Archive for May 13th, 2009
Something fun for Broadway fans: Addams Family premieres in Chicago this fall before heading to New York
Our friend Paul knows absolutely everything about Broadway and can recite every single word of every song that comes on during Showtunes night at Sidetrack (he also grew a beard recently that makes him look like Michael Gross from Family Ties, or maybe Michael Gross from Tremors, especially if you imagine him running from giant Beetlejuiced sandworms, which happens more in the Tremors series than it ever did to the Keaton family, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your fondness for all things Baxter Birney…sha na na na). This is technically completely unrelated to politics, but interesting because the other day some people here were discussing Broadway shows, so we thought we’d mention what Paul told us: they’ve made a musical of The Addams Family, and Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth will be starring in it this fall here in Chicago where it is first premiered before heading on to Broadway in New York.
Addams Family will hold court in the theater once home to Wicked, the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theater right off State Street (that great street).
Back in the late 90s, we saw Neuwirth in the revival of Chicago with Ann Reinking and Joel Grey, and then later saw Lane in The Producers with Matthew Broderick (and look forward to seeing Lane at Sidetrack while he’s performing here, just as we saw Tim Curry and David Hyde Pierce there all the time when they were in town for Spamalot, and see Jesse Metcalf every time he passes through Chicago doing whatever he does now that he’s no longer the gardener on Desperate Housewives).
It’s going to be incredible to see Neuwirth as Morticia with Lane, we assume, as Gomez (though he’d also make a good Uncle Fester).
And for Cousin It?
With that hair, none other than Rod Blagojevich, with our own Lisa Madigan as little Wednesday Addams (since now that she’s decided not to run for Attorney General and Governor Quinn is blocking her run for his job, she’s not going to have much to do after 2010 when she and Alexi Giannoulias cancel each other out and Roland Burris defeats them both in the Democrats’ primary and retains his Senate seat).
Israel News Roundup
Dear HillBuzz,
My name is Laura Rosen Cohen and I’m a Toronto-based writer with a particular interest in the Middle East, politics, and history. I thought I would help you out here at HillBuzz by contributing some thoughts about issues facing Israel, and by extension the Jewish world today. I’m still trying to think of a great name for these round-ups, and would love to hear from you if you find these items interesting or helpful, or your suggestions for a column name.
Arutz7 is, in my opinion, one of the better sources of news from Israel in English. It’s written from a nationalist-Zionist point of view and contains a lot of stories from Israel that mainstream media outlets miss. For English news from Israel I also tend to read Yediot Aharonot (squishy left), Ha’aretz (extreme anti-Zionist left), and The Jerusalem Post (center left, with some conservative columnists). So here’s some food for thought regarding Israel from today’s electronic press:
- This story just made my day. It seems there is an emergency meeting now between Palestinian smugglers and their Egyptian and Bedouin helpers trying to figure out how to improve damaged tunnel lines. I guess the IDF’s actions there were pretty successful. Kudos to the IDF (Israeli Defense Force).
- This item is about Dr. Utopia throwing the American Jewish community a bone. American Jews continue to blindly support the current president, continuing their ancient tradition of Democratic voting patterns despite mounting evidence that Dr. Utopia will be the worst president (in terms of defending the West) since Jimmy Carter.
- One Reason Why There Won’t Be Peace in the Middle East for Many Generations. Little attention is paid to the constant, frenzied indoctrination of Palestinian children against Jews and Israel. As long as this behavior and “education” is tolerated by the West, there will never be peace.
- Or, as Canadian pundit George Jonas puts it, “Peace won’t come from Microbama’s release of Oslo 3.1. The software “land for peace” has a fatal glitch. It may produce land for Palestinians; it produces no peace for Israelis.” Jonas is well worth the read.
I look forward to this becoming a new feature for HillBuzz and would appreciate any feedback from your readers on a good column name as well as if this information is helpful to them as we all monitor the effects of Dr. Utopia’s Hope and Change on Israel.
Laura Rosen Cohen,
Toronto, Canada
More proof that Trillion Dollars in Spending rushed through Congress was completely wasted: the CTA claims it is out of money again
But, first you need to think back to February and that Trillion Dollars in Spending the Obama/Pelosi/Reid administration jammed through Congress, without anyone — not a SINGLE PERSON of either party — actually reading that bill before ONE TRILLION DOLLARS was spent.
Shameful.
The Chicago Transit Authority is like your no-good, do-nothing, always-in-a-jam brother. It cries wolf so much, it’s ridiculous. Service cuts are repeatedly threatened because the agency claims it has no money. Massive construction projects the last few years apparently depleted all of its finances, and now the agency claims it will have to stop performing routine maintenance on trains and stations because, where public safety and health is concerned, it’s much better, obviously, to just stop repairing moving trains and elevated stations and just HOPE FOR THE BEST.
