About As Bright As A Potted Plant

Because the Winger mindset is that everything political must be motivated by the unending desire to win more power, the only possible explanation of the "horrifying" exchange between the President and a Google employee named Doug Edwards at yesterday's LinkedIn town hall in Silicon Valley where Edwards asked the President to raise his taxes is that the employee had to be an obvious plant in the audience.

Oh, liberals gushed when a rich audience member asked Obama that question today. It seems relevant to point out that this rich liberal is Doug Edwards from the Obama-friendly and regulation-friendly Google.

Edwards has given $300,000 to politicians since 2000 -- every single dime to Democrats. He specifically said he wanted his higher taxes to cover Pell Grants.

Oh, the abject horror of that!  The wingers are in full poutrage mode this morning, with FOX Nation calling Evans a plant and Malkin shrieking about President Obama possibly doing something Bush 43 did for eight years without a peep out of her.

The Right's position on taxes is that every successful businessperson in the country succeeded in spite of them, not because of services and programs funded by them.  The fact that Massachusetts Dem Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren dared to call out conservatives on this has clearly struck one hell of a nerve, and the President took up Warren's argument yesterday at the town hall event.  Greg Sargent:

Conservatives have offered a number of responses to this argument. Some have insisted that if wealthy people like Buffett and the former Google exec want to pay higher taxes, by God, they should go ahead and pay higher taxes. But this badly misses the point: These men are making an argument about the imperative that their whole income group do more to help solve our fiscal mess, not just about their own desire to chip in more themselves. 

And that's what the modern GOP can't comprehend, the notion that with great wealth in society and the power and freedom that wealth brings there comes responsibility to help maintain that society.  Since as I mentioned before the only possible motivation in the GOP worldview is self-aggrandizement and the relentless pursuit of more wealth, it's simply a foreign concept to many of them.

It all comes down to whether or not you believe society's wealthy should work to make the system capable of producing more like themselves, or to do everything they can to produce fewer so that wealth stays with those who have it, and by dint of possession are those most capable and worthy of having it by making sure it's not "malinvested" with the unwashed, unworthy masses.

Or, as the joke goes, American exceptionalism means a bunch of people who were born on third base in life believing they got there because they hit a triple.

He's Just Doing His Job

Behold the power of the free market libertarian utopia.

While European government and financial leaders are scrambling to prevent a financial crisis in the Eurozone that would likely throw the global economy into even more turmoil, stock trader Alessio Rastani took to BBC today to tell the world that traders were looking forward to the possibility of a second big recession. “For most traders, it’s not about – we don’t really care that much how they’re going to fix the economy, how they’re going to fix the whole situation,” he said. “Our job is to make money from it.” Rastani, who also claimed “Goldman Sachs rules the world,” said, “Personally, I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years…I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession. When the market crashes… if you know what to do, if you have the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this.”

Of course if you're not in position to take advantage of another recession that will likely wreck our economy for another decade or more, that's not really Alessio Rastani's problem now, is it?  There's no wrong or right, no black or white, only green green green.  That's the best part about the GOP "wreck the economy by making sure nothing gets done to prevent another financial crisis" plan:  if you know the catastrophe is coming, you can make money off of it.

Hey, that's all that matters, right?  Rest of the planet gets brutally Darwined and you win.  His job is to make money.  Who cares if people get destroyed while doing it?  It's your fault for being too poor not to play the game and win.

Bowels In An Uproar Over Juice

Fruits and veggies are helpful at preventing certain diseases.  Many components of fruit are helpful at preventing bowel cancer, including rectal cancer.  A new study suggests that fruit served in the form of juice may backfire, the sugar content actually raising the risk of cancer without the nutitional benefits that offset the risk.

As a diabetic, I can chip in on this to a degree.  I have to offset the nutritional value of sugary foods to make good choices.  Juice is a no-no because it offers no fiber or other benefits from fruit, so I have to get my vitamins from whole oranges and apples.  One thing the study overlooked was low-sugar offerings.  Mott's apple juice has a variety that has all the nutrients but half the sugar. 

There is a disclaimer in the article that explains this is a new study, and that it is difficult to measure food's affect on health when we eat a varied diet.  Some patterns emerge overall, such as limit red meat and increase fiber, but even red meat has a place in our diet, just in a smaller amount. 

It might just be that I am overwhelmed by the studies, but it seems to me every food has a benefit and a downside.  After all the studies are categorized and analyzed, I imagine the end result will still be "eat well and with variety and moderation."  Good advice then and now.

