*Except when it's not.
**The Senate is gone but remains in session. The reason is that GOP Senators fear President Obama will make a recess appointment of a singularly dangerous person, a genuine threat to the nation and our well-being. The previous week this person was called a liar by House Republicans. The person, of course, is my Sweetheart of the Rodeo--America's Own Heroine and Decent Person--the great Elizabeth Warren.
Literally the GOP is so scared of Elizabeth Warren that they keep the Senate in session to prevent her appointment. 44 Republican Senators have actually signed a letter that they would not confirmed her as head of the new Consumer Protection Agency.
In my opinion, if you wanted only one person to be given a post--any post--in Washington, it would be Elizabeth Warren. She has been one of the most articulate spokespersons for the interests of the Middle Class in the country. She has been pioneering in her work on credit card and mortgage issues facing the country. Even her initial critics--the small town banks--have now openly urged her appointment and sing her praises. She talks to any audience and will answer any question of her.
Her basic problem is that she's not corrupt. In olden days, that was the type of person you wanted as the head of an agency to protect consumers. But not now.
I hoped that there would have been a large television audience for the way the House treated Elizabeth Warren the other day. Not to wish it on anyone, but the sharp contrast between her and her inquisitors would have made everything perfectly clear about what the stakes are in today's debate.
** In case, you've have forgotten some of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories, you should be reminded that the most powerful man in America is Cass Sunstein, also known as the husband of Samantha Powers. Now the House GOP wants to investigate Cass Sustein--not that he's done anything wrong. It's just that he's in charge of Obama's efforts to reform regulations. Previous to being smeared by being associated with President Obama, Republicans used to think highly of him believing he was a pseudo-libertarian. But now ,according to Beck, he is a raving socialist.
**Steve Benen over at Washington Monthly wants you to know that Tan Man Boehner's excuses over the House eliminating Medicare are lame. Boehner argues that the Democrats cut $500 billion from Medicare (the old GOP ads in 2010) and the GOP is saving it. Benen is right, of course, but I'm not so sure that the GOP can't pull that line off. Paul Ryan picked up this new line when he argued that his budget restored the Obama cuts. Absolutely, utterly false. but repeated enough, people might buy it.
**Karl Rove just thinks the killing off Medicare issue is really just a messaging problem. He suggests creating a little "college" where newly elected Republicans can learn how to explain it. What about, we killed it, Karl. Or Americans love clipping coupons. Call it Coupon Care. or Better yet something like Kevorkian Care.
**I deeply regret Goodwin Liu withdrawing his name as the nominee to fill the vacancy on the 9th Circuit Court. He was obviously forced to because Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans filibustered his nomination. He has only been hanging around for about two years to be confirmed. He would have been the first Asian-American on the 9th Circuit Court. He received the highest ABA rating and even netted the endorsement of people like Ken Starr. But, some Republicans from the Deep South felt that he was too "sympathetic to Red China." Whatever that means. Basically, he was blackballed because of racism and that he was the most liberal nominee put forth by the Obama Administration. Of course, there was no relationship with Communist China.
**To celebrate Mariano Rivera's record-breaking 1,000 appearance as a Yankee Pitcher, Rudy Guiliani has taken the lead in the CNN poll for the Republican nomination ( yes, a 2011 poll). Rudy gains 16%, Romney 15%, Palin 13%, Ron Paul 12%, Cain 10%, Gingrich 8%, Bachmann 7%.
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
**Newt, who opposed Coupon Care because it was radical social engineering, now wants your donation so he can support the Paul Ryan Plan.
**Pizza Man Herman Cain thinks the GOP should stop hiding and called their Medicare idea a "voucher program." Instead, it's like a frequent flyer promo--"Premium Plus".
**Sister Sarah is in town today with the Rolling Thunder motorcycle parade for the MIA. She will be taking her Magic Bus throughout the East. Observers say this a preclude for her run for the Gold.
