Sunday Must Reads 4/3
-From the front page of the NYTimes; an article showcasing a corporation, Talx, that makes its bones trying to fight unemployment claims on behalf of employers. This will quickly remind anyone who saw “Up In the Air” of the sickening nature and lack of loyalty to anything besides money that corporations possess as a defining characteristic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/us/04talx.html?hp
-Drug cartel evolves into paramilitary machine that U.S. and Mexican officials suspect is behind thousands of assassinations in border region
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/03/AR2010040303141.html?hpid=topnews
-A look at this years Yankee v Red Sox schedule.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/sports/baseball/04sandomir.html?ref=sports
Must Read Op-Ed’s 4/3
- Frank Rich looks at president Obama as a rosarch test and the affect winning has had.
“What a difference winning makes — especially in America. Whatever did (or didn’t) get into Obama’s Wheaties, this much is certain: No one is talking about the clout of Scott Brown or Rahm Emanuel any more.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04rich.html?hp
- Maureen Down Continues to hit the Vatican.
“The exorcist also said that the abuse scandal showed that Satan uses priests to try to destroy the church, “and so we should not be surprised if priests too ... fall into temptation. They also live in the world and can fall like men of the world.”Actually, falling into temptation is eating cupcakes after you’ve given them up for Lent. Rape and molestation of children is far beyond what most of us think of as succumbing to worldly temptation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04dowd.html?hp
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
op-ed of the day 4/3
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/opinion/03herbert.html?ref=opinion
Bob Herbert looks back at MLK 40 years later.
We Still Don’t Hear Him
By BOB HERBERT
The great man was moving with what seemed like great reluctance. He knew as he climbed from the car in Upper Manhattan that he was stepping into the maelstrom, that there were powerful people who would not react kindly to what he had to say.
“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”
This was on the evening of April 4, 1967, almost exactly 43 years ago. Dr. King told the more than 3,000 people who had crowded into Riverside Church that silence in the face of the horror that was taking place in Vietnam amounted to a “betrayal.”
He spoke of both the carnage in the war zone and the toll the war was taking here in the United States. The speech comes to mind now for two reasons: A Tavis Smiley documentary currently airing on PBS revisits the controversy set off by Dr. King’s indictment of “the madness of Vietnam.” And recent news reports show ever-increasing evidence that we have ensnared ourselves in a mad and tragic venture in Afghanistan.
Dr. King spoke of how, in Vietnam, the United States increased its commitment of troops “in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support.”
It’s strange, indeed, to read those words more than four decades later as we are increasing our commitment of troops in Afghanistan to fight in support of Hamid Karzai, who remains in power after an election that the world knows was riddled with fraud and whose government is one of the most corrupt and inept on the planet.
If Mr. Karzai is at all grateful for this support, he has a very peculiar way of showing it. He has ignored pleas from President Obama and others to take meaningful steps to rein in the rampant corruption. His brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the kingpin in southern Afghanistan, is believed by top American officials to be engaged in all manner of nefarious activities, including money-laundering and involvement in the flourishing opium trade.
Hamid Karzai himself pulled off a calculated insult to the U.S. by inviting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidential palace in Kabul, where Ahmadinejad promptly delivered a fiery anti-American speech. As Dexter Filkins and Mark Landler reported in The Times this week: “Even as Mr. Obama pours tens of thousands of additional American troops into the country to help defend Mr. Karzai’s government, Mr. Karzai now often voices the view that his interests and the United States’ no longer coincide.”
Is this what American service members are dying for in Afghanistan? Can you imagine giving up your life, or your child’s life, for that crowd?
In his speech, Dr. King spoke about the damage the Vietnam War was doing to America’s war on poverty, and the way it was undermining other important domestic initiatives. What he wanted from the U.S. was not warfare overseas but a renewed commitment to economic and social justice at home. As he put it: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
The speech set loose a hurricane of criticism. Even the N.A.A.C.P. complained that Dr. King should stick to what it perceived as his area of expertise, civil rights. The New York Times headlined its editorial on the speech, “Dr. King’s Error.”
Mr. Smiley, in his documentary, noted that “the already strained relationship between President Johnson and Dr. King became fractured beyond repair.” And donations to Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference “began to dry up.”
So it took great courage for Dr. King to speak out as he did.
His bold stand seems all the more striking in today’s atmosphere, in which moral courage among the very prominent — the kind of courage that carries real risk — seems mostly to have disappeared.
More than 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq and more than 1,000 in Afghanistan, where the Obama administration has chosen to escalate rather than to begin a careful withdrawal. Those two wars, as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and his colleague Linda Bilmes have told us, will ultimately cost us more than $3 trillion.
