Afternoon Open Thread

9 Mar 2010 Author: rikyrah

hat tip-Michelle Obama Watch

First Lady Michelle Obama visited Brinkley Middle & Pecan Park Elementary Schools, in Jacksonville, Mississippi, as part of her Let’s Move! campaign to reduce childhood obesity in a generation and promote healthy eating. Mrs Obama was greeted by loud cheers and applause. This is truly a non-partisan issue that requires all who love children to make healthy changes.

Good Afternoon.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And continue to have a peaceful day

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rikyrah
Nine Lessons Learned from the Press, the Criminal “Just-Us” System, and the NFL
March 9, 2010 by dwil
How is the press fucking up the latest shenanigans in which Ben Roethlisber is embroiled? Let’s count the ways:
1. The college girls didn’t know who the fuck Ben Roethlisberger was. BUT. When the bouncers said NFL player, SUPER BOWL CHAMP, they came running to the back room…. BUT there;s no mention of the “Gold Digger” syndrome, as there would be with Black women (same in Tiger’s case).
Lesson: WHITE WOMEN CANNOT BE GOLD DIGGERS.
2. As commenter “Origin” said, no one is demanding to hear from Roethlisberger. Tiger was not alleged to have committed a crime but the press demanded he show his face and speak like a trained seal. BUT. Not Roethlisberger.
Lesson: YOU CAN GO INTO HIDING IF YOU’RE WHITE AND NO ONE CARES (ASK MARK MCGWIRE)
3. No one is claiming a pattern of mal-behavior w/ Roethlisberger. YET. After SB win #1, photos taken in basement of a college party w/ college-aged girls, drunk as shit. Then he tries a relationship with a woman, Natalie Gulbis, who will no longer speak his name. Apparently, women and Ben don’t mix. Then Ben goes to Vegas and, according to hospital staff, rapes a hotel employee, andrea McNulty. McNulty is kinda messed up and is a “worshipper” – kinda like a college girl. Then Ben goes to a club in a WOMEN’S ONLY college town, sets up in a back room and commences to demanding sex from college girls.
Lesson: WHITE ATHLETES DON’T HAVE NEGATIVE BEHAVIORAL PATTERENS.
4. There is a criminal investigation underway in Milledgeville, Georgia and Ben Roethlisberger left town without so much as a whisper from the police or the press.
Lesson: WHITE ATHLETES ARE DECIDEDLY MORE TRUSTWORTHY THAN BLACK ATHLETES.
5. The saying from the press with EVERY Black athlete who finds himself in trouble, either of his own doing or having something done to him is, “Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.”
Lesson: WHITE ATHLETES CAN HANG OUT WHEREVER THEY WANT AT ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT AND THE PRESS WILL NOT CHASTISE THEM FOR GETTING INTO TROUBLE.
6. Black athletes go to nightclubs where EVERY guest, male and female is patted down for weapons. They are, infinitely safer than a bar where people can come and go as they please – where all it takes is one knucklehead man or woman to say, “Psst, there’s that famous football player.” And said player can find himself rolled, jacked, sexed up in all the wrong ways, and more. BUT. The press will never, ever tell of White athletes and their travails in and around bars.
Lesson: WHITE ATHLETES ARE SAFER IN BARS WHERE YOU CAN CARRY IN A WEAPON WITHOUT A SECOND LOOK THAN ARE BLACK ATHLETES IN NIGHTCLUBS WHERE EVERY PRECAUTION, CONCERNING WEAPONS, IS TAKEN.
7. No one in the press has demanded that Commissioner Roger Goodell call Roethlisberger into his office and mete out punishment to the QB. After all, it is said no charge has yet to be filed by the police.
Lesson: BLACK ATHLETES NEED TO FEEL THE WRATH OF GOODELL BECAUSE, AFTER ALL “THESE INCIDENTS” “THEY” SHOULD KNOW BETTER. WHITE ATHLETES NEVER GET INTO TROUBLE AND THEREFORE DO NO KNOW BETTER. ADDITIONALLY, GOODELL CANNOT SPEAK TO THEM UNLESS THE POLICE HAVE ESTABLISHED THAT THEY HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME. AND EVEN THEN, ACCORDING TO JARED ALLEN, ANY SUSPENSION WILL BE QUIETLY CUT IN HALF SO AS NOT TO TAKE TOO MUCH MONEY FROM THE ATHLETE OT GOODELL WILL WAIT UNTIL THE PAYER’S TEAM IS ELIMINATED FROM PLAYOFF CONTENTION (ASK MATTY ‘CAINE JONES) – AND THE PRESS WILL SAY NOTHING UNTOWARD ABOUT THE MATTER.
8. Even if a crime is committed by a White athlete – Matt Jones – a judge will alter Federally-mandated mandatory minimum drug sentencing by allowing the police to change the charge with which the athlete is charged. And the press, particularly the Black press will commit no words to the obvious double standard in charges and sentencing between White and Black men.
Lesson: IT IS ALWAYS A BEAUTIFUL DAY TO BE A WHITE ATHLETE.