**Karl Rove did get something right. He said that Sister Sarah doesn't believe the rules apply to her. That's true. He was referring to her lack of organization in Iowa and South Carolina and her lack of recent fundraising activities. Her supporters believe--and I tend to agree--that if the minute she runs, she absorbs all the attention and that the Palinbots will desert other candidates and that she can win both Iowa and South Carolina without too much effort.
**Frothy Mix Santorum will be declaring next week, making Dan Savage proud. He's supposed to do it in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania--no jokes please about chutes or other things.
**Rick Perry, the secessionist Governor of Texas,believes he's under the Gaydar so he is thinking about running for President--despite his pledge when he ran for an unprecedented third term for Governor.
** 25% of Minnesota citizens think Michelle Bachmann is qualified to be President. Well, that seems enough for her to travel to Iowa to make her announcement. She warned people that she and Palin are not interchangeable.
**Mitt Romney will announce formally this coming week. I guess the first time didn't take on Youtube.
**I know Tim Pawlenty is running because he said he wasn't like President Obama on a pub crawl. Also, Tim is running on his foreign policy expertise. He thinks the United States is occupying Iran.
**This is something you won't read about in the news. President Obama will make an official Presidential visit to Puerto Rico. He will only be the second President to ever do so. The first was John F. Kennedy. Stranger yet--his task force on the status of Puerto Rico has completed its work and President Obama wants to resolve the island's status before the 2012 elections. That won't happen. But the proposal from his task force is interesting. First, Puerto Rico must determined whether it wants to be part of the United States or independent. Second, if they decide to be part of the United States, then they vote on whether to become a state or remain a commonwealth.
** Another thing you won't read in the newspapers. President Abbas of Palestine is actually trying to get his fusion government to make a proposal on the peace talks which will be in line with the Quartet's requirements. Both Hamas and Fatah would accept the right of Israel to exist and pledge to a non-violent solution. This would take away Bibi's resistance to negotiate with the Palestinians. Abbas also said that the Palestinians had no intent to isolate Israel.
** The G-8 backed the Quartet's plan for the Middle East peace talks but the Canadian Prime Minister insisted that the language about the 1967 borders be dropped from the text. fromer American envoy George Mitchell told liberal Israelis that President Obama was trying to avoid a train wreck this September. Mitchell said that a UN vote would not be good for Israel, not be good for the United States and not be good for the peace process.
**War crimes are forever. Ratko Mladic was finally arrested. Now he will be extradited for trial at the Hague.
**Louisiana and Tennesse actually did outlaw abortion this week. Luckily, both states struck down prison sentences for the women who have them but doctors will face upwards to ten years in prison.
Showing posts with label Cass Sunstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cass Sunstein. Show all posts
Friday, May 27, 2011
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The List Is In and other oddities
(Note; Apologies for the recent typos and grammatical miscues. They are caused when my eyesight disppears.)
My lady Elizabeth Warren made the list. A Methodist from Oklahoma she brings an expertise on regulatory law to a court that will be ruling on healthcare reform, financial reform and rollbacks of the social welfare net. John Kyl wanted mainstream--although I doubt whether he would know what it was. While Elizabeth comes off as an archetypical "American"-- she is a liberal. But I worry about Ariana Huffngton's 'mala ocho" on this one. Warren also has never written anything on social issues and hasn't left a paper trail on anything political. And hailing from Oklahoma, would she get the vote of Obama's friend Tom Coburn?
Republicans say they aren't likely to filibuster the nomination. What don't the moderators just laugh at them?
George Will let the cat out of the bag when he told the television audience that conservatives indeed like activist judges. He cited Citizens United as an example of the decision they like to see.
I feel sorry for Michael Steele. I checked the RNC website and they had a long list of Republican achievements over the years. First Asian, Black Hispanic politicians elected. Remember Hiram Fong? The Transcontinental Railroad. The Emancipation Proclamation. The Passage of the 14th Amendment. First women mayors. Fighting for the Integration of the military. Land Grant Colleges. Howard University. Fighting for the Civil Rights Act. Later: Reapprochment with China, Arms Treaties. Then Ronald Reagan--Tax Cuts. Fall of the Berlin War. Bush I--Gulf War . Bush 2--Tax Cuts, Iraq War, Tax Cuts (I kid you not). Except for the last guy, it would make an interesting party. Like Judge Stevens. Or Senator Brooke. The problem with this montage is that the Republican party now believes in nothing of what is represented as its history. Maybe tax cuts--that's it.