And yet the voices in search of peace, in search of an end to the “madness,” in search of the nation-building so desperately needed here in the United States, are feeble indeed.
Dr. King would be assassinated exactly one year (almost to the hour) after his great speech at Riverside Church. It’s the same terrible fate that awaits some of the American forces, most of them very young, that we continue to send into the quagmire in Afghanistan.
Bob Herbert looks back at MLK 40 years later.
We Still Don’t Hear Him
By BOB HERBERT
The great man was moving with what seemed like great reluctance. He knew as he climbed from the car in Upper Manhattan that he was stepping into the maelstrom, that there were powerful people who would not react kindly to what he had to say.
“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”
This was on the evening of April 4, 1967, almost exactly 43 years ago. Dr. King told the more than 3,000 people who had crowded into Riverside Church that silence in the face of the horror that was taking place in Vietnam amounted to a “betrayal.”
He spoke of both the carnage in the war zone and the toll the war was taking here in the United States. The speech comes to mind now for two reasons: A Tavis Smiley documentary currently airing on PBS revisits the controversy set off by Dr. King’s indictment of “the madness of Vietnam.” And recent news reports show ever-increasing evidence that we have ensnared ourselves in a mad and tragic venture in Afghanistan.
Dr. King spoke of how, in Vietnam, the United States increased its commitment of troops “in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support.”
It’s strange, indeed, to read those words more than four decades later as we are increasing our commitment of troops in Afghanistan to fight in support of Hamid Karzai, who remains in power after an election that the world knows was riddled with fraud and whose government is one of the most corrupt and inept on the planet.
If Mr. Karzai is at all grateful for this support, he has a very peculiar way of showing it. He has ignored pleas from President Obama and others to take meaningful steps to rein in the rampant corruption. His brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the kingpin in southern Afghanistan, is believed by top American officials to be engaged in all manner of nefarious activities, including money-laundering and involvement in the flourishing opium trade.
Hamid Karzai himself pulled off a calculated insult to the U.S. by inviting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidential palace in Kabul, where Ahmadinejad promptly delivered a fiery anti-American speech. As Dexter Filkins and Mark Landler reported in The Times this week: “Even as Mr. Obama pours tens of thousands of additional American troops into the country to help defend Mr. Karzai’s government, Mr. Karzai now often voices the view that his interests and the United States’ no longer coincide.”
Is this what American service members are dying for in Afghanistan? Can you imagine giving up your life, or your child’s life, for that crowd?
In his speech, Dr. King spoke about the damage the Vietnam War was doing to America’s war on poverty, and the way it was undermining other important domestic initiatives. What he wanted from the U.S. was not warfare overseas but a renewed commitment to economic and social justice at home. As he put it: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
The speech set loose a hurricane of criticism. Even the N.A.A.C.P. complained that Dr. King should stick to what it perceived as his area of expertise, civil rights. The New York Times headlined its editorial on the speech, “Dr. King’s Error.”
Mr. Smiley, in his documentary, noted that “the already strained relationship between President Johnson and Dr. King became fractured beyond repair.” And donations to Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference “began to dry up.”
So it took great courage for Dr. King to speak out as he did.
His bold stand seems all the more striking in today’s atmosphere, in which moral courage among the very prominent — the kind of courage that carries real risk — seems mostly to have disappeared.
More than 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq and more than 1,000 in Afghanistan, where the Obama administration has chosen to escalate rather than to begin a careful withdrawal. Those two wars, as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and his colleague Linda Bilmes have told us, will ultimately cost us more than $3 trillion.
And yet the voices in search of peace, in search of an end to the “madness,” in search of the nation-building so desperately needed here in the United States, are feeble indeed.
Dr. King would be assassinated exactly one year (almost to the hour) after his great speech at Riverside Church. It’s the same terrible fate that awaits some of the American forces, most of them very young, that we continue to send into the quagmire in Afghanistan.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Political term of the day 4/2
muckey-mucks (muck -a-mucks): High officials,; big shots; term of derision for leaders by party workers. The expression is still often heard as high muck-a-muck because of it's probably derivation from Chinook jargon, hiu(plenty) muckamuck(food); hence, one who has plenty to eat, or a man of power, a big wheel.
162,000 Jobs Added in March; Rate Remains 9.7%
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/economy/03jobs.html?hp
I know the unemployment rate remained at 9.7% but with the addition of 162,000 jobs, 48,000 temporary census workers, this is more than a greenshoot. It opens the door for both a political and economic opportunity. If private employers who are on the brink of hiring take this jobs report as a green light for hiring the worst of the "Great Recession" could be over and we could be looking at a sustainable recovery.