9. If a White athlete and Black teammate are both under investigation for crimes committed in houses they own, the White athlete will simply be traded to another team and, soon, the investigation will “go away.” BUT. The black athlete will be hounded each and every day and be spotlighted for activities that may or may not have happened in a house he owns but has never lived in…. see Patrick Kerney and the rape that occurred in his house, while he was in his house and Michael Vick and the house he bought for his cousin, Davon Boddie, but a house in which he did not reside. Additionally, the rape victim will provide an alibi for the White athlete.
Lesson: A WHITE ATHLETE CAN ALLOW THE RAPE OF A WOMAN HE TOOK HOME WITH HIM TO OCCUR IN HIS HOUSE WHILE HE “SLEEPS” AND THE PRESS WILL NOT HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT OCCURS IN THE HOME IN WHICH HE LIVES. MEANTIME, A BLACK ATHLETE WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE AND BE FORCED TO TAKE THE FALL FOR ACTIONS OF OTHERS THAT OCCUR IN A HOME IN WHICH HE DOES NOT RESIDE. AND IF THE BLACK ATHLETE PROTESTS OR CLAIMS INNOCENCE, FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS WILL THREATEN HIM WITH “RICO” CHARGES ( CATCH-ALL CHARGES FROM WHICH THE DEFENDANT WILL BE FOUND GUILTY, NO MATTER HIS INNOCENCE). IN FACT THE PERSON WHO RESIDES IN THE HOUSE (VICK’S COUSIN, DAVON BODDIE) WILL BE ALLOWED BY THE PRESS TO DISAPPEAR FROM VIEW WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A PEEP FROM THE PRESS.
All of this can be boiled down to one thing:
DON’T BE BLACK.
http://sportsonmymind.com/2010/03/09/nine-lesso…
rikyrah
the MASSA story is BLOWING UP:
when the Right Wing can't find a way to pimp your ass, you know you're poison:
Don't Embrace Eric Massa
Sources say the investigation into Massa will be damning.
BY John McCormack
March 9, 2010 11:17 AM
Reliable sources on Capitol Hill say the House ethics report on Eric Massa will be damning. Obamacare opponents, like Glenn Beck, might want to think twice before indulging Massa and letting this Democratic creep become the posterboy of Obamacare opposition.
It was already self-evident that Eric Massa's story didn't add up. As Jonah Goldberg notes, it doesn't pass the smell test: If Massa admits he “tousled” the hair of a male staffer and told the staffer he ought to be “fracking” him, the whole story is probably much, much worse. And as Michelle Malkin says, “Don’t trust Democrat Rep. Eric Massa any further than you can throw him.”
The Atlantic's Chris Good points out that Massa's timeline doesn't make any sense, either. When the story broke about Massa's ethics violations, it would neither have helped nor hurt Democrats to have him in office as a committed “no” vote:
When news broke last Wednesday that Massa would finish out his term without seeking reelection, that he faced these allegations, and that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer knew about them, the number of votes needed to pass health care reform was 216.
The next day, that number changed: Thursday afternoon, Republican Rep. Nathan Deal (GA) announced he would postpone his own retirement and stay in Congress long enough to vote “no” on health care. At that point, with another sitting lawmaker available for a vote, the magic number increased to 217.
Only after that point did it become beneficial, in theory, for Democratic leaders to force Massa out. The next day, Friday, Massa said he would resign effective the following Monday (today), and the number went back down to 216, helping Democratic leaders.
So Massa's staffer brought the issue to the attention of Steny Hoyer weeks ago, and the story leaked at a time when it didn't help the Democrats' health care vote one way or the other to have him in office. And Massa has changed his story–at first he said he was retiring because of health reasons, and then he resigned because he said Rahm Emanuel was out to get him. If the ethics charges are trumped up, why didn't Massa stay in the House another month to vote against health care?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/no-massa
rikyrah
Massa under investigation for allegedly groping male staffers
By Carol D. Leonnig
Tuesday, March 9, 2010; 3:02 PM
Former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the probe.
The allegations surrounding the former lawmaker date back at least a year, and involve “a pattern of behavior and physical harassment,” according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.
Massa had said that the allegations were limited to his use of “salty language” with his staff. He apologized for making some inappropriate comments and argued he was being unfairly villified. Days later, Massa accused the White House and Democratic congressional leaders of trying to oust him from office to improve their chances of passing health care reform legislation. Massa could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and no one answered the phone at his home in New York or his campaign office. Staff at his former congressional offices declined to relay messages to him and said they did not know how to reach him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…
rikyrah
We don't know what Massa will be charged with, but methinks Speaker Pelosi got on the phone to the investigating committee and said ' send the entire pile over to the Post- NOW'.
like I said – she can shiv you without raising her voice.
she was gonna let him resign, and it would have been some sort of mediocre investigation.
watch it go full throttle now.
Nancy from Baltimore…
does.not.play.
rikyrah
Story Updated.
