago-style politics ("Fageddaboutit")
FOURTH JOKE
ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION
Did you hear about the new political
party forming? There is a contest for selection of a Party mascot
- here are the popular choices so far:
1. Monk Parakeet - persistence and understanding of high tech and
the Internet - also known as the Greenstuff Party.
2. Polar Bear - all the characteristics that Governor Palin had
and the addition of one more - mess with this Party and you get
eaten! Party colors - white on white.
3. Husky - Woof, Woof!
THIRD JOKE
NEW RULES NEW PRESIDENT
1. Silence and a bemused smile
or no answer to a question such as
"You agree with me, right?" does not mean "yes."
2. "Rogue states" in the new
administration means Sarah Palin.
3. The new administration will
deal with Poland and the rest of
the world as the First Family-to-be will with their daughters' new
puppy, using the New York Times editorial page for back up.
SECOND JOKE
HOW FAST? IS THIS WHAT
THE PRESS CALLED FLIP-FLOP* DURING THE CAMPAIGN?
Question: How long did it take
until President-Elect Obama had
to:
retract or have staff retract something he stated to either 1)the
press or 2)a foreign government leader?
Answer: 1)one day
and 2)not yet - claims he didn't
say it in the first place (Saturday at 11:36am, 2:18pm...)
-------
*
Kremlin:
Medvedev, Obama Say Need
to Meet Soon
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 8, 2008
Filed at 2:18 p.m. ET
MOSCOW (AP) -- The Kremlin
said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had
agreed with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama in a telephone call
Saturday that they need to meet soon.
Medvedev congratulated Obama
on his election win, and the two agreed on
a need to work on Russia-U.S. ties, a Kremlin statement said. Several
issues have tested relations between Moscow and Washington, including
NATO's possible eastward expansion and U.S. plans for placing
components of a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Moscow has strongly objected
to the missile-defense plans, and on
Wednesday -- a day after Obama's election -- Medvedev announced he
would respond by stationing short-range missiles in Russia's Baltic
exclave of Kaliningrad, on the doorstep of Poland and Czech Republic.
Obama's plans remain unclear
regarding the defense system, the deals
for which were brokered under U.S. President George W. Bush.
The Kremlin statement said
Obama and Medvedev agreed in their phone
call Saturday ''to create constructive and positive interaction for the
good of global stability and development.''
It said they spoke of ''the
priority of the nature of relations of
Russia and the USA ... the positive development of which is principally
important not only for the people of both countries, but for the
international community as a whole.''
Obama and Medvedev also agreed
their countries have a common
responsibility to address ''serious problems of a global nature,'' and
so should schedule an ''early bilateral meeting'' to address them, the
statement said. A Kremlin spokesman, speaking on customary condition of
anonymity, declined to elaborate or say when such a meeting could take
place.
It is unlikely to be at next
week's G-20 world summit in Washington,
which Obama's representatives said he would not attend. It is not known
if Medvedev will be there or if he will send another representative for
Russia.
Obama takes over from Bush on
Jan. 20.
An Obama
aide
said Saturday that, during a recent conversation with Polish President
Lech Kaczynski, Obama did not commit to the missile-defense plans,
contradicting earlier claims by Kaczynski.
Washington has said that the
missile-defense system poses no threat to
Russia and is meant to protect Europe from possible attacks from the
Middle East.
-----------------
Obama Backs Shield Only if Technology Proven: Aide
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Published: November 8, 2008
Filed at 11:36 a.m. ET
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland said
on Saturday U.S. President-elect Barack
Obama had declared he would continue with a missile shield project in
eastern Europe, but an Obama aide in Washington said he had given no
commitment to deploy the system.
Poland and the neighboring
Czech Republic have agreed to host elements
of the U.S. defense network, designed to protect against missile
attacks by what Washington calls "rogue states."
Russia, which has opposed the
scheme, announced on Friday plans to
install its own missile defenses in its westernmost outpost of
Kaliningrad as a counter-measure.
A statement on the Polish
presidential website, issued after a
telephone conversation between Obama and Polish President Lech
Kaczynski on Friday, said:
"He (Obama) stated that the
anti-missile-shield project would be
continued."
But a senior Obama
foreign-policy adviser qualified what the
president-elect had been reported as saying in his talk with the Polish
president.
"President
Kaczynski raised missile
defense, but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it," Dennis
McDonough told Reuters.
"His position is as it was
throughout the campaign -- that he supports
deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be
workable," the adviser added.
According to Kaczynski's
official presidential website, "during the
conversation, Barack Obama emphasized the importance of the partnership
between Poland and the United States and expressed the hope that
political and military cooperation would continue."
Some Polish politicians have
expressed fears that a Democratic Obama
presidency might be less enthusiastic toward the plan launched by
President George W. Bush.
President Jimmy Carter’s Carnal Mistake
by the mag - August 4, 2008 -
4:30 AM
In December 1977, President
Jimmy Carter planned a trip to Poland, a
country whose masses were, at the time, still fiercely huddled behind
the Iron Curtain.
What Should
Have Happened: Your
average, boring-yet-passively-hostile Cold War-era visit. Carter would
fly in, say a few carefully chosen words implying that maybe Poland
should pay more attention to human rights, which the Poles would then
slyly dismiss. Then everybody would go have a big dinner and a few
shots of vodka before hitting their heavily bugged hotel rooms. No big
deal.
What
Happened Instead: A
diplomatic snafu famous for being simultaneously politically offensive
and hilarious. The problem stemmed from Carter’s Polish translator,
Steven Seymour, a freelance linguist who was hired by the State
Department for $150 a day. Although an accomplished and respected
translator of written Polish, Seymour turned out to be less-than-apt
with the spoken word. During his speech, Carter said he’d come to learn
about the Polish people’s desires for the future—meaning their
political and economic desires.
During the translation,
however, Seymour used a word that suggested the
president was instead interested in the Poles’ carnal lusts.
And for a second round of
humiliation, when Carter later mentioned
leaving for his journey back to the United States, Seymour translated
it to mean Carter had abandoned America forever. Having thoroughly
confused the Poles (and creeping them out in the process), Seymour
further sullied his translation with Russian words—a big no-no in a
country with a long history of anti-Russian cultural antagonism. Not
surprisingly, he was soon replaced.
FIRST JOKE
Question #1: How many people
can you offend at one news
conference?
Answer: As many as you'd like if you are protected by the
media...until the campaign is over.
Question #2: How long can the media keep on making fun of
Governor Palin?
Answer: until she completes her doctorate in physics from Cal
Tech...
BEFORE
NOVEMBER 4, 2008
CARTOONS, VIDEO AND
JOKES: NEW
SERIES DEVELOPED FOR THE CAMPAIGN
We see a three tier campaign: on
Television and Radio (reportage, advertising and debates), in Print
(reportage and editorials) and...on the Internet (blogs, YouTube and
e-mail). Which do you think will ultimately influence the
election most? Professional comedians,
cartoonists or..."About
Town" amateur jokes?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




LATE NIGHT COMEDIANS FLUNK ANIMAL
IDENTIFICATION
Those too young to watch late night TV (Piper low-fives Mom) and those
too old to stay up late, hail Governor Palin ("Miss Congeniality" at
Miss Alaska contest, 1984), on her return.
I don't watch "SNL" anymore, since former Weston resident left
the cast.
Late-night
comedians target Palin
Daily News wires services
Published: September 10th, 2008 01:14 AM
Last Modified: September 10th, 2008 09:45 AM
Late-night comedians have long preyed on politics for their jokes. Now
they have Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin in their sights. Here's a sample of
their recent barbs:
DAVID LETTERMAN
It's Fashion Week here in New York City. Everyone's got fashion fever;
in fact, the Statue of Liberty, earlier today, was wearing some of
those hip Sarah Palin glasses.
Everyone's out campaigning. Sen. McCain and Sarah Palin were in New
Mexico. They were having lunch at a diner. I thought this was so sweet.
She was there cutting his meat for him.
Whoa, man, I like that Sarah Palin looks like the weekend anchor on
Channel 9. She looks like the hygienist who makes you feel guilty about
not flossing. She looks like the relieved mom in a Tide commercial.
But we're learning more and more about Sarah Palin. Boy, are we! And
listen to this. It turns out that she and her entire family once had a
chair-throwing brawl on Jerry Springer.
And you've got to love this. Sarah Palin is an avid hunter. A vice
president who likes guns -- Well, what could go wrong there?
JAY LENO
I guess there are some problems with Palin, though. Have you heard
about this "Troopergate" scandal? Palin allegedly ... used her power as
governor to pressure officials to fire her former brother-in-law from
his state trooper job. Now, maybe I'm wrong, but wasn't that an episode
of "Dukes of Hazzard?"
Actually, some Republicans are not that thrilled with the speech. In
fact, the rumor is Sarah Palin is thinking of dropping him from the
ticket. You've got to admit, Sarah Palin really has energized the
Republican base. See, Sarah Palin can do what John McCain can't do --
send an e-mail.
You know, when Governor Palin was giving her speech the other night,
the teleprompter broke and she had to keep going from memory. That
happened to Joe Biden once, but with him, he talked so long, the
teleprompter shot itself.
Well, here's a little known fact from the Republican convention. This
is kind of interesting. You know the confetti they dropped at the end?
That was made from the actual Constitution of the United States.
Well, the ratings are in, and it seems 40 million people watched Sarah
Palin's speech, and 40 million people watched Barack Obama's speech.
So, the message is pretty clear. Barack Obama needs to run with Sarah
Palin.
Barack Obama said he was not bothered by Sarah Palin's scathing
comments about him. He said he's been called worse things on the
basketball court, although nothing compared to what they called him at
the bowling alley.
BILL MAHER
When they were vetting her for this job, like three seconds ago, she
said, quote, I'm not making this up, "What is it exactly that the VP
does every day?" Let me field that for you, Sarah. They start wars,
they enrich their friends, they subvert the Constitution, and they
shoot people in the face. That's what the vice president does.
John McCain's V.P. pick is the governor of Alaska, an unknown hockey
mom named Sarah Palin that no one ever heard of. The only other job she
had in politics was the mayor of a small town known as Wasilla, Alaska,
and now she has the opportunity to be on a ticket opposite of Barack
Obama, the first black man she's ever seen.
I think this is pertinent because McCain has been running this campaign
based on "We're at war, it's a dangerous world out there. The Democrats
don't get that. I, John McCain, am the only one standing between the
bloodthirsty al-Qaidas and you. But if I die, this stewardess can
handle it."
Are you kidding me, the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska? Yeah, that's who you
want in the White House during a time of crisis. When she got a phone
call at 3 in the morning, it was because a moose had gotten in the
garbage can.
The McCain people believe that Americans will disregard her
inexperience because they will fall in love with her story. She was a
runner up in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant., which may sound trite, but
you try walking in high-heeled snow shoes.
JIMMY KIMMEL
She's not bad-looking. She looks like one of those women in the Van
Halen videos who takes off her glasses, shakes out her hair, and then
all of a sudden, she's in high heels and a bikini. All of a sudden, I
am FOR drilling in Alaska.
Cindy McCain appeared at the Republican National Convention, and Vanity
Fair took a look at an outfit she wore. The magazine priced it out at
around $300,000. With that kind of money, you could buy an 11th house.
Should we be nervous about a man who preaches against wasteful spending
when his wife is wearing $300,000?
If Cindy McCain were a plane, Sarah Palin would sell her on eBay.
JON STEWART
"She does know about international relations because she is right up
there in Alaska, right next-door to Russia." -- Fox News' Steve Doocy
When you think about it, Alaska is near the North Pole, so she must
also be friends with Santa.
CONAN O'BRIEN
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is out on the campaign trail, and today she
attended a rally in Wisconsin. The Alaska governor said she was
thrilled to visit Wisconsin, because she's never been to the Deep South.
Oprah Winfrey is in the middle of a scandal today, because she is
refusing to have Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin on her show. The
friction started because Palin said if she was elected she'd be the
most powerful woman in the country, and Oprah said, "The hell you will."
FOUR MONTHS PLUS IN...



TWO MONTHS IN...

ACTUALLY, DEMOCRATS (WHO FORGOT WHO LOOSENED THE RULES FOR HONOR-SYSTEM
CREDIT) THINK THIS IS ACTUALLY A NON-PARTISAN STATEMENT.

WE WANT TO SEE EXACTLY WHAT THEY
ARE PAINTING!

Website note: the cartoon
above is a professsional one, that we admired!
Mix the three "primary colors" in
order to get any other color (red, blue and yellow are the three
primary colors--video palette replaces yellow with green--"RGB").
#21 - O.M.G. did you hear what the Republicans are spreading now?
Some call it the truth!

A fowl remark from top legislator in the Republican pecking
order in Congress. Next thing they'll be saying Obama nation
wants to take in all the infected chicks from China...and hey,
how about the contaminated soil, too?
House GOP Leader Uses Expletive to
Describe Obama
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 1, 2008
Filed at 1:11 p.m. ET
OXFORD, Ohio (AP) -- House Republican leader John Boehner has used a
vulgar expression to refer to Democrat Barack Obama and his voting
record in the Illinois legislature.
While campaigning for Republican presidential candidate John McCain on
Wednesday, Boehner told a small crowd at a bar in Oxford that failing
to vote ''yes'' or ''no'' on an issue meant a lawmaker was a
''chickens---,''
The Ohio congressman said the last thing the country needs is to have a
''chicken'' in the White House. The comments, first reported in the
Miami University of Ohio's student newspaper, alluded to Obama's record
of voting ''present'' 129 times as a state lawmaker.
Boehner spokesman Jessica Twohey confirmed the comments on Saturday.
#20 - The party's over...
Every poll declares a win for Obama come November 4.
Almost every newspaper endorses Obama. So why bother to vote?
#19 - Consider
the source,
but...combined with Senator Biden's prediction of a "test" of our new
President (below), it is deja vu all over again for those of us who
were around in 1962!
Fake Donors, Phony
Pledge: On campaign finance, Obama declared independence from his
promises.
National Review
By David Freddoso
October 22, 2008
Starting in
June, Barack Obama’s website
stopped asking for donations. Instead, it began asking for citizens who
would “declare their independence from a broken system by supporting
the first presidential election truly funded by the people.”
Perhaps the campaign did not expect that among those “declaring their
independence would be donors named “Doodad Pro,” “Derty Poiiuy,” and
“Jgtj Jfggjjfgj.” (And you thought Barack Obama had a funny name.) They
may not have known that at least four Missourians and one Virginian
would declare their independence involuntarily and later find
fraudulent donations to Obama’s campaign on their credit card
statements. The Obama campaign cannot claim ignorance of “Good Will,”
whose address is the Goodwill headquarters in Austin, and whose
occupation is “Loving You.” The Goodwill office received a letter from
Obama last month indicating that Mr. Will had exceeded the legal limit
with his $7,000 in contributions, and asking whether part of the money
could be directed to Obama’s general election campaign.
Such abuse of the system may just be the inevitable consequence of a
political system driven by massive amounts of money — or at least,
that’s what Barack Obama used to say, before he figured out how to use
that system to his advantage.
Reporters now note dryly that Barack Obama promised to take public
matching funds for the presidential election, which would have limited
the amount he could spend, and that he then reneged on his promise in
June. This narrative understates the case.
Obama actually went much farther than merely giving his word that he
would accept matching funds. In February of 2007, he challenged all of
the Republican candidates for president to pledge, along with him, that
they would take matching funds. It was supposed to be a rare display of
political courage on his part, for the sake of principles he believed
in.
Sen. John McCain, who has long clashed with conservatives on issues of
campaign finance, accepted Obama’s challenge on Obama’s terms. Obama
would later write on a November 2007 questionnaire from the Midwest
Democracy Network: “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively
pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly
financed general election.” In February of this year, he wrote an op-ed
stating again that he would “aggressively pursue” an agreement with
McCain that would set “real spending limits.” He repeated this promise
on FOX News on April 27.
Then, all of the sudden, Barack Obama announced in June that the public
campaign-financing system was “broken” and so he could not participate
in it. Presumably, someone went and broke the public campaign-financing
system sometime between April and mid-June of this year.
Who did it? Barack Obama did. He broke the system as soon as it became
clear to him that by rejecting public financing, he might be able to
raise half a billion dollars and drown his opponent in money, as he is
doing now.
It may all seem like a minor point now — just an occasion for a bit of
Republican whining as Obama’s attack ads dominate the airwaves thanks
to his broken promise. After all, Obama has raised quite a bit of
money. But his donations from fake donors evoke the fake promise he
made on principle just months ago to restrict campaign spending and
limit the influence of special interests.
News reporters often assume, incorrectly, that the numbers in the FEC
reports they scour each quarter are put on the Internet by magic. In
fact, each one has to be recorded individually by a human being in what
is really a painstaking process. This applies not only to the larger
amounts contributed by Mr. Will and Mr. Jfggjjfgj, but also to amounts
less than $200. A pair of human eyes has to check each one, even if
amounts smaller than $200 are not required by law to be disclosed in
any report.
Obama’s finance team missed quite a few obviously troubling large
donations, from such unsavory individuals as Mr. Jfggjjfgj, “Mong
Kong,” “Test Person,” and “Jockim Alberton,” who lives at a fictional
address on a street that does not exist in Wilmington, Delaware. How
many fictional characters might there be among the $220 million that
Obama has collected in small, undisclosed contributions?
Obama’s small donors have all been recorded, and he could easily follow
McCain’s lead by disclosing this major source of his campaign’s money.
Hopefully the list of donors contains no one with Asdfjkl as a surname,
and it bears no resemblance to an ACORN voter-registration list.
Biden to
Supporters: "Gird Your Loins", For
the Next President "It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables"
ABC news blog
October 20, 2008 7:35 AM
ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday
guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested
by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he
will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly
unpopular, decisions.
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the
second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six
months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.
The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old
senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it
standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're
gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the
mettle of this guy."
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might
originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the
Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And
the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not
financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence,
your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's
not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're
right."
Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs
issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.
"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your
help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy
ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the
most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This
is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think
about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than
just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."
The Delaware lawmaker managed to rake in an estimated $1 million total
from his two money hauls at the downtown Sheraton, the same hotel where
four years ago Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clinched the Democratic
nomination. Despite warning about the difficulties the next
administration will face, Biden said the Democratic ticket is equipped
to meet the challenges head on.
"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues
know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value
added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said
of Obama. "This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I
promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going,
'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so
down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some
incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you
now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the
faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce
us."
"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute,
yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued.
"Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I
believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular
as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not
sound."
Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of
particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan
"bristling with nuclear weapons."
"You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that
region," Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down
due to a snowstorm there. "The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And
it's real."
"We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly,
in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much
more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And
Barack gets it."
After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the
media presence in the back of the small ballroom.
"I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that
the press is here," he joked.
"All kidding aside, these guys have left us in a God-awful place," he
then said of the Bush regime, promptly wrapping up his remarks. "We
have the ability to straighten it out. It's gonna take a little bit of
time, so I ask you to stay with us. Stay with us."
#18 - Plumbers
Why is the plumbing profession so closely linked to politics in
America? Let's see: could it be the analogies that flow
freely?
#17 - "Overboard!"
How many Republican office seekers or pundits have abandoned
ship on John McCain and Sarah Palin?
Let's see...only the New York Post and the National Review are still
brave enough to favor the underdog three weeks out. What people
don't realize is that Barak Obama and Joe Biden should be leading by 25
points; in fact any other team of opponents would be throwing in the
towel, but not this Republican duo. They are having fun.
Why is that? I know...
The "Change" that the voters may deliver, (if you believe the polls on
October 14) fits like a glove with a second coming of the Great
Depression! Only there can't be four terms of Franklin Roosevelt
this time!
Brother, can you spare a Euro?
#16 - "Stop the sneers" campaign
working!
The Democratic National Committee and the Obama-Biden campaign
today announced that Senator Barak Obama is
African-American. Democrat Congressional leaders responded
at a hastily called press conference.
"We are pleased to find out that our Presidential candidate is black"
stated Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
"I didn't know!"
"It came as a shock" continued Senator Harry Reid of Nevada
"because we all figured that America was not yet ready for a black
President in the White House."
#15 - We are
shocked to read this...
POLL: RUMORS FLYING IN ELECTION
New York Post
Last updated: 3:45 pm
October 9, 2008
Posted: 3:36 pm
October 9, 2008
A vast majority of adults in the US have heard rumors about Barack
Obama and John McCain, according to a new survey, and many of them
found the rumors believable.
About 94 percent of adult Americans have heard at least one obviously
false rumor about the major presidential candidates, according to a
first-of-its kind national survey of 1,015 adults conducted by Scripps
Howard News Service and Ohio University.
Read the Full Poll From Scripps Howard
The most common rumors swirled around Obama's religion, with 89 percent
of those polled saying they had heard he was Muslim, and nearly
two-thirds said they found the rumor believable.
More than half heard that Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance
or to display the flag, even though he usually wears a flag pin on his
lapel.
Two-thirds of all people who had heard rumors that Obama is the
anti-Christ said it's "very unlikely" that anyone would believe such
rumors.
Rumors are flying on both sides of the aisle.
People were asked if they had heard McCain had been brainwashed as a
POW during the Vietnam War. One third of the people had heard this and
nearly half said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that it would
be believed.
Fewer had heard that the Republican candidate fathered a black child (a
rumor that helped cost McCain the critical 2000 South Carolina
primary), or that he's senile.
Republicans were more likely to have heard false rumors about Obama
than Democrats heard about McCain. Ninety-two percent heard at least
one anti-Obama rumor whereas 53 percent heard at least one slander
against McCain.
Obama's campaign, aware that rumors were flying, launched a "Stop the
Smears" campaign on its Web site to combat such rumors.
McCain has had to announce that Sarah Palin's teen daughter was
pregnant and planned to marry the child's father after rumors surfaced
on the Internet that daughter Bristol was actually the mother to
Palin's five-month old baby.
"Rumors are a very powerful form of communication. They resonate our
fears," rumor expert Michael Kamins, a marketing professor at New
York's Stoneybrook University, told Scripps Howard News Service.
#14 - IT TAKES A HACK TO BREED A HACKER.
Son
of Tenn. Democrat indicted in Palin hacking
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
Oct 8, 12:18 PM EDT
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The son of a Democratic Tennessee state
lawmaker pleaded not guilty Wednesday to hacking the e-mail account of
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
David Kernell, 20, of Knoxville, Tenn. entered the plea in federal
court in Knoxville, the same day prosecutors unsealed an indictment
charging him with intentionally accessing Palin's e-mail account
without authorization. Kernell, an economics student at the
University of Tennessee, was
brought into court wearing handcuffs and shackles on his ankles.
He was released without posting bond, but the court forbade him from
owning a computer and limited his Internet use to checking e-mail and
doing class work. Kernell's father is longtime state Rep. Mike
Kernell of Memphis,
chairman of Tennessee's House Government Operations Committee. The
lawmaker has said he had nothing to do with the hacking incident.
David Kernell was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Knoxville
and faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three
years of supervised release. Trial is set for Dec. 16.
Prosecutors declined to say if anyone else would be charged. U.S.
Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley restricted Kernell from discussing
the case with any potential witnesses, which include his roommates.
Kernell was also restricted from having any contact directly or
indirectly with the Alaska governor or her family. Shirley warned
that if Kernell violated any part of his release conditions, he would
be held until the trial.
Kernell's attorney, Wade Davies, accompanied his client in court.
"As soon as we found out about the charges this morning, David
voluntarily turned himself in," said Davies, who refused to answer any
other questions.
The indictment alleges that on Sept. 16 Kernell reset the password to
Palin's personal e-mail account to gain access to it. Authorities say
Kernell then read the contents of the account and made screenshots of
the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information,
later posting some of the information to a public Web site.
#13 -
Election 2008
decided by the U.S. Supreme
Court again? From here and there...
Based upon some information in the daily papers, the country may
be
in for another attack of the lawyers, or a "chad" election (not the
country in Africa).
On another
election topic: as the Bard said, "what's in a
name?" "Hypo Real Estate" is the German Bank that government is
to rescue...overinflated value here?
#12- The Senate version of "bail-out"
according to the NYTIMES: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/dealbook/senate_bailout.pdf
Do you think any form of "bail-out" will make any
difference? We don't...at least as far as the election is
concerned.

