Archive for January, 2009
What is the media's angle in pushing Palin for 2012 so early?
Are they trying to do to her what they did to Hillary?
This weekend, Governor Sarah Palin will be in Washington, DC for the Alfalfa Club dinner, which Obama is also addressing.
Jonathan Martin at Politico is one of many in the media who are writing this up as a preview of 2012.
And that makes us wonder why.
Not three weeks ago, the press was pushing Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as both the GOP’s savior and its answer to Obama for 2012 — both of which are patently ridiculous, as we explained here repeatedly. Jindal’s in for a rough few years in Louisiana, as oil revenues in the Gulf drop and the state struggles to meet its budget requirements as a result. It’s not going to be pretty. But, even if things work out swimmingly in Baton Rouge, Jindal’s not the one to unseat Obama. One young, relatively inexperienced, exotic, politician from a corrupt state, but with an “inspirational story” replacing another seems incredibly unlikely.
No, the person with a chance of depriving Obama of a second term needs to be someone who will remedy whatever Obama’s lacking in 2012, if/when voters decide they want to make a course correction after four years of Hope!, Change!, and lemonade and pixie dust.
We will be thrilled to be wrong on this, but we do not believe the trillion dollar stimulus package passed in the House this week will strengthen the economy by 2012. Obama and Democrats own that spending package, and will also own all the scandals that will start hitting in 2010-2012, as reporters inevitably discover that a trillion dollars of tax dollars was poured down the drain in infrasctructure projects, especially, that are riddled with incompetence and corruption.
No one can predict the future — but it sure looks like that stimulus is going to do two things if the economy doesn’t turn around because of it:
(1) Demand a course correction from Obama to someone who can steer an economic ship in serious trouble for the duration of the current administration
(2) Guarantee the public will want someone with a track record of fighting corruption and keeping her promises, after four years of Hope! Change! Nonsense!
And we purposefully said “her” because Palin sure will fit that bill: she is very much the anti-Obama in that regard. Mitt Romney’s a great choice for course correction in terms of (1), but we still don’t see how he deals with the questions his Mormonism raises for many people. We hate that’s true, but while campaigning all last year, we heard shockingly hateful things from people about Mormons in surprising places. Little old ladies who seemed like they’d never say boo to anyone just ripped on Romney and Mormonism with language that would make sailors blush. It was stunning.
Who knows if that sort of thing will be important if Obama hasn’t healed the world and solved all of our problems in four years the way he promised.
And, he very much did promise to perform miracles…which we are patiently waiting for, on this the Eleventh Day, of the first Year, of The Golden Age of Obama.
But, as for Palin, she’s a woman who doesn’t promise things she can’t deliver and never hides behind flowery poetry or televised speechifying. She’s someone we would happily support (and work for) in 2012, but we wonder what the media’s doing in pushing her candidacy now.
Why has Jindal fallen off the media’s early radar while Palin’s still being billed as “an early look at the 2012 matchup”?
What game’s being played here?
Because there always is a game.
Somehow, we think it’s intended to hurt Palin, because as much as the media love attacking women and bringing them down, Palin’s a favorite target of the left that’s not going away.
Are they doing that thing to Palin that they did to Hillary — making her the frontrunner now, so they can take delight in tearing her down for a “surprise” entry into the race like Jindal in 2012? So the inspirational and exotic young politician can “come from nowhere” to usurp the female contender for the nomination?
Again.
Because it was all so much fun for these hacks the first time?
What do you think?
Secretary Clinton's Official State Department Photo
Here’s the official portrait Hillary Rodham Clinton’s using as Secretary of State, now hanging in embassies and other posts around the world.
We. Love. This. Woman.
It’s no longer Hillaryland…it’s Hillary World Wide, as the folks over at The Big Pink like to say.
The official State Department website is an interesting place we’ve been visiting daily since Clinton became Secretary of State. Prior to Clinton’s appointment, we probably went to that site ten times in our lives, and mostly for Model UN back in college (representing France and Iceland, among others). So, one of the unexpected benefits of things working out the way they did in 2008 was discovering this opportunity to learn a great deal about American diplomacy, as we’re following Clinton wherever she goes in all that she does. Sometimes the universe brings you the wrong french toast.