In terms of a political opportunity this presents a chance for President Obama and the Democrats to cite tangible evidence as to why voters should rehire them on November 2. I think this could be especially powerful when running against a Republican party that has NO new ideas. I'm assuming it's fair to say tax cuts for the wealthy aren't a new idea? Actually, I should retract that statement because I guess it is a relatively new idea, since he's only been on the national stage since 2004, to oppose every single thing Barack Obama proposes.
You we're for a debt reduction committee? Not anymore. You chanted "Drill,Baby, Drill" at the convention in 08? Not anymore. You signed a health care bill into law, that contained a universal mandate(Mitt Romney)?Not anymore! So if the jobs numbers keep getting better will the GOP find a way to be against a growing economy? In my younger and more vulnerable years I would've said yes, but not anymore.
I know the unemployment rate remained at 9.7% but with the addition of 162,000 jobs, 48,000 temporary census workers, this is more than a greenshoot. It opens the door for both a political and economic opportunity. If private employers who are on the brink of hiring take this jobs report as a green light for hiring the worst of the "Great Recession" could be over and we could be looking at a sustainable recovery.
In terms of a political opportunity this presents a chance for President Obama and the Democrats to cite tangible evidence as to why voters should rehire them on November 2. I think this could be especially powerful when running against a Republican party that has NO new ideas. I'm assuming it's fair to say tax cuts for the wealthy aren't a new idea? Actually, I should retract that statement because I guess it is a relatively new idea, since he's only been on the national stage since 2004, to oppose every single thing Barack Obama proposes.
You we're for a debt reduction committee? Not anymore. You chanted "Drill,Baby, Drill" at the convention in 08? Not anymore. You signed a health care bill into law, that contained a universal mandate(Mitt Romney)?Not anymore! So if the jobs numbers keep getting better will the GOP find a way to be against a growing economy? In my younger and more vulnerable years I would've said yes, but not anymore.
op-ed of the day 4/2
Today's op-ed of the day comes from David Corn. In this column he writes about the GOP's recent struggles with distracting issues and not being able to take advantage of the political strides they've made against the Democrats.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/02/only-thing-gopers-have-to-fear-is-the-gop-itself/
If I had a gift certificate to a bondage-themed strip-tease club for every time I've heard Democrats complain that the mascot of their party ought to be a circular firing squad, I'd be able to entertain thousands of GOP operatives. But now it seems that it's the Republicans who are engaging in an orgy of cannibalism -- just when they're poised to mount one of the greatest political comebacks in years. Let your mind drift back to the historic days of November 2008. After Barack Obama won the White House and his Democratic Party achieved super-majority control of Congress, it seemed that the Republican Party was in for a long, cold stretch of winter. There was talk of an era of decline for the Grand Old Party. The D's would dominate for years. Political scientists and pundits pondered permanent realignment. That was then. Now, a short 16 months later, the sun appears to be shining on Republicans. A Gallup poll released on April Fools' Day -- but no laughing matter for Democrats -- noted that 47 percent of registered voters prefer the Republican House candidate in their district to the Democratic contender; only 44 percent went for the Dem. Four weeks ago -- when Gallup began asking this question -- the numbers were reversed. The most simple explanation for the shift is popular upset with the health care reform legislation. Obama's historic win has not yet cast a glow upon House Democrats. Perhaps more important for the political prospects of Republicans, it looks as if unemployment will remain rather high between now and the November elections. Consequently, the incumbent party can expect a good whacking from voters in November, with Republican bystanders reaping the benefits of such punishment. A CNN poll notes that Americans say that Republicans in Congress would better deal with the economy than Democrats, 48 to 45 percent. That's quite a worrisome snapshot for Democrats.