Let's salute great Republicans like ...Arnold Palmer. Especially on the day of the Masters. I feel like creating a Grand Old Party Club where its history can be preserved while it's being destroyed.
(This section magically appeared here and not after Elizabeth Warren.)
Our lesbian Pamela Karlan has made the list again. She is beyond qualified as I said before and she would make Tony Scalia's mind explode. The problem is not so much the sexual orientation but the volume of published work on a range of topics such as federalism.
Cass Sunstein is on the list and seems to generate hostility from both the right and left. He currently is in the Office of Regulatory Affairs at the DOJ. A long-time friend of Obama, Cass Sunstein has written about everything and possesses a libertarian streak. Progressives claim he is weak on civil liberties and issues surrounding executive power. I think they are mistaken.
When Obama was in the Senate and on the campaign trail, he consulted Sunstein about how the Bush Administration could make the legal arguments they did. Sunstein would try to make the arguments with constitutional reasoning for the national surveillance program, the military commissions,etc. But my understanding was that he was asked to as a devil's advocate rather than someone who actually believed in any of it. His other writings would seem to contradict these positions. But his nomination would set off firestorms on the left and the right. Also, he's one of Glenn Beck's favorite Obama Leftists. What would happen if a real Leftist appeared?
Harold Koh made the list. He would be attacked because he has talked about lessons provided by international law. Conservatives have attacked him for being a partisan Democrat and polarizing Yale Law School. A more polite and sensitive man you could never meet. The record at Yale is dramatically different from what conservatives say. But they did light up the Senate on his last hearing.
A surprise name and one which should be considered as viable is Rhode Island's Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. A fresh face, very well-spoken, he succeeded Lincoln Chaffee. I believe he has been a prosecutor and a U.S. attorney. He's clearly a liberal. But it would almost impossible for me to see how a white protestant sitting Senator could be rejected in this day and age.
The Nuclear Security Summit is opening. At least two things will come from it. First, both Russia and the United States will sign an agreement to dispose of their fissible materials going back to the Cold War. There should be a broader agreement from all the countries to secure vulnerable civilian and military materials within four years. Perhaps,the biggest bonus will be to educate the assembled countries on the threat of nuclear terrorism and gain some cooperation among countries to thwart efforts by terrorist groups to get a nuclear device.
Al Qaeda wants to bomb the World Cup in South Africa. An interesting PR move.
The Vatican took time off from its pedophile scandals to forgive the Beatles and call them a "blessing and a miracle". Well, it did take them a bit to get around to Galileo.
Liz Cheney's favorite "Arab" (Pashtun) Hamid Karzai wants to block the NATO summer offensive in Kandahar. He wants to open up negotiations with the Taliban and asked them to surrender their arms. The high must be great in the mountains around Kabul.
The Pakistan ISI, our staunch allies in the war on terror, seems to have released a few top Talibun leaders. It's clear to me that they have their own favorites. The released semed to be from the Quetta segment, which follow Mullah Omar.
South Africa is investigating the complaints that Eugene TerreBlanche had sexually abused his farm hands and cheated them out of their money. This was alleged to have provoked the killing of the white supremacist leader. Racial tensions have gone sky high with this murder and the display of swastikas at his funeral. The white extremist wanted the government to create a bantustan for white people. He should have just moved to Virginia and been declared a honorary citizen of the confederacy.
The far-right looks like they are making a blazing comeback in Hungary. And on this Holocaust Remembrance Day reports are that anti-semiticism has spiked throughout Europe. The monsters don't die, they sleep for a while.