It’s up to you to make the most of it, because you sure can’t send any of it back.
Why is the President of the United States making Rush Limbaugh his arch nemesis?
The Obama Administration and Democratic Party are waging war with…wait for it, wait for it…a radio talk show host, unelected to any position, who merely exercises his right of free speech.
How dare him?
Love him or hate him, Rush Limbaugh is someone you can either listen to and agree with (or disagree with, if you choose), or not listen to at all.
There are dials on the radio now that let you change the stations whenever you want, to whatever you want.
Imagine that!
Around here, we like to bebop to a 80s feel good station in Chicago, because you can never hear enough Aha and Rick Astley during the day.
We very rarely listen to talk radio, but have tuned into Limbaugh a few times, and have to say the guy’s a lot of things to a lot of people, but to us he’s a poster boy of real Americans…because he calls people out when they need it and questions our government and those running it.
We don’t always agree with what he has to say (and that’s the understatement of the year), but love that he’s out there saying it. He’s as patriotic as you can get in that sense, especially when challenging Obama on what we believe is a reckless trillion dollar spending bill that’s going to waste massive amounts of money and run the nation into unprecedented debt, with very little chance of stimulating any sort of economic recovery.
Limbaugh needs to stand up and speak out against the stimulus bill as it’s written. More people need to do that. EVERYONE needs to do that.
Now is not the time for shutting up and sitting down and silencing critics with purple Kool-Aid.
But, it’s NEVER the time, or appropriate, for the President of the United States to go toe-to-toe with a radio talk show host on equal footing. And that’s no aspersion on Limbaugh — it just seems so unseemly that Democrats are elevating a radio host to the President’s level, as if we’re talking about an international summit of leaders or a colossal battle of historic proportions. Reagan vs Gorbachev. Roosevelt vs. Hitler. Washington vs. King George.
Obama, President of the United States, vs. Limbaugh, talk radio host?
That’s just ridiculous. It’s a cartoon. Why not just talk about He-Man vs. Skeletor or Lion-o vs. Mumm-ra if we’re going to be so childish and two-dimensional?
The concept of “you’re either with Obama, or you’re with Limbaugh” draws the same partisan lines in the sand and fosters the same acrimony and squabbling that Obama promised his transformational Golden Age would end.
Weren’t Democrats the ones who decried the “you’re either with us or against us” attitude they saw in George W. Bush?
So why trot that old chestnut out now, in a war of words with Limbaugh?
The truth is, Americans need to question the stimulus package the same way they’d question handing over their American Express to the teenagers in their house. When times are tough, the solution is not to go shopping on Rodeo Drive or Michigan Avenue. It is not the time to throw money we don’t have down bottomless pits of debt.
What will that trillion dollars go to?
Who will manage that money?
What jobs will it actually CREATE?
How is the government going to keep that money from being wasted?
Who is going to chart the effects of this stimulus once the money is awarded?
What’s Plan B when none of this works?
Why are people like Limbaugh not allowed to ask these kinds of questions? Where’s the sense in that?
The President and our entire government need to be questioned on a daily basis. Especially with something this important, with financial ramifications echoing through several future generations.
This “Us vs. Them” nonsense is not what’s needed now from Obama.
And it’s CERTAINLY not what he promised us on the campaign trail, with all that talk of Hope! and Change! and lemonade and pixie dust.
How is attacking Rush Limbaugh and those who listen to him Hope?
How is telling people to shut up if they don’t agree with him Change?
Why is the President of the United States squabbling with a radio host?
Isn’t there more important things he could be doing?
Just asking.