#11 - Why
Congress should maybe not approve the "bail-out" monster bill until
AFTER Tuesday, September 30...
Is it deja vu all over again again? How about the
Emperor's New Clothes? Have we not seen this before? This
may be the perfect time for a U.S. Senate use of its special right to
debate until the cows come home - known as "filibuster?" Or will
they figure out another way to avoid egg on their face?
#10 - ALL YOU GET FROM A PIG IS A GRUNT DEPARTMENT

Why can't John McCain do two important
things at once? How about three or four? This is the
complaint of the Obama campaign.
Answer: he prioritizes and doesn't get stuck in the mud, although
he is going to Mississippi for the first debate (which is next door to
Alabama of "My Cousin Vinny" fame). This is the argument against
President Bush's proposal:
From the NYTIMES: "We have a lot of folks who say we are looking
at financial catastrophe on the one hand, but we may be looking at
national bankruptcy and the road to socialism on the other," Mr.
Hensarling said in an interview on Wednesday. "Once you lose your
freedom to fail, you also lose your freedom to succeed and you cease to
be a free society. So we will continue to look at other
alternatives." Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas made that
statement, and that is the "contrarian" position.
According to the NYTIMES, after meeting with shell-shocked
Congressional leaders late into Thursday evening on Capitol Hill — in
negotiations that House Republicans boycotted — Mr. Paulson returned on
Friday, as the last of weary Congressional staff members straggled back
to their offices and conference rooms. After a night of pizza in
the House and Thai take-out in the Senate.This time, House Republicans
agreed to send Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the minority whip
and the party’s hands-on vote-counter, to represent their interests in
the talks.
According to the NYTIMES, Senator McCain also returned to the Capitol
to consult with Republicans, before reversing himself and heading to
Oxford, Miss., for an evening debate with Senator Obama, which he
agreed to attend — even though there was no deal in sight. He had
sought to delay the debate until the bailout package was wrapped
up. Obviously, it ain't gonna happen so fast. Why?
Because, in "About Town's" opinion, the Democrats will not go
down the path that this "bail-out" creates with outgoing President Bush
WITHOUT it seeming bi-partisan in Congress. They all walk the
plank together...
Mr. Boehner released a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, demanding
that "serious consideration" be given to a radically different proposal
that provides no government money up front for a financial rescue.
A senior Senate Republican, Richard Shelby of Alabama, who has also
been an outspoken critic of the administration’s approach, said it
would be all right to let negotiations continue all weekend, even if
that meant financial markets had to open up on Monday without any
relief in hand.
"We need to get back to the drawing board," Mr. Shelby said on MSNBC.
"We need to consider this in a deliberate, linear fashion."
What is
the
difference between breaking into DNC offices or hacking into GOP
V-P candidate's private e-mail? Thirty-something years!

#9 - "Hackergate: I Smell A Rat - Or Is That A Mouse?"
Election news from Tennessee, at knoxnews.com
Kernell mum on allegations son hacked into Palin’s e-mail
Trevor Aaronson, aaronson@commercialappeal.com
Thursday, September 18, 2008
MEMPHIS — State Rep. Mike Kernell declined Thursday to respond to
online allegations that his son — a student at the University of
Tennessee Knoxville — hacked into Republican vice presidential nominee
Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account.
“My son’s the one in question, and I can’t comment on him,” said
Kernell, a Memphis Democrat.
Bloggers have alleged that David Kernell, 20, is the one who has
claimed responsibility for breaking into the Alaska governor’s e-mail
account. The evidence is tenuous. In fact, one of the first blogs
to allege that the son of a Democratic politician was responsible
relied on e-mail tips and described its evidence as “pretty thin.”
On
Wednesday,
however, the FBI and Secret Service launched an
investigation that includes agents in Memphis. C.M. Sturgis, a
spokesman for the Memphis FBI branch, confirmed late Thursday that his
office is involved.
“All I can say is that a matter was referred to us from the Anchorage,
Alaska, office. An investigation at this time is being coordinated out
of FBI headquarters in the Department of Justice,” Sturgis said.
Also Wednesday, a person using the e-mail address rubico10@yahoo.com
posted a message to an online forum about how he used Yahoo Mail’s
password-recovery tool to obtain Palin’s password.
“I am the lurker who did it, and I would like to tell the story,”
rubico10@yahoo.com wrote on the Web site.
The hacker later explained how he reviewed Palin’s e-mail messages one
by one: “I read though the emails … ALL OF THEM … before I posted, and
what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing
incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped,
all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was
governor. … And pictures of her family.”
The hacker used easily available information about Palin to answer
questions Yahoo! Mail uses to verify identity. The hacker answered the
first two questions easily — birth date and ZIP code. The third
question — “Where did you meet your spouse?” — required the hacker to
research the answer until he found the correct one, Wasilla High.
“It took seriously 45 (minutes) on Wikipedia and Google to find the
info,” rubico10@yahoo.com wrote.
After changing the e-mail password to “popcorn,” the hacker then posted
the username and password to 4chan, allowing others to access Palin’s
e-mail.
In Nashville on Thursday, Rep. Kernell would neither confirm nor deny
his son was involved in hacking Palin’s e-mail account. Although
Kernell said he was aware of claims that his son was responsible, the
politician would not address any of them.
“Father-son relationship,” Kernell explained.
The longtime legislator would not say whether rubico10@yahoo.com is his
son’s e-mail address.
“I can’t comment on my son,” he repeated.
Asked if he has been contacted by investigators, Kernell responded:
“Me, no.”
“I can’t say about my son,” he added. “That doesn’t mean he has or
hasn’t been contacted.”
David Kernell, a student at UT Knoxville, could not be reached.
Although FBI and Secret Services officials have not identified suspects
in the case, they are reviewing logs that could confirm the hacker’s
identity.
Federal investigators want to speak with Gabriel Ramuglia of Athens,
Ga., who operates an Internet anonymity service the hacker used.
Ramuglia told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was reviewing
his logs and promised to turn over any helpful information.
The hacker accessed the Alaska governor’s private e-mail account after
the news media disclosed e-mail indicating Palin’s administration used
private e-mail accounts as a way to work outside Alaska’s Open Records
Act.
David Kernell excelled at chess while at Germantown High School and won
the 2004 Tennessee Open Scholastic Chess Championship.
Internet searches show someone uses the handle “rubico” on chess Web
sites. In addition, an inactive blog, with one post dated May 2004,
included “rubico” as a username. Its author identified himself as a
chess player from Memphis named David.
Jody Callahan and Richard Locker of
the Commerical Appeal and The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
#8 - Funnier than anything I could make up!
Now we know what an American election is really all about - in
the eyes of anyone who comes from "across the pond":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/7609440.stm
#7 - "Saturday Night Live" to the rescue!
What took them so long to see the humor in this Presidential
contest?
- Because they really wanted to really, really see a
Democrat victory? Or...
- There wasn't anything funny about this election...or
- They had already made so many jokes about Joe Biden when
he was selected for V-P in 1988 that they didn't want to remind anyone?
Do you think the Democrat Debates as represented on SNL will be
repeated (on YouTube if nowhere else)?
#6 - Conventions (multiple-choice questions
for Election 2008):
St. Paul
Why to you think the Republicans picked St. Paul, Minnesota as
their Convention 2008 host city?
- It was in the middle of the country so that time zones
could be coordinated for the best timing for the major speaker each
night? Or,
- it was far from New York City, so the parking wouldn't be
a problem, or
- they were hoping the protestors would go to Minneapolis by
mistake.
Why did the Connecticut delegation get attacked by the most
violent of the protestors?
- Because their attackers thought they symbolized wealthy,
greedy capitalists - oh, wait a minute, we are a very BLUE state!
- Because the substitute bus driver was a member of the CT
Democratic Party hierarchy, who felt she owed them a roll?
- Because their attackers were actually angered by Senator
Lieberman having the nerve to make a public appearance with (ugh!)
Republicans?
#5 - Conventions (multiple-choice questions
for Election 2008): Denver
Why do you think the Democrats held their final night of
Convention outdoors in a football stadium?
- To wrap themselves in the glamor of violent sport,
beer-drinking, allAmerican flesh grabbing, bone cracking action, or
- to get a great overhead video shot for TV, or
- to make people associate a sport other than hoops with
Obama?
Why pick Denver and set up a great line - as the Republicans
said, the ticket for the donkey Party is "a mile high and an inch deep."
- They wanted a cool place.
- They wanted to get high.
- First choice was L.A., but they were afraid of too many
tremors their candidate might cause.
#4 - CARICATURES


OBAMA
PIX: As the Republican Convention is swept away by Hurricane
Gustav,
Barak Obama thinks to himself how lucky he was with the weather, and
how fortunate that his daughters are too young to get pregnant.
John McCain is thinking about the meaning of living up to the
Republican platform.
#3 - OBAMA MEETS OSAMA?



OBAMA TO VISIT TORA BORA NEXT
WEEK FOR PHOTO OP WITH OSAMA, PERHAPS?
"...And he went so far as to attack the presumed strength of Mr.
McCain’s campaign, national security. 'You know, John McCain likes to
say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won’t even
follow him to the cave where he lives,'” he said. (NYTIMES).
#2 - What would the common people
say?



WITH THE ELECTION COMING CLOSE, SEARCH FOR A CLOSER ENDS...IN
DELAWARE.
Self-aware D.C. Senator Obama looks in for the sign, steps off the
rubber to think about the choices, thinks some more, then decides he
needs relief, a classic Democrat policy, instead.
Obama aspires to speak
for the common people
The Denver Post
By Karen E. Crummy
Article Last Updated: 08/24/2008 08:06:38 AM MDT
RICHMOND, Va. — Barack Obama, who will accept the Democratic
nomination Thursday in front of more than 70,000 people at Invesco
Field at Mile High, said his convention speech will focus less on
himself and more on the American people and their struggles in a
faltering U.S. economy...
Having just finished popping bits of peanut brittle in his mouth
Thursday night, Obama sat back comfortably in a wobbling chair on his
campaign bus, which was fully loaded with four flat-screen TVs and one
basketball. He said that since his return from a July trip overseas,
his campaign has hit some bumps but that he doesn't spend time worrying
about day -to -day polls.
"One of the things about being involved in such a long campaign is you
really get a sense there is a rhythm. A rhythm to press coverage. A
rhythm to campaigns," he said, noting that at this time a year ago he
was trailing New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by roughly 20
percentage points...
#1
- POLITICS IS FOOTBALL


GOOD
DEFENSE BEATS A GOOD OFFENSE
Appropriately, on the left, The Great Wall, before the Internet.
At
the right, rumblings reminding us of the Presidential Debates
1960. See Taiwan
Straits map here.
Is Georgia the "Quemoy and Matsu"
of 2008?
----------------------
In chronological order, our first dozen, as we
have either created them or found them elsewhere (pre-Conventions).
#1 - 2008 ORIGIN OF "SOFT MONEY"
Money
in the Presidential Election 2008 is different from "bundling" or is it? The
"small contributions" for Obama may
very well be coming from...Dubai, China, Russia...with a clever program
and a click of the mouse??? And what is wrong with Europe, Asia
and
the Middle Eastern nations paying for the Democrat candidate's
campaign? These folks don't get to actually vote, do
they??? Lends new meaning to the term "absentee voting?"

#2
- NORTH
BY NORTHWEST MORPHS INTO THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE? Just knock off the others and there
would be space on
Rushmore.
On the Road: Obama at Rushmore, Too
NYTIMES
By Michael Powell
May 31, 2008, 5:15 pm
Late Friday evening, Barack Obama had a perhaps strategic change of
tourist heart. A bus full of campaign reporters had decided to pay an
end of the day visit to Mount Rushmore and the candidate was rumored to
be a no-show.
But perhaps figuring that politics trump fatigue, Obama decided to
spend a few minutes gazing up at the granite visages that are the pride
of South Dakota. (Not incidentally, Hillary Clinton had visited Mr.
Rushmore just a few days ago.)
So in the inky 10 p.m. darkness, Obama wandered across a plaza with a
Park Ranger. Mr. Obama, ever a natty and not particularly informal
fellow, had his suit jacket on and his tie not a half-inch ajar. Just a
few tourists were there, and most snapped pictures and whispered
excitedly. But not one particular couple.
“Get your camera out!” the woman commanded her husband.
The husband shrugged. Please. Studied indifference was his thing. “I
don’t care about the guy,” he whispers back. “I’m a Republican,
remember?”
As for Mr. Obama, he nodded as a Park Ranger talked about the dynamite
charges that the sculptor deployed to carve out those faces. (The faces
are lit up at night).
But when a reporter asked Mr. Obama if he might like to have his visage
up there one day, he shook his head rather definitively.
“I don’t think my ears would make it,” said the candidate whose ears
stick out rather noticeably. “There’s only so much rock up there.”
#3 - Where's the possumus? In one of the 10
extra
states?

The Great Seal of Obamaland?
NYTIMES
By John M. Broder
June 20, 2008, 3:44 pm
At a discussion with a dozen Democratic governors in Chicago on Friday
morning, each of the governors was identified with a small name plate
but Senator Barack Obama sat behind a low rostrum to which was attached
an official-looking seal no one had seen before.
It is emblazoned with a fierce-looking eagle clutching an olive branch
in one claw and arrows in the other and is deliberately reminiscent of
the official seal of the president of the United States. Around the top
border are the words “Obama for America;” across the bottom is the
campaign’s Web address. It also contains the logo of the Obama
campaign, variously interpreted as a sunrise or a view down an open
road.
Just above the eagle’s head are the words “Vero Possumus,” roughly
translated “Yes we can.” Not exactly E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many,
One), the motto on the presidential seal and the dollar bill. Then
again, Mr. Obama is not the president.
#4 - Who's
Sorry Now?
New and Not Improved
NYTIMES editorial
Published: July 4, 2008
...The new Barack Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster an
electronic
wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for
telecommunications companies that amounts to a sanctioned cover-up of
Mr. Bush’s unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11.
...The new Mr. Obama
tells evangelical Christians that he wants to expand President Bush’s
policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based
organizations — a policy that violates the separation of church and
state and turns a government function into a charitable donation.
...On top of these perplexing shifts in position, we find ourselves
disagreeing powerfully with Mr. Obama on two other issues: the death
penalty and gun control...We knew he ascribed to the
anti-gun-control groups’ misreading of the Constitution as implying an
individual right to bear arms. But it was distressing to see him
declare that the court provided a guide to “reasonable regulations
enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.”
What could be more reasonable than a city restricting handguns, or
requiring that firearms be stored in ways that do not present a mortal
threat to children?
We were equally distressed by Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Supreme
Court’s barring the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder.
We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general
election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the
candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of
passionate convictions who did not play old political games.
There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John
McCain on
issues like the war in Iraq*, taxes, health care and Supreme
Court nominations. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big
questions. This country needs change it can believe in.
------
*just switched on that one, too.
#5 - Professional "joke"...
May We Mock,
Barack?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: July 16, 2008
When I interviewed Jon Stewart and Stephen
Colbert for Rolling Stone a couple years ago, I wondered what Barack
Obama would mean for them.
“It seems like a President Obama would be harder to make fun of than
these guys,” I said.
“Are you kidding me?” Stewart scoffed.
Then he and Colbert both said at the same time:
“His dad was a goat-herder!”
When I noted that Obama, in his memoir, had
revealed that he had done some pot, booze and “maybe a little blow,”
the two comedians began riffing about the dapper senator’s familiarity
with drug slang.
Colbert: Wow, that’s a very street way of putting it. ‘A little blow.’
Stewart: A little bit of the white rabbit.
Colbert: ‘Yeah, I packed a cocktail straw of cocaine and had a
prostitute blow it in my ear, but that is all I did. High-fivin.’ ’
Flash forward to the kerfuffle — and Obama’s icy
reaction — over this week’s New Yorker cover parodying fears about the
Obamas.
“We’ve already scratched thrift, candor and
brevity off the list of virtues in this presidential cycle, so why not
eliminate humor, too?” wrote James Rainey in The Los Angeles Times,
suggesting “an irony deficiency” in Obama and his fans.
Many of the late-night comics and their writers — nearly all white —
now admit to The New York Times’s Bill Carter that because of race and
because there is nothing “buffoonish” about Obama — and because many in
their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him
skewered — he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that
diminished Dukakis, Gore and Kerry.
“There’s a weird reverse racism going on,” Jimmy
Kimmel said.
Carter also observed that there’s no easy comedic “take” on Obama,
“like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s
goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic personality.”
At first blush, it would seem to be a positive for Obama that he is
hard to mock. But on second thought, is it another sign that he’s
trying so hard to be perfect that it’s stultifying? Or that eight years
of W. and Cheney have robbed Democratic voters of their sense of humor?
Certainly, as the potential first black
president, and as a contender with tender experience, Obama must feel
under strain to be serious.
But he does not want the “take” on him to become that he’s so tightly
wrapped, overcalculated and circumspect that he can’t even allow anyone
to make jokes about him, and that his supporters are so evangelical and
eager for a champion to rescue America that their response to any
razzing is a sanctimonious: Don’t mess with our messiah!
If Obama keeps being stingy with his quips and smiles, and if the
dominant perception of him is that you can’t make jokes about him, it
might infect his campaign with an airless quality. His humorlessness
could spark humor.
On Tuesday, Andy Borowitz satirized on that subject. He said that
Obama, sympathetic to comics’ attempts to find jokes to make about him,
had put out a list of official ones, including this:
“A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a
farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The
salesman says, ‘I was expecting the farmer’s daughter.’ Barack Obama
replies, ‘She’s not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of
subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream.’ ”
John McCain’s Don Rickles routines — “Thanks for the question, you
little jerk” — can fall flat. But he seems like a guy who can be teased
harmlessly. If Obama offers only eat-your-arugula chiding and chilly
earnestness, he becomes an otherworldly type, not the regular guy he
needs to be.
He’s already in danger of seeming too prissy about food — a perception
heightened when The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for
Obama’s convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the
environmental activist Andrea Robinson. She in turn hired an Official
Carbon Adviser to “measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every
placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee
cup tossed.”
The “lean ‘n’ green” catering guidelines, The Journal said, bar fried
food and instruct that, “on the theory that nutritious food is more
vibrant, each meal should include ‘at least three of the following
colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.’ (Garnishes don’t
count.) At least 70% of the ingredients should be organic or grown
locally, to minimize emissions from fuel during transportation.”
Bring it on, Ozone Democrats! Because if Obama gets elected and there
is nothing funny about him, it won’t be the economy that’s depressed.
It will be the rest of us.
NOW WE KNOW - AT LEAST SOME
FROM EX-PATS (10-1 $$ for Obama)
#6 - Where is
Senator Obama's money coming from? Select one:
- Non-voters: China or
Russia or some other foreign government.
- The shrinking American middle
class.
- In the Internet age, in a
campaign
not bound by rules of public financing, with on-line contributions by
faceless donors, how would anyone know if
any of this was not the case?
#7 - "O" Summer School
QUESTION: what course would this latest section of the
Presidential campaign be for?
- World conflicts 101
- European history since fall of Soviet Union
- Make-up for not knowing how many states there are in the
United States?
#8 - Smile for the camera. And a
little wave...
Which candidate for President said this:
"...the truth is that we’ve got a bunch of smart people, I think, who
know 10 times more than we do about the specifics of the topics. And so
if what you’re trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then
you end up being a dilettante, but you have to have enough knowledge to
make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you."
#9 - Fish stories...