Daily Kos
Black Kos, Tuesday's Chile Hotlist
by Black Kos [Unsubscribe]
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Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 11:59:53 AM PST
We here at Black Kos were truly touched to have been nominated for a KOscar. But to have actually won an award against such stiff competition was truly amazing. Hats off to the other nominees especially our recent collaborators WGLB Presents. We would like to thank everyone who both nominated us, and who were kind enough to grace us with their vote. Every once in a while something happens that touches someone's heart, and this was one such moment. Thank you to all our readers. We have strived to create not only a welcoming, informative, and inclusive community, but also a place were people can have a discussion without a lot of “shouting” or fear of being disrespected. We have tried to provide news that is often overlooked even on other progressive blogs or communities. This award tells that we are at least somewhat close to achieving our goals. On behalf of Amazinggrace, Deoliver47, Justice Putnam, Robinswing, Sephius1, and myself dopper0189 Thank you!
Black folks and the Oscars
While we here at Black Kos are celebrating our KOscar, I got curious about the history of the Academy and its awards to black folks, as the kudos are going were going out to Mo'Nique, for her Best Supporting win.
Mo'Nique Oscar acceptance speech 2010
Not everyone was supportive or gracious about her speech, when she mentioned the “politics” of the academy. She said “”First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics.” She then referenced Hattie McDaniel, the first black person to win and Oscar.
Kate Harding, at Salon has issued a heated defense, which contained some interesting history (my bold).
In defense of Mo'Nique's Oscar speech
…But there is another element of politics versus performance where Mo'Nique is concerned, which can be found in the next line of her speech: “I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to, so that I would not have to. ” It's worth considering that if McDaniel had wanted to launch a schmooze campaign for the Oscar she won in 1940, it would have been virtually impossible. She was barred from attending the “Gone With the Wind” premiere in Atlanta, because it would have been against Georgia law for her to sit in a theater with white people. She was not only the first African-American to win an Academy Award but the first to be allowed into the ceremony in anything but a serving capacity — they stuck her at a table in the back. Although she was a talented singer and comedian, she won Hollywood's grudging respect by playing a maid named Mammy. And during her tearful acceptance speech (below), she said bluntly, “I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race.” It's the kind of statement that makes a 21st-century white liberal like myself cringe; that she felt the need to say that underscores just how entrenched and accepted overt racism was at the time. But even though the laws and culture have changed substantially, and you'd be unlikely to hear an African-American actor prostrate herself before white peers and viewers quite so nakedly today, it's certainly not as though black people in Hollywood are no longer burdened with representing their entire race or working overtime to prove themselves.
In the 70 years between McDaniel's and Mo'Nique's wins, only three other black actresses — Whoopi Goldberg, Halle Berry and Jennifer Hudson — have taken home Oscars. Just one of those was for a leading role, and if you guessed that went to the only thin, light-skinned, button-nosed, biracial one of the bunch, you get a gold star. Four black men have won best actor — three of those in the last 10 years — and four have won best supporting. So that's 13 acting awards out of 328. In 82 years. This year also saw the second African-American to be nominated for best director and the first ever African-American screenwriter to win. In 82 years. Welcome to post-racial America.
When it was also mentioned repeatedly that Geoffrey Fletcher, became the first African American to win an Oscar for best writing for best adapted screenplay for Precious, I got more curious. Since Mo'Nique is being mentioned as only the 5th black woman to win one, I thought I'd do a bit of historical digging to look at the history of the Academy in its relationship to awarding African Americans in the industry its highest award.
I didn't have far to go in my research. Found this excellent three part essay
A History Of Ignorance? Blacks & The Oscars: Part I by Ullin R. whose full name is Ullin K. Rigby. He hails from Freeport, Grand Bahama.
Here's his intro:
The Academy Awards do not like black people. Point-blank. Got your attention right?
As I pondered this article, I knew there were several approaches to making it realistic and fair without appearing like an “Uncle Tom” or “the angry black man.” I am self-professed awards buff – don’t care what industry, I will watch awards shows. Growing up, I never really noticed that most of the faces receiving – and presenting – the awards at the Academy Awards were Caucasian….I guess I was too consumed in either the fact that my favorite actor had just won or my favorite actress had just been robbed. It was what it was…but with maturity comes consciousness…and with consciousness comes the need to address a stark reality that exists.
The Academy Awards – or Oscars, as they’re commonly called – began in 1929 and have occurred every year since then. Initially, the awards only honored actors in the lead acting categories (the supporting categories were introduced in 1936). Each category celebrates the 5 best performances of the year, hailed by critics and viewing audiences alike. Take a look at this disturbing mathematical calculation: 5 nominees X 2 categories X 81 years = 810 possible nominees (give or take that some people have amassed several nominations during that period…case in point, Meryl Streep who has 16 nods to her resume, including one this year). Well guess what? Less than 50 African Americans have been nominated for acting awards (including the supporting categories.) Yes, you read that right….only 46 African American actors and actresses can lay claim to at least one nomination (only Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx and Morgan Freeman have scored multiple nods.) If that ratio isn’t crazy, I don’t know what is.
Give it a read. He's done far better research than I can, and has pictures and a lot of interesting data.