What Bon Would Like To Ask Candidates

It's time for all the politicians to start aligning themselves and we'll soon be bombarded by what every candidate says and how we all feel about it.  I thought I would get ahead of the curve and throw out some questions that would get to the root of some issues, at least for me.  Interviews are all a shell game now, misdirection combined with banter, and a slick talker can move past a question without saying anything... usually by making it into a similar but safer topic.

I know this isn't covering everything.  I don't even mention jobs or the economy, because I want to ask questions that might be missed, not the ones that every single interview will cover.  After you cover the obvious, there are always some frequently missed questions.  Here are a few of mine:

• Instead of your list of what Obama has done wrong, what do you plan to continue?  We can't expect much when the entire country reboots every four years.  What is going in the right direction, and what should be done to continue it?
• What are you going to do to protect our privacy?  The Patriot Act is a big deal, and it was supposedly for a specific purpose that has long since passed (it was weak to begin with).  Are you going to give us our rights back and defend us against powers of abuse?  People need peace of mind and protection. Still, in my opinion this was the worst Bush-ism that Obama failed to put right.
• Rather than what you believe (though of course that is a point of interest), do you plan to respect our right to be different?  Instead of restricting rights and legal recognition of lawful citizens, do you plan to represent all Americans?  Do you think it is right to allow one section of Americans to tell another how to live their personal lives, or are you finally willing to allow gay families to be acknowledged as Americans?  I mean, they pay taxes, fight in our military, teach our children and save our lives in hospitals.  Do you believe they deserve a voice?
• What are you going to do to bring the country together?  What are your plans to empower the working and protect the poor?  What incentives are you going to bring that will change the state of life for hundreds of thousands of hungry people?
• How have you handled mistakes in your past?  Everyone has them, that's not the concern.  But were they buried in lies and outrage, or dealt with quickly and professionally?  Are you the type to pretend you're perfect, or are you a realist and able to react quickly when you see an adjustment is required?

Those are the things I'd like to know about, even though it isn't nearly the equivalent of foreign policy or economic balance.  It speaks to me about their views and the things I can expect from them.  I got a taste of what it was like to have a mature, thoughtful leader, and I hope we continue in that direction.  The bottom line is how are they going to bring us together, and how are we going to climb out of this mess?  It's going to take more than an endless supply of bullshit to get that done.

What are you guys watching for?  We should assemble a few points to follow as we go into 2012.  What is on your minds?

Shutdown Countdown: Here We Go Again, Part 5

Looks like the Dems held their ground on the FEMA/disaster relief provisions in the Senate and the Republicans have caved totally with a 79-12 vote.  So how did the Dems win?

What ultimately broke the impasse was FEMA's announcement Monday that it won't run out of funds early this week -- a presumption House Republicans had hoped would force Senate Democrats to accept a partisan budget cut, on the threat that disaster victims would otherwise be deprived of assistance for days or even weeks.

Indeed, according to a Senate Democratic aide, FEMA has assured Congress that they will be flush through the end of the fiscal year on Friday night -- no need, in other words, for a supplemental funding bill.

When the need for emergency funds disappeared, though, so did the GOP's leverage and at the last minute Reid introduced a compromise: Clean legislation to fund the government -- including more money for FEMA, no offsets.

In other words, Republicans clearly overplayed their hands and got burned.  Dems presented a united front and the GOP had nothing to fight with.  Imagine that, Dems.  Despite the truly stupid notion that standing up for something as controversial as a clean disaster bill was picking a fight (because in Washington, the Dems should always cave to their Republican betters in the name of bipartisanship) Harry Reid and company got it done.

Well played, Mr. Senate Majority Leader.  This one is a solid win for the Democrats and for the American people.  Let's see more of this spinal fortitude thing, please.

That's the good news.  The bad?

Under the terms of the agreement, the Senate nixed all of the plans at the center of last week's government shutdown fight. In its place, it passed legislation to fund the government through mid-November, setting up the possibility of yet more bickering and brinkmanship about the budget in six weeks. 

So yeah, I'll pick up with Part 6 of this series in November.  Hooray.

Denial Is A River In Wisconsin, Too

Looks like I have to throw another brick at PolitiFact.

The Democratic Governors Association said Walker "is denying Democrats the right to vote."

It can be argued that Wisconsin’s photo ID law will lead some people who tend to vote for Democrats to stop voting. It’s certainly true that most Wisconsin residents who don’t have a photo ID will have to get one in order to vote.