Something fishy here...or just not too funny?
#10 - CAMPAIGN
NEWS:
Executive privilege claim (like...Watergate?)

Dream scenario for Democrats?
Invoke the
spirit of
Watergate! Wait a minute...what did they know and when did they
know it? The Watergate investigation committee chairman former
Sen. Sam Nunn - someone mentioned in the press as a good runningmate
for Barak Obama.
#11 - The men's basketball team has
not won the gold medal in so long people no longer question Russia when
it claims to have invented the game.
General knowledge q&a - what you can conclude from Olympic
history...not in chronological order:
- What year did the Soviet Union fracture,
- when did the U.S. government force colleges to give
athletic scholarships to women,
- the time of the Cold War and...
- the hot one, World War II.
#12 - Why is it so important that the
Vice Presidential candidates be qualified to take over the top
job? Because in this website's memory, the following events took
place, in reverse chronological order:
- September 11, 2001 terror attack: wasn't one plane
bound for the White House (a symbolic assassination attempt, since the
President was not in D.C.)?
- President Clinton impeached (but not convicted);
- Assassination attempt on President Reagan;
- Resignation of President Nixon (Gerald Ford begame
President);
- Assassination of President Kennedy (Lyndon Johnson became
President).
That is five (5) times in less
than 50 years that the Vice President might have or did step into the
#1 slot.
Link to
our find from a long time ago...think about it.
Money Makes the Political World Go
Around
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 2, 2008
Filed at 10:14 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a presidential race filled with broken barriers,
money has shattered far more than its share.
Together, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have amassed
nearly $1 billion -- a stratospheric number. Depending on turnout, that
means nearly $8 for every presidential vote, compared with $5.50 in
2004.
Using all that cash, the candidates have traveled more miles, employed
more workers and advertised more than ever.
But it has been Obama, with his $641 million and 3.2 million donors,
who has rewritten the rules for financing campaigns.
He abandoned the public financing system -- after pledging to
participate if McCain did -- and became the first major party candidate
to raise private funds to pay for a general election since the campaign
money reforms of the Watergate era. McCain did take public funds, but
Obama's success left little doubt that taxpayer-supported presidential
campaigns, as currently configured, are 20th century relics.
Neither Obama nor McCain participated in public financing during the
primaries. McCain's acceptance of $84 million in general election
public financing also came with limitations on spending. He continued
to raise money for the Republican Party, though, which so far has spent
about $100 million on his behalf to supplement his public funds.
Obama mastered new technology, turning the Internet into an incredible
political networking tool and attracting record numbers of donors
giving less than $200. While that flood of money raised new questions
about the safeguards of Internet fundraising, it also helped dilute the
role of big money donors and fundraisers.
''When you have that many contributors, I think it does, in a weird
way, cleanse the system even though it seems like that much more
money,'' the Federal Election Commission chairman, Republican Donald F.
McGahn II, said recently. ''That many more contributors disperse the
influence of any one contributor.''
Some of the financial highlights from the presidential campaign:
--Too much to put under the mattress: All the presidential candidates
in the 2007-2008 contest took in $1.55 billion, nearly twice the amount
collected by candidates in 2004 and three times the amount from 2000.
The total includes fundraising for the primaries as well as the general
election.
The total is almost the same as what the Federal Trade Commission says
food and beverage companies spend in a year marketing their products to
children.
--Selling politics like burgers: With all that money, Obama has
blanketed the country with his message. As of mid-October, he had spent
$240 million on broadcast ads to penetrate old battlegrounds and to
help create new ones. He spent $77 million in the first two weeks of
October, more than McDonald's spends on ads in a month. He pinpointed
audiences with ads on such video games as ''Guitar Hero'' and ''Madden
NFL 09.''
He also went global, with national network advertising that culminated
with a $4 million-plus half hour buy on prime time six days before the
election. His spending stretched McCain's resources; the Republican had
spent about $116 million as of mid-October.
--Bad apple, bad money: Some fundraisers put campaigns in awkward
situations. Barack Obama donated to charity tens of thousands of
dollars in donations to his past campaigns that were linked to
convicted Chicago developer Antoin ''Tony'' Rezko. Democratic Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton returned more than $800,000 to donors whose
contributions were linked to Norman Hsu, a fundraiser who was wanted in
California on charges of bilking investors. Hsu was subsequently
indicted in New York on federal charges of fraud and violating campaign
finance laws.
--Bundle up some cold hard cash: Perfecting a fundraising practice
initially mastered by George W. Bush, presidential candidates enlisted
fundraisers to raise thousands upon thousands of dollars for them.
These are the well-connected money people to whom a campaign is
ultimately indebted. Both McCain and Obama list their fundraisers -- or
bundlers, as they are known -- on their Web sites. McCain's are easier
to find than Obama's. But unlike McCain, Obama lists the fundraisers'
home towns.
--Who are those small donors, anyway: Obama has raised about half of
his money in increments of $200 or less. The average contribution is
$86, the campaign says. But the success of the Internet fundraising
effort has also led to some puzzling donors. Individuals have been
credited with giving tens of thousands of dollars to the Obama
campaign, far more than the $2,300 limit. Obama has reported more than
$17,000 in contributions from a donor identified as ''Doodad Pro'' and
more than $11,000 from one identified as ''Good Will.''
''I wouldn't be surprised if the FEC doesn't address this in the next
couple of years -- what you have to put on your Web site for soliciting
contributions,'' said Bradley A. Smith, a former FEC chairman and a law
professor at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio.
--I show mine, you don't show yours: Federal law requires candidates to
identify only those donors who contribute, in the aggregate, more than
$200. But McCain has made his entire donor database available through
his Web site. Obama has not, drawing criticism.
ACCORDING
TO THE NEW YORK TIMES, THIS IS THE TAX STORY...




CLICK ON CANDIDATE
CARICATURE TO READ ACCEPTANCE
AND CONCESSION
END END GAME; We
still would like an answer on "botnet"
possibility - after all, who in America can afford to make
contributions these days?
T
U E S
D A Y
, N O V
E M B E R 4 , 2 0 0 8
- E L E C T I O N D A Y U . S . A
. !
T H E W I N N E
R . . .
IN
THE CAMPAIGN SEASON NEWS: POLICY
& TACTICS; END-GAME
THE BIG
QUESTION-MARK...RIGHT-WING THROWS IN THE TOWEL. WHAT HAPPENS TO PUBLIC FINANCING?
Florida 2000 redux? Not if
you believe George Will.
D E B
A T E S all over now. As is the election. Click to hear both the acceptance
speech and the concession
speechs in full (thank you, I-BBC).
September
11th; Fannie & Freddie bail-out;
stock markets, on average, drop 4% in USA Monday, September 15th.
CANDIDATES:
Democrat
Obama;
Republican McCain;
Libertarian Bob Barr
Green Party candidate, too.
CONGRESS 4TH DISTRICT
There may be more stuff, too!
So what do people
around
the world think (as of June 8, 2008)?
2008 campaign
on the Internet;
Tracking
the Polls: can't
believe them, can't not believe them...arguably more
accurate
than the weather forecasts.
Some thoughts on this vital
"pulse-taking" device.
Earlier...
The
prize...its cost--fundraising information source;
I-BBC election 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/default.stm
Link
to "Issues '08" (this website's thoughts over this very, very long
campaign); remember losing
candidate in 2004?
I-BBC
article on the same thing; MORE
AND OLDER NEWS
articles and
columns
collected about the Presidential Election 2008,
dating
from from November 2006 to current time (in reverse chronological
order). Interesting poll from across the pond here;
VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES:
Democrat and
Republican
D
E B A T E S C H E D U L E - W A T C
H T H E M A G A I
N H E R E

The
vice-presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis:
click here to watch.
V I C E P R E S I D E N T I A L C
A N D I
D A T E S - Democrat and
Republican
Joe Biden for the Democrats, Senator from Delaware
Barack
Obama would consider charging Bush administration over Guantanamo:
Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s vice-presidential running mate, has indicated
that a new Democratic administration could pursue criminal charges
against the Bush administration over the treatment of detainees in
Guantanamo bay.
By Toby Harnden in St Paul
Last Updated: 7:01PM BST 04 Sep 2008
Mr Biden said at an event in Deerfield Beach, Florida: “If there has
been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal
violation, they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of
retribution, out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no
attorney general, no president - no one is above the law."
His statement is the strongest indication yet that an Obama
administartion might seek legal redress against the President George W.
Bush. It could undermine Mr Obama’s message of bipartisanship and
moving beyond the battles over Iraq.
In April, Mr Obama struck a similar note when he promised that he would
ask his attorney general to review the Bush administration’s decisions
to differentiate between "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies".
"If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," he told
the Philadelphia Daily News. "You're also right that I would not want
my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans
as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems
we've got to solve..."
From
Wikipedia (quote):
On July 1, 1991 President George H.W. Bush
nominated Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall who had recently
announced his retirement.[13] Marshall had been the only African
American justice on the court. The selection of Thomas preserved the
existing racial composition of the court, but it was seen as likely to
move the ideological balance to the right.
American Bar Association's (ABA) rating for Judge Thomas was split
between "qualified" and "not qualified."
Organizations including the NAACP, the Urban League and the National
Organization for Women opposed the appointment based on Thomas's
criticism of affirmative action and suspicions that Thomas might not be
a supporter of the Supreme Court judgment in Roe v. Wade. Under
questioning during confirmation hearings, Thomas repeatedly asserted
that he had not formulated a position on the Roe decision.[14]
Some of the public statements of Thomas's opponents foreshadowed the
confirmation fight that would occur. One such statement came from
activist Florence Kennedy at a July 1991 conference of the National
Organization for Women in New York City. Making reference to the
failure of Robert Bork's nomination, she said of Thomas, "We're going
to 'bork' him."[15]
[edit] Allegations of sexual harassment
Toward the end of the confirmation hearings, information was leaked to
the press from an FBI interview with Anita Hill, an attorney who had
worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and the EEOC. On
October 11, 1991, Hill was called to testify during the Senate
confirmation hearing.
Hill said: "He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films
involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films
showing group sex or rape scenes....On several occasions, Thomas told
me graphically of his own sexual prowess....Thomas was drinking a Coke
in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went
over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, 'Who has
put pubic hair on my Coke?'"[16] Hill also indicated that Thomas made
reference to the pornographic actor Long Dong Silver.
Angela Wright, who worked with Thomas at the EEOC, told the Senate
Judiciary Committee that Thomas had repeatedly made comments to her,
much like those he allegedly made to Hill, including pressuring her for
dates and commenting on her body. Rose Jourdain testified that Wright
had discussed Thomas' behavior with her at the time it occurred, and
that she had considered it sexual harassment. In light of the fact that
Thomas had testified that he had fired Wright for calling another
employee a "faggot," [17] Sen. Joseph Biden, chair of the Judiciary
Committee, decided against publicly hearing Wright's testimony.
Another former Thomas assistant, Sukari Hardnett, made further damaging
charges against him. Although Hardnett made it clear she was not
accusing Thomas of sexual harassment, she provided the Judiciary
Committee with sworn testimony that "if you were young, black, female,
reasonably attractive and worked directly for Clarence Thomas, you knew
full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female."
Additionally, Ellen Wells, John W. Carr, Judge Susan Hoerchner, and
Joel Paul testified that Hill had discussed Thomas's actions at the
time she worked for Thomas and that she had characterized them as
sexual harassment.[18]
Thomas denied all allegations of sexual harassment and sexual
impropriety by Hill and the others. Of the committee's investigation of
the accusations, Thomas said: "This is not an opportunity to talk about
difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a
circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black
American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way
deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different
ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this
is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured
by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."[19]
After extensive debate, the committee sent the nomination to the full
Senate without a recommendation either way. Thomas was confirmed by the
Senate with a 52-48 vote on October 15, 1991, the narrowest margin for
approval in more than a century.[20] The final floor vote was not along
strictly party lines: 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted to confirm
while 46 Democrats and two Republicans (Jim Jeffords (R-VT) and Bob
Packwood[21] (R-OR)) voted to reject the nomination.
On October 23, 1991, Thomas took his seat as the 106th Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court.

Governor
Sarah
Palin of Alaska: in an undated photo from ADN files - a newspaper
endorsing her opposition; Tina Fey, faux GOP candidate on SNL.
WHAT NYTIMES COLUMNISTS AND THE DAY ARE
SAYING
ABOUT...


FACES IN THE CROWD
Reporter for the NYTIMES (left, above) just made things
up; "She's Not Ready" column
in full here - Mr. Herbert of the
NYTIMES is an opinion writer; CHANGE IN THE
WEATHERMEN? TIRED OF THINKING ABOUT THE
ECONOMY OR PRESIDENTIAL
POLITICS?
She’s Not
Ready
NYTIMES
By BOB HERBERT
Published: September 12, 2008
While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday
night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten
the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is
not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.
How is it that this woman
could have been selected
to be the vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket? How is
it that so much of the mainstream media has dropped all pretense of
seriousness to hop aboard the bandwagon and go along for the giddy
ride?
For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice
president, not selecting a winner on “American Idol...” full column here.