My lady Elizabeth Warren made the list. A Methodist from Oklahoma she brings an expertise on regulatory law to a court that will be ruling on healthcare reform, financial reform and rollbacks of the social welfare net. John Kyl wanted mainstream--although I doubt whether he would know what it was. While Elizabeth comes off as an archetypical "American"-- she is a liberal. But I worry about Ariana Huffngton's 'mala ocho" on this one. Warren also has never written anything on social issues and hasn't left a paper trail on anything political. And hailing from Oklahoma, would she get the vote of Obama's friend Tom Coburn?
Republicans say they aren't likely to filibuster the nomination. What don't the moderators just laugh at them?
George Will let the cat out of the bag when he told the television audience that conservatives indeed like activist judges. He cited Citizens United as an example of the decision they like to see.
I feel sorry for Michael Steele. I checked the RNC website and they had a long list of Republican achievements over the years. First Asian, Black Hispanic politicians elected. Remember Hiram Fong? The Transcontinental Railroad. The Emancipation Proclamation. The Passage of the 14th Amendment. First women mayors. Fighting for the Integration of the military. Land Grant Colleges. Howard University. Fighting for the Civil Rights Act. Later: Reapprochment with China, Arms Treaties. Then Ronald Reagan--Tax Cuts. Fall of the Berlin War. Bush I--Gulf War . Bush 2--Tax Cuts, Iraq War, Tax Cuts (I kid you not). Except for the last guy, it would make an interesting party. Like Judge Stevens. Or Senator Brooke. The problem with this montage is that the Republican party now believes in nothing of what is represented as its history. Maybe tax cuts--that's it.
Let's salute great Republicans like ...Arnold Palmer. Especially on the day of the Masters. I feel like creating a Grand Old Party Club where its history can be preserved while it's being destroyed.
(This section magically appeared here and not after Elizabeth Warren.)
Our lesbian Pamela Karlan has made the list again. She is beyond qualified as I said before and she would make Tony Scalia's mind explode. The problem is not so much the sexual orientation but the volume of published work on a range of topics such as federalism.
Cass Sunstein is on the list and seems to generate hostility from both the right and left. He currently is in the Office of Regulatory Affairs at the DOJ. A long-time friend of Obama, Cass Sunstein has written about everything and possesses a libertarian streak. Progressives claim he is weak on civil liberties and issues surrounding executive power. I think they are mistaken.
When Obama was in the Senate and on the campaign trail, he consulted Sunstein about how the Bush Administration could make the legal arguments they did. Sunstein would try to make the arguments with constitutional reasoning for the national surveillance program, the military commissions,etc. But my understanding was that he was asked to as a devil's advocate rather than someone who actually believed in any of it. His other writings would seem to contradict these positions. But his nomination would set off firestorms on the left and the right. Also, he's one of Glenn Beck's favorite Obama Leftists. What would happen if a real Leftist appeared?
Harold Koh made the list. He would be attacked because he has talked about lessons provided by international law. Conservatives have attacked him for being a partisan Democrat and polarizing Yale Law School. A more polite and sensitive man you could never meet. The record at Yale is dramatically different from what conservatives say. But they did light up the Senate on his last hearing.
A surprise name and one which should be considered as viable is Rhode Island's Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. A fresh face, very well-spoken, he succeeded Lincoln Chaffee. I believe he has been a prosecutor and a U.S. attorney. He's clearly a liberal. But it would almost impossible for me to see how a white protestant sitting Senator could be rejected in this day and age.
The Nuclear Security Summit is opening. At least two things will come from it. First, both Russia and the United States will sign an agreement to dispose of their fissible materials going back to the Cold War. There should be a broader agreement from all the countries to secure vulnerable civilian and military materials within four years. Perhaps,the biggest bonus will be to educate the assembled countries on the threat of nuclear terrorism and gain some cooperation among countries to thwart efforts by terrorist groups to get a nuclear device.
Al Qaeda wants to bomb the World Cup in South Africa. An interesting PR move.
The Vatican took time off from its pedophile scandals to forgive the Beatles and call them a "blessing and a miracle". Well, it did take them a bit to get around to Galileo.