But words matter. The association goes too far in saying Walker is denying Democrats the right to vote. That is simply not the case.

We rate the claim as Pants on Fire.

Really?  Because it seems to me the entire purpose of every Republican-born voter ID law is to indeed deny traditional Democratic groups from voting.  It indeed places barriers interfering with the right to vote, and does it in such a way that it reduces turnout for Democrats.  Hell, PolitiFact freely admits that much.

The DGA’s evidence essentially amounts to a prediction that the photo ID law would cause some voters who tend to back Democrats to stop voting. Giangreco replied by saying: "I think that the (photo ID) law is tantamount to denying people the right to vote."

It seems to me that it's at worst half-true by PolitiFact standards, but that in an of itself would be a tacit admission that the sole purpose of voter ID laws in red states is to reduce turnout among Democrats.  Lord knows we can't have anybody fact check that particular claim.  Better to call it Pants on Fire lie and dismiss the controversy altogether.


Funny how that works.  Claiming something factually incorrect that "goes too far" is the standard for the dreaded Pants On Fire rating at PolitiFact, even if there's some truth to the matter as the site admits, but apparently that standard doesn't apply to Herman Cain, Rick Perry (who gets several passes), Orange Julius, or for a crapload of Michele Bachmann lies.


Go figure.

Moving Forward At Your Own Perry-il, Part 9

A two-fer for Rick Perry idiocy today at people are starting to take a closer look at how the Texas Republican has really run the state as Governor, and the results are frighteningly bad.  First, he has a Bush-like crony capitalism problem:

In 2008, Larry Soward, one of three commissioners on Texas' environmental regulatory agency, cast the lone dissenting vote against licensing a controversial low-level nuclear disposal site in far West Texas.

Looking back now, Soward says, "it didn't take too much of a rocket-scientist" to conclude that the project — pushed by one of Gov. Rick Perry's biggest political donors — would ultimately be approved.

Dallas multibillionaire Harold Simmons' successful quest to build the Andrews County facility is encountering renewed scrutiny now that his political beneficiary is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Simmons has donated $1.2 million to Perry's gubernatorial campaigns since 2001 to become Perry's second-largest individual contributor, according to Texans for Public Justice, a state watchdog organization. He also has donated $100,000 to an independent political action committee that sought to wage a write-in candidacy for Perry in the Iowa straw poll this year.

And second, his state appointments have no problem taking tens of millions away from Texas schools to give it to oil refineries.

Three commissioners appointed by Gov. Rick Perry may grant some of the nation's largest refineries a tax refund of more than $135 million , money Texas' cash-strapped schools and other local governments have been counting on to help pay teachers and provide other public services.

The refund would mean more pain for some communities after a year in which state lawmakers had to grapple with a $27 billion shortfall and slashed spending on public schools by more than $4 billion. Nearly half the refund would be taken from public schools, and those in cities where the refineries are based would be hurt the most.

"We were already cut at the knees as it is, but more cuts? It's appalling," said Patricia Gonzales, a single mother of 13-year-old twins at Park View Intermediate School in Pasadena, a refinery town just south of Houston. Gonzales was just elected president of the school's new parent-teacher organization, which was formed this summer after the state budget cuts left the school lacking everything from pencils to paper towels.

Sorry, Texas schools.  $4 billion in cuts to education isn't enough, we have to give tax refunds to oil companies and yank even more money from your budget.  Tough.  That's what Republicans do to public education: if you were meant to go to school, God would have made your parents rich enough to afford a private one.

Rick Perry's Inconsequential America rolls on...



Enjoy!

StupidiNews!

• The Senate has reached a deal to continue to fund the government through mid-November and avoid a shutdown over disaster relief and FEMA funding.
• A new study show there's enough fresh water on Earth to double world food production, but water is used inefficiently.
• Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding is resigning after the toll of failing to extradite a major international drug kingpin to the US, one who may implicate Golding's party.
• Many evacuated Japanese are now refusing to return to Fukushima prefecture fearing radiation and long-term damage.
• Computers, monkeys, Shakespeare, and weasels are in play as one man tests that famous theory about evolution and random chance.

Last Call

FOX News chief Roger Ailes has dropped all pretense of "fair and balanced" and instead feels the need to admit what the network was put on Earth to do:  push GOP talking points.

Ailes has a blunt rejoinder to those who say he runs a biased outfit: “Every other network has given all their shows to liberals. We are the balance.” Even MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman, “tacks to the center,” Ailes complains, and “doesn’t act like a conservative.”