So what could possibly darken the skies for Republicans? Their own actions. After all, the party is a mess. GOP chief Michael Steele is a flytrap for controversy, the latest being the party's $2,000 expenditure at a bondage strip club in West Hollywood for entertainment purposes. This has caused much embarrassment for Steele and the Gang at party HQ. Fundamentalist groups have protested the party's lack of allegiance to family values. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an influential social conservative outfit, has called on his followers to stop donating to the party. Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a darling of the religious right, and Penny Nance, the head of Conservative Women for America, have raised questions about Steele's leadership of the party. ("Look, if you can't run a party you certainly can't run a country," Perkins said on Thursday afternoon.) At the same time -- if not necessarily for the same reason -- Sarah Palin has asked the Republican National Committee to strike her name from an upcoming fundraiser in New Orleans. And the Republican Party has had problems with its own budget, outspending its revenues and possibly hobbling itself as the congressional elections approach. This has got GOP fat cats grumbling. With Steele ever-under fire, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, a former GOP party chieftain, have been raising millions of bucks for a new 527 political action committee called American Crossroads, which will collect tens of millions of dollars to assist Republican House and Senate candidates this fall. This effort is something of a no-confidence vote in Steele and his underlings.On policy matters, the party has been caught up in internal debates concerning how to best position itself on health care and Wall Street reform. GOP 2012 presidential contenders are starting to snipe at each other. (Just ask any GOP operative working for a candidate other than Mitt Romney about Romney's record on health care reform when he was Massachusetts governor.) And Tea Partiers are challenging mainstream GOPers. See the nasty Senate primary races in Arizona and Florida. Now should be a brilliant springtime of GOP contentment. After all, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, recently said that House Dems face "an uphill climb this November. The question is, the steepness of the hill." Yet GOP disorder could get in the way of a Republican rout of the Democrats. Organization does count in politics. Parties need to maximize their resources. They need to coordinate messages. If a party is efficient -- or at least, competent -- it can best take advantage of favorable prevailing conditions. True, sometimes a wave is so big, other considerations (and screw-ups) don't matter. But GOP haplessness appears to might be offering the Dems a fighting chance in 2010. In January, when Steel was in the news for saying he didn't expect his party to win back the House, I noted that the sooner the GOP dumped Steele, the better off it would be:
The chief of the GOP has two challenges: to pull in big bucks and to maintain the peace within his party. Steele appears to have been too busy goofing on cable TV to do either. As I've noted previously, this election year offers Republicans a grand opportunity, particularly because unemployment is expected to remain high for months, if not years, to come. But a party burdened with a leader who alienates donors will not be best positioned to exploit that advantage. It's hard to imagine Steele getting his act together and functioning as an effective party chairman in the tough slog ahead. Though there might be a cost if Republicans send him packing now, the cost will be greater if Steele is forced out later rather than sooner.It may be getting too late to de-Steele the party, for the subsequent recriminations would certainly distract from the mission at hand: winning the 2010 elections. Just imagine how much more damage a totally off-the-reservation Steele could do outside the tent. (If Steele is removed as party head, it would be a gigantic boon for cable TV -- the political news equivalent of the O.J. chase.) So the Republicans may be stuck with Steele and his dramas, as well as all the other inside-the-party bickering. But, as my father used to say often, it's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart. Merely being the non-incumbent party might be enough for the GOP to win big in 2010, and, ultimately, none of the side-show silliness may influence what happens when voters vote. Despite all the Republican miscues and blunders, GOPers might want to book the Voyeur strip club for a victory party on Nov.2.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/02/only-thing-gopers-have-to-fear-is-the-gop-itself/
If I had a gift certificate to a bondage-themed strip-tease club for every time I've heard Democrats complain that the mascot of their party ought to be a circular firing squad, I'd be able to entertain thousands of GOP operatives. But now it seems that it's the Republicans who are engaging in an orgy of cannibalism -- just when they're poised to mount one of the greatest political comebacks in years. Let your mind drift back to the historic days of November 2008. After Barack Obama won the White House and his Democratic Party achieved super-majority control of Congress, it seemed that the Republican Party was in for a long, cold stretch of winter. There was talk of an era of decline for the Grand Old Party. The D's would dominate for years. Political scientists and pundits pondered permanent realignment. That was then. Now, a short 16 months later, the sun appears to be shining on Republicans. A Gallup poll released on April Fools' Day -- but no laughing matter for Democrats -- noted that 47 percent of registered voters prefer the Republican House candidate in their district to the Democratic contender; only 44 percent went for the Dem. Four weeks ago -- when Gallup began asking this question -- the numbers were reversed. The most simple explanation for the shift is popular upset with the health care reform legislation. Obama's historic win has not yet cast a glow upon House Democrats. Perhaps more important for the political prospects of Republicans, it looks as if unemployment will remain rather high between now and the November elections. Consequently, the incumbent party can expect a good whacking from voters in November, with Republican bystanders reaping the benefits of such punishment. A CNN poll notes that Americans say that Republicans in Congress would better deal with the economy than Democrats, 48 to 45 percent. That's quite a worrisome snapshot for Democrats.