Liz Cheney's favorite "Arab" (Pashtun) Hamid Karzai wants to block the NATO summer offensive in Kandahar. He wants to open up negotiations with the Taliban and asked them to surrender their arms. The high must be great in the mountains around Kabul.
The Pakistan ISI, our staunch allies in the war on terror, seems to have released a few top Talibun leaders. It's clear to me that they have their own favorites. The released semed to be from the Quetta segment, which follow Mullah Omar.
South Africa is investigating the complaints that Eugene TerreBlanche had sexually abused his farm hands and cheated them out of their money. This was alleged to have provoked the killing of the white supremacist leader. Racial tensions have gone sky high with this murder and the display of swastikas at his funeral. The white extremist wanted the government to create a bantustan for white people. He should have just moved to Virginia and been declared a honorary citizen of the confederacy.
The far-right looks like they are making a blazing comeback in Hungary. And on this Holocaust Remembrance Day reports are that anti-semiticism has spiked throughout Europe. The monsters don't die, they sleep for a while.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Labor Day Thoughts
Would anyone have objected if Bill Cosby were to speak to the American schoolchildren? Responding to the kerfuffle about President Obama's speech, Education Secretary Arne Duncan pointed to the amazing 30% dropout rates of America's high school students as maybe one of the reasons the President wants to deliver the speech. Combined with the growing number of college dropouts, this is a dangerous sign of a country who has to compete globally.
The great Nate Silver over at www.fivethirtyeight.com commented on the growing Republican demographic of angry seniors. While a long term detriment to the GOP's chances on a national level, it is a benefit for the 2010, since seniors tend to vote in higher percentages than other groups. Will this see a Republican wave as Washington pundits predict, over at the Dailykos, there was a look at all the by-elections to date and Republican have not fared well, even when they tried to nationaliz the election by tying the Democrat to Obama's health care plan or to gay marriage. That's why I think the governors' elections in New Jersey and Virginia will constitute a false dawn for Republicans. At this writing both Republicans are leading in the polls but are now drawing flak for past deeds and actions. Even if victorious, it's going to be hard to justify any national trend.
I happen to subcribe to the Bill Clinton theory that if health reform is passed, President Obama's approval ratings will climb and the Democrats might dodge a bullet in 2010 elections. It's hard to see what a Republican vote would accomplish except to re-enforce the party's message of "No". If the elections go as the past, the President's party should lose between 15-20 seats in the House. That still will not be enough to fulfill Newt Gingrich's Dream Number 2 of replaying 1994.
Look to see Harold Koh as the leading contender for the next slot on the Supreme Court when Stevens retires. The former Dean of Yale Law School and a defender of human rights globally, he will draw the fire of the right as he has recently. Koh is a very decent and very likeable man and accomplished man but that won't stop anyone.
Glenn Beck tasting blood over the resignation of Van Jones wants to go after Cass Sunstein, the former law professor from the University of Chicago and friend of Barack Obama. Dr. Sunstein is a very peculiar target for Beck. During the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama disappointed his supporters for his support of the FISA bill. Sunstein gave out interviews on why Obama did this. In the interview, he recalled that during all the Bush maneuverings on civil liberties Obama consulted him and asked him to lay out the soundest legal arguments one could make in defense of the Bush actions so he understood them. It seems to me that someone who could actually make these arguments--even if he didn't support them--is hardly material for attack. In particular, Beck wants to expose Sunstein's writings that concern the possibility of using organs from the deceased without a family's consent. A theoretical article about a theoretical situation--something professors are apt to do. But it would fit into the death panel-death book-euthanasia themes that are so popular among the Beck audience. I can see him now--Obama-Sunstein-Chicago-Ezekial Emmanuel--Socialism.
Keith Olbermann seems to have sensed that Glenn Beck is no longer the joke he enjoyed while explaining the symbolism of Rockefeller Center. He has put out a request on his Daily Kos blog for all leads, tips, informants on Mr. Beck's past and present. I hope he comes up with some good stuff.