I'm sure that's a surprise to George Will, David Gregory, Candy Crowley and all the other "both sides do it" fetishists.  I wonder what their response to Ailes will be since everyone not on FOX is apparently a Dirty Effin' Hippie liberal right now.

Most likely they'll come to the conclusion that they need to double down on their Obama bashing, if only to show professional courtesy to Ailes' crew and take some of the workload off them, no doubt.  After all, "liberal" is just about the worst insult you can direct at any member of the Washington press corps, and Ailes has made his fortunes off making it that way.

Time to go long on fainting couch manufacturers and jewelry stores with plenty of pearls to be clutched.  Hell, the piece in question up there was written my Howard Kurtz, and includes this:

Ailes raises a Fox initiative that he cooked up: “Are our producers on board on this ‘Regulation Nation’ stuff? Are they ginned up and ready to go?” Ailes, who claims to be “hands off” in developing the series, later boasts that “no other network will cover that subject … I think regulations are totally out of control,” he adds, with bureaucrats hiring Ph.D.s to “sit in the basement and draw up regulations to try to ruin your life.” It is a message his troops cannot miss.

But he's fair and balanced, Kurtz will tell you.

Privately, Fox executives say the entire network took a hard right turn after Obama’s election, but, as the Tea Party’s popularity fades, is edging back toward the mainstream.

If that's true, then it's the mainstream that's moving, not FOX News.  Isn't that great?

When All Other Possibilities Are Eliminated...Part 2

This weekend's post on Melissa Harris-Perry's piece at The Nation about the lack of real discussion about race among liberals touched a few nerves at ABLC, and I am very glad to see the fact she handily responds to her critics at the Nation today.

I logged onto Twitter on Sunday night and discovered that my recent article for The Nation was causing a bit of a stir. Some members of the white liberal political community are appalled and angry that I suggested racial bias maybe responsible for the President’s declining support among white Americans. I found some responses to my piece to be fair and important, others to be silly and nonresponsive, and still others to be offensive personal attacks. But those categories are par for the course.

I make it a practice not to defend my public writings. Because I often write about provocative topics like race, gender, sexual orientation and reproductive rights, if I defended every piece I wrote against critics I would find little time to sleep. But the responses to this recent article have been revealing in ways that I find typical of our contemporary epistemology of race. Often, those of us who attempt to talk about historical and continuing racial bias in America encounter a few common discursive strategies that are meant to discredit our perspectives. Some of them are in play here.

Do read the entire piece, it's worth it if only to arm yourself with the knowledge of the fallacies that have been thrown at people who have brought the topic up in the past.

The ending is worth it:

Further, I am grateful to live in a time when white Americans are furious about anyone suggesting that they are racist. I much prefer to live in a country and at a moment where the idea of being racist is distasteful rather than commonplace. In many ways the angry reaction about even the suggestion of racial bias is a kind of racial progress.

And I have to agree, that is progress.  But the piece also reveals just how much additional progress is needed.   Until we can have a frank and open discussion about what people consider to be offensive, what is racism, and relations between all races, we're not going to get much further down this path.

What continues to floor me is that if you ask a group of liberals about the need to discuss with an open mind the issues that life-long Democrats have with LGBT or women's issues, you'll not only get agreement but most likely a smart discussion of what those issues are and how we need to address them as Americans.

If you mention that there are life-long Democrats that have issues with race, you get furious denials, tactically deployed straw men, and ad hominem malarkey.  To the credit of our readers here and at ABLC, they are the exception.

A Cheesy Farewell

Arch West, a former Frito-Lay executive and creator of Doritos, will be buried with the chips that made him famous.

The 97-year-old died of natural causes on Sept. 20 at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas, his family confirmed in a statement over the weekend.

During a graveside service scheduled for 10:30 a.m. this Saturday at the Restland Memorial Park, his family has plans to toss Doritos chips in "before they put the dirt over the urn," West's daughter Jana Hacker told The Dallas Morning News.

It's sad to see someone who influenced us so much go away. I'm sorry to hear he's gone (though at 97, what death isn't from natural causes?) but someone who contributed something so influential deserves recognition.  I buy a product he's responsible for just about every week, and just now realized I never knew who brought such a fabulous idea to our shelves.

RIP, Mr. West.  I have elevated you to celebrity status, because you deserve it.

Pawlenty Of Problems On The Wingnut Gravy Train

It seems in the wake of Glenn Beck's departure, the Wingnut Welfare office for failed GOP presidential candidates is closed.