Today, we wonder why the CTA didn’t get all of its maintenance needs covered by that Trillion Dollars the current president forced Congress to spend. The CTA’s buses and trains are vital to the economy of the third largest city in the nation. When the CTA is disrupted, people can’t get to work…people not working hurts the economy.
So, helping the CTA means helping the economy, stimulating it, which was supposedly the point of that Trillion Dollars the White House demanded Congress spend.
So, why on Earth didn’t the CTA get the money it needed from Illinois’ share of that “stimulus”. Just like the levees in Louisiana, Iowa, and Missouri, the CTA was not factored properly into the vast sums Congress wasted because it is not a pork barrel pet project of anyone’s.
As much as we railed against that Trillion in wasteful spending, we wholeheartedly backed spending billions on strengthening levees, improving existing public transportation in cities like Chicago, and using that federal money to not only create jobs but prevent situations where people lose jobs they have now because they’re cut off from their access to transportation.
Harry Reid famously ensured $8 billion of that Trillion in spending was allocated to a fantastical, insane, flying magnet train between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, one of the biggest boondoggles we’ve ever heard of.
The CTA says it’s short $155 million and, thus, needs to stop making needed repairs because it can’t afford any more spending on its infrastructure.
Instead of flying trains in the desert no one will ride for decades, if ever, why not spend the money on keeping public transportation running in cities like Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and other places it is depended on by people who can’t work without those buses and trains?
Every day, more stories like this come out that should make you scratch your head in disbelief at just how foolish Congress was in February for allowing the new president to dump so much of our national treasure into the drain, while the CTA in Chicago and other agencies like it still claim their own budgets are so drained they need to stop making repairs, and endangering their riders, because while the government was out spending trillions it couldn’t be bothered to fund things that actually mattered.
Is the CIA committed to replacing Nancy Pelosi with Steny Hoyer as Speaker?
Could this man be the next Speaker of the House, replacing Nancy Pelosi, because the CIA has had absolutely enough of her?
Just something to think about as every day more information comes out proving Pelosi has been lying since 2003 regarding what she knew about enhanced interrogation techniques used against terrorists in the War on Terror.
Today, we heard three separate people around town saying they believe the CIA wants Pelosi out. Normally when people talk about the CIA plotting and scheming this or that, we wonder how tightly their tinfoil hats are screwed on, but there’s something really interesting with this.
The CIA is staffed with career agents who have done unimaginable things in this country’s best interest for decades, regardless of who’s in the White House or who’s the current Congressional leadership. Politicians are fleeting, the Agency is forever.
The Obama/Pelosi/Reid leadership in Washington seems just too naive, delusional, and dangerous for the CIA to NOT plot and scheme against Pelosi at the very least. We wish we had more faith in Nevada voters to oust Reid next year, but we certainly don’t believe San Francisco voters will give Pelosi the boot. The CIA knows that too…so the only way to get rid of Pelosi is to completely expose her for the lying fraud that she is. Hamstrung that way, she’ll be removed as Speaker and the much more sensible Steny Hoyer will take her place (as sensible as anyone in Congress currently is).
This is all tangential to something else we’ve been thinking about lately: why is Dick Cheney speaking to the media so much about how out of touch with reality the current administration is? Cheney never spoke this much to the press as Vice President. He’s wealthy beyond belief, owns a massive amount of land, could be doing just about anything he wants, so why is he suddenly so chatty? We believe he still receives daily intelligence and security briefings and it sure seems like whatever is in those reports scares the Hell out of the man.
We do not believe the current administration takes the threats against America seriously enough. Every day, it feels like we get a little less safe, and more and more keeps slipping through the cracks, en route to another 9/11. It reminds us of someone who fell off a ladder once when they weren’t paying attention to what they were doing, and they learned a lesson for a while, but as more and more time went by without another accident, that person is starting to fall back into old habits, taking foolish risks, and believing another fall from the ladder won’t happen again. That person is stone cold WRONG.
And it sure feels like Cheney’s sitting back in a secure and undisclosed location seeing America slide back into complacency, every day inching us closer to vulnerability for a new attack, and as an American he’s speaking up about it.
Add this to the mysteriously ongoing drip drip drip of bad news for Pelosi, and we get the impression people who know how dangerous the world really is are seeking to mitigate the damage being done by Dr. Utopia and his Feel Good Hope Change Band in Washington.
All of this is speculative, of course, but it just feels like there’s so much more going on than at first meets the eye.
If he's smart, he'll pick Ann Claire Williams for the Supreme Court
We still feel Ann Claire Williams is the person to watch for the Supreme Court nomination expected to come soon. In articles like this, where people speculate as to who’s going to be selected for the Court, file Williams under “other people being considered”, and under the radar to boot.