What are the odds that America
will get its first female Vice President this year?
Palin connects in Northern Nevada; Carson City crowd immediately feels
it’s on first-name basis with Alaska governor
Las
Vegas Sun
By David McGrath Schwartz
Mon, Sep 15, 2008 (2 a.m.)
The crowd greeted her with chants of “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.”
People said they had come to see “Sarah.”
“Sarah spoke to my heart,” said Patty Tietz of Carson City. “She’s not
scripted. It sounds like she’s speaking, herself.”
At the Pony Express Pavilion in Carson City Saturday, voters said they
connected with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in a
way that was hard to explain, but that left them comfortable enough to
refer to her simply as Sarah.
The speech Palin gave was essentially the stump speech she has given
since she accepted the nomination two weeks ago. The crowd of 5,000 —
with signs saying “Go Sarah Go” and “Read my lipstick McCain/Palin”
buttons — reacted enthusiastically, nonetheless.
Some supporters of Sen. Barack Obama are on a first-name basis with
their candidate. (That rarely happens with Sen. John McCain or Sen. Joe
Biden.) Yet Democrats have been frustrated, maybe even flummoxed, by
the way Palin appears to have changed the race for the White House.
She erased any bump in the polls that Obama got from the Democratic
convention. And, as evidenced on Saturday, the Republican base is fired
up. This is with a group that had given her running mate, McCain, a
third-place finish in the January caucus, behind former Massachusetts
Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Inquiries from Nevadans looking to volunteer for the McCain campaign
went from a few hundred a week to 1,500 to 2,000 a week since Palin
joined the ticket, according to the campaign.
Many voters here and across the country, particularly conservative
women, have felt a personal connection with Palin — one that often goes
beyond issues to the personal story of a mother from a small town who
goes to church and feels comfortable handling a gun.
When pressed on issues, many of her supporters say she is a reformer
who could change things in Washington. They like her anti-abortion
stance, for sure, but more than that, they like the fact she gave birth
to a baby with Down syndrome.
“She’s the most refreshing thing I’ve seen in politics in 25 years,”
said Lorna Hoff, 60, of Reno. Hoff said she wouldn’t have come out to
see McCain speak, though she would’ve “begrudgingly voted for him.”
(“McCain has an awful lot of liberal tendencies. He’s a RINO,” she
said, referring to the conservative slur Republican In Name Only.)
But Palin, she said, “is pro-life, pro-family, pro-working people.
She’s one of us.”
Rep. Dean Heller, the Republican who grew up in Carson City, said the
energy Palin has brought to Republicans in Nevada is unmistakable.
“She’s one of us,” he said. “The reason all these people are here,
she’s one of us.”
A few months ago, it was a favorite pastime of Republicans and Hillary
Clinton supporters to ask Obama backers to name one of the Illinois
senator’s accomplishments. They complained that Obama was a celebrity,
and his support wasn’t about a resume or policy, but about charisma and
oratorical skills.
Now, frustrated Democrats say the race should focus on issues. A small
protest organized by the Obama campaign was held before Palin’s
appearance.
“Republicans called Obama a celebrity,” said Joyce Peirce of Carson
City. “That’s all she is — McCain’s puppy dog.”
Inside the pavilion, the crowd cheered when Palin said she fought
against pork, including the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” though in
February she requested $198 million in federal earmarks and a number of
independent groups have pointed out she opposed the bridge only after
it became politically unpopular and Congress essentially killed it.
Palin said she fought to lower property taxes as mayor, though she
neglected to say she also raised the sales tax to finance a hockey rink.
She said she fought the oil industry lobby and her own party, and said
when the state had a surplus, she rebated the money to Alaska citizens.
She did not say that the state’s $5 billion budget surplus (not
counting the $750 million rebate) came from a large tax increase on oil
royalties.
Of course, both sides are trying to make Palin into a caricature. For
the left, it is to cast her as a frightening religious zealot. However,
as governor she vetoed a bill that would have prevented same-sex
couples from getting public employee benefits; she also drew flak from
pro-life groups because she declined to take up two abortion-related
measures during special sessions aimed at getting a natural gas
pipeline agreement passed, saying the abortion-related proposals would
be a distraction.
In a New Yorker interview, conducted before she was named McCain’s
running mate, she said this: “I guess if you take the individual
issues, two that I believe would be benchmarks showing whether you’re a
hard-core Republican conservative or not, would be: I’m a lifetime
member of the NRA — but this is Alaska, who isn’t? — and I am pro-life,
absolutely.”
But she said she recognized that “the Democrats also preach individual
freedoms and individual rights, capitalism, free market,
let-it-do-its-thing-best, let people keep as much of their money that
they earn as possible. And when it comes to, like, the Party machine,
no one will accuse me of being partisan.”
As Steve Haycox, a professor of history at the University of Alaska,
Anchorage, said of Palin, “she’s a pragmatist.”
For her new devotees on the right who turned out in Carson City on
Saturday, and her fierce critics on the left, none of that may matter.
It’s now something personal.
Palin speech must have Democrats
nervous
DAY
Editorial
Published on 9/4/2008
Democratic party leaders who were happy to see Sen. John McCain select
little-known Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidental running
mate were probably not smiling after listening to her acceptance speech
at the GOP convention Wednesday night.
Palin energized the convention hall by perfectly delivering a speech
that was a mixture of conservative populism and biting criticism of
Demcoratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. Palin deftly
presented the Republicans as the party of working America, not
corporate America.
As the surprise VP pick walked to the microphone the stakes could not
have been higher. She had been buffeted by days of news reporting into
her background as a former small-town mayor and first-term governor.
While the social conservative wing of the Republican Party was ecstatic
over Palin's selection, some moderate Republicans were quietly
questioning McCain's judgment in placing such an untested and arguably
poorly vetted candidate on the ticket.
But Palin showed no hint of stress. She looked remarkably at ease,
delivering her message in a conversational and genuine style that
perhaps no current nationally known candidate can match. From a
middle-class perspective, it would be hard to get more real than five
children, a pregnant teen daughter, a special-needs baby and a
smalltown-girl-made-good story.
She attacked the Washington political elite pundits and the news media,
always popular targets. Invoking the memory of Democrat Harry Truman,
Palin said sometimes it takes someone from middle America, or perhaps
Alaska, to bring wisdom to Washington.
Palin ripped Obama's lack of executive-level inexperience, one of
several speakers to make light of his community organizing work on
Chicago's south side. And she made a decent case for the lessons
learned by running a small town and directing a state. She repeated the
convention theme that, unlike Obama, McCain has been tested under fire.
Palin sought to drive a wedge between Obama and working-class voters in
such critical industrial states as Ohio and Pennsylvania by reminding
her audience of Obama's comments about such folks at a San Francisco
fundraiser: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or
antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or
anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." While not
using the word, she clearly suggested he was a hypocrite for saying one
thing to a San Francisco crowd, something else to Pennsylvania
audiences.
How she will stand up to the scrutiny and questioning in the weeks to
come remains to be seen. There will be ample opportunities for her to
implode. But for one very important night Sarah Palin was very
impressive and that could be making some Democrats very nervous.
Life of Her Party
NYTIMES
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 2, 2008
ST. PAUL
For many years, reality was out of vogue with Republicans. They ignored
the reality of Iraq and Katrina, of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden.
When confronted with their colossal carelessness around the globe and
here at home, their mantra was, as Rummy put it, “Stuff happens.”
Now reality, in all its messy, crazy, funky glory, has flooded the
party, in the comely, crackling form of Sarah Palin.
Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera storylines erupting
from the Palin family and the Alaska wilderness, McCain campaign
adviser Steve Schmidt offered caterwauling reporters a new mantra:
“Life happens.”
Indeed, it does. Only four days into her reign as John McCain’s “soul
mate,” or “Trophy Vice,” as some bloggers are calling her, on the
ticket known as “Maverick Squared,” Palin, the governor of Alaska, has
already accrued two gates (Troopergate and Broken-watergate), a lawyer
(for Troopergate), a future son-in-law named Levi (a high school ice
hockey player, described by New York magazine as “sex on skates”), and
a National Enquirer headline about the “Teen Prego Crisis” with
17-year-old daughter Bristol.
It seems like a long time since Vice President Dan Quayle denounced
Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock, bemoaning a “poverty of
values.” It also seems like a long time — and another McCain ago — that
Republicans supporting W. smeared the old John McCain by spreading
rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child.
This week, the anti-abortion forces celebrated the news of Bristol’s
pregnancy, using it as further proof that their beloved Governor Palin
— who will no more support sex education than polar bears — was
committed to the cause.
Since John McCain played craps first and sent the vetters to Alaska
afterward, Republicans have been defending Governor Palin by saying
that, while she has no foreign policy experience — except, as Cindy
McCain pointed out, that “Alaska is the closest part of our continent
to Russia” — she has a lot of domestic policy experience as a
supercharged P.T.A. and hockey mom.
As more and more titillating details spill out about the Palins,
Republicans riposte by simply arguing that things like Todd’s old
D.U.I. arrest or Sarah’s messy family vengeance story will just let
them relate better to average Americans — unlike the lofty Obamas.
“If this doesn’t resonate with every woman in America, I’ll eat my
hat,” Bill Noll, an Alaska delegate whose daughter got pregnant at a
young age and kept the baby, told The Times’s Ashley Parker.
Even as they push Sarah Barracuda as the glamorous but tough hunting
and fishing mom who can juggle it all — she’s the only nominee, as Fred
Thompson bragged in his convention speech, “who knows how to properly
field dress a moose” — they rant at reporters who wonder how she will
juggle it all and question some of her judgments.
At a Washington, Pa., rally on Saturday, as her two other daughters
stood with her, Ms. Palin left Bristol baby-sitting Trig, who has Down
syndrome. “Then we have our daughter Bristol,” the new conservative
Republican star said. “She’s on the bus with the newborn. ... It’s his
naptime, so he is with his big sister on the bus. But we thank them for
being here.”
And this while Bristol was still absorbing the shocking news that she
was about to turn into tabloid roadkill — and oh, yeah, she’s getting
married sooner rather than later.
When you make a gimmicky pick of an unknown, without proper vetting,
there’s bound to be a sticky press conference sooner or later. I
watched it happen with Ferraro and Quayle, and I watched Mondale and
Poppy Bush curdle with embarrassment but plow through.
The political unknowns, of course, want that tantalizing brass ring, so
they’re not always completely forthcoming about their skeletons, if
they’re lucky enough to be ineptly vetted. This is ironic, since the
nominee who gets blindsided with these crises — Did McCain really know
that this Palin reality show was about to pop and swallow his
convention — is presenting them to voters as the most trustworthy
people to inherit the nuclear codes.
Because Ferraro grabbed at the chance, without revealing to Mondale’s
incompetent vetting team how damaging some of her husband’s financial
imbroglios could be, she went from being a female icon to part of the
reason it’s taken a quarter-century for another party to take a chance
on a woman.
When McCain gets in trouble, he pulls out the P.O.W. card. Now
Republicans are pulling out the sexist card.
Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her
campaign, and now Republicans have picked up that trick. But when you
use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question,
you only hurt women. And that’s just another splash of reality.
----------------
And Then There Was One
NYTIMES
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 2, 2008
As we emerge from Labor Day, college students are gathering back on
campuses not only to start the fall semester, but also, in some cases,
to vote for the first time in a presidential election. There is no
bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into
this election, I thought that — for the first time — we would have a
choice between two “green” candidates. That view is no longer operative
— and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that.
With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe
mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president,
John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to
run for president to just another representative of big oil.
Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all
eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and
production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries, and given
his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that
would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our
addiction to oil, and given his desire to make more oil-drilling, not
innovation around renewable energy, the centerpiece of his energy
policy — in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today
would translate into lower prices at the pump today — McCain has
forfeited any claim to be a green candidate.
So please, students, when McCain comes to your campus and flashes a few
posters of wind turbines and solar panels, ask him why he has been AWOL
when it came to Congress supporting these new technologies.
“Back in June, the Republican Party had a round-up,” said Carl Pope,
the executive director of the Sierra Club. “One of the unbranded cattle
— a wizened old maverick name John McCain — finally got roped. Then
they branded him with a big ‘Lazy O’ — George Bush’s brand, where the O
stands for oil. No more maverick.
“One of McCain’s last independent policies putting him at odds with
Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge,” added Pope, “yet he has now picked a running mate who has
opposed holding big oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative
energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife
refuge and off of our coasts. While the northern edge of her state
literally falls into the rising Arctic Ocean, Sarah Palin says, ‘The
jury is still out on global warming.’ She’s the one hanging the jury —
and John McCain is going to let her.”
Indeed, Palin’s much ballyhooed confrontations with the oil industry
have all been about who should get more of the windfall profits, not
how to end our addiction.
Barack Obama should be doing more to promote his green agenda, but at
least he had the courage, in the heat of a Democratic primary, not to
pander to voters by calling for a lifting of the gasoline tax. And
while he has come out for a limited expansion of offshore drilling, he
has refrained from misleading voters that this is in any way a solution
to our energy problems.
I am not against a limited expansion of off-shore drilling now. But it
is a complete sideshow. By constantly pounding into voters that his
energy focus is to “drill, drill, drill,” McCain is diverting attention
from what should be one of the central issues in this election: who has
the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power
technologies and energy efficiency.
Why? Because renewable energy technologies — what I call “E.T.” — are
going to constitute the next great global industry. They will rival and
probably surpass “I.T.” — information technology. The country that
spawns the most E.T. companies will enjoy more economic power,
strategic advantage and rising standards of living. We need to make
sure that is America. Big oil and OPEC want to make sure it is not.
Palin’s nomination for vice president and her desire to allow drilling
in the Alaskan wilderness “reminded me of a lunch I had three and half
years ago with one of the Russian trade attachés,” global trade
consultant Edward Goldberg said to me. “After much wine, this gentleman
told me that his country was very pleased that the Bush administration
wanted to drill in the Alaskan wilderness. In his opinion, the amount
of product one could actually derive from there was negligible in terms
of needs. However, it signified that the Bush administration was not
planning to do anything to create alternative energy, which of course
would threaten the economic growth of Russia.”
So, college students, don’t let anyone tell you that on the issue of
green, this election is not important. It is vitally important, and the
alternatives could not be more black and white.
I-BBC video link here
Sarah
Heath Palin, an Outsider Who Charms
NYTIMES
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: August 29, 2008
Her father shot the grizzly bear whose hide is now draped over the sofa
in her office. She, too, hunts and fishes. She runs marathons. She
delivered her fifth child during her first term as governor. They call
her husband, the reigning champion in the annual Iron Dog snowmachine
race, First Dude.
Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s surprising selection to be his
vice-presidential running mate, took Alaska by surprise, too, not long
ago. Though indisputably Alaskan, she rose to prominence by bucking the
state’s rigid Republican hierarchy, impressing voters more with
gumption, warmth and charm than an established record in government.
It was a combination that dumbfounded her rivals.
“She wouldn’t have articulated one coherent policy and people would
just be fawning all over her,” said Andrew Halcro, a Republican turned
independent, who along with Tony Knowles, a Democrat, ran against Ms.
Palin for governor in 2006. “Tony and I looked at each other and it
was, like, this isn’t about policy or Alaska issues, this is about
people’s most basic instincts: ‘I like you, and you make me feel good.’
”
“You know,” said Mr. Halcro, invoking the Democratic presidential
nominee, “that’s kind of like Obama.”
Before Ms. Palin, 44, became Alaska’s first female governor, in 2006,
the top line on her political résumé was her tenure as
mayor of Wasilla, a growing suburb of Anchorage with fewer than 7,000
residents. But even before a wide-ranging federal investigation began
rattling through the Republican-controlled State Legislature over
lawmakers’ links to an oil services company, Ms. Palin jumped into the
governor’s race as an outsider calling for reform.
She already had challenged the state Republican Party’s chairman,
accusing him of abusing his role on a state oil and gas commission to
do political work. And by the summer of 2006, Ms. Palin was taking on
the governor, Frank H. Murkowski, a Republican lion of Alaska politics
whose bluster and closed-door dealing had finally worn thin in the
state.
Ms. Palin (pronounced PAY-lin), youthful and sympathetic with voters
but bluntly critical of her party’s leadership, said state government
was broken, that it needed to be transparent and responsive.
Stunningly, she won in a landslide, trouncing Mr. Murkowski by more
than 30 points in the Republican primary that summer and rolling
through the general election.
Defying Expectations
Now, after barely 20 months in office in a state that has rarely played
much of a role in national politics, Ms. Palin is again challenging
expectations, including those of her own party.
“Did I wake up in a parallel universe?” said Mr. Halcro, who writes a
blog that is frequently critical of the governor. “I am absolutely
shocked.”
Whatever similarities Ms. Palin and Senator Barack Obama may have in
personal appeal, they seem to have little else in common. She is a
conservative Protestant and has also been a member since 2006 of
Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion group. She has supported the
teaching of intelligent design in public schools, alongside evolution.
She is a member of the National Rifle Association, and has said
Alaska’s economic future depends on aggressively extracting its vast
natural resources, from oil to natural gas and minerals.
Ms. Palin said she supported Alaska’s decision to amend its
Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But she used her first veto as
governor to block a bill that would have prohibited the state from
granting health benefits to same-sex partners of public employees. Ms.
Palin said she vetoed the bill because it was unconstitutional, but
raised the possibility of amending the state Constitution so the ban
could pass muster.
“I don’t think a Hillary person would ever move to her, based on the
issues,” said Jean Craciun, a strategic research and planning
consultant in Alaska who has done political polling for Democrats and
Republicans. “I don’t think before today I would have ever heard
someone call her a feminist.”
This month, Ms. Palin issued a last-minute statement of opposition to a
ballot measure that would have provided added protections for salmon
from potential contamination from mining, an action seen as crucial to
its defeat. Her intense pursuit of a pipeline to deliver natural gas
from the North Slope of Alaska to market in the Lower 48 led to what
her administration has claimed as a major triumph: the Legislature this
summer approved her plan to give a $500 million subsidy to TransCanada,
a Canadian company, to help build the project.
The State Senate president, Lyda Green, a Republican who is also from
Wasilla, has repeatedly sparred with Ms. Palin in the 20 months since
she became governor. Like Mr. Halcro, Ms. Green called the governor’s
economic policies “liberal,” and said, “I’d have concerns that she’d
have the same negative impact on the nation that she has on Alaska.”
Ms. Green disagreed with the governor’s decision to award a license and
$500 million in subsidies to the Canadian company, saying there was no
guarantee that even with the subsidies a gas pipeline would be built.
Ms. Green said the governor was difficult for her to deal with, a state
of affairs she traces to Ms. Green’s decision to remain neutral in Ms.
Palin’s race against former Governor Murkowski.
“There was some resentment there that some of us didn’t come out and
support her during the primary, and it never really got any better,”
Ms. Green said. “I found that if you disagreed with her or tried to
amend or change something, that was sort of off-limits. She did not
like being told no or to change it.”
Commitment to Pipeline
Rebuffing criticism of the pipeline subsidy, Ms. Palin has cast the
pipeline as a way for Alaska to “end our dependence on foreign oil.”
She has said she hopes the pipeline effort will show that Alaska can
contribute to a new energy economy, rather than be known as the state
that receives more per capita federal spending than any other.
Critics in the state complained that Ms. Palin had undercut her
clean-government image by appointing as her chief adviser on the
pipeline a former lobbyist for TransCanada. The adviser, Marty
Rutherford, her deputy commissioner of natural resources, earned about
$40,000 lobbying the state government for a TransCanada subsidiary in
2003.
Asked recently whether Mr. Rutherford’s past work for TransCanada
presented a conflict of interest, Ms. Palin told The Anchorage Daily
News, “Going on five years later, no.”
One of her most significant accomplishments as governor was passing a
major tax increase on state oil production, angering oil companies but
raising billions of dollars in new revenue. She said the oil companies
had previously bribed legislators to keep the taxes low. She
subsequently championed legislation that would give some of that money
back to Alaskans: Soon, every Alaskan will receive a $1,200 check.
Appointed in 2003 to the state board that settles drilling disputes,
the Alaskan Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she became an
outspoken critic of one of her fellow commissioners, Randy Ruedrich,
for soliciting political contributions from the oil industry in his
capacity as chairman of the state’s Republican Party.
Ms. Palin’s introduction to a national audience comes as little good
news has come out of Republican politics in Alaska. The same corruption
investigation that was brewing when she ran for office in 2006 has led
to the convictions of three Republican state lawmakers, charges against
still more and, most recently, the indictment of the most established
and revered Alaska politician of all, Senator Ted Stevens.
The continuing trouble has made Ms. Palin’s calls for reform appear all
the more prescient, yet she now is facing an investigation herself. The
Republican-controlled Legislature has hired an independent investigator
to determine whether Ms. Palin improperly pressured the former state
public safety commissioner to resign this year.
The former commissioner, Walt Monegan, has said he felt pressure from
Ms. Palin’s administration, and her husband, Todd, to fire a state
trooper, Mike Wooten, who was going through a bitter divorce with the
governor’s sister. The trooper was not fired.
Mr. Monegan told The Anchorage Daily News that Mr. Palin had showed him
some of the findings of a private investigator the family had hired and
accused the trooper of a variety of misdeeds, including drunken driving
and child abuse.
Mr. Palin told the newspaper he feared for his wife’s safety and said
Trooper Wooten had made threats against her and her family. The
governor has acknowledged inquiries by her staff to the Public Safety
Department but said she played no role in them. To demonstrate she
welcomed the inquiry, Mrs. Palin asked the state attorney general to
look into the accusations as well.
Born on Feb. 11, 1964, in Sandpoint, Idaho, Sarah Heath Palin was still
an infant when her parents moved the family to Skagway, in southeast
Alaska, after accepting teaching positions there. The family moved to
Wasilla, a small, conservative and growing suburb of Anchorage where,
as Mr. McCain noted, Ms. Palin was a “standout high school point guard.”
The governor met her husband in high school, and she was later voted
“Miss Wasilla” in a local beauty contest. In 1987, she received a
bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. A year
later, she and Mr. Palin eloped.
The governor said Friday that she “never really set out to be involved
in public affairs, much less to run for this office,” referring to the
vice presidency, but she rose quickly once she entered political life.
“A P.T.A. mom who got involved,” is how the current mayor of Wasilla,
Dianne M. Keller, described Ms. Palin.
She was elected to the Wasilla City Council in 1992, then ran for mayor
in 1996, she has said, because she was concerned that revenue from a
new sales tax would not be spent wisely. She served two terms, through
2002.
As mayor, she oversaw the Police Department, which has 25 officers, and
the city’s public works projects. Garbage collection is done by private
companies, and a borough government oversees firefighting and public
schools.
“This is really rural America,” said the deputy city clerk, Jamie
Newman, who added that town residents were still reeling from the news
that the woman who just six years ago served as their mayor could now
be vice president of the United States. “Frankly, everyone is in shock.”
Ms. Keller said that Ms. Palin had three major achievements as mayor:
She cut property taxes, increased the city sales tax by half a percent
to support construction of an indoor ice rink and sports complex, and
put more money into public safety, winning a grant to build a police
dispatch center in town.
Although she would later criticize Congressional earmarks like Alaska’s
infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” proposed for the town of Ketchikan at a
cost of about $400 million, as mayor she began the practice of making
annual trips to Washington to press for them on behalf of their town.
A Fresh Family Tableau
Ms. Palin’s family presents Mr. McCain, who turned 72 on Friday, with
fresh and wholesome campaign imagery. It also presents some potentially
delicate issues. Mr. Palin, in addition to being a champion snowmobile
racer, is an oil production operator on the North Slope, working for
BP, a company that has had to make major repairs since a spill on the
slope temporarily shut down production there in 2006.
In addition to Ms. Palin’s $125,000 state salary, Mr. Palin earned
$93,000 last year running his own commercial fishing business and
working part-time at BP’s oil production facility, according to her
public financial disclosure reports.
Although Ms. Palin once said that her husband would quit his job at BP
if she were elected governor, she later backed away from that. He took
a leave from the company after she won, but went back to work there
last year, saying his family needed the money. And the governor now
says that because Mr. Palin is not in management, it poses no conflict
with her own dealings with the petroleum industry, a major force in
Alaska’s politics and economy.
Mr. Palin, who is part Yu’pik Eskimo, also received a few hundred
dollars in dividends as a shareholder in two benefit corporations
representing Alaskan Natives and $10,500 from the Iron Dog snowmobile
race, which he has won several times. The Palins reported no debts
other than the mortgage on their home.
The couple have five children — Track, 19; Bristol, 17; Willow, 14;
Piper, 7; and Trig, 4 months. Track joined the Army last year, a fact
Ms. Palin mentioned in her introduction to the Republican ticket on
Friday. Trig, who was born in April, has Down syndrome, which Ms. Palin
seemed to allude to only obliquely on Friday, after she described him
as a “beautiful baby boy” then shifted from there to her selection as
Mr. McCain’s running mate.
“Some of life’s greatest opportunities,” the governor said, “come
unexpectedly.”
Ms. Palin and her husband knew during her pregnancy that there were
complications, though the boy’s condition was not revealed publicly
until after he was born. Anti-abortion groups have praised Ms. Palin
and her family.
“It speaks volumes about her personally and about how she walked her
talk,” said Serrin M. Foster, president of Feminists for Life, an
anti-abortion group.
Three days after giving birth, Ms. Palin was back at work.
C A N D I D A T E S
Clips from Al Smith
dinner via I-BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7675927.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7675935.stm