After reading his history, I started to muse about all those fine black actors I've seen on the silver screen over the years, most of whom were never nominated, and if nominated did not take home a statue.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/9/843825/-…
rikyrah
A reflection on the wages of whiteness: Violence and the politics of privilege in the UAH shootings
Talk About Race — By Courtney Desiree Morris on March 4, 2010 at 9:27 am
The faculty shooting at the University of Alabama – Huntsville in February, in which Amy Bishop, a white faculty member, murdered three of her colleagues of color and wounded three others after being denied tenure for a second time, is the most recent evidence of how hard it is to talk about race in the Age of Obama even when it appears to be hidden in plain view.
In this article I explore the implications of the UAH shooting and argue that the nation’s collective refusal to understand the complexities of 21st century racism and the reality of white privilege allowed Amy Bishop, a woman who killed her brother and allegedly attempted to do the same to a professor who negatively reviewed her work in graduate school, to evade the criminal justice system and go on to brutally murder three of her colleagues, all of whom were faculty of color.
This article urges us to understand how whiteness has transformed and reconstituted itself since the Civil Rights era and to challenge simplistic, liberal understandings of racism as the isolated behavior of a few individuals rather than as structural, systematic, and reproduced through the maintenance of white privilege. White privilege is a central feature of contemporary American racism and this race privilege enables white people to work the system in ways that simply are not possible for people of color.
On Friday, February 12, Amy Bishop Anderson, a professor and neurobiologist, opened fire on her colleagues during a departmental faculty meeting, killing three and critically wounding three more after learning she had been denied tenure a second time. According to the New York Times, in the weeks leading up to the shooting, Bishop had expressed anxiety about getting tenure. She blamed specific faculty for the problems that she was experiencing in her department without pointing out exactly who she believed to be responsible.[1]
Beyond the question of whether the shooting was, in fact, racially motivated – an issue that the mainstream media simply will not touch – is the deeper issue of the politics of white privilege and entitlement. In various forums, such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, when the issue of race has come up it has been to defend Bishop and portray her as a victim. One reader left the following comment:
It is interesting that all three killed were minorities. I wonder if this had anything to do with anything, or whether she just shot wildly? I don’t see that her “publication record was thin” compared to those who were denying her tenure. She had at least three publications in 2009 alone, whereas one of the minorities she shot had publications only in 2005, 2004 and 1997 whilst another had pubs only up to 2001 and then before that in 1996 – all in something called the “Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science”. I wonder if affirmative action appointments lording it over – and effectively destroying the career of – a productive white faculty member played a role? I guess it’ll come out in the trial.[2]
This comment articulates the deeper underlying sentiment behind the commentator’s analysis and Bishop’s actions – that she, as a middle class white woman, was somehow more entitled to tenure than the faculty of color who presumably denied her tenure. The commentator explicitly assumes that the other people of color in the department were less deserving of tenure than Bishop, whom he identified as a “productive white faculty member.”
The implication that only mediocre people of color dismissing a “productive white faculty member’s” good work and intent on ruining her career could be the sole reason that she was denied tenure is patently racist and reproduces the discourse of white privilege as unquestioned entitlement. In the new racism of the 21st century, white people are victimized by attempts, such as affirmative action, to redress historic and ongoing racial inequality. And this makes people of color who benefit from or attempt to institutionalize these efforts at racial justice enemies who must be stopped at any cost.
But Bishop is not a victim and she never has been. Since being taken into police custody, information about her violent past has been uncovered that reveals how she has repeatedly used her race and class privilege to manipulate the criminal justice system.
http://www.race-talk.org/?p=3244
rikyrah
Is George the New Jack? Clooney Filling Nicholson's Role at Oscars
In the absence of the venerable Jack Nicholson at last night's Academy Awards, we couldn't help but wonder — has George Clooney stepped in to take over Jack's schtick? Just as Jack would sit front row, a gorgeous and much younger lady draped on his arm, sunglasses firmly in place (because you just don't deserve to know who Jack is looking at), taking a drubbing from the Oscar hosts, so sat Clooney, front and center — but not exactly in Jack's seat, mind you — a younger lady on his arm, playing along as Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin roasted him all night.
We have to say we missed Jack, with his glasses and devilish grin. Clooney is great and all, but can he ever really fill Jack's seat?
“Clooney's MO is different from Jack's. I think Jack is definitely on a higher level,” says HollywoodLife.com Editor-in-Chief Bonnie Fuller. “Jack is very much the king of Hollywood who thinks that everyone else in beneath him. That's why he wears the sunglasses. George is everybody in Hollywood's best buddy. Everybody likes him and everybody wants to be a part of his inner circle. Hollywood is like high school and he is the most popular guy right now.”
All those cutaways in years past, where the cameraman would try to catch Jack sipping from a flask, flirting with a woman who wasn't his date or maybe even falling asleep behind those dark shades, went directly to Clooney last night, and he yucked it up by making stern faces at Martin and Baldwin's jokes. While some headlines today have claimed George was grumpy or mad while the hosts dissed him, he was actually just playing the role that Jack perfected years ago when Billy Crystal would write jokes specifically at Jack's expense.
