The Clinton Deception Continues
The Clinton Machine continues to lie and luckily this time, they got caught.
Obama camp: Clinton would be ‘deeply flawed’ nominee
The Obama campaign launched some of its sharpest attacks to date on Hillary Clinton's candidacy Friday, telling reporters on a conference call that the New York senator is a dishonest politician who has consistently misled voters.
What Happened to Free Speech?
After reading the condemnation coming from so many people regarding Mr. Wright’s alleged anti-American remarks I think it’s important for everyone to take just a minute and recall exactly what is said in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. For those of you that need a little refresher course, here it is: “Congress shall [...]
What’s Hillary Hiding? Where are her Taxes?
Why is is that Hillary hasn't released her Taxes? What's she hiding? Middle East Oil Money? Shady deals? Enron, Qwest and Tyco stock gains? We'd all love to know.
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Book reviews: Race, class, economics and destiny
31 July 2010
It’s taken me a while to catch up, but there have been two excellent books looking at race, class, economic status and destiny in the past six months. The first reviewed here is less formal, an excellent memoir/study in personal stories, and the second is more academic in nature, an updated tenth anniversary edition of a book that looks at wealth transmission across generations in disadvantaged communities. Both are excellent, thought-provoking resources for discussion and further inquiry. The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates By Wes Moore Hardcover, 256 pages, $25.00 Spiegel & Grau April 2010 Money quote: This is the story of two boys living in Baltimore with similar histories and an identical name: Wes Moore. One of us is free and has experienced things that he never even knew to dream about as a kid. The other will spend every day until his death behind bars for an armed robbery that left a police officer and father of five dead. The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his. Our stories are obviously specific to our two lives, but I hope they will illuminate the crucial inflection points in every life, the sudden moments of decision where our paths diverge and our fates are sealed. It's unsettling to know how little separates each of us from another life altogether. Author: First-time author, former Army combat veteran, youth advocate, former special assistant to Secretary of State Condeloeezza Rice as a White House Fellow, speaker at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, investment professional. Basic premise: Two African American men. Same name. Born around the same time, living in the same city, of roughly the same class. Ultimately, radically different lives. One imprisoned for life, the other a respected professional. Moore explores his life story and that of his doppelganger, hoping to tease out the reasons why some succeed and some fail in very similar circumstances. Readability/quality: Smooth reading, nice “plot” development if one can say that about non-fiction (you can, regarding memoirs, in my view). Good character description and thoughtful consideration of difficult topics--nature versus nurture writ large in all its complexity. Who should read it: Fans of memoirs and sociological explorations for laypeople, as well as anyone interested in race and class issues, urban settings, influence of family and peers on personal outcomes. Bonus quote: ... when I finish my story, the question that comes up the most is the one that initiated this quest: "What made the difference?" And the truth is that I don't know. The answer is elusive. People are so wildly different, and it's hard to know when genetics or environment or just bad luck is decisive. As I've puzzled over the issue, I've become convinced that there are some clear and powerful measures that can be taken during this crucial time in a young person's life. Some of the ones that helped me come to mind, from finding strong mentors to being entrusted with responsibilities that forced me to get serious about my behavior. There is no one thing that leads people to move in one direction or another. I think the best we can do is give our young people a chance to make the best decisions possible by providing them with the information and the tools and the support they need. Moore took a subject that could easily veer off into self-indulgence--his personal history and that of someone similar--and made it larger than himself. Weaving his own story and the other Wes Moore’s together, he is able to draw attention to the places of similarities (missing fathers, early rebellions, overworked mothers) and places of difference (strong and involved grandparents, private school). But the parallels and divergences become about so much more than just these two men; the author’s luck in finding mentors, and in finding his own responsibility and strength in military experience outline the importance of structure, peers and adults who are committed to guiding the next generation. Both stories are, in every sense of the phrase, very American stories, with tragedy, challenge and success in our system often pegged to very small steps and missteps along the way. *** Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America By Dalton Conley University of California Press: Berkeley, CA Softcover updated reprint, 217 pages, $24.95 Tenth anniversary edition Money quote: In 1865, at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans owned 0.5 percent of the total worth of the United States. This statistic is not surprising; most black Americans had been slaves up to that point. However, by 1990, a full 135 years after the abolition of slavery, black Americans owned a meager 1 percent of total wealth. In other words, almost no progress has been made in terms of property ownership. African Americans may have won "title" to their own bodies and to their labor, but they have gained ownership over little else. Author: Dean of Social Sciences at New York University, Conley has spent his career focusing on class and intergenerational economic patterns. Other books include Honky, a memoir of growing up white in a predominantly minority neighborhood in the 1970s; The Starting Gate: Birth Weight and Life Chances; and The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become. Basic premise: We’re asking the wrong question when we’re limiting inquiries about economic disparities and race to income and earnings only. What matters, says Conley, at least as much as salary is the ability to amass assets across generations. And there is ample evidence that historical and current policies in America penalize minorities in this area in subtle, yet devastating ways. This edition is updated from 10 years ago when it first was released, with a new introduction that looks at what has changed (or, more sadly and accurately, what has not) since initial publication. Readability/quality: Free of jargon yet grounded in research. Charts and graphs with strong clarifying summaries make this a relatively easy read. Who should read it: Anyone interested in delving into the policy behind race, class, economics, education and intergenerational inheritance issues. Bonus quote: Herein lie the two motivating questions of this study. First, why does this wealth gap exist and persist over and above income differences? Second, does this wealth gap explain racial differences in areas such as education, work, earnings, welfare, and family structure? In short, this book examines where race per se really matters in the post-civil rights era and where race simply acts as a stand-in for that dirty word of American society: class. The answers to these questions have important implications for the debate over affirmative action and for social policy in general. Accumulating wealth and transmitting it across generations seems like a no-brainer for explaining many disparities in our society, yet most research that looks at why minorities continue to end up at the bottom of the social and economic ladder seem to focus on education, occupation and income in the contemporary generation. Conley makes a very strong case that the roots of many of socio-economic problems experienced by the African American community are based in wealth transmission problems. He also teases out where class and race diverge, and where they overlap as lower-income Americans of every stripe try to catch hold of the American Dream, which for those at the bottom seems to recede more and more each year. Highly recommended as a book to keep on the shelf as permanent reference and ammo against those who would argue that there is something in transmitted black culture--not economics--that creates hurdles for moving into the middle class.