Give Us More Debate
Hartford Courant editorial
August 12, 2008
So far, Sen. Barack Obama's performance in debates with Sen. John
McCain has been a gross disappointment. Largely because there haven't
been any.
Back in May, an adviser to Mr. McCain's campaign invited Mr. Obama to a
series of town-meeting-style appearances during the summer to debate
the issues. Mr. Obama, then in a pitched battle with Sen. Hillary
Clinton for the Democratic nomination, seemed enthusiastic. "I think
that's a great idea," he said.
After clinching the nomination in June, however, the Democrats'
presumptive presidential nominee has neglected to take Mr. McCain up on
his invitation.
Early this month, Mr. Obama appeared to show his hand: In a letter to
the Commission on Presidential Debates, his campaign committed to the
standard three-debate format with Mr. McCain this fall. A spokeswoman
for Mr. Obama's campaign declined to shut the door on more debates, but
his advisers admit that, with Mr. Obama emerging as the front-runner,
he's reluctant to give his opponent more of a nationwide forum.
Mr. Obama's vault to prominence on the national stage has been
remarkable. His intellect and eloquence combined with his repeated
portrayals of himself last spring as a candidate of change generated
considerable excitement.
Lately, however, his commitment to reform has started to look a little
thin. Last month, Mr. Obama, who has proved to be a prodigious
fundraiser, went back on a promise to accept public financing for his
general election campaign.
We urge Mr. Obama to engage Mr. McCain in more debates. Sure, there's a
political risk. But when candidates for nationwide office engage in
robust debate, Americans are the winners.
D E
M O C R A T I C T I C K E T 2 0 0 8

DEMOCRATS
fly to Athens for their closing ceremony - was it "faux"
Parthanon? At Mile High Stadium, Vice Presidential candidate
Senator Joe Biden (l.) reads his teleprompter without distance glasses,
as Presidential candidate, Senator Barak Obama might be amused by this
difficulty. Question: where is Senator Biden's water
bottle? Answer: with his glasses.
A Speech to the Delegates
NYTIMES
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: August 29, 2008
DENVER
My fellow Americans, it is an honor
to address the Democratic National Convention at this defining moment
in history. We stand at a crossroads at a pivot point, near a fork in
the road on the edge of a precipice in the midst of the most
consequential election since last year’s “American Idol.”
One path before us leads to the
past, and the extinction of the human race. The other path leads to the
future, when we will all be dead. We must choose wisely.
We must close the book on the
bleeding wounds of the old politics of division and sail our ship up a
mountain of hope and plant our flag on the sunrise of a thousand
tomorrows with an American promise that will never die! For this
election isn’t about the past or the present, or even the pluperfect
conditional. It’s about the future, and Barack Obama loves the future
because that’s where all his accomplishments are.
We meet today to pass the torch to a
new generation of Americans, a generation that came of age amidst iced
chais and mocha strawberry Frappuccinos®, a generation with a
historical memory that doesn’t extend back past Coke Zero.
We meet today to heal the divisions
that have torn this country. For we are all one country and one
American family, whether we are caring and thoughtful Democrats or
hate-filled and war-crazed Republicans. We must bring together left and
right, marinara and carbonara, John and Elizabeth Edwards. On United we
stand, on US Airways, there’s a 25-minute delay.
Ladies and gentleman, I never
expected to be speaking before you today. Like so many of our speakers
at this convention, I come from a hard-working, middle-class family. I
was leading a miserable little life, but, nevertheless, overcame great
odds to live the American Dream. My great-grandfather fought in
Patton’s Army, along with Barack Obama’s great-grand uncles’ fourth
cousin once removed.
As a child, I was abandoned by my
parents and lived with a colony of ants. We didn’t have much in the way
of material possession, but we did have each other and the ability to
carry far more than our own body weights. When I was young, I was
temporarily paralyzed in a horrible anteater accident, but I never gave
up my dream: the dream of speaking at a national political convention
so my speech could be talked over by Wolf Blitzer and a gang of pundits.
And today we Democrats meet in
Denver, a suburb of Boulder, a city whose motto is, “A Taxi? You Must
be Dreaming.”
And in Denver, we Democrats showed
America that we have cute daughters who will someday provide us with
prestigious car-window stickers. We heard Hillary Clinton’s ringing
endorsement of “the weak-looking thin guy who’s bound to lose.”
We heard from Joe Biden, whose 643
years in the Senate make him uniquely qualified to talk to the middle
class, whose family has been riding the Acela and before that the
Metroliner for generations, who has been given a lifetime ban from the
quiet car and who is himself a verbal train wreck waiting to happen.
We got to know Barack and Michelle
Obama, two tall, thin, rich, beautiful people who don’t perspire, but
who nonetheless feel compassion for their squatter and smellier fellow
citizens. We know that Barack could have gone to a prestigious law
firm, like his big donors in the luxury boxes, but he chose to put his
ego aside to become a professional politician, president of the United
States and redeemer of the human race. We heard about his time as a
community organizer, the three most fulfilling months of his life.
We were thrilled by his speech in
front of the Greek columns, which were conscientiously recycled from
the concert, “Yanni, Live at the Acropolis.” We were honored by his
pledge, that if elected president, he will serve at least four months
before running for higher office. We were moved by his campaign slogan,
“Vote Obama: He’s better than you’ll ever be.” We were inspired by
dozens of Democratic senators who declared their lifelong love of John
McCain before denouncing him as a reactionary opportunist who would
destroy the country.
No, this country cannot afford to
elect John Bushmccain. Under Republican rule, locusts have stripped the
land, adults wear crocs in public and M&M’s have lost their flavor.
We must instead ride to the uplands of hope!
For as Barack Obama suggested
Thursday night, wherever there is a president who needs to tap our
natural-gas reserves, I’ll be there. Wherever there is a need for a
capital-gains readjustment for targeted small businesses, I’ll be
there. Wherever there is a president committed to direct diplomacy with
nuclear proliferators, I’ll be there, too! God bless the Democrats, and
God Bless America!
Mr.
Obama’s Party
NYTIMES editorial
Published: August 29, 2008
One test of a presidential
candidate’s strength, and often his best shot at winning, is how much
he can mold his party in his image and rally it around a powerful
argument for his election. Barack Obama left Denver having made
significant progress on both fronts.
The Democratic Party today is
different from the one that lost the last two presidential elections.
It is bigger, younger and less visibly linked to traditional Democratic
interest groups.
Mr. Obama long ago proved his skills
as an orator. He went further on Thursday night, using his acceptance
speech to add detail to his promises of hope and showcase a new theme
that could find resonance with Democrats, new and old, and a broader
range of Americans.
Government, Mr. Obama argued, cannot
solve all of the country’s problems. But he said it has basic
responsibilities to do what individual Americans cannot do themselves —
“protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep
our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads
and new science and technology.”
He said that government had failed
in those duties under President Bush.
He tied his opponent, John McCain,
tightly to Mr. Bush and to an “old, discredited Republican philosophy —
give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity
trickles down to everyone else.” He said what “that really means is
you’re on your own.”
Mr. Obama promised to rewrite Mr.
Bush’s tax code to restore fairness to working people and take away
economy-busting breaks for the wealthiest Americans. He promised
universal health insurance. He offered a grand, perhaps grandiose,
vision of ending America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil in a decade.
And he challenged Mr. McCain’s
absurd charge that because Mr. Obama opposed the war in Iraq, he will
leave America defenseless. “We are the party of Roosevelt,” he said.
“We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t
defend this country.”
The party rallying around Mr. Obama
in Denver looked noticeably different. Part of that is real: his
campaign’s unprecedented registration drives have brought many new
voters into the party and, we hope, permanently into the democratic
process as a whole.
Part, we suspect, was stage
management. There was little display in the convention hall, and even
less in prime-time broadcasts, of the placards of the teachers’ and
service workers’ unions, of the National Abortion Rights Action League
and the Sierra Club.
That reflected the Obama campaign’s
sound analysis that American voters mistrust interest groups — except
their own — and its brash conviction that Mr. Obama’s drawing power is
so strong that they can win without giving these groups prominence.
Whether this is all visuals — or the
start of a new brand of politics — is hard to tell. We have noted too
much tactical triangulation in Mr. Obama’s campaign. He has dropped
some of the vital themes of his early candidacy, including his
withering criticism of Mr. Bush’s abuses of power, and he wavered on
illegal wiretapping.
Mr. Obama’s strategists believe
their route to victory lies in the careful selection of battleground
states, and in the vast expansion of their base of voters. That won the
primaries, but he has to repeat that performance on a far larger stage.
The bulk of the voters his team is registering are younger, first-time
voters and minority voters whose turnout is always dubious.
We are skeptical of slogans, but
there is a refreshing audacity — another of Mr. Obama’s favorite words
— in the strategy that he and his team have chosen.
27
August 2008
|
By Matt Frei
BBC News, Denver
|

Washington diary: Anxious
Democrats
If you had any doubts that
American party conventions were about ritual, you should talk to my
friend who found herself in the Ladies as the gavel went down on the
Denver proceedings.
US party conventions are the scene
of patriotism and ritual
|
As she and her colleagues obeyed the calls of nature,
the Star Spangled Banner piped out of the loudspeakers. Despite being
inconvenienced in the convenience, the Americans immediately obeyed
that other call, the one to honour the flag.
The Ladies on the second floor of the Pepsi Center
hummed to the sound of ladies singing along to the National Anthem and
holding their hand over their heart. My friend does not know whether
this show of patriotism extended into the privacy of the cubicles but
she did point out that what she witnessed would never have happened in
the UK.
I wonder if the Republicans, who have set up their own
war room here in the Mile High City, were taking note.
They have, after all, questioned not just the
patriotism of Barack Obama, but his American identity.
The first day of the convention was carefully
choreographed to allay voters' fears that despite his exotic name and
complicated upbringing, Mr Obama was as American as the next citizen in
this country of immigrants.
His wife, Michelle Obama, was almost in tears when she
pleaded with the cameras that she loved America.
Her family story, delivered with an inevitable hint of
treacle, was the iconic journey from wholesome poverty to wholesome
public service. The gorgeous daughters were on stage to prove the
point.
And just before you thought you had witnessed a rerun
of the Cosby Show, the candidate himself popped up on a video link from
Kansas City, Missouri, surrounded by a regular family of American
voters, all white.
It looked a little ham-fisted but then this is a
campaign and if the symbolism can't be hammered home during convention
week, when can it?
Democratic royalty
While Michelle Obama reintroduced her family as regular
American folks, the gravelly baritone of a terminally-ill Ted Kennedy
was there to illustrate how extraordinary the ordinary Obamas are.
The Kennedy clan is Democratic royalty. Like Germany's
Hohenzollerns, Austria's Habsburgs or Britain's Windsors, they even
display the predominant gene of royalty. In the Kennedys' case these
are square jaws, Lego-sized teeth and a broad forehead. And, like all
royalty, they guard their legacy jealously.
The Kennedy clan sprinkled
political stardust on the Obama family
|
On Monday night, the last surviving member of the
ill-fated quad of Kennedy brothers passed the family torch to the
Obamas.
He did so right over the heads of the people who had
originally expected to inherit the torch, the Clintons.
What added insult to injury was that Caroline Kennedy,
the former president's daughter, was in charge of the committee to find
a suitable vice-president and Hillary was, it seems, not even on her
short list.
Sprinkled with Kennedy stardust, buoyed by Michelle
Obama's slick performance and reassured by the rhetorical gift of the
candidate himself, the Democrats should be in a Mile High Club of
euphoria.
After all, the winds of change should be blowing
against the Republicans and their president. But, everywhere you look
in Denver, you find nail-biting delegates, nervous surrogates,
defensive campaign staffers.
The rest of the world thinks that Mr Obama will be
America's 44th president but, at home, the Democrats are the worried
party.
To some extent, this is their traditional role. Like
Woody Allen in one of his earlier movies, the Democrats excel at
fretting, agonising, navel gazing and over-analysing.
The opinion polls, which have Mr Obama and his
Republican rival John McCain neck-and-neck, prove that they have reason
to worry.
The senator from Illinois has had an arid summer. He
needs to have a bountiful harvest season.
The ghost of Clinton
But the other reason for anxiety is the Lady who broods
in the wings. Of late, Hillary and Bill Clinton have not uttered a
single public word of apostasy. They are toeing the line, gritting
their teeth and swallowing their pride.
Many Democrats are finding it hard
to let go of their hopes for Mrs Clinton
|
They are also economical with their enthusiasm. I am
told that senior Clinton people aren't even sticking around for Obama's
big stadium speech on Thursday. This is damning with faint praise.
Moreover, such was the Clintons' hold over the party
that the faithful almost expect them to lash out and derail the
meticulous choreography. Like the children of over-bearing parents,
they expect wrath, even if there's no evidence of it.
Hillary Clinton has become Lady Marchmain in Brideshead
Revisited, a living reminder of the perils of abandoning orthodoxy -
the orthodoxy of a Clinton candidacy - and a permanent finger on the
delicate bruise of guilt and self-doubt, that this may turn out to be a
mistake.
The Republicans are doing their best to press on the
wound.
As the Wall Street Journal asked: How could the
Democrats choose a running mate - Joe Biden - who garnered no more than
9,000 votes and ignore one who harvested 18 million during the primary
season?
The ghost of Clinton needs to be exorcised from the
convention and that is something that only Hillary and Bill can do. The
ritual of convention alone is not enough.
|
The
21st-Century Man
NYTIMES
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: August 25, 2008
DENVER
I flew into the airport here on
Sunday and the pilot could barely land because of the fog of bad
advice. Democrats are nervous because Barack Obama’s polling lead has
evaporated. And when Democrats are nervous, all the Santa Monica
Machiavellis emerge from their fund-raisers offering words of wisdom.
And the subtext of the advice being offered this year is that Barack
Obama should really be someone else.
Some sages are saying that Obama
needs to get specific. He needs to lay out concrete plans and
legislative agendas. Apparently, having nominated Obama, they really
want a replay of the Dukakis campaign.
Others say he needs to describe his
experience in government better, to make Americans comfortable with him
as chief executive. Apparently, having nominated Obama, they want him
to run as Chris Dodd.
Still others say he needs to be a
scrappy class warrior defending the middle class against the
depredations of the rich overlords with their multiple homes.
Apparently, for these people it wasn’t enough that they got to live
through Al Gore’s “people versus the powerful” campaign just once. They
want to relive the joy again and again.
And yet there are still others who
say Obama needs to get bare-knuckled. He needs to hammer McCain above
the belt and below. Apparently, these people have decided that having
nominated Obama, the party needs to be led by Michael Moore.
The words fly, the quotes are given,
campaign aides are pulled aside. It’s like a Greatest Misses
compilation of every Democratic campaign idea ever conceived.
Obama is already an elusive
Rorschach test candidate, and now he’s being pulled by his party in a
thousand directions. The Democrats are in danger of doing to Obama what
they did to their last two nominees: burying authentic individuals
under a layer of prefab themes.
Obama’s chief problem in this
campaign is that large numbers of voters still don’t know who he is.
They are having trouble putting him into one of the categories they use
to grasp those they have not met.
And now he has to define himself
amid the phantasmagorical vapors of his own party: the ghosts of the
Kerry campaign, the overshadowing magic of the Kennedys and the
ego-opera that perpetually surrounds the Clintons.
Of course, the Obama campaign has
been here before. Just about a year ago, Obama was stagnant in the
polls. His supporters were nervous and full of advice. And in the
crowning moment of his whole race, Obama shut them out. He turned his
back on the universe of geniuses and stayed true to his core identity.
At the core, Obama’s best message
has always been this: He is unconnected with the tired old fights that
constrict our politics. He is in tune with a new era. He has very
little experience but a lot of potential. He does not have big
achievements, but he is authentically the sort of person who emerges in
a multicultural, globalized age. He is therefore naturally in step with
the problems that will confront us in the years to come.
So as I’m trying to measure the
effectiveness of this convention, I’ll be jotting down a little minus
mark every time I hear a theme that muddies that image. I’ll jot down a
minus every time I hear the old class conflict, and the old culture war
themes. I’ll jot down a minus when I see the old Bush obsession rearing
its head, which is not part of his natural persona. I’ll write a
demerit every time I hear the rich played off against the poor,
undercutting Obama’s One America dream.
I’ll put a plus down every time a
speaker says that McCain is a good man who happens to be out of step
with the times. I’ll put a plus down every time a speaker says that a
multipolar world demands a softer international touch. I’ll put a plus
down when a speaker says the old free market policies worked fine in
the 20th century, but no longer seem to be working today. These are
arguments that reinforce Obama’s identity as a 21st-century man.
And I have to say, during the first
night of the convention, the pluses far outweighed the minuses. In
spirit, the night extended Obama’s 2004 convention speech. The
overarching theme was intrinsic to the man, unity instead of division,
something new instead of conflicts that are old. His sister hit this
theme forcefully. Jesse Jackson Jr. made the generational-change
argument explicitly, paying tribute to the fights of the past while
describing the more subtle challenges of the present. Michelle Obama
was short on biographical details, but long on the idealism, which is
at the heart of Obama’s appeal.
Obama may yet recover his core
focus. Now he has to preserve it against his most terrifying foes: the
“experts” in his own party.
Democrats
Link Past, Present As Convention Opens In Denver; Kennedy, Michelle Obama call for unity as
nominee-in-waiting prepares for election
DAY
By
David Espo
Published on 8/26/2008
Denver - Ailing and aging, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy issued a ringing
summons to fellow Democrats to rally behind Barack Obama's pioneering
quest for the White House Monday night in a poignant opening to a party
convention in search of unity for the fall campaign.
”Barack will finally bring the change we need,” seconded Obama's wife,
Michelle, casting her husband - bidding to become the first black
president - as a leader with classic American values.
She pledged he would end the war in Iraq, revise a sputtering
economy and extend health care to all. Democrats opened their
four-day convention in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains as polls
underscored the closeness of the race with Republican John McCain. And
there was no underestimating the challenges confronting Obama. He
faces lingering divisions from a fierce battle with Hillary Rodham
Clinton for the nomination, tough ads by McCain and his Republican
allies, and a reminder
that racism, too, could play a role.
”There are people who are not going to vote for him because he's
black,” said James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union. “And
we've got to hope that we can educate people to put aside their racism
and to put their own interests No. 1.” He spoke in an
Associated Press interview.
Kennedy and Obama's wife were the bookends of an evening that left the
delegates cheering, one representing the party's past, the other its
present.
”The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on,”
Kennedy said in a strong voice, reprising the final line of a memorable
1980 speech that brought a different convention to its feet. The
senator has been undergoing treatment for a malignant brain tumor.
Obama's wife said it was time to “stop doubting and start
dreaming.”
Moments later, Obama appeared via satellite from Missouri, drawing
cheers from delegates. Convention planners hoped the prime time
address by Obama's wife would begin the work of casting the Illinois
senator as a leader with classic American values.
Among them, she said: “that you work hard for what you want in life,
that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do,
that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know
them, and even if you don't agree with them.”
The convention's opening gavel fell with Obama and Clinton still
struggling to work out the choreography for the formal roll call of the
states that will make him the party nominee. Michelle Obama
included a tribute to her husband's former rival, crediting her with
having placed “18 million cracks in
the glass ceiling” that constrains women's ambitions.
(NOTE: Isn't that the number of votes Hillary received during the
primaries?)
”There is no doubt in anyone's mind that this is Barack Obama's
convention,” the former first lady told reporters early in the day. And
yet, she said, some of her delegates “feel an obligation to the people
who sent them here” and would vote for her.
Kennedy's speech was an implicit appeal to Clinton's delegates - and
the 18 million voters who supported her in the primaries - to swing
behind Obama.
He said the country can meet its challenges with Obama. “Yes we can,
yes we will,” he said, echoing the presidential candidate's own
signature refrain.
In one of their first orders of business, delegates ratified a party
platform tailored to Obama's specifications. It backs “complete
redeployment within 16 months from Iraq,” as well as health care for
all, a new economic stimulus package and higher taxes on families
earning over $250,000 a year.
”The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade
and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of
ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or
undermine that right,” it said.
As the delegates took their seats in the Pepsi Center, Obama campaigned
in Iowa, the first in a string of swing states he is visiting en route
to Colorado. Obama delivers his acceptance speech on Thursday at
a football stadium, before a crowd likely to total 75,000 or more. Then
he and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, his vice presidential running
mate, depart for the fall campaign.
While the White House is the biggest prize of the election year,
prominent Democrats expressed optimism in Associated Press interviews
about major gains in the fall in races for the House and Senate.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said 70 or more House seats are
competitive, the majority of them currently in Republican hands.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said fashioning a 60-seat, filibuster-proof
Senate majority was a stretch. But he added that Democrats lead for
five seats currently in Republican hands, and several others are
competitive. Howard Dean, the party chairman, rapped the opening
gavel precisely on schedule at 3 p.m. Mountain Time - before only a
smattering of delegates.
”We are ready to compete in all 50 states in November,” he said, even
though Obama has already written off large portions of the South and
Mountain West. Schumer and Van Hollen said only a small fraction
of Clinton's delegates remained unreconciled to Obama's triumph in the
bruising primaries of the winter and spring.
Perhaps so, but they were vocal about it, and officials said one of the
issues under discussion was whether to permit a noisy floor
demonstration by Clinton's supporters when the former first lady's name
is placed in nomination on Wednesday night. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend, the eldest child of the late Robert F. Kennedy and a former
lieutenant governor of Maryland, said the animosity that some Clinton
delegates feel toward Obama is worsening. “There's a moment that you
want to enjoy your bitterness,” she said, although she emphasized that
she is supporting Obama.
Obama told reporters that his former rival and her husband, former
President Clinton, “couldn't have been more clear” in their support for
his candidacy. But the sniping was impossible to miss.
”I'm getting a lot of calls and e-mails, especially from women, who are
quite upset that she was not vetted (for vice president) even though
senator Obama said she was on the short list,” said Lanny Davis, a
longtime Clinton loyalist.
All the talk about disunity was grating on some.
”To stay wallowing in all of this is not productive,” said House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
”So we can talk about this forever, or we can talk about how we're
going to take our message to the American people, to women all across
America, to see the distinctions” between Obama and McCain.
-------
*
NOTE: these items make you
wonder...not the message we would want to send.
Kennedy
to appear, may speak at
convention
DAY
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer
Posted on Aug 25, 11:42 AM EDT
DENVER (AP) -- A cancer-fighting Sen. Edward M. Kennedy prepared to
attend, and possibly speak, at the opening day of the Democratic
National Convention on Monday as presidential nominee-to-be Barack
Obama unleashed a hard-hitting television commercial linking GOP rival
John McCain to President Bush.
The ad signaled that the Democrats' gathering would be just as much
about skewering McCain as about unifying the fractured party after a
protracted primary season that split supporters between Obama and Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Kennedy, who is being treated for a malignant brain tumor, is a beloved
figure within the party, and the Massachusetts senator's last-minute
appearance at the Pepsi Center is a way toward unification as the
four-day convention opens amid signs of acrimony between Obama and
Clinton delegates.
Kennedy arrived in Denver Sunday night and got a checkup at a local
hospital. He plans to attend to watch a video tribute to him and may
address the convention if he feels up to it, said a senior Democratic
official who talked on the condition of anonymity.
"He's truly humbled by the outpouring of support and wouldn't miss it
for anything in the world," said Stephanie Cutter, a Kennedy
spokeswoman.
As Democrats put the final touches on opening night, Obama's campaign
released an ad featuring images of McCain hugging Bush and the two
smiling in spite of tidings of economic woe. It features a parody of
the Sam Cooke classic "Wonderful World," which starts off with the line
"Don't know much about history." For the ad it's "I'm not up on the
economy," playing on McCain's earlier admission that economics wasn't
his best subject.
Ending with a photo of Bush patting McCain's back, the spot asks, "Do
we really want four more years of the same old tune?"
McCain's campaign also released an ad to play on what it sees as a
weakness for Obama: his lack of support among some Clinton backers.
That ad features a Clinton supporter who now backs McCain assuring
like-minded voters: "A lot of Democrats will vote McCain. It's OK,
really!"
Opening night at the Pepsi Center, the main venue for the four-day
convention, aimed to tell the Illinois senator's personal story to the
millions of voters nationwide who will begin tuning in to the
presidential campaign. Obama's wife, Michelle, was the evening's
keynote speaker.
Obama's campaign dismissed concerns about the impact of die-hard
Clinton supporters on the choreographed show of unity. Behind the
scenes, however, polls showed significant Clinton support still being
denied to Obama, and pro-Clinton demonstrations at offsite venues were
creating a different kind of anticipation. Clinton has backed Obama and
was scheduled to speak Tuesday night.
"There are a lot of delegates here who had passionate choices in an
extended primary season," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told "Today" on
NBC. "We feel confident that if we can demonstrate a record of change,
a record of vision ... a team of Barack Obama and Joe Biden can
convince Democrats, Republicans and independents to support a ticket of
change in November."
Most Democratic delegates were putting the rough-and-tumble primary
contest behind them and focusing on electing the first black
presidential nominee of a major political party. The night was turned
over to Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife of nearly 16 years, to
allow the potential first lady a prime-time speech meant to serve a
dual purpose: humanize Obama and show up her own critics before her
largest audience yet.
"Our stories are the quintessential American stories," she said in an
interview CNN aired Monday. "I am here because of the opportunities
that my father had, that my mother had. You know, we are who Americans
were supposed to be."
With Democrats and convention delegates streaming to the Mile High
City, party officials worked to assure a harmonious week.
Biden headed by plane to Denver on Monday after making an unannounced
visit to the Amtrak train station in Wilmington, Del, that he has used
for years to commute to Washington and his day job in the Senate.
"These guys have been my family," said Biden as he greeted vendors and
travelers. Biden has taken Amtrak during his 35 years in the Senate. He
visited the station with his wife, Jill, and his security detail.
Biden said his Wednesday night convention speech "is all ready."
At some point during the week, Clinton was expected to release the
delegates she won in primaries and caucuses and encourage them to
support her former rival.
On Sunday, by unanimous vote, the party's credentials committee
restored full voting rights to delegates from Florida and Michigan. The
party had stripped both states of their convention voting rights for
holding primaries before the rules said they could. The new committee
vote was taken at Obama's behest, and Democrats hope the goodwill
gesture will help improve their standing in two important states.
Obama, slowly making his way to Denver via a tour of battleground
states, said Sunday that one of his goals is for voters to come away
from the convention thinking he is one of them. His uncommon name and
family background still concern some voters.
"I think what you'll conclude is, 'He's sort of like us,'" Obama said
in Eau Claire, Wis. "'He comes from a middle-class background. He went
to school on scholarships. He had to pay off student loans. He and his
wife had to worry about child care. They had to figure out how to start
a college fund for their kids.'"
Obama closes the convention Thursday night when the action shifts to
Invesco Field at Mile High stadium, where the 47-year-old, first-term
senator will give his speech accepting the nomination from the 50-yard
line. He said Sunday he was "still tooling around with my speech a
little bit."
He is scheduled to campaign Monday in Iowa.
McCain, meanwhile, wasn't disappearing from the campaign trail
entirely. He was using an appearance Monday on "The Tonight Show with
Jay Leno" and newspaper interviews to stay in touch with voters. And,
there's continued interest in his choice of a running mate.
Besides Michelle Obama, other speakers Monday night include Barack
Obama's sister, Maya Soetero-Ng, and Craig Robinson, his
brother-in-law. The schedule also includes former Rep. Jim Leach of
Iowa, a Republican moderate who broke ranks with his party this month
and endorsed Obama.
Blitzer:
Democrats kick off major
marketing in Denver
By Wolf Blitzer , CNN Anchor (Sunday, August 24, 2008)
DENVER, Colorado (CNN) -- And now
the selling begins. CNN's
Wolf Blitzer says Democrats need to sell Barack Obama to voters.
The Democrats need to do some major
marketing at their party convention in Denver, Colorado. First and foremost, they need to sell
Sen. Barack Obama. They need to convince American voters that he's the
right man to lead the country. That sales campaign kicks off Monday
night with the focus on Obama's personal story. It is an amazing
success story that will be told on the big screen inside the Pepsi
Center.
The video, we are told, will be
dramatic and highly produced, including some powerful music. And it
will be amplified by his wife, Michelle, who speaks Monday night.
Barack Obama's sister Maya
Soetero-Ng, and Michelle's brother, Craig Robinson, will also speak.
It also will be an emotional night
as the Democrats pay tribute to Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has brain cancer.
Beyond the personal and the
emotional, the sales campaign moves to more substance Tuesday night
with the focus on issue No. 1: the economy. The Democrats are calling
their theme that night "Renewing America's Promise."
Sen. Hillary Clinton will be the
headline prime-time speaker. This will be a critically important speech
because so many of her supporters remain unconvinced about Obama. The
tone she sets and the words she utters will send out a powerful message.
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner
will deliver the keynote address that night. He is running for the U.S.
Senate to succeed John Warner (no relation). There's a history to these speeches.
Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democrats' last convention,
and we know where he wound up.
The focus shifts to national
security and foreign policy Wednesday night in what the Democrats are
calling "Securing America's Future."
Sen. Joe Biden, the vice
presidential nominee, will deliver the big speech. He will speak and
make the case for Obama and, perhaps even more important, make the case
against McCain. Knowing
Biden as I do, this will be a feisty moment.
Former President Clinton will weigh
in that night with a major speech of his own. That also should be a
moment.
Finally, the festivities move to
INVESCO Field at Mile High Stadium for the biggest night of the week:
when Obama accepts his party's nomination. About 80,000 people will fill the
stadium. Tens of millions will be watching at home. No surprise on his
theme for the night: "Change You Can Believe In."
That message brought him to the big
dance, and he and his team believe that it can get him to the finish
line.