“George and Jack are both the perfect Oscar targets for the hosts to play around with. They know their role and they relish being the foil,” says Fox News' Oscar Expert, Tariq Khan. And according to Khan, who is a wealth of Oscar knowledge, Clooney is well on his way to the kind of Oscar superstardom that Nicholson has achieved over the course of his long and storied career. While Nicholson still holds the title for the male actor with the most nominations (12 nominations and three wins), Clooney has been nominated three times in the past five years alone. If George, 48, can keep this pace up, by the time he reaches Jack's age (72), he could even surpass him in total nominations.
“I think that Clooney is taking over. Period. The fact that he is being called our new Jack Nicholson is just a bonus. His faces in the audience during the hosts' monologue were basically the lesson plans from an 'Acting With the Face Muscles 101' class. He was also seen running around, high-fiving fans in the stands. If you replace the word high-fiving with drinking and fans with Scotch then him and Jack Nicholson are exactly the same,” says NY Post PopWrap's Ryan Brockington.
It makes sense that Nicholson didn't come to Sunday night's awards. He wasn't nominated this year, and perhaps the Academy simply didn't ask him to present. Or maybe he wanted to get out while the getting was good and just bequeath his seat to someone new. For our sake, we're hoping he makes it back for a few more shows. There is something comforting about seeing Jack in the front row, almost like when your drunk uncle Albert slurs his way through grace at Thanksgiving. It just feels like home. And we can't imagine that Jack would cede the throne so easily. We're looking forward to 2011, where we fully expect George to try to settle into Jack's seat as Jack removes his sunglasses and smirks, “Who the %$&# are you?”
http://www.popeater.com/2010/03/08/george-cloon…
RobM
BS. Then way have the abortion people been allowed to play games on the healthcare insurance reform bill?
RobM
The shit has hit the fan:
Europe bars Wall Street banks from government bond sales
morphus
Great find.
Rumors were flying last year at Davios world financiers swore they were going to shut Wall Street down.
rikyrah
it's about to get REAL interesting, isn't it?
rikyrah
Eric Massa's (Unintentional) Gift To The White House
Mar 9 2010, 5:29 PM ET
So everyone thought that Eric Massa would go on Glenn Beck's show and trash the White House and fuel conspiracy theories about Chicago-like intimidating tactics used to threaten lawmakers into voting for the health care bill.
But the first thing that Massa said was that he wasn't forced out, “I forced myself out.”
Beck's night ended there. His lip curled up.
Then Massa used the platform to (a) look a little crazy (b) defuse a conspiracy theory that he helped to create and (c) lambast Beck a bit for his own overstatements.
Take off those tinfoil hats, folks….
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/201…
rikyrah
Health Reform Gaining
09 Mar 2010 04:06 pm
As this poll of polls shows, if Obama keeps up his performances like yesterday and campaigns like this day after day after day, the first poll – from YouGov/The Economist – showing a clear 53- 47 majority in favor of his reform will become a harbinger of the future. The data is already there that passing this will help the Democrats against the Republicans this fall, if you can get past the Washington bullshit. The last month has been clearly a net positive in public opinion.
Moreover, Obama's strategy of exposing the nihilism and obstructionism of the GOP is working. One YouGov question asked: How much do you think President Obama is trying to work with Republicans in Congress? 48 percent said a great deal or a fair amount. Compare it to this: How much do you think the Republicans in Congress are trying to work with President Obama? 28 percent said a great deal or a fair amount. 60 percent said not much or not at all.
Know hope.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily…
rikyrah
COMMENT ON TPM:
According to something just on the WaPo website:
Asked by Beck whether there were any “Tiger Woods” phone or text messages that would come out, Massa replied, “I'm sure there are text messages” because he bantered back and forth with his staff.
Massa said he had lived in Washington with single male staffers, “all the bachelors and me,” until his chief of staff objected. “So I moved into my office,” he told Beck.
morphus
Northrop Grumman announced Monday that it will not bid on the KC-X tanker and will not file a protest that might delay the program any further, which paves the way for Boeing to supply the new aircraft more than eight years after the company's original effort to do so.
“We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the [request for proposal], which clearly favors Boeing’s smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity,” said Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush. “We continue to believe that Northrop Grumman’s tanker represents the best value for the military and taxpayer – a belief supported by the selection of the A330 tanker design over the Boeing design in the last five consecutive tanker competitions around the globe.”
Northrop Drops Tanker Bid
Sen. Shelby's wall-to-wall hold did help.
morphus
Limbaugh: “For the first time in his life, Paterson is gonna be a massa” if he chooses Massa's replacement
Media Matters:
CALLER: Yeah. Hey, listen. Interesting sidebar to that Eric Massa mess for Democrats. You know, our besieged governor, David Paterson, will be charged with naming a replacement for Massa. And I'm wondering if there's any chance — do you think that Paterson –
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Wait a minute.
CALLER: — will exact some revenge on Obama, Emanuel, Cuomo, the whole Democratic gulag, by appointing a Republican or, at the very least, a DINO — a Democrat in name only?
LIMBAUGH: Are you sure that Paterson appoints or is there a special election?
CALLER: I am reasonably sure that Paterson will be appointing the replacement, assuming that he, you know, doesn't resign in the next 60 or 90 days.