Van Jones wounded himself with signing the 9/11 petition. However, I found his tape about Columbine truthful and interesting. He said that only white boys shoot up schools, while black boys don't. Since I can't find anything that disputes this, it actually is a subject worthy of analysis. Naturally, this tape was to show how racist he was but I found it disturbingly accurate.
The NAACP criticized President Obama for letting Van Jones go because of criticism from the right. The Washington Post, the company newspaper, said that this showed the problem of vetting in the Administration. Unfortunately, it reminds me of the loss when Tom Daschle could not make it as Health Secretary, a blow to the health care plan. Van Jones had a compelling personal history that led him naturally to the place of being a Czar for Green Jobs.
Old Governor Sunbeam--California's Attorney-General Jerry Brown--has opened up an investigation into the abuse of health insurance companies who demand employees attend townhall meetings to voice talking points against reform. Brown said that, while this practice may be legal in other states, it is not in the state of California and represents a specific abuse of workers' rights, according to the statutes. Well done. The insurance industry has ordered employees out in every state, armed with talking points created by their lobbyists. Some news reports put this figure at 47,000 people placed in these various townhall meetings.
The oil companies thought this astro-turfing ideas is so great that they are now mobilizing protests against the Cap-and-Trade bill before Congress. This is a fantastic moment in our democracy--American corporations are organizing street protests--what a concept?! Billionaires for Weathfare--one of more favorite protest groups--should appear at these protests with a new chant,"We all want to shop at the Company Store!"
My friends in the Natural Gas industry constantly complain about President Obama, mostly I think because they are all from Texas. But underneath the radar, it has been the Coal Industry lobby on the Hill blocking the expansion of natural gas, which is cheap, plentiful and clean.
On the book front, I received notice from Amazon that Bill Burroughs' Evil River will not be published this September. Now the due date is September 2010. That means four years since I first ordered it. Now, Burroughs has been dead for years, the manuscript has been in the hands of the publisher for at least five years. Certainly, there is an editor around by now.
The one book I look forward to is Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before the Shooting about the assassination of a biracial Southern politician who passed as white but was raised by a black family. But with the current climate of hate rhetoric against President Obama,I'm not so sure I'll be as receptive to it as I might be.
The stupid award goes to Hank Williams, the descendent of the great Hank Williams, who proclaimed that "We all know that President Obama is only President because of the electoral college. The electoral college is the problem." Maybe, he's President for receiving the largest amount of popular votes in American history. Or, maybe not.
While Washington braces for Glenn Beck's 9/12 project, some of us are anticipating the 9/9/09 project--the release of all the remastered Beatles albums. I'm usually skeptical about these re-issues of the classics as some new money making proposition. But, the exercise looks like it might actually contribute something to finally obtaining the "real sound" of the Beatles. I'll report in due time.
The great Nate Silver over at www.fivethirtyeight.com commented on the growing Republican demographic of angry seniors. While a long term detriment to the GOP's chances on a national level, it is a benefit for the 2010, since seniors tend to vote in higher percentages than other groups. Will this see a Republican wave as Washington pundits predict, over at the Dailykos, there was a look at all the by-elections to date and Republican have not fared well, even when they tried to nationaliz the election by tying the Democrat to Obama's health care plan or to gay marriage. That's why I think the governors' elections in New Jersey and Virginia will constitute a false dawn for Republicans. At this writing both Republicans are leading in the polls but are now drawing flak for past deeds and actions. Even if victorious, it's going to be hard to justify any national trend.
I happen to subcribe to the Bill Clinton theory that if health reform is passed, President Obama's approval ratings will climb and the Democrats might dodge a bullet in 2010 elections. It's hard to see what a Republican vote would accomplish except to re-enforce the party's message of "No". If the elections go as the past, the President's party should lose between 15-20 seats in the House. That still will not be enough to fulfill Newt Gingrich's Dream Number 2 of replaying 1994.
Look to see Harold Koh as the leading contender for the next slot on the Supreme Court when Stevens retires. The former Dean of Yale Law School and a defender of human rights globally, he will draw the fire of the right as he has recently. Koh is a very decent and very likeable man and accomplished man but that won't stop anyone.