Palin
rallies tea partiers with anti-tax message
YAHOO
By GLEN JOHNSON, AP Political Writer
April 14, 2010
BOSTON – Sarah Palin rallied the tea party movement near its historical
roots with a pre-Tax Day message, telling Washington politicians that
government should be working for the people, not the other way around.
Addressing roughly 5,000 people assembled in the morning sunshine near
the site of the original Boston Tea Party, the 2008 Republican vice
presidential nominee accused President Barack Obama of overreaching
with his $787 billion stimulus program and criticized the
administration's health care, student loan and financial regulatory
overhauls.
"Is this what their `change' is all about?" Palin asked the crowd on
Boston Common. "I want to tell 'em, nah, we'll keep clinging to our
Constitution and our guns and religion — and you can keep the change."
With husband Todd looking on, she added: "We need to cut taxes, so that
our families can keep more of what they earn and produce and our
mom-and-pops then, our small businesses, can reinvest according to our
own priorities, and hire more people and let the private sector grow
and thrive and prosper."
Palin, who served as Alaska's governor for 2 1/2 years, played to the
crowd as she trotted out a trademark line while lobbying for more
domestic energy production.
"Yeah, let's drill baby drill, not stall baby stall_ you betcha," she
said.
The gathering harkened back to 1773, when American colonists upset
about British taxation without government representation threw British
tea into the harbor in protest.
"I feel like I'm taking care of my son and daughter and grandchildren's
business," said Mary Lou O'Connell, 72, of Duxbury. She listed "deceit"
and "gentle corrosion of the political process" as two concerns and
toted a sign reading, "Start Deleting Corruption Nov. 2010."
Another attendee, John Arathuzik, 69, of Topsfield, said he had never
been especially politically active until he saw the direction of the
Obama administration.
"I feel like I can do one of two things: I can certainly vote in
November, which I'll do, and I can provide support for the peaceful
protest about the direction this country is taking," said Arathuzik, a
veteran who clutched a copy of the Constitution distributed by one of
the vendors who had set up shop amid locals heading to work and walking
their dogs.
A festive mood filled the air. A band played patriotic music, and
hawkers sold yellow Gadsden flags emblazoned with the words "Don't
Tread on Me" and the image of a rattlesnake.
Notably absent was Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican who in January won
the seat held for half a century by liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy.
He cited congressional business, which included hearings about the
Iranian nuclear program.
"That's a heck of a lot more important than him being here right now,"
conservative talk show host Mark Williams told the crowd.
Brown kept the movement at a respectful distance during his campaign
last winter, concerned if he gets too close, he risks being aligned
with the tea party's more radical followers. Some have questioned the
legitimacy of everything from President Barack Obama's U.S. birthplace
to his college degree.
The rally was the next-to-last event in the 20-day, 47-city Tea Party
Express tour concluding Thursday in Washington.
Palin also helped kick off the tour in Searchlight, Nev., hometown of
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democratic target of the movement.
Page last updated at 08:02 GMT, Thursday, 19
November 2009
Hurricane Palin
rolls into town
|
By Kevin Connolly
BBC News, Grand Rapids Michigan
|

Whatever happens in American politics in the course of the
next
three years, we will remember this as the day when Hurricane Palin blew
through the normally placid streets of Grand Rapids Michigan.
And
there are plenty of supporters of Sarah Palin who are hoping we will
look back on it as the day when the opening shots of Campaign 2012 were
fired.
Officially of course, it was merely the start of the
promotional tour for Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue - a curious
volume which manages to combine folksy recollections of childhood with
some pointed score-settling aimed at the hapless spin-doctors who
"handled" her during her failed run for the vice-presidency.
But it felt like something much more.
Adoring fans
Not
just an early premonition of what a Palin Primary rally might look like
in 2012 either - this was one of America's major political players
reconnecting with the base which she energises and which in turn
energises her.
American history may be littered with
politicians who have run more successful campaigns than Mrs Palin and
there are certainly plenty who have written better books - but there is
something special in the connection between Alaska's former governor
and the base which adores her.
The line of a couple of thousand
supporters waiting to have her sign their copy of "Going Rogue" snaked
up and down the spacious corridors of the Woodland Mall past the
premises of such homely businesses as the Red Robin Diner and the
Cosmic Candy Company.
They are all perfectly well aware of
course that most politicians and pundits in what they call the "liberal
elite media" tend to despise Mrs Palin for her lack of political
sophistication, her folksiness and her apparently sketchy grasp of how
the wider world works.
Sarah Palin's fan base includes teenagers
|
And they do not care - indeed they love her for it.
For them
she is the underdog endlessly picked on by sneering commentators on
mainstream television and in the big city newspapers.
Local business consultant Mike Crane who was waiting
somewhere near the head of the line explained it to me.
"She's
one of us," he said simply. "We're hard-working, 9-to-5 Joes and like
her we didn't go to the elite universities that other politicians went
to. She understands real life and she understands America."
And
the America she understands came out in force to greet her in Grand
Rapids - one or two women in the crowd knitted placidly as they waited
anywhere between 10 and 15 hours for a few seconds of one-on-one time
with their heroine.
Several wore "Palin For President" badges.
One man sported a T-shirt with a quote from Jefferson about the
importance of keeping government small.
There were more women
than men, and more people over 45 than under it. The oldest Palinite I
met was 82 (she was taking advantage of a massage chair which was for
sale in a shop beside the bookstore where Mrs Palin appeared) and the
youngest was around 10.
"She's cool," he informed me simply. "Write that down."
 |
She's shown me that I
can achieve anything, and be anything I want to be 
|
At the very head of the line we found a group of local
teenagers who
had waited overnight to make sure they were first to be ushered into
the governor's presence.
They must have passed a rather eerie
night in the deserted mall with the Christmas decorations winking
silently down on them from the high, dark ceilings above.
It was, they assured me, well worth it.
One of them, Nichole Perrine, said Mrs Palin was her hero.
"She's
shown me that I can achieve anything, and be anything I want to be,"
she told me… a characteristic you often hear attributed to Barack
Obama, interestingly enough.
When I asked Laura Lomik what she
planned to say to Mrs Palin she said: "I'm going to ask her to please
run for president in 2012."
When I caught up with the two
19-year-olds afterwards they insisted their brief meetings with the
governor had been well worth the wait - there is a kind of magic about
her, they confirmed - but they got no further than Oprah Winfrey or
Barbara Walters in discovering whether Mrs Palin still has presidential
ambitions.
So, let's consider the evidence.
Mrs Palin's
book is a little light on ideology and big ideas but that probably does
not matter very much in modern America where politicians run on their
life stories and their ability to relate it to the lives of voters.
Thousands of people queued up to see Ms
Palin
|
It worked for Barack Obama (although he did throw in a bit of
ideology) so there is no reason why it should not work for Sarah Palin.
The book tour too looks a little like a campaign swing -
running
as it does through key marginal areas, regions of high unemployment and
a couple of places (like this bit of Michigan) where any credible
Republican contender for the presidency will have to do pretty well.
She is a little coy on the matter herself, but then these are
early days and so is everyone else.
She
talks of working to support other conservative candidates for office in
the 2010 mid-terms when Republicans might do rather well.
And of course as she points out, you can serve the public
without holding public office.
Powerful force
Mrs
Palin made sure for example that her voice was heard in the national
debate on health care - she it was who started the debate over whether
or not government rationing of medical budgets might lead to the
appointment of "Death Panels".
That startling claim had the White House on the back foot
this summer and helped raise conservative morale.
But
the most compelling evidence of all that there is plenty more to come
from Sarah Palin was in the nature of the crowd she drew here.
Her
followers do not merely agree with her, they love her and, while she
may alienate other Americans in equal or greater numbers, that makes
her a force to be reckoned with.
Whatever other American
politicians may say about her, however hard she may be for foreigners
to understand and regardless of the pundits, any rival candidate
looking at the crowds in Grand Rapids - and the crowds to come - will
be envious. And perhaps a little worried.
Obama
Administration's Atrocious Decision
Yesterday at 1:39pm
Horrible decision, absolutely horrible. It is devastating for so many
of us to hear that the Obama Administration decided that the 9/11
terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be given a criminal
trial in New York. This is an atrocious decision.
Mohammed and his terrorist co-conspirators are responsible for the
deaths of more than 3,000 Americans. Thousands of American families
have suffered through the loss of loved ones because of the disgusting
attacks launched against the United States, and now this trial venue
adds insult to injury, in addition to compromising our efforts in the
War on Terror. Heaven forbid our allies see this decision as a reason
to become less likely to support our efforts in the future.
Criminal defense attorneys will now enter into delaying tactics and
other methods in the hope of securing some kind of win for their
“clients.” The trial will afford Mohammed the opportunity to grandstand
and make use of his time in front of the world media to rally his
disgusting terrorist cohorts. It will also be an insult to the victims
of 9/11, as Mohammed will no doubt use the opportunity to spew his
hateful rhetoric in the same neighborhood in which he ruthlessly cut
down the lives of so many Americans.
It is crucially important that Americans be made aware that the
mastermind of the 9/11 attacks may walk away from this trial without
receiving just punishment because of a “hung jury” or from any variety
of court room technicalities. If we are stuck with this terrible Obama
Administration decision, I, like most Americans, hope that Mohammed and
his co-conspirators are convicted. Hang ‘em high.
I wholeheartedly support the survivors and the families of the victims
in their appeal to the president regarding this matter. You can read
more about it here.
- Sarah Palin
The
Pelosi Bill Was Rammed Through on Saturday, But Sunday’s Coming
FACEBOOK
Yesterday at 10:34pm (Alaska time, we assume)
We’ve got to hold on to hope, and we’ve got to fight hard because
Congressional action tonight just put America on a path toward an
unrecognizable country.
The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and
the car business are now getting us into the health care business.
Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the
troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken
her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through
the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the
2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers
and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read
this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that
Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall
Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation
ever introduced”?
This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our
economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam
businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates –
the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new
bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will
rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market.
Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer
one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac now want to run our health care. Think about that.
All of us who value the sanctity of life are grateful for the success
of the pro-life majority in the House this evening in its battle
against federal funding of abortion in this bill, but it’s ironic
because we were promised that abortion wasn’t covered in the bill to
begin with. Our healthy distrust of these government leaders made us
look deeper into the bill because unfortunately we knew better than to
trust what they were saying. The victory tonight to amend the bill and
eliminate that federal funding for abortion was great – because
abortion is not health care. Now we can only hope that Rep. Stupak’s
amendment will hold in the final bill, though the Democratic leadership
has already refused to promise that it won’t be scrapped later.
We had been told there were no “death panels” in the bill either. But
look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will
be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care.
Look closely at provisions addressing illegal aliens’ health care
coverage too.
Those of us who love freedom and believe in open and transparent
government can only be dismayed by midnight action on a Saturday.
Speaker Pelosi’s promise that Americans would have 72 hours to read the
final bill before the vote was just another one of the D.C.
establishment’s too-common political ploys. It’s broken promises like
this that turn people off to politics and leave them disillusioned
about the future of their country.
But despite this late-night maneuvering, many of us were paying close
attention tonight. We’ll keep paying close attention. We need to let
our legislators in Washington know that they still represent us, and
that the majority of Americans are not in favor of the “reform” they
are pushing. After all, this is still a country “of the people, by the
people, and for the people.” We will make our voices heard. It’s on to
the Senate now. Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in
2010. It’s their choice.
Palin
Speaks to Investors in Hong Kong
NYTIMES
By MARK McDONALD
September 24, 2009
HONG KONG — Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first speech
overseas, spoke on Wednesday to Asian bankers, investors and fund
managers.
A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom,
which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90
minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling.
“The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all
expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the
Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners.
“She didn’t sound at all like a far-right-wing conservative. She seemed
to be positioning herself as a libertarian or a small-c conservative,”
he said, adding that she mentioned both Ronald Reagan and Margaret
Thatcher. “She brought up both those names.”
Mrs. Palin said she was speaking as “someone from Main Street U.S.A.,”
and she touched on her concerns about oversized federal bailouts and
the unsustainable American government deficit. She did not repeat her
attack from last month that the Obama administration’s health care
proposals would create a “death panel” that would allow federal
bureaucrats to decide who is “worthy of health care.”
Cameron Sinclair, another speaker at the event, said Mrs. Palin
emphasized the need for a grassroots rebirth of the Republican Party
driven by party leaders outside Washington.
A number of attendees thought Mrs. Palin, the former vice presidential
candidate, was using the speech to begin to broaden her foreign policy
credentials before making a run for the presidency in 2012.
“She’s definitely a serious future presidential candidate, and I
understand why she plays so well in middle America,” said Mr. Coulter,
a Canadian.
Mrs. Palin was faulted during the campaign last year for her lack of
foreign policy experience and expertise. As the governor of Alaska, she
said in her own defense, she had a unique insight because “you can
actually see Russia from land here in Alaska” — a remark that was
widely lampooned.
Accompanying Mrs. Palin to Hong Kong was Randy Scheunemann, the former
foreign policy adviser to John McCain, who lost the 2008 election to
President Obama.
Mrs. Palin did not take questions from the media after the speech, and
there was a high degree of security and secrecy around the event. Only
invited guests and a handful of employees from CLSA, the brokerage
house that sponsored the event, were allowed inside the ballroom.
A CLSA spokeswoman declined to confirm a rumor that Mrs. Palin was paid
$300,000 for her Hong Kong appearance.
When she resigned as governor in July, Mrs. Palin cited numerous
reasons for stepping down, including more than $500,000 in legal fees
that she and her husband, Todd, incurred because of 15 ethics
complaints filed against her during her two and a half years in office.
Mr. Coulter said CLSA has a history of inviting keynote speakers who
are “newsworthy and potentially controversial.” Other previous speakers
at the conference have included Al Gore, Alan Greenspan, Bono and
Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Mrs. Palin’s speech took place at the Grand Hyatt on the Victoria
Harbor waterfront and amid the soaring towers of corporate giants like
AIG, HSBC and the Bank of China. Some attendees saw Hong Kong as an
auspicious place for her first major international appearance.
Melvin Goodé, a regional marketing consultant, thought Mrs.
Palin chose Hong Kong because, he said, it was “a place where things
happen and where freedom can be expanded upon.”
“It’s not Beijing or Shanghai,” said Mr. Goodé . “She also
mentioned Tibet, Burma and North Korea in the same breath as places
where China should be more sensitive and careful about how people are
treated. She said it on a human-rights level.”
Mr. Goodé, an African-American who said he did some campaign
polling for President Obama, said Mrs. Palin mentioned President Obama
three times on Wednesday.
“And there was nothing derogatory in it, no sleight of hand, and
believe me, I was listening for that,” he said, adding that Mrs. Palin
referred to Mr. Obama as “our president,” with the emphasis on “our.”
Mr. Goodé, a New Yorker who said he would never vote for Mrs.
Palin, said she acquitted herself well.
“They really prepared her well,” he said. “She was articulate and she
held her own. I give her credit. They’ve tried to categorize her as not
being bright. She’s bright.”
Palin
goes after Obama on energy
July 14, 2009@ 8:44 am by Jeremy P. Jacobs, THE HILL
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), who,
let's face it, has been everywhere recently, grabbed a hold of the
cap-and-trade legislation recently passed by the House and President
Obama's energy policy in a Washington Post op-ed on Tuesday.
Palin decries that national media's
"focus on personality-driven political gossip of the day" over
substance. And, "at the risk of disappointing the chattering class,"
says she is most concerned with President Obama's energy policy.
"I am deeply
concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I
believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our
recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.
"American
prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant,
affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent
link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy
and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state
recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely
affect every aspect of the U.S. economy."
Palin goes on to say the the
legislation will cost the country jobs and says the legislation will
cause electricity bills to rise dramatically.
The Republican also criticizes
Obama's energy policy for outsourcing energy abroad.
"We have an
important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and
its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China,
Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will
result in the latter."
And finally, Palin takes a shot at
Obama's campaign slogan. "Yes, we can," Palin wrote. "Just not with
Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan."
The op-ed is likely designed to
serve two purposes. First, the Palin camp probably wants to change the
channel from the focus on the coverage of Palin since her resignation
announcement which has not been particularly substantive.
And second, it seeks to establish
Palin's credentials on an issue - energy - that was touted as her
strong suit when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) selected her as his running
mate last year. In the campaign, that expertise was rarely highlighted,
though.
EXCLUSIVE:
Palin plans to stay in politics
By Ralph Z. Hallow,
Washington TIMES
Sunday, July 12, 2009
ANCHORAGE, Alaska |
Brushing aside the criticisms of pundits and politicos, Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin said she plans to jump immediately back into the national
political fray — stumping for conservative issues and even Democrats —
after she prematurely vacates her elected post at month's end.
The former Republican
vice-presidential nominee and heroine to much of the GOP's base said in
an interview she views the electorate as embattled and fatigued by
nonstop partisanship, and she is eager to campaign for Republicans,
independents and even Democrats who share her values on limited
government, strong defense and "energy independence."
"I will go around the country on
behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of
their party label or affiliation," she said over lunch in her downtown
office, 40 miles from her now-famous hometown of Wasilla — population
7,000 — where she began her political career.
"People are so tired of the partisan
stuff — even my own son is not a Republican," said Mrs. Palin, who
stunned the political world earlier this month with her decision to
step down as governor July 26 with 18 months left in her term.
Both her son, Track, 20, an enlisted
soldier serving in Iraq, and her husband, Todd, are registered as
"nonpartisan" in Alaska.
Mrs. Palin, who vaulted to national
prominence when Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, chose her as his
running mate last August, left the door open for a future presidential
bid.
But she shot down speculation among
Republicans that she might challenge incumbent Alaska Sen. Lisa
Murkowski for the party's nomination to the Senate next year, and she
blamed her resignation as governor on the nasty, hardball tactics that
last year's presidential campaign brought to her state...
R E P U B
L I C A
N T I C K E T 2 0 0 8