LIMBAUGH: Let's assume you're right. So, David Paterson will become the massa –
CALLER: Yes.
LIMBAUGH: — who gets to appoint whoever gets to take Massa's place. So, for the first time in his life, Paterson's gonna be a massa. Interesting, interesting.
Media Matters
rikyrah
The Treatment
He's Fired Up. Are His Supporters?
President Obama yesterday gave a campaign-style speech on health care reform. And it's the best talk I've seen him give yet. (Like Paul Krugman says, where was this guy last year?) Here's the ending, although you might appreciate it more by watching the video. It starts at the 38:10 mark:
It is hard. That’s because health care is complicated. Health care is a hard issue. It’s easily misrepresented. It’s easily misunderstood. So it’s hard for some members of Congress to make this vote. There’s no doubt about that. But you know what else is hard? What Leslie and her family are going through–that’s hard. The possibility that Natoma Canfield might lose her house because she’s about to lose her health insurance–that’s hard. Laura Klitzka in Green Bay having to worry about her cancer and her debt at the same time, trying to explain that to her kids–that’s hard. What’s hard is what millions of families and small businesses are going through because we allow the insurance industry to run wild in this country.
So let me remind everybody: Those of us in public office were not sent to Washington to do what’s easy. We weren’t sent there because of the big fancy title. We weren’t sent there to–because of a big fancy office. We weren’t sent there just so everybody can say how wonderful we are. We were sent there to do what was hard. We were sent there to take on the tough issues. We were sent there to solve the big challenges. And that’s why we’re there.
And at this moment–at this moment, we are being called upon to fulfill our duty to the citizens of this nation and to future generations.
So I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know how passing health care will play politically, but I do know that it’s the right thing to do. It’s right for our families. It’s right for our businesses. It’s right for the United States of America. And if you share that belief, I want you to stand with me and fight with me. And I ask you to help us get us over the finish line these next few weeks. The need is great. The opportunity is here. Let’s seize reform. It’s within our grasp.
Of course, a few good speeches won't change the minds of Congress. But a few thousand phone calls to Capitol Hill might. The most important part of Obama's speech was when he implored supporters of reform to make their voices heard in Washington, to show kind of passion and persistence they did when he was running for president. That hasn't happened yet. Most liberals still seem pretty ambivalent about reform and a few are downright hostile.
In the coming days, as Congress prepares to vote on reform, perhaps these liberals will pay more attention to the woman who introduced Obama and appears at the very beginning of the video. Her name is Leslie Banks; that's the “Leslie” Obama mentions in the speech. The White House press office supplied the following summary of her situation. I haven't done my own reporting on her situation, obviously, so I can't vouch for it. But the description sounds perfectly plausible given how our health care system works:
On February 11th, Leslie wrote the President an e-mail expressing her frustration with the cost of health insurance. Leslie is a self-employed, single mother with type 2 diabetes, whose daughter is a sophomore in college at Temple University. In January 2010, Leslie received a notice from her health insurance provider that her plan was being dropped. To keep the same benefits, the premiums for her and her daughter would more than double. Leslie was told by the insurance company that there was an across the board premium hike and there was nothing she could do. If she paid the same monthly premium amount as before, the deductible would increase from $500 to $5,000, and they would no longer have preventive care or prescription coverage. Leslie is not eligible for the insurance company’s HMO due to her pre-existing condition. Under health reform, Leslie and her daughter will have to access to affordable health insurance in the new health insurance exchange, including guaranteed benefits such as preventive care and prescription drugs as well as important consumer protections. In addition, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and they will be held accountable to prevent insurance industry abuses.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/hes-fired…
djchefron
Correct me if I am wrong but congressman do not get appointed.The district holds a special election for a replacement.
rikyrah
Primary Matters
by John Cole
How do we give this woman a hand:
A former teacher and county commissioner will challenge Rep. Bart Stupak in the Aug. 3 Democratic primary in Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reported this afternoon.
Connie Saltonsall, a former commissioner in Charlevoix County, tells the paper she’s challenging Stupak over his refusal to allow health care reform to move forward without abortion language attached.
“I believe that he has a right to his personal, religious views, but to deprive his constituents of needed health care reform because of those views is reprehensible,” Saltonsall told the Free Press.
If you want to concern troll me about her not being able to win the general, I don’t care. Health care is the signature Democratic legislation for decades, and it is in trouble because of this jackass running against a settled part of the party platform. There has to be some concept of accountability in the caucus. He can be anti-abortion all he wants. He just can’t make shit up to destroy his own party. That isn’t being a purity troll, that is merely enforcing the very basic level of party discipline.
And for the love of everything holy, why are other Democrats not repeating, daily, what Saltonsall said: “I believe that he has a right to his personal, religious views, but to deprive his constituents of needed health care reform because of those views is reprehensible.”
It really IS that simple.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/03/09/primary…
rikyrah
Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case
by: dsnodgrass
Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 09:19:13 AM PST
( – promoted by Jill Richardson)
In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto's third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion.
Here's where it gets a bit dicier. Two Supreme Court justices have what appear to be direct conflicts of interest.