Glenn Beck tasting blood over the resignation of Van Jones wants to go after Cass Sunstein, the former law professor from the University of Chicago and friend of Barack Obama. Dr. Sunstein is a very peculiar target for Beck. During the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama disappointed his supporters for his support of the FISA bill. Sunstein gave out interviews on why Obama did this. In the interview, he recalled that during all the Bush maneuverings on civil liberties Obama consulted him and asked him to lay out the soundest legal arguments one could make in defense of the Bush actions so he understood them. It seems to me that someone who could actually make these arguments--even if he didn't support them--is hardly material for attack. In particular, Beck wants to expose Sunstein's writings that concern the possibility of using organs from the deceased without a family's consent. A theoretical article about a theoretical situation--something professors are apt to do. But it would fit into the death panel-death book-euthanasia themes that are so popular among the Beck audience. I can see him now--Obama-Sunstein-Chicago-Ezekial Emmanuel--Socialism.
Keith Olbermann seems to have sensed that Glenn Beck is no longer the joke he enjoyed while explaining the symbolism of Rockefeller Center. He has put out a request on his Daily Kos blog for all leads, tips, informants on Mr. Beck's past and present. I hope he comes up with some good stuff.
Van Jones wounded himself with signing the 9/11 petition. However, I found his tape about Columbine truthful and interesting. He said that only white boys shoot up schools, while black boys don't. Since I can't find anything that disputes this, it actually is a subject worthy of analysis. Naturally, this tape was to show how racist he was but I found it disturbingly accurate.
The NAACP criticized President Obama for letting Van Jones go because of criticism from the right. The Washington Post, the company newspaper, said that this showed the problem of vetting in the Administration. Unfortunately, it reminds me of the loss when Tom Daschle could not make it as Health Secretary, a blow to the health care plan. Van Jones had a compelling personal history that led him naturally to the place of being a Czar for Green Jobs.
Old Governor Sunbeam--California's Attorney-General Jerry Brown--has opened up an investigation into the abuse of health insurance companies who demand employees attend townhall meetings to voice talking points against reform. Brown said that, while this practice may be legal in other states, it is not in the state of California and represents a specific abuse of workers' rights, according to the statutes. Well done. The insurance industry has ordered employees out in every state, armed with talking points created by their lobbyists. Some news reports put this figure at 47,000 people placed in these various townhall meetings.
The oil companies thought this astro-turfing ideas is so great that they are now mobilizing protests against the Cap-and-Trade bill before Congress. This is a fantastic moment in our democracy--American corporations are organizing street protests--what a concept?! Billionaires for Weathfare--one of more favorite protest groups--should appear at these protests with a new chant,"We all want to shop at the Company Store!"
My friends in the Natural Gas industry constantly complain about President Obama, mostly I think because they are all from Texas. But underneath the radar, it has been the Coal Industry lobby on the Hill blocking the expansion of natural gas, which is cheap, plentiful and clean.
On the book front, I received notice from Amazon that Bill Burroughs' Evil River will not be published this September. Now the due date is September 2010. That means four years since I first ordered it. Now, Burroughs has been dead for years, the manuscript has been in the hands of the publisher for at least five years. Certainly, there is an editor around by now.
The one book I look forward to is Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before the Shooting about the assassination of a biracial Southern politician who passed as white but was raised by a black family. But with the current climate of hate rhetoric against President Obama,I'm not so sure I'll be as receptive to it as I might be.
The stupid award goes to Hank Williams, the descendent of the great Hank Williams, who proclaimed that "We all know that President Obama is only President because of the electoral college. The electoral college is the problem." Maybe, he's President for receiving the largest amount of popular votes in American history. Or, maybe not.
While Washington braces for Glenn Beck's 9/12 project, some of us are anticipating the 9/9/09 project--the release of all the remastered Beatles albums. I'm usually skeptical about these re-issues of the classics as some new money making proposition. But, the exercise looks like it might actually contribute something to finally obtaining the "real sound" of the Beatles. I'll report in due time.
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