So what could possibly darken the skies for Republicans? Their own actions. After all, the party is a mess. GOP chief Michael Steele is a flytrap for controversy, the latest being the party's $2,000 expenditure at a bondage strip club in West Hollywood for entertainment purposes. This has caused much embarrassment for Steele and the Gang at party HQ. Fundamentalist groups have protested the party's lack of allegiance to family values. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an influential social conservative outfit, has called on his followers to stop donating to the party. Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a darling of the religious right, and Penny Nance, the head of Conservative Women for America, have raised questions about Steele's leadership of the party. ("Look, if you can't run a party you certainly can't run a country," Perkins said on Thursday afternoon.) At the same time -- if not necessarily for the same reason -- Sarah Palin has asked the Republican National Committee to strike her name from an upcoming fundraiser in New Orleans. And the Republican Party has had problems with its own budget, outspending its revenues and possibly hobbling itself as the congressional elections approach. This has got GOP fat cats grumbling. With Steele ever-under fire, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, a former GOP party chieftain, have been raising millions of bucks for a new 527 political action committee called American Crossroads, which will collect tens of millions of dollars to assist Republican House and Senate candidates this fall. This effort is something of a no-confidence vote in Steele and his underlings.On policy matters, the party has been caught up in internal debates concerning how to best position itself on health care and Wall Street reform. GOP 2012 presidential contenders are starting to snipe at each other. (Just ask any GOP operative working for a candidate other than Mitt Romney about Romney's record on health care reform when he was Massachusetts governor.) And Tea Partiers are challenging mainstream GOPers. See the nasty Senate primary races in Arizona and Florida. Now should be a brilliant springtime of GOP contentment. After all, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, recently said that House Dems face "an uphill climb this November. The question is, the steepness of the hill." Yet GOP disorder could get in the way of a Republican rout of the Democrats. Organization does count in politics. Parties need to maximize their resources. They need to coordinate messages. If a party is efficient -- or at least, competent -- it can best take advantage of favorable prevailing conditions. True, sometimes a wave is so big, other considerations (and screw-ups) don't matter. But GOP haplessness appears to might be offering the Dems a fighting chance in 2010. In January, when Steel was in the news for saying he didn't expect his party to win back the House, I noted that the sooner the GOP dumped Steele, the better off it would be:
The chief of the GOP has two challenges: to pull in big bucks and to maintain the peace within his party. Steele appears to have been too busy goofing on cable TV to do either. As I've noted previously, this election year offers Republicans a grand opportunity, particularly because unemployment is expected to remain high for months, if not years, to come. But a party burdened with a leader who alienates donors will not be best positioned to exploit that advantage. It's hard to imagine Steele getting his act together and functioning as an effective party chairman in the tough slog ahead. Though there might be a cost if Republicans send him packing now, the cost will be greater if Steele is forced out later rather than sooner.It may be getting too late to de-Steele the party, for the subsequent recriminations would certainly distract from the mission at hand: winning the 2010 elections. Just imagine how much more damage a totally off-the-reservation Steele could do outside the tent. (If Steele is removed as party head, it would be a gigantic boon for cable TV -- the political news equivalent of the O.J. chase.) So the Republicans may be stuck with Steele and his dramas, as well as all the other inside-the-party bickering. But, as my father used to say often, it's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart. Merely being the non-incumbent party might be enough for the GOP to win big in 2010, and, ultimately, none of the side-show silliness may influence what happens when voters vote. Despite all the Republican miscues and blunders, GOPers might want to book the Voyeur strip club for a victory party on Nov.2.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Political term of the day- 4/1
Party Elders: The "Grand Old Men"- and now women- of a party, venerated for their age, presumed sagacity,length of party service, and present or past political power.
Party elders is probably derived from church elder, and the Council of Elders who "appealed" to Napoleon to lead France after excesses of its revolution.
Party elders is probably derived from church elder, and the Council of Elders who "appealed" to Napoleon to lead France after excesses of its revolution.
drill, Barack,drill revisited
Yesterday I think i may have oversimplified my view that Obama's decision to open up some offshore drilling was politically brilliant. I still hold that belief but I am concerned that he is going to be left alone in the center.
The left is mad because this is an issue they(myself included) stand against. While on the right side of the aisle, Barack Obama is an issue they stand against. I truly believe that anything short of switching parties is not good enough for the GOP.
I know i may seem a little leery of a strong opinion or declaration for a political blogger but in the wake of health care I'm going to be slow to question Barack Obama, and his team, on how to maneuver. I'm sure I'll have more on this soon.
The left is mad because this is an issue they(myself included) stand against. While on the right side of the aisle, Barack Obama is an issue they stand against. I truly believe that anything short of switching parties is not good enough for the GOP.
I know i may seem a little leery of a strong opinion or declaration for a political blogger but in the wake of health care I'm going to be slow to question Barack Obama, and his team, on how to maneuver. I'm sure I'll have more on this soon.
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