Stephen Breyer
Charles Breyer, the judge who ruled in the original decision of 2007 which is being appealed, is Stephen Breyer's brother, who apparently views this as a conflict of interest and has recused himself.
Clarence Thomas
From the years 1976 – 1979, Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto. Thomas apparently does not see this as a conflict of interest and has not recused himself.
Fox, meet henhouse.
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/3357/ex-mon…
morphus
Ding! But, I bet, this is already viral his followers blogs.
rikyrah
BREAKING: 38! Public Option Gets Three More Signatures!!! (UPDATE x1 Hotlist
by Senate Agenda [Subscribe]
Digg this! Share this on Twitter – BREAKING: 38! Public Option Gets Three More Signatures!!! (UPDATE x1 Tweet this submit to reddit Share This
Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 04:27:37 PM PST
Just in from Huffington Post
* Senate Agenda's diary :: ::
*
Sen. Akaka and two other Dem Senators have signed on to the public option letter bringing the total to 38.
Three more Democratic senators said on Tuesday that they would either support the public option in a Senate floor vote or were heavily leaning that way.
Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) told HuffPost that if the public insurance option comes up for a vote under reconciliation, he will vote for it it. “I would support it, yes,” he said.
That puts the number of publicly committed supporters at 38 and the number of likely supporters well into the forties. With a push from the White House, the public option is now within striking distance.
Still unsure of who the other two Senators are. The number is actually 40 because the article goes on to note that Sen. Tester and Sen. Dorgan reiterated their support for the public option though they have not signed on to the public option letter first started by Sen. Bennet, Sen. Gillibrand, Sen. Brown, and Sen. Sanders.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/9/844591/-…
rikyrah
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Stale Cupcakes
by digby
Susan G at Dkos caught a brilliant illustration of the Village mentality in this New York magazine profile of Liz Cheney:
Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.
[...]
Liz’s friends say she sets the bar for all-American normality: She watches Mad Men and 24 on TV, drives an SUV, attends Girl Scout meetings, and is frequently spotted on the sidelines of soccer fields, trading gossip with people like Terry McAuliffe, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, and other power players whose kids go to the Country Day School or the Potomac School.
The fact that these All American folks are also millionaire celebrities with the most powerful people in the world on their speed dials shouldn't be taken as signs that they aren't just like you and me. In fact, they are Real Americans in ways that the frou-frou coastal liberal elites will never understand.
And as Susan rightly notes, there is another teensy problem with this confortable arrangement:
This idea that the national press corps can cozy up to sources or people in power they cover during afternoon soccer games or over Saturday night dinners, then turn around and hold their feet to the fire is ridiculous. You know it. I know it. Everyone outside of Beltway zip codes knows that. Hell, anyone who's ever tried to challenge a neighbor at a local meeting knows it.
But the Village? Meh. They have their own rules. And cupcakes.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/stale-cu…
djchefron
The Enemy the Pentagon Should Fear Most: Health Care
By Harvey M. Sapolsky
The U.S. military keeps searching the horizon for a peer competitor, the challenger that must be taken seriously. Is it China? What about an oil rich and resurgent Russia?
But the threat that is most likely to hobble U.S. military capabilities is not a peer competitor, rather it is health care. In the 1950s, health care was 4 percent of gross domestic product — about the same percentage that defense spending now holds. Defense back then (during the Korean War) was around 16 percent of GDP. The two lines crossed in the 1970s with health consuming an increasing share of GDP and defense a declining share. Neither the Reagan buildup nor the war on terrorism after 9/11 changed things much. Health care reached the 16 percent mark after the millennium. It is now in striking distance, absorbing 18 percent of an admittedly battered GDP.
The defense spending squeeze is on and will become more constricted by health care reform. It is not apples and oranges. About half of the United States’ health care costs appear on the federal government’s budget, which directly affects revenues and expenditures. European nations plead poverty when it comes to funding their militaries in large part because of the squeeze of social spending (including health care). They spend a smaller, though rising, share of their GDPs on health than does the United States, but more of that spending is direct government expenditure.
Health reform is justified based on the need for controlling spending, and includes a promise that efficiency, regulatory, and patient incentive changes will cover the increases in costs that will come from covering more of the uninsured. For Democrats, closing the gap between the insured and uninsured and giving America a truly national health care insurance system has been a goal whose fulfillment has eluded their best efforts since the New Deal. Presidents Truman, Johnson, Carter and Clinton all tried. The late senator Ted Kennedy had made it a career quest. With the Democrats controlling the executive and legislative branches of government by large margins, the stars seemed aligned for President Obama to be the one to deliver the holiest of political promises. The outcome of the recent Senate election in Massachusetts may have derailed Obama’s opportunity, but not the growing burden that health care expenditures place on government and society.
Health care cost control is an illusion. No one truly can make the health care system efficient. For many illnesses, nobody knows what works and what doesn’t. An aging population assures more medical expenditures.