Today in History: January 30th (Day Eleven in The Golden Age of Obama)
1648 – Treaty of Munster and Osnabruck ends Eighty Years; War beween Netherlands and Spain
1649 – King Charles I beheaded
1661 – Oliver Cromwell is ritually executed, after having been dead for 2 years, on the anniversary of Charles I’s death
1790 – First life boat tested on the River Tyne
1820 – Edward Bransfield sights the Trinity Peninsula and claims discovery of Antarctica
1826 – World’s first suspension bridge, Menai Suspension Bridge, opens connecting Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales
1835 – First known assassination attempt against an American president: lunatic attempts to shoot Andrew Jackson (the mentally-ill man believed he was King Richard III of England, that Jackson had killed his father nine years before (despite the fact his father had never been to the US and Jackson never came anywhere near him), and that the federal government was holding his massive fortune from him to prevent him from becoming King). Jackson survives because both pistols used in the attack misfired. The man was found not guilty by reason of insanity and eventually ended up in the same hospital Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin was committed to.
1841 – Fire destroys 2/3 of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
1847 – City of Yerba Buena is rename San Francisco, California
1862 – First American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor, is launched
1889 – Austrian Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera found dead in murder-suicide
1911 – First airplane rescue at sea
1911 – Royal Canadian Navy formed
1913 – Irish Home Rule Bill rejected by British Parliament
1933 – Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
1943 – Japanese torpedoes sink the USS Chicago
1945 – Soviets sink German refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff, killing 9,000 in worst maritime disaster in history
1945 – Hitler makes last public address via radio
1948 – Mohandas Gandhi assassinated by Hindu extremist
1956 – Martin Luther King Jr’s home bombed in retaliation for Montgomery Bus Boycott
1962 – Two of the Flying Wallendas circus family killed when seven-person human pyramid collapses
1968 – Tet Offensive surprise attack by Viet Cong
1969 – The Beatles’ last public performance on the roof of Apple Records in London broken up by the police (who knew Sting hated the Beatles so much?)
1972 – Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers kill 14 marchers in Northern Ireland
1976 – George H.W. Bush becomes 11th Director of the CIA
1982 – First computer virus written (400 lines long, disguised as an Apple boot program called “Elk Cloner”)
1989 – American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan closes
1995 – National Institutes for Health announces successful trials testing first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease
1996 – Comet Hyakutake discovered by amateur astronomer
2003 – Belgium becomes second country to legally recognize same-sex marriage (Netherlands was the first, with other countries to follow: Canada, Nepal, Norway, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden)
State Department Briefing Notes: January 29th 2008
Here are the notes from Robert Wood’s Daily State Department Press Briefing. Find the full transcript here.
Notes:
| IRAQ | |
| Blackwater License Not Approved / U.S. Will Comply With Iraqi Decision / U.S Looking at Options | |
| Doing Everything to Make Sure Embassy Employees Have the Security They Need | |
| A Vibrant Democracy / Iraqi Government Trying to Make Sure Elections Safe During Elections / Want a Free and Fair Elections | |
NORTH KOREA |
|
| Human Rights Issues Part of Overall Review / Review Currently Underway | |
IRAN |
|
| Robert Levinson Case / U.S. Working to Get Information on Levinson’s Whereabouts | |
| Nobody from the Administration has Been Tasked to Draft Any Kind of Letter to the Iranians | |
| Currently a Review on Iran | |
| U.S. Wants Iran to Stop Playing a Negative Role in Iraq | |
| U.S. Calls on Iran to Play a Positive, Productive Role in Middle East | |
| U/S Burns to Attend P-5+1 Meeting / U/S Burns Will Share Initial Thoughts Upon Return to Formulate Iran Policy | |
IRAQ |
|
| Iraq is a Democracy / U.S. wants to See Free and Fair Democratic Elections in Iraq | |
MIDDLE EAST |
|
| Letters Requesting Aid to Gaza / U.S. Looking to see How it Can Enhance Assistance to Gaza | |
| Secretary Clinton Very Concerned About the People of Gaza | |
| Special Envoy Mitchell Visit to Middle East/ Meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah | |
AFGHANISTAN |
|
| Afghanistan is a High Priority for Current Administration | |
| U.S. will have Discussions with Allies to Help Improve Situation on the Ground | |
| Security / Important to See Elections Go Forward | |
MISCELLANEOUS |
|
| Ambassador Holbrooke to Attend Munich Security Conference/ Following Munich Ambassador Holbrooke will Travel to South Central Asia Region / Plans Touch Base with Various Leaders in Region | |
| Secretary Very Active During Transition | |
ALGERIA |
|
| U.S Government Takes Very Seriously Accusations of Misconduct of any U.S. Official | |
What Dubai's sewage troubles can teach us about the Trillion Dollar Obama Stimulus Package
What happens when pie in the sky ideas smack head-on with the reality of graft and corruption?