From YouTube, Carly Fiorina comments
A Glimpse of the
New
NYTIMES
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 4, 2008
ST. PAUL
Political parties usually reform in
the wilderness. They suffer some crushing defeat, the old guard is
discredited and the pain compels turnover and change. John McCain is
trying to reform the Republican Party before a presidential defeat,
with the old guard still around, and with a party base that still
hasn’t accepted the need to transform. The central drama of this week’s
convention was the struggle by reform Republicans to break through the
gravitational pull of old habits and create something new.
Before the convention, some McCain
aides wanted to sunder the links to the past in one bold stroke: Name
Joe Lieberman as the vice presidential nominee, promise to serve only
one term, vow to take a hiatus from partisanship and work by compromise
to get things done. That proved to be a leap too far.
So McCain was pulled back. But he
refused to stay there and pressed ahead by picking Sarah Palin. At
first, this seemed like the fresh break he needed. Her career in Alaska
has been nibbled on the edges, but the key fact is this: When the
testing time came, she quit her government job, put her career on the
line and took on the corrupt establishment of her own party.
But again, the forces of the past
pulled McCain back. Parts of the press pack elevated Bristol Palin’s
pregnancy. A controversy over human reproduction brought back the old
culture wars and the mommy wars. Battle lines formed, as in the days of
Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, and everyone took their pre-assigned
roles.
Millions declared themselves
qualified to judge her a bad mother, while others held her up as the
model of evangelical virtue. And, of course, the whole thing became
enmeshed in the clichés of red-blue: the supposed conflict
between the condescending media elites and the gun-owning trailer
trash, between abortion-rights urban women with one kid and
anti-abortion rural women with five.
For 36 hours, the gravitational pull
of past resentments dominated the media-culture war complex. And from
the convention podium the past and the future fought to a draw. On the
one hand, Joe Lieberman went up there and praised Bill Clinton, giving
a glimpse of what a less partisan political future might look like. On
the other, there was Mitt Romney, who delivered a cynical, extreme
caricature of old-line Republicanism.
The convention thus sat on a
knife-edge. And then Palin walked onstage. She gave a tough vice
presidential speech, with maybe a few more jabs than necessary. Still
it was stupendous to see a young woman emerge from nowhere to give a
smart and assertive speech.
And what was most impressive was her
speech’s freshness. Her words flowed directly from her life experience,
her poise and mannerisms from her town and its conversations. She left
behind most of the standard tropes of Republican rhetoric (compare her
text to the others) and skated over abortion and the social issues.
There wasn’t even any tired, old Reagan nostalgia.
Instead, her language resonated more
of supermarket aisle than the megachurch pulpit. More than the men on
the tickets, she embodies the spirit of the moment: impatient, fed up,
tough-minded, but ironical. Even in attack, she projected the
cheerfulness of someone confident about the future.
In those 40 minutes, the forces of
reform Republicanism took control, at least for a time. Republicans
started talking about Palin, Bobby Jindal and a brighter future for
their party.
In his own speech on Thursday,
McCain showed that he is not naturally the smoothest of speakers. He
did not have an over-arching story to describe how the world has
changed in the 21st century and how government must adapt.
He did not lay out a new doctrine to
give shape to his administration. Bill Clinton had a new Democratic
agenda to describe how his party would evolve, and in 2000, George W.
Bush had compassionate conservatism. McCain had nothing like that. He
did not offer as transformational a domestic policy agenda as one would
have liked.
But he described traditional
conservatism-plus: low taxes and free markets with some activism built
on top; compensating workers for lost wages when plants close; a grand
national project for energy independence. Through it all, he
communicated his burning indignation at the way Washington has operated
over the last 12 years. He communicated his intense passion to lift
government to a plane the country deserves. He did note that he has
fought to change the Republican Party during its period of decay. And
he diagnosed that decay Thursday night (to the tepid applause of the
faithful).
And this passion for change,
combined with his proven and evident integrity, led to the crescendo of
raw energy that marked this convention’s conclusion.
His policies are still not quite
there yet, but McCain has the heart of an insurgent.
Lieberman leads
GOP cheers in St. Paul
New
Haven REGISTER
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 5:30 AM
EDT
By the Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — President Bush led
a convention chorus of praise for John McCain Tuesday night, hailing
him as a "ready to lead this nation" and a courageous candidate who
risked his White House ambitions to support an unpopular Iraq war.
Republicans rallied forcefully behind vice presidential running mate
Sarah Palin in the face of fresh controversy.
Barack Obama drew criticism from the
convention podium when Sen. Joseph Lieberman said the Democratic
presidential candidate voted to cut off funding "for our troops on the
ground" in Iraq last year. By contrast, Lieberman, who was the
Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2000, said McCain had the
courage "to stand against the tide of public opinion."
McCain was in Pennsylvania and Ohio
during the day, campaigning his way into the convention city where the
72-year-old Arizona senator will deliver his formal acceptance speech
on Thursday night.
Hundreds of miles to the west, in
St. Paul, about two dozen men who were Vietnam prisoners with him a
generation ago sparked chants of "USA, USA" when they were introduced
to the delegates.
Bush reprised the national security
themes that propelled him to a second term as he spoke — briefly — from
the White House. "We need a president who understands the lessons of
Sept. 11, 2001," he said in prepared remarks. "That to protect America,
we must stay on offense, stop attacks before they happen and not wait
to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain."
Inside the convention hall, former
Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson delivered a strong defense of Palin. He
said the Alaska governor, was "from a small town, with small town
values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking
her and her family."
He said McCain’s decision to place
her on the ticket "has the other side and their friends in the media in
a state of panic."
Other Republicans — delegates and
luminaries alike — defended Palin, who disclosed on Monday that her
17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant. In addition, a lawyer has
been hired to represent the governor in an ethics-related controversy
back home in Alaska.
Conservatives, slow to warm to
McCain even after he clinched the nomination last spring, were
particularly supportive.
"I haven’t seen anything that comes
out about her that in any way troubles me or shakes my confidence in
her," said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully
for the party’s presidential nomination this year.
"All it has done for me is say she
is a human person with a real family."
And Ron Nehring, chairman of the
California state party, said video footage of Palin on a firing range
was helping her cause.
"The reports I’m getting back is
that every time they show that footage we get 1,000 precinct walkers
from the NRA," he told members of his state’s delegation, to laughter.
"She cuts taxes and shoots moose. That’s Gov. Palin," Nehring said.
Thompson jabbed at Obama on
abortion, as well.
"We need a president who doesn’t
think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above
his pay grade," he said in prepared remarks, referring to a recent
episode in which McCain’s White House rival said it was "above my pay
grade" to decide the point at which an unborn child is entitled to
rights.
There were indications that
Republicans thought they could turn Palin-related controversy to
McCain’s gain. Officials said Levi Johnston, the 18-year-old father of
the baby Bristol Palin is expecting, was en route to the convention
from his home in Wasilla, Alaska.
McCain’s wife, Cindy, took in the
evening program from a VIP box. So, too, former President George H.W.
Bush, accompanied by his wife Barbara.
Bush, with his approval ratings in
the 30-percent range, was relegated to a relatively minor role at the
convention of a party that has twice nominated him to the White House.
The president scrapped a planned Monday night speech because of the
threat Hurricane Gustav posed to New Orleans. With polls making it
clear the nation is ready for a change, the McCain campaign indicated
there was no reason for him to make the trip to St. Paul.
The president referred to the years
of torture McCain endured as a prisoner of war. Then Bush added, "If
the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is
best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will."
"As president he will stand up to
the high tax crowd in Congress ... and lift the ban for drilling on
America’s offshore oil," Bush added.
Republicans handed Lieberman the
prime spot in the evening lineup, and he blended praise for McCain with
criticism of Obama.
"When others wanted to retreat in
defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut
off funding for our troops on the ground, John McCain had the courage
to stand against the tide of public opinion," the Connecticut
Democratic-turned-independent senator said in excerpts released in
advance of his speech.
The decision to place Lieberman out
front on the convention’s second night capped an unprecedented
political migration. Only eight years ago, he stood before a cheering
throng at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and
accepted the nomination as Al Gore’s running mate.
In the years since, he lost badly in
2004 when he sought the Democratic presidential nomination, lost a
Democratic nomination for a new term at home in Connecticut in 2006,
then recovered quickly to win re-election as an independent.
Back in the Senate, his vote allows
the Democrats to command a narrow majority, yet he has been one of the
most outspoken supporters of the war in Iraq. He has traveled widely
with McCain in recent months, and occasionally has angered Democrats
with remarks critical of Obama.
One day after a frightening Gulf
Coast hurricane prompted a subdued opening to the McCain convention,
political combat enjoyed a resurgence.
McCain’s aides disputed a claim that
vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin had once been a member of a
third party — and accused Democratic rival Obama’s camp of spreading
false information.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said
that as far as he’d seen, "the only person talking about her being in
the Alaska Independence Party is the head of the Alaska Independence
Party."
"Their gripe is with those folks,"
he said of the McCain campaign.
Protesters outside the hall vowed to
resume demonstrations that turned violent on Monday and resulted in 286
arrests.
8 Years Later,
Lieberman Extols McCain
NYTIMES
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: September 2, 2008
ST. PAUL — Senator Joseph I.
Lieberman’s speech to Republicans here on Tuesday night represented the
culmination of an improbable path for a politician who just eight years
ago was accepting the Democratic nomination for vice president and
hailing his party’s nominee, Al Gore, as “a man of courage and
conviction.”
During that time, Mr. Lieberman came
to champion, with Mr. McCain, the American invasion of Iraq, and in
doing so was frozen out by liberals in his party and denied
renomination as a Democrat to the Senate. He won re-election as an
independent, in 2006, and spoke to Republicans on Tuesday portraying
himself as a man who transcends party lines.
“Dear friends, I’m here because John
McCain’s whole life testifies to a great truth: being a Democrat or a
Republican is important, but it is nowhere near as important as being
an American,” Mr. Lieberman said to cheers, as electronic screens
around the convention hall here flashed “Country First,” one of Mr.
McCain’s campaign themes.
Mr. Lieberman and Mr. McCain have
been close friends for more than a dozen years, working together on
peace in the Balkans, regulations of gun shows after the Columbine High
School shootings and promoting measures to curb carbon emissions. But
it was the Iraq war that marked the turning point in Mr. Lieberman’s
journey to the McCain camp.
His invitation to speak here was
largely because of their political kinship as Washington leaders who
have often felt uncomfortable in the boundaries of their parties.
Only last month, friends say, Mr.
McCain wanted to reach beyond his base and ask Mr. Lieberman to be his
running mate; in that instance, though, party influence proved too
strong, with many Republican officials and delegates insisting they
would reject Mr. Lieberman because of his support for abortion rights
and some gay rights laws.
Mr. Lieberman’s address received
some of the biggest applause of the night in the convention hall,
topped perhaps only by a filmed tribute to President Ronald Reagan.
“It really represents one of the
main reasons I love McCain,” said Nathaniel Dublin, a delegate from
Newton, Mass. “He’s not caught up in this partisanship.” Mr. Dublin
said he thought the speech worked in “changing the attitudes of all the
Democrats and even changing the attitudes of all the Republicans.”
Several Republicans said they were
counting on Mr. Lieberman’s speech to help dominate news coverage of
the convention this week — and perhaps, some hope, to eclipse President
Bush’s briefer remarks on Tuesday about Mr. McCain and Iraq.
If viewers came away from Mr. Bush’s
speech on Tuesday assuming that he and Mr. McCain were inseparable on
Iraq — a point Democrats are pushing — it is Mr. Lieberman who stands
as a reminder that he and Mr. McCain wanted a larger American military
presence in Iraq in the first, bloodiest years after the invasion, when
Mr. Bush opposed sending more troops.
If Mr. Lieberman has long found
himself on the outs with many Democrats, he also won his old party an
ovation in St. Paul on Tuesday night when he compared Senator Barack
Obama, unflatteringly, with none other than President Bill Clinton,
whom Mr. Lieberman criticized sharply in 1998 for his affair with
Monica Lewinsky.
Mr. Lieberman, to applause, said Mr.
Obama did not measure up to Mr. McCain or even to Mr. Clinton, who
“worked with Republicans to get important things done,” like welfare
reform and free trade agreements.
Of course, Mr. Clinton has had some
nice things to say about Mr. McCain this year, though the former
president has endorsed Mr. Obama — and certainly has not moved as far
as Mr. Lieberman to receive an invitation to the Republican hall.
State delegation worried about security
CTPOST
PETER URBAN
Article Last Updated: 09/03/2008 12:40:46 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — A day after their run-in with protesters, the Connecticut
delegation hired a security detail to accompany them into the
Republican National Convention Tuesday evening.
GOP State Party Chairman Chris Healy said Tuesday afternoon that the
delegation "retained a couple of off-duty policemen" to accompany them
as they make their way into the Xcel Center in St. Paul, Minn.
On Monday, anti-war protesters attacked the delegation as they
attempted to walk from their chartered bus to the convention. No one
was seriously hurt, but several members had water laced with bleach
splashed on them and at least one member had his credentials stolen.
Delegate Fred Biebel, 83, a former Stratford town councilman and a
former deputy national chairman of the Republican National Committee,
had his credentials snagged by a protester and was examined by
paramedics afterward because he had trouble breathing. And former Rep.
Rob Simmons, R-2, of Stonington, was hit in the face with
bleach-tainted water.
"I was in the middle of that scrum yesterday, and I can tell you it got
a little scary. Some of the knuckleheads had that look in their eye,"
Healy said during a telephone conference call with Connecticut-based
reporters.
Healy said that the delegation had chartered a bus to take them to the
convention center rather than rely on shuttle buses provided by the
convention. The shuttles, which have been pre-screened, take delegates
directly into the secured convention site. The charter bus, which
was not pre-screened, dropped them about three blocks from the Xcel
Center at the corner of Kellogg Boulevard and Wabasha Street, outside
the secured area.
Delegate Michael Garrett, of Bridgeport, said Tuesday in a telephone
interview that the delegation disembarked outside the Xcel Center
perimeter and walked several blocks before being confronted by the
protesters.
"They were adamant that they weren't going to let us through. They
started pushing and shoving and grabbing for our credentials," Garrett
said.
Simmons said Tuesday in a telephone interview that the protesters took
advantage of a security breach to attack them. The delegation, he
said, was told after leaving from the bus to cross the street and head
to the secured area. Mounted police escorted them about halfway to the
fenced area but departed after being called off to another area where
demonstrators had gathered.
"The mob swarmed across the street and took us totally by surprise. The
police shouldn't have allowed it to happen," Simmons said.
Simmons stepped between the protesters, who were grabbing for
credentials, and some of the older delegates.
"They sprayed me in the face and on my clothes," Simmons said. "It was
an ugly, inexcusable incident."
The delegation eventually forced its way through the protesters and
made it into the enclosed area. Biebel, whose credentials were snatched
from his neck, was having trouble breathing. He was eventually seated
in a wheelchair and a paramedic examined him to make sure he was OK.
Simmons and about a dozen others who were sprayed with the bleach water
were washed down.
Garrett said that he believed the FBI recovered Biebel's credentials.
"We saw the peace demonstrators earlier who were peaceable. These
protesters were spoiling for a fight. And they had cameras to take
pictures of anyone retaliating," Garrett said. "I saw them surging and
going after especially the women. I was fending them off to blaze a
path through. The sidewalk was totally obstructed; we had to walk
through them as they bumped and shoved."
Garrett said that the protesters, whom he believed were anarchists,
were trying to intimidate them but it didn't work.
"It only firmed our resolve. We weren't going to stop," he said.
Simmons said that Connecticut Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele had contacted
local police officials seeking a report on the incident to find out
more about who the protesters were.
"This was organized. They didn't just walk off some campus and use
these tactics," Simmons said. "I'd like to know who is behind it."
Connecticut
Delegation
targeted...earlier story:
"...Simmons said the protesters first went after 82-year-old
delegate Fred Biebel, who was in the middle of the group, ripping
Biebel's credential from his neck. The delegation was able to get it
back, Simmons said. The protesters also targeted Lila Healy, the mother
of Chris Healy, the state Republican chairman, Simmons said.
Simmons said he, delegate Anthony Ravosa and state Sen. Tony
Guglielmo stepped in to try to protect Biebel and the others, at which
point the protesters locked arms and tried to pin the delegation
against a wall. The delegation was able to push through and walk
another block to the security gates, but Simmons said police there did
little more than prevent the protesters from getting through the gates.
'They did very little, if anything, to assist because the
demonstrators had cameras and I think the police were afraid to be
filmed,' Simmons said.
Simmons said he found a security officer who helped him find a golf
cart to take Biebel to the convention center's entrance. But the Secret
Service refused them entry, he said, until officials could determine
what they had been sprayed with.
Simmons said tests showed the liquid contained an oxidant, which he
assumed was bleach, and said it had discolored his pants. He added that
no one from the state delegation went to the hospital and all were
treated on scene by emergency medical technicians.
He said he was unsure who the group represented. They were wearing
anti-war and anti-George Bush shirts, he said, but didn't have signs."
Hurricane
Gustav blows away day one of the Convention...blows from "THE
WEATHERMEN" cause CT delegates minor injury in attack (from
the DAY); Senator John
McCain - I-BBC
commentary.
What the Palin Pick Says
NYTIMES
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 1, 2008
ST. PAUL
John McCain is not a normal conservative. He has instincts, but few
abstract convictions about the proper size of government. He’s a
traditionalist, but is not energized by the social conservative agenda.
As Rush Limbaugh understands, but the Democrats apparently do not, a
McCain administration would not be like a Bush administration.
The main axis in McCain’s worldview is not left-right. It’s public
service versus narrow self-interest. Throughout his career, he has been
drawn to those crusades that enabled him to launch frontal attacks on
the concentrated powers of selfishness — whether it was the big money
donors who exploited the loose campaign finance system, the earmark
specialists in Congress like Alaska’s Don Young and Ted Stevens, the
corrupt Pentagon contractors or Jack Abramoff.
When McCain met Sarah Palin last February, he was meeting the rarest of
creatures, an American politician who sees the world as he does. Like