The demand for medical research and technology is insatiable. Rationing is how costs are controlled. But Americans are unused to rationing, except for the uninsured. Try denying someone care and be prepared to be run over. The Health Maintenance Organizations were invented to do just that. Congress passed legislation encouraging their growth, but as soon as they attempted real cost control — rationing — laws were passed that restricted their ability to do so. Today, HMOs are hated by the public more than car salesmen, members of Congress, or George W. Bush. The hostile reception to the recent panel report that recommended reducing mammogram screening is proof positive.
If heath care can’t be made more efficient and if access to health care can’t be limited, the only alternative is more revenue. Perhaps taxes will be raised. Some will be increased, but not likely enough to cover rising health expenditures. Democrats promise to only tax the rich. But, as the rich know, tax laws have loopholes. Republicans have run for years on a tax-cutting platform. The way to get revenue is to tax the middle class who are many and who are not as fleet of foot as the rich. But both Republicans and Democrats constantly say the middle class is the victim of everything, and surely overtaxed. Running up the deficit is an alternative, but the wars, the stimulus plan and the bailouts have already done that. The cries for controlling spending are already being heard.
The revenue for more health care exists in the form of defense expenditures, which have doubled since 9/11. The billions needed for reforming health will likely come, in one way or another, from cuts in defense spending. Personnel reductions will be hard to make because of the burdens that Iraq and Afghanistan deployments place on U.S. forces. Fewer and fewer aircraft and ships will be bought. There will also be less training and more restrictions on operations with and for allies. America has a powerful military that will take a while to unravel, but unravel it will. The nation’s defense budget is about to tangle with a really dangerous adversary.
Harvey M. Sapolsky is a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught defense and health policy courses and was until recently the director of the MIT Security Studies Program. He also is an occasional consultant to defense firms.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/…
ChrisChambers
Books aren't dead, bee-yotches
http://natturnersrevenge.blogspot.com/2010/03/b…
Angelar
I watched some of the Beck show clips from KO & Rachel's show. It was hilarious to see the disappointment on Beck's face when Massa didn't deliver a damn thing to him. Beck could barely contain himself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…
“In the show's waning minutes, Beck surrendered. “America, I've got to shoot straight with you,” he said, looking into the camera. “I think I've wasted your time. I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time, and I apologize for that.”
Seems Massa's dalliance with the right was to be a one-night stand.”
RobM
More on unemployment benefits.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/03/wapo-…
Angelar
pictures I just enjoyed
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4420741…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4420741…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4420741…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4420332…
rikyrah
great choices. thank for the hat tips.
rikyrah
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Sup Ct Chief Justice Roberts criticizes Obama
by John Aravosis (DC) on 3/09/2010 10:50:00 PM
Presidents are allowed to criticize the Supreme Court, and have. Supreme Court justices, especially the chief justice, are supposed to be objective and above politics. The court isn't supposed to respond to anything at the State of the Union. For Roberts to be whining about Obama's speech a good month after the SOTU is rather pathetic. If he doesn't like the rules, he can always quit. Then again, Roberts' style is more to simply overturn rules that don't jive with his political agenda.
http://www.americablog.com/2010/03/sup-ct-chief…
rikyrah
Israel Humiliates Biden
09 Mar 2010 08:26 pm
People seem to think I have been imagining a contemptuous attitude toward the US by the Israeli government, or that my concerns about its “Go Cheney Yourself” policy on the peace process are somehow a function of obsessiveness or something that isn't anti-Semitism but is somehow even “darker”. But I am not imagining these things. They are real and they are dangerous:
Hours after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. vowed unyielding American support for Israel’s security here on Tuesday, Israel’s Interior Ministry announced 1,600 new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem. Mr. Biden condemned the move as “precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.” …
[Biden] began the day on a note of support, asserting the Obama administration’s “absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security.” But by the end of the day, Mr. Biden’s tone had a very different quality. He issued a statement condemning “the substance and timing of the announcement” of the housing, and added, “Unilateral action taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations on permanent status issues.”
It appears Netanyahu was blindsided by this as well. As I have pointed out, Netanyahu is now the Israeli center, but Netanyahu still openly backs new settlements in East Jerusalem for Israeli Jews and Israeli Jews alone. And he would not be prime minister without the support of his religious right. And they believe that the West Bank is God's land – for them alone. And in that, they have the full backing of the Christianist right in the US:
PALIN: I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.
WALTERS: Even if it’s [in] Palestinian areas?
PALIN: I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expand.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily…
morphus
Wonder what the 151+ investors / lawmakers in Congress have to say about about the potential of taking a hit when reducing defense spending.
morphus
Apparently the Supremes decide themselves when they should recuse ….
Rotunda on High Court Recusals
Stock ownership by justices of the U.S. Supreme Court poses a growing problem that could best be solved by divestiture, says judicial ethics expert Professor Ronald Rotunda.
…
Rotunda's comments were carried in an article examining the problems created by judicial recusals, specifically in the case American Isuzu Motors v. Ntsebeza in which the high court was unable to reach a quorum due to the recusals of four justices, three of which are presumed to be over stock ownership. The high court's inability to hear the case resulted in affirmation of the lower court's ruling and precluded the defendants' ability to appeal.
Seems more than Congress, the legislative branch, is beholding to the well being of Wall Street.
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