Here’s one of those serendipitous things that just writes itself.
Jumeirah Beach in Dubai is closed today because toilet paper, feces, and swarms of E coli bacteria are washing up on its shore, mysteriously to clueless city-planners who’ve never spent any time around Illinois’ city and state workers, particularly road crews and other short-cutting Houdinis.
In short, Dubai spared no expense building fabulous fantasy worlds to jumpstart a tourist economy catering to the wealthiest of the wealthy and most entitled of the entitled (Caroline Kennedy, your ears are ringing for a reason!).
Once city officials realized the pampered and privileged were swimming in the world’s largest and most expensive toilet, Dubai’s own Encyclopedia Brown traced the sewage to a storm drain near a dock, and then followed the sewer line (by computer, we hope, for his sake) for miles to an industrial area, where he found city workers dumping human waste down storm drains, because that was cheaper and easier to do than whatever they were supposed to actually do with the neverending truckloads of port-a-potty waste they drag from construction sites every day.
There was no one in charge, at the very top, who had any idea that people on the very bottom of this cause and effect chain would cut corners out of laziness and greed to cause an enormous disaster that’s, for the moment at least, ruined the very thing massive infusions of cash were intended to create.
Dubai wanted to create the world’s largest high-end tourist economy, so it dumped billions into what’s essentially a localized building-spree construction stimulus package. But, no one in Dubai was properly focused on the mundane details of executing that stimulus properly, and so mismanagement allowed commonplace shortcuts and low-on-the-totem-pole laziness to foul up the tourisit economy with a literal ocean of excrement.
It’s a small world after all, because what’s happening in Dubai is destined to happen with the Trillion Dollar Obama Stimulus Package Democrats passed in the House today.
Why?
Because people like Dr. Steven Chu as Energy Secretary and Ray LaHood overseeing the Department of Transportation are either not capable or are unwilling to prevent the mission stray, short cuts, and corruption that’s going to ensure those stimulus dollars end up in an equivalent cesspool, instead of creating the magical fairyland of hope and change Obama’s promised.
Workers hired to transport sewage to a treatment facility but instead dumping it into a sewer is classic…and something we can see happening here in Illinois as readily as it does, apparently, in Dubai.
In Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland area), as another example, roads are torn up and “repaired” every three years with planned obselescience demanding the jobs done with those federal transportation dollars crumble after two years of Ohio’s salted winters. And that’s before any trillion dollar stimulus package. That’s how things have been done in Ohio for decades, and why the joke in Cleveland is there are four seasons in Cuyahoga County: orange barrel season, winter, spring orange barrel season, and summer orange barrel season.
Somewhere between approving massive transportation infrastructure projects and shovels meeting the ground, the intent of creating solid roads to maximize benefit to taxpayers is demented into substandard concrete, shoddy work, and guaranteed lifetime jobs for road crews (since they’ll be back to rebuild those same roads in three years, after the ones they’re working on today fail as planned, ready for the next round of transportation spending to start the cycle again).
Our concern with Dr. Steven Chu at Energy, particularly, is crystal clear in the Dubai example.
Chu is the well-meaning, brilliant, cutting-edge, hip, forward-thinking Utopian who’s approving designs for glorious, soaring, innovative, breathtaking pieces of construction like the iconic Dubai “sailboat” hotel pictured above — who has no concept of how everything he builds on those sandy white beaches will be soon covered in feces because he does not anticipate the graft, corruption, sloth, greed, and ineptitude of those charged with executing his grand visions and delivering those projects.