Now, Janet Napolitano is being put out there as a potential SCOTUS nominee…without anyone mentioning the obvious problem her confirmation hearing would surely have (this would be the same problem Charlie Crist, Rahm Emanuel, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, or Liberace would have should any of them be nominated for the Supreme Court (added, quite obviously, to the other irksome fact that last one must contend with, being 20 years in the grave and all).
We repeat our belief that Judge Sotomayer does not have the professionalism or legal acumen to be on the court — the mere fact that she’s been consistently called a potential SCOTUS nominee is the greatest compliment this rude, crass, and belligerent jurist will ever receive in her life. Kagan and Wood are also, likewise, constantly mentioned as possible SCOTUS nominees, but both have serious problems with their records and various statements they’ve made through the years. Both would thrill the Left, but with the 2010 elections coming, not to mention re-election in 2012, the Left is not who Dr. Utopia needs to thrill. Neither Kagan nor Wood would do anything to make moderates believe Dr. Utopia was the right person elected in 2008…and that would have consequences in 2010.
Jennifer Granholm is an interesting question mark, because nationally she’s long been beloved by moderate Democrats. If she hadn’t been born in Canada and immigrated to the US, she would have been Kerry’s 2004 VP pick for sure. But, she’s finishing her governorship in Michigan with immense resentment there. Would removing her from the Governor’s mansion and putting her on The Court help Democrats in that state…and ensure the Dems keep Michigan blue in 4 years? Maybe. Granholm would be on the Court for many years, but we think she has more chance to be the second or third pick for the Court in this current administration (to replace either Ginsburg or Kennedy).
We believe Ann Claire Williams will be Souter’s replacement. Today, we spent a lot of time in the Hyde Park area of Chicago working on a project and out of the blue we ran into someone who actually knows Williams, and talked about her chances to be on The Court. “It’s very, very good…and the media’s not even talking about her. She knows the President very well and more importantly knows Valerie Jarrett, Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod very well.”
So, we still think the media’s looking to the left when the White House will end up picking a centrist, rational, excellent jurist like Williams.
What’s REALLY interesting are the rumors that Dr. Utopia will not select a woman but will instead select a Hispanic man, knowing full well women won’t organize effectively enough to demand gender equality on the Court. Women, unlike the black community, do not come together to support one another, and forever allow abortion to be the wedge that allows men to keep them out of the highest levels of our government.
Go ahead and be all crazy about this in comments, but it’s true. If women got together and voted as a bloc the way the black community did in 2008, that 51% majority women enjoy would be a true force to reckon with. As it is, women aren’t respected by the current White House because they are so easily divided along social, religious, economic, cultural, you-name-it lines, so why put another woman on The Court when at worst this oversight might get you a nasty column or two from Camille Paglia or Maureen Dowd, but that’s about it?
What works against Williams is the fact that Dr. Utopia does not need to lift a finger for the black community ever again. We were on the Southside of Chicago today, and his face is painted on murals all over that part of the city, but most especially on the schools there. Giant murals of him all over the schools, in all sorts of poses, in what truly reminds us of the murals of Saddam Hussein that were all over Tikrit in Iraq. There is no pressure at all to add another black Justice to the Court, and politics will factor heavily into the selection process.
Rewarding Hispanics for their 2008 support with the “historic first Hispanic SCOTUS Justice” is something Dr. Utopia seemingly wants to do.
But, we do sincerely hope Williams is the surprise (to everyone but us) pick because she’s just head and shoulders above the rest of those on the “short list”, and would make an excellent replacement for Souter for the next 30 years or so. If Dr. Utopia gets a second term, expect those picks from 2012-2016 to be as radically Leftist as possible.
But with elections coming up that could guarantee a place next to Carter and Bush Sr. in the one-term hall of fame, we just don’t see a Leftist appointment when that sort of a risk just wouldn’t pay off.
But Williams, on the other hand, would be a smart, smart choice…of an even SMARTER and wonderfully qualified respected jurist.
Wednesday Open Thread
What’s on your mind today?
It’s going to be a busy day for us, with the Special Olympics Bowling for the Champs event later in the evening, but Drudge Report has a lot of things that we’re going to spend today thinking about.
So many stories on that Trillion Dollars of Spending that’s being wasted, misappropriated, and flushed down the drain just like we have been warning was going to happen…and it’s STILL going to take until the end of summer for a full picture to emerge on the true scope of mismangement when it comes to all those billions the current administration dumped into the hands of political cronies.
The MSM will resist reporting any of this as much as possible, but the fact that it’s already starting to trickle out reassures us that by the end of August, Americans will see just how wasteful this administration has been.
It’s also interesting to see Nancy Pelosi squirm in the hot seat for lying about what she knew in regards to the enhanced interrogration techniques used on terrorists. She clearly lied, but will she suffer any consequences for it? We doubt that, as no Republican has ever mounted a serious threat to her re-election in San Francisco. Wouldn’t it be amazing if they did?