Three weeks after dropping out of the race, Tim Pawlenty showed up to ask for a gig at Fox. But there was a complication: Pawlenty was on the verge of endorsing Romney. “I’m not sure I want to sign you as a paid spokesman for Romney,” Ailes said.

Ouch. Sorry T-Paw. No cushy FOX gig for you, it seems. Maybe Ailes is realizing the being the paid propaganda arm of the GOP means you have to deal with...supporting the GOP.

Or maybe Ailes is just seeing the Tea Party he created turn into a completely uncontrollable mess. Clearly, Republicans are bad for business even at FOX.

Hugh Gotta Know When To Say When

Enough, Hugh.  In the last ten years, Playboy as a brand has gone downhill and a Twitter war with a bimbo was the death blow.  I learned a lot about interviewing from reading the magazine (though I despise her, the interview with CSI's Jorja Fox was in-freaking-credible).  In fact, I actually have a tremendous amount of respect for the writing and their editorial standards, but everything else associated with Playboy is going to hell in a handbasket.

They jumped the shark when they went on TV.  Part of the allure (besides the honestly great articles!) was the mystery of the parties and the celebrity scene.  We saw way too much of Hefner and the ladies.  Other stars stayed away for the most part.  Any mystery was long gone, and it left on the same boat as our respect and their collective dignity.  Then there were the spin-offs which were utterly unnecessary.  In fact, they took unnecessary to exciting new levels.  I had hoped to find that there was some intelligence behind the salon hair and fake boobs.  Needless to say, I was sorely disappointed.

The worst of all was the highly publicized failed wedding of Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris.  The couple aired their dirty laundry on radio, television and Twitter.  The punchline is that nobody really gives a damn.  Hef's rants on sex and frequency reeks of protesting too much, and Crystal is just trying to form complex sentences without a prompter.  We get it, Hugh.  You get more ass than a park bench.  You get more Tang than NASA.  You get laid more than AstroTurf.  We don't need your yammering at the media to know what happens at the mansion, and we sure as hell don't need a second helping all these months later.

Let.  It.  Go.

Lock Of Hair Unlocks History

A lock of hair has helped scientists to piece together the genome of Australian Aborigines and rewrite the history of human dispersal around the world.

DNA from the hair demonstrates that indigenous Aboriginal Australians were the first to separate from other modern humans, around 70,000 years ago.

This challenges current theories of a single phase of dispersal from Africa.

This graphic shows the new paths taken.  Referred to as "Jurassic Park science" by some, this gives us insight into how humans traveled and developed cultures along the way.  A tiny percentage of difference helps map their progress over thousands of years, and may eventually help explain why some cultures and peoples became extinct.  What was once unexplained or written off as poor luck may be explained now with medical and historic data.  It's also interesting to note how they split off.  Australia has always been a continent with a lot of history, this may also have a positive influence on more research in that area.

Gold Rush, Part 22

Gold is rushing alright:  straight down the tubes.

Gold was set for its biggest three-day loss in 28 years on Monday, as investors fled commodity markets in a scramble to secure cash in the face of mounting fear over the impact of a potential Greek debt default on the rest of the euro zone.

European policymakers began working on new ways to stop fallout from Greece's near-bankruptcy from inflicting more damage on the world economy after stinging criticism for failing to stem the debt crisis.

European equities fell, while industrial commodities such as crude oil and base metals bore the brunt of investor desire for cash in the face of mounting uncertainty.

In the last three days alone, gold has fallen by nearly 10 percent in its largest three-day slide since February 1983 and implied volatility has risen to a 2-1/2 year high.

Spot gold was last down 3.0 percent on the day at $1,621.49 an ounce by 0903 GMT, having fallen earlier by as much as 7.4 percent, putting the difference between the intraday high and low at $128.40, the largest daily price swing on record.

Gosh, you mean gold is the next bubble to pop the way oil did in 2008?  But the hyperinflationist crew told us that gold would skyrocket!

In a sense, gold really is up big from just a few years ago and still is.  The problem is gold is up the same way housing was up during 2001-2008, and when it blew it took out all the floors.  Housing prices are still dropping three years later and there's just no bottom in sight.  Gold pushing $1,900 then now $1,600 means there's just as much market instability and volatility there are there is in stocks right now.

Meanwhile in a world where the dollar is "increasingly worthless" and "America is broke" and "hyperinflation is imminent" interest rates on US bonds 5 years and shorter continue to be well below 1%.

Still waiting for the Weimar Republic of the US, I guess.