We love Dr. Steven Chu. He is a wonderful dreamer. He is a brilliant man and an amazing professor. But we don’t trust him to keep shit off the beach.
Not that he doesn’t want to, but that he’ll be one of the glamorous hipsters sipping pomegranate martinis on the stunning veranda, wondering “What’s that smell?” as toilet paper washes up on the beach, incomprehensibly to him. “How the hell did that happen?”, he’ll ask, calculating the odds of such a miraculous shitstorm and realizing, far too late, that he was never the right person to keep any of this from happening.
Because he’s not.
And the Energy Department’s getting a MASSIVE share of that Trillion Dollar Spending Project, which Chu will steer towards grande projects that are noble and innovative and interesting, we’re sure — and which will then send billions of dollars down dark sewers never to be seen again, where greedy corrupt men will lurk with pocketbooks open, ready to cash in on the hubris and naiveity of the new administration.
And if that’s not bad enough, this is actually the BEST CASE SCENARIO of what’s going to happen to that stimulus money. Dr. Steven Chu is A GOOD MAN who does not intend to defraud anyone.
Ray LaHood is a product of Illinois politics. He is running completely below radar, and he’s now in charge of the Department of Transportation, which already has a solid reputation for pouring billions down the sewer and into the hands of the mob and corrupt politicians (and of rebuilding the same roads every three years, or using substandard materials on bridges and pocketing the difference, etc).
Just how much of a mess will be made when the Secretary in charge of a Department as large as Transportation is NOT A GOOD MAN, like Chu, and is instead someone like LaHood (whom most Americans have never even heard of)?
When we heard that bit about Dubai’s city workers dumping sewage down the drain instead of properly taking it to the treatment facility like they were supposed to, we smiled because we immediately thought of none other than Ray LaHood. That’s EXACTLY the sort of thing he would have thought to do himself in his younger days, if he was in charge of those sewage trucks.
This is why we keep telling all of you that bringing so much of Chicago and Illinois to Washington is a very, very bad idea.
If you think what happened to Jumeirah Beach is bad, just wait to see what happens to the whole country, when the stimulus not only doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, but the bill for it all hits us square in the stomach for the next, what, 50 years?
What’s that smell?
Oh, yah.
Hope!
Change!
Reality!
UPDATE: Serendipity is right, because if you don’t think this will happen with the stimulus bill, just have a look at this take in Newsweek about Wall Street’s squandering of the bailout it got this summer.
Merril Lynch is renovating executives’ offices. Citigroup is buying $50 million private jets. It’s outrageous, but it’s unfortunately just the beginning of what’s to come.
Who is this person impersonating CNN's Campbell Brown, and where was she during the primaries?
Who is this robot, and why couldn't she have turned up sooner?
There is some sort of remarkable sense-making, logical, truth-speaking robot over at CNN impersonating Campbell Brown.
It looks like her. Its voice sounds like hers. It has all of her distinctive mannerisms and wears her signature odd fashion choices.
But it can’t be her, because Campbell Brown never once called Obama out on anything during the primaries, and the new and improved Camp-bot’s calling him out left and right, and twice on Thursdays.
Today she’s hitting Obama for first pledging not to bring lobbyists into the highest reaches of our goverment, but then supporting a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist to be a top aide to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (the man who now oversees the IRS, which makes Americans pay taxes, while he himself has a history of tax evasion).
Hope! Change! Hypocrisy!
Camp-bot, we could get used to having you around. Wish you existed during the primaries, when we repeatedly warned Obama doesn’t keep promises and pivots positions whichever way the wind blows, but better late than never.
Who knows where the real Campbell Brown is — but, wherever that is, possibly in some sweaty box on an island filled with dinosaurs sinking in quicksand, we hope she stays there, ’cause this Camp-bot RULES!