McCain, Palin does not seem to have an explicit governing philosophy.
Her background is socially conservative, but she has not pushed that as
governor of Alaska. She seems to find it easier to work with liberal
Democrats than the mandarins in her own party.
Instead, she seems to get up in the morning to root out corruption.
McCain was meeting a woman who risked her career taking on the corrupt
Republican establishment in her own state, who twice defeated the oil
companies, who made mortal enemies of the two people McCain has always
held up as the carriers of the pork-barrel disease: Young and Stevens.
Many people are conditioned by their life experiences to see this
choice of a running mate through the prism of identity politics, but
that’s the wrong frame. Sarah Barracuda was picked because she lit up
every pattern in McCain’s brain, because she seems so much like himself.
The Palin pick allows McCain to run the way he wants to — not as the
old goat running against the fresh upstart, but as the crusader for
virtue against the forces of selfishness. It allows him to make
cleaning out the Augean stables of Washington the major issue of his
campaign.
So my worries about Palin are not (primarily) about her lack of
experience. She seems like a marvelous person. She is a dazzling
political performer. And she has experienced more of typical American
life than either McCain or his opponent. On Monday, an ugly feeding
frenzy surrounded her daughter’s pregnancy. But most Americans will
understand that this is what happens in real life, that parents and
congregations nurture young parents through this sort of thing every
day.
My worry about Palin is that she shares McCain’s primary weakness —
that she has a tendency to substitute a moral philosophy for a
political philosophy.
There are some issues where the most important job is to rally the
armies of decency against the armies of corruption: Confronting Putin,
tackling earmarks and reforming the process of government.
But most issues are not confrontations between virtue and vice. Most
problems — the ones Barack Obama is sure to focus on like health care
reform and economic anxiety — are the product of complex conditions.
They require trade-offs and policy expertise. They are not solvable
through the mere assertion of sterling character.
McCain is certainly capable of practicing the politics of compromise
and coalition-building. He engineered a complex immigration bill with
Ted Kennedy and global warming legislation with Joe Lieberman. But if
you are going to lead a vast administration as president, it really
helps to have a clearly defined governing philosophy, a conscious sense
of what government should and shouldn’t do, a set of communicable
priorities.
If McCain is elected, he will face conditions tailor-made to foster
disorder. He will be leading a divided and philosophically exhausted
party. There simply aren’t enough Republican experts left to staff an
administration, so he will have to throw together a hodgepodge with
independents and Democrats. He will confront Democratic majorities that
will be enraged and recriminatory.
On top of these conditions, he will have his own freewheeling
qualities: a restless, thrill-seeking personality, a tendency to
personalize issues, a tendency to lead life as a string of virtuous
crusades.
He really needs someone to impose a policy structure on his moral
intuitions. He needs a very senior person who can organize a vast
administration and insist that he tame his lone-pilot tendencies and
work through the established corridors — the National Security Council,
the Domestic Policy Council. He needs a near-equal who can turn his
instincts, which are great, into a doctrine that everybody else can
predict and understand.
Rob Portman or Bob Gates wouldn’t have been politically exciting, but
they are capable of performing those tasks. Palin, for all her gifts,
is not. She underlines McCain’s strength without compensating for his
weaknesses. The real second fiddle job is still unfilled.
Palin’s Teen Daughter Is Pregnant; New
G.O.P. Tumult
NYTIMES
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: September 1, 2008
ST. PAUL — The 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s
running mate, is five months pregnant, Mrs. Palin announced today,
adding a new element of tumult to a the Republican convention that had
already been disrupted by Hurricane Gustav.
The daughter, Bristol, plans to marry the father, the statement issued
by Governor Palin and her husband said.
“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we
knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned” Mrs.
Palin’s statement said. “As Bristol faces the responsibilities of
adulthood, she knows that she has our unconditional love and support.”
The announcement was intended to counter rumors by liberal bloggers
that Ms. Palin had claimed to have given birth to her fifth child in
April when, according to the rumors, the child was her daughter’s.
Groups that oppose abortion rights had been thrilled with Mr. McCain’s
selection of Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, as his running mate,
partly because of her opposition to abortion. It is not clear how
social conservatives will respond to the latest news.
Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist for the McCain campaign, was
surrounded by reporters and cameras as he walked through the media
center next door to the Excel Center. Asked over and over when and how
Mr. McCain found out about Bristol’s pregnancy, he repeated, “Senator
McCain was aware” of it and called it “a private family matter,” He
would not say when he found out or how, calling it a “private
conversation.”
“The fact is, John McCain had a thorough search and made the decision
to add Sarah Palin to the ticket because he believes,” he said, that
she “will change America.”
He said how big this becomes depends upon the media. “I think the
American people will see this news and they’d have good wishes for the
young lady and they’ll respect the privacy of the family,” he said.
Asked if Ms. Palin will be able to judge the demands of the
vice-presidency with her complicated family life, Mr. Schmidt said,
“She’s been a very effective governor and again I can’t imagine that
question being asked of a man.”
The McCain campaign says it was aware of her daughter’s pregnancy
before it named her as the running mate on Friday.
Mrs. Palin’s statement identified the father only by a first name,
Levi. “Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize
very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they
will have the love and support of our entire family,” the statement
said. “We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has
always been the tradition of children of candidates.”
In a brief press conference in Monroe, Mich., here to talk about
Hurricane Gustav, Senator Barack Obama was asked about the suggestion
by some Republicans that Democrats – particularly liberal bloggers –
have pushed a story about the family of Ms. Palin, who was named last
week as the running-mate for Senator John McCain. In a statement
earlier Monday, Ms. Palin said her daughter was pregnant.
Mr. Obama, in his first remarks on the matter, raised his voiced when
asked whether his campaign or other Democratic operatives were working
to advance rumors surrounding the Palin family.
“Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be,”
Mr. Obama snapped. “And if I ever thought there was somebody in my
campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired,
OK?”
Mr. Obama said the pregnancy “has no relevance to Governor Palin’s
performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice
president.” He added that, “my mother had me when she was 18. How
family deals with issues and teen-age children – that shouldn’t be the
topic of our politics.”
“So,” he added, “I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds
of stories.”
At a rally at a ballpark Saturday evening in Washington, Pa., Bristol
Palin did not join the rest of her family on stage.
“Then we have our daughter Bristol, she’s on the bus with the newborn,
and then we have our daughter Willow, who is here, and our youngest
daughter Piper,” Ms. Palin said as she introduced her family. “On that
bus we have our son Trig, who is a beautiful baby boy we welcomed into
the world just in April. It’s his naptime, so he is with his big sister
on the bus. But we thank them for being here. “
“And speaking of Trig, and other things, some of life’s greatest
opportunities come unexpectedly,” she said. “And this is certainly the
case today. I never really set out to be in public affairs, much less
to run for this office.”
A Star Is Born?
NYTIMES
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
Published: September 1, 2008
ST. PAUL
Thursday night, after Barack Obama’s well-orchestrated, well-conceived
and well-delivered acceptance speech in Denver, Republicans were
demoralized. Twenty-four hours later, they were energized — even
exuberant. It’s amazing what a bold vice-presidential pick who gives a
sterling performance when she’s introduced will do for a party’s
spirits.
There are Republicans who are unhappy about John McCain’s selection of
Sarah Palin. Many are insiders who highly value — who overly value —
“experience.” There are also sensible strategists who nervously note
just how big a gamble McCain has taken.
But what was McCain’s alternative? To go quietly down to defeat,
accepting a role as a bit player in The Barack Obama Story? McCain had
to shake up the race, and once he was persuaded not to pick Joe
Lieberman, which would have been one kind of gamble, he went all in
with Sarah Palin.
Some media mandarins were upset. One reporter noted that — horrors! —
Palin had never even appeared on “Meet the Press.” Time’s Joe Klein
remarked disapprovingly that McCain didn’t know Palin well and had
never worked with her. He noted by contrast “that when Walter Mondale
picked Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, House Speaker Tip O’Neill, who had
worked with Ferraro, was not only vouching for her, but raving about
her.”
Of course, Ferraro was widely regarded as an unsuccessful V.P. choice.
Maybe rave reviews from D.C. insiders aren’t the best guarantee of
future success.
And Obama supporters can’t get too indignant about Palin’s
inexperience. She’s only running for the No. 2 job, after all, while
their inexperienced standard-bearer is the nominee for the top
position. And McCain doesn’t need a foreign policy expert as vice
president to help him out.
Meanwhile, a Republican operative here mentioned to me that Barack
Obama has cited this 1992 comment by Bill Clinton:
“The same old experience is irrelevant. You can have the right kind of
experience or the wrong kind of experience. And mine is rooted in the
real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we have
the courage to change.”
But the crucial political fact is that the Obama campaign no longer has
a monopoly on “the courage to change.” Facing an electorate that wants
change, McCain has given himself a fighting chance to win the election.
And he has staked a lot on Sarah Palin.
Voters are unlikely to learn much that is new or surprising about
Obama, McCain or Joe Biden over the next two months. Palin’s
performance as the vice-presidential nominee, on the other hand, is the
open and unresolved question of this campaign. She is, in a way, now
the central figure in this fall’s electoral drama.
If Palin turns out not be up to the challenge for which McCain has
selected her, McCain will pay a heavy price. His judgment about the
most important choice he’s had to make this year will have been proved
wanting. He won’t be able to plead that being right about the surge in
Iraq should be judged as more important than being right about his
vice-presidential pick.
McCain has gambled boldly on Palin. If she flops, McCain could lose by
a landslide.
On the other hand, if Palin exceeds expectations, and her selection
ends up looking both bold and wise, McCain could win.
The Palin pick already, as Noemie Emery wrote, “Wipes out the image of
McCain as the crotchety elder and brings back that of the fly-boy and
gambler, which is much more appealing, and the genuine person.” But of
course McCain needs Palin to do well to prove he’s a shrewd and
prescient gambler.
I spent an afternoon with Palin a little over a year ago in Juneau, and
have followed her career pretty closely ever since. I think she can
pull it off. I’m not the only one. The day after the V.P. announcement,
I spoke with an old friend, James Muller, chairman of the political
science department at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. He said that
Palin “has been underestimated over and over again. She took on the
party and state establishments here in Alaska, and left them reeling.
She’s a very good campaigner, a quick study and a fighter.”
Muller called particular attention to her successes in passing an
increase to the oil production tax and facilitating the future
construction of a huge natural gas pipeline. “At first the oil
companies thought she was naïve, and they’d have their way.
Instead she faced them down and forced them to compromise on her terms.”
Can she face down the Democrats, Joe Biden and the national media over
the next couple of months?
John McCain is betting she can. Perhaps, as he pondered his
vice-presidential selection, he recalled the advice of Margaret
Thatcher: “In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you
want anything done, ask a woman.”
Alaska Governor strong
anti-establishment
Greenwich TIME
Associated Press
By Liz Sidoti and Beth Fouhy
Article Launched: 08/30/2008
01:00:00 AM EDT
DAYTON, Ohio - Republican John
McCain introduced first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice
presidential running mate Friday, a stunning selection of a
little-known conservative newcomer who relishes fighting the
establishment.
"She's exactly who I need. She's
exactly who this country needs to help me fight the same old Washington
politics of 'Me first and country second,'" McCain declared as the pair
stood together for the first time at a boisterous rally in Ohio just
days before the opening of the party's national convention.
Palin, the first Republican woman on
a presidential ticket, promised: "I'm going to take our campaign to
every part of our country and our message of reform to every voter of
every background in every political party, or no party at all."
"Politics isn't just a game of
competing interests and clashing parties," said Palin, 44, who has
built her career in large measure by challenging fellow Republicans.
She brings a strong anti-abortion
stance to the ticket and opposes gay marriage - constitutionally banned
in Alaska before her time - but exercised a veto that essentially
granted benefits to gay state employees and their partners.
"She stands up for what's right, and
she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down." McCain said in
introducing her to an Ohio rally.
Said Palin: "I didn't get into
government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe,
but that's not why the ship is built."
In the increasingly intensive presidential
campaign, McCain made his selection six days after his Democratic
rival, Barack Obama, named Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, as his No. 2
on the ticket.
The contrast between the two
announcements was remarkable - Obama, 47, picked a 65-year-old running
mate with long experience in government and a man whom he said was
qualified to be president. The timing of McCain's selection appeared
designed to limit any political gain Obama derives from his own
convention, which ended Thursday night with his nominating acceptance
speech before an estimated 84,000 in Invesco Field in Colorado.
Public opinion polls show a close
race between Obama and McCain, and with scarcely two months remaining
until the election, neither contender can allow the other to jump out
to a big post-convention lead. Some polls showed little or no increase
for Obama during the Democratic convention, as would normally be
expected.
On his 72nd birthday, McCain chose
Palin, a woman younger than two of the Arizonan's seven children and a
person who until recently was the mayor of small-town Wasilla, Alaska
and has been governor less than two years. He settled on her six months
after first meeting the governor and following only one phone call
between them last Sunday and a single face-to-face meeting Thursday,
according to a timeline provided by his campaign.
The Obama campaign immediately
questioned whether she would be prepared to step in and be president if
necessary.
"Today, John McCain put the former
mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a
heartbeat away from the presidency," Adrianne Marsh, a spokeswoman for
Obama, said in a written statement. A statement was put out on Obama's
plane with the candidate merely welcoming her to the campaign.
President Bush complimented McCain
for "an exciting decision."
"Governor Palin is a proven reformer
who is a wise steward of taxpayer dollars and champion for
accountability in government," a presidential statement said. "By
selecting a working mother with a track record of getting things done,
Senator McCain has once again demonstrated his commitment to reforming
Washington."
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who
came so close to being the first major party woman presidential
candidate, said in a statement: "We should all be proud of Gov. Sarah
Palin's historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Sen. McCain.
While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Gov.
Palin will add an important new voice to the debate."
"It's an absolutely brilliant
choice," said Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law.
"This will absolutely energize McCain's campaign and energize
conservatives," he predicted.
Palin's name had not been on the
news media's short list of people heavily reported upon in recent days,
and McCain's decision was a well-kept secret until just a couple hours
before Friday's rally.
McCain's campaign said that Palin
and a top aide met with senior McCain advisers in Flagstaff, Ariz., on
Wednesday night. The next morning, the campaign said McCain formally
invited Palin to join the ticket on the deck of McCain's home near
Sedona, Ariz., and later Thursday the governor flew to Middletown,
Ohio, with staff to await Friday's event in Dayton.
Describing the process that led to
her selection, Palin told reporters she'd received word that she was
McCain's choice on Thursday and had met privately with him that day to
discuss it. She spoke briefly as the two running mates surprised
shoppers at the Buckeye Corner in Columbus, Ohio, where they purchased
Ohio State University sports memorabilia. McCain and Palin started a
bus tour across Ohio and to Pittsburgh, where they will hold a campaign
rally Saturday. Ohio and Pennsylvania are two states that figure
prominently in who wins the election this fall.
Asked why McCain chose her, his
campaign manager Rick Davis said, "Part of it is personal fit."
"He sees Sarah, Governor Palin, as
the future of the party," he added. "These are people he'd like to
elevate in that regard. reformers."
McCain rejects
'audacity of hopelessness'
for Iraq
DAY
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
Posted on Jul 25, 4:12 PM EDT
DENVER (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain,
ridiculing Barack Obama for "the audacity of hopelessness" in his
policies on Iraq, said Friday that the entire Middle East could have
plunged into war had U.S. troops been withdrawn as his rival advocated.
Speaking to an audience of Hispanic military veterans, McCain stepped
up his criticism of Obama while the Illinois senator continued his
headline-grabbing tour of the Middle East and Europe. The Arizona
Republican contended that Obama's policies - he opposed sending more
troops to Iraq in the "surge" that McCain supported - would have led to
defeat there and in Afghanistan.
"We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right," McCain
said, a play on the title of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope."
McCain laid out a near-apocalyptic chain of events he said could have
resulted had Obama managed to stop the troop buildup ordered by
President Bush: U.S. forces retreating under fire, the Iraqi army
collapsing, civilian casualties increasing dramatically, al-Qaida
killing cooperative Sunni sheiks and finding safe havens to train
fighters and launch attacks on Americans, and civil war, genocide and a
wider conflict.
"Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened," he said.
"Terrorists would have seen our defeat as evidence America lacked the
resolve to defeat them. As Iraq descended into chaos, other countries
in the Middle East would have come to the aid of their favored
factions, and the entire region might have erupted in war."
Noting that the buildup was unpopular with most Americans, McCain said:
"Sen. Obama told the American people what he thought you wanted to
hear. I told you the truth."
Obama has called for a withdrawal over 16 months. McCain again
criticized him for advocating "a politically expedient timetable" and
for voting against funding for troops. McCain had raised eyebrows
earlier this week by charging that Obama "would rather lose a war in
order to win a political campaign."
With once exception, Obama has voted for every spending bill for troops
at war. In 2007, Bush vetoed a bill that provided funding on condition
of troop withdrawals, and Obama joined 13 other senators who opposed
the measure that took its place.
McCain's speech in Denver came at the conclusion of a week in which he
struggled against Obama's overseas tour de force. Yet amid the awkward
moments, McCain managed to campaign busily in key battleground states
and to raise millions of dollars at fundraisers.
Polls in many swing states are close, and some are tightening. The
Arizona Republican sought to turn this to his advantage in what was
clearly a difficult week to be a stay-at-home candidate.
McCain repeatedly emphasized his long military and congressional
background, scolded Obama from afar on foreign policy, and kept
playfully fueling speculation that he was close to picking a running
mate. His address to the group of Hispanic veterans also gave him a
chance to cou