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Midday Open Thread
31 July 2010
This thread will not yield. The Gentleman is out of order and is correct in sitting down. The Krazy Kims, acting up once again, as the North Korean soccer team was publicly humiliated in a six-hour ordeal: The entire squad was forced onto a stage at the People's Palace of Culture and subjected to criticism from Pak Myong-chol, the sports minister, as 400 government officials, students and journalists watched. The players were subjected to a "grand debate" on July 2 because they failed in their "ideological struggle" to succeed in South Africa, Radio Free Asia and South Korean media reported. Hilarity from CA-03 and its incumbent Republican, Dan Lungren, who was pulled over for speeding in the middle of a radio interview: "Uh, uh, I have to get off the phone just a moment here. ... I'm sorry, I'm talking with a police officer here," Lungren told the hosts of KFBK Morning News just after being introduced on the air. Lungren, who was on his way to his Washington office from his Alexandria, Va.-area home, quickly explained that he had just been pulled over for driving "probably just slightly over the speed limit" as he was chatting behind the wheel (he said his phone was in his lap). The officer could be heard asking Lungren to get off the phone -- "Can you hang up the phone sir? ... You need to hang that up." Even worse for Dan Lungren: His red-to-blue Democratic opponent Ami Bera has outraised him for four straight quarters and just released a site attacking him for circumventing ethics rules. This is a race to watch. This can't be said enough, because it's an unheralded success story of this administration: The telltale numbers for grading the auto rescue now are the first-quarter profits posted by GM and Chrysler while overall industry sales were still rotten -- compared with the horrific losses in pre-rescue years when people were buying cars like crazy. These are stunning results. Obama is right to celebrate them. We all should. Republicans, though? They would have been happy to see the American automobile industry fold if it ensured Obama would be a one-term President, because they don't care about this country. What does it say about the current state of the country when sweeping reforms to the offshore drilling industry can only pass by a thin party-line vote?
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Midday Open Thread
31 July 2010
This thread will not yield. The Gentleman is out of order and is correct in sitting down. The Krazy Kims, acting up once again, as the North Korean soccer team was publicly humiliated in a six-hour ordeal: The entire squad was forced onto a stage at the People's Palace of Culture and subjected to criticism from Pak Myong-chol, the sports minister, as 400 government officials, students and journalists watched. The players were subjected to a "grand debate" on July 2 because they failed in their "ideological struggle" to succeed in South Africa, Radio Free Asia and South Korean media reported. Hilarity from CA-03 and its incumbent Republican, Dan Lungren, who was pulled over for speeding in the middle of a radio interview: "Uh, uh, I have to get off the phone just a moment here. ... I'm sorry, I'm talking with a police officer here," Lungren told the hosts of KFBK Morning News just after being introduced on the air. Lungren, who was on his way to his Washington office from his Alexandria, Va.-area home, quickly explained that he had just been pulled over for driving "probably just slightly over the speed limit" as he was chatting behind the wheel (he said his phone was in his lap). The officer could be heard asking Lungren to get off the phone -- "Can you hang up the phone sir? ... You need to hang that up." Even worse for Dan Lungren: His red-to-blue Democratic opponent Ami Bera has outraised him for four straight quarters and just released a site attacking him for circumventing ethics rules. This is a race to watch. This can't be said enough, because it's an unheralded success story of this administration: The telltale numbers for grading the auto rescue now are the first-quarter profits posted by GM and Chrysler while overall industry sales were still rotten -- compared with the horrific losses in pre-rescue years when people were buying cars like crazy. These are stunning results. Obama is right to celebrate them. We all should. Republicans, though? They would have been happy to see the American automobile industry fold if it ensured Obama would be a one-term President, because they don't care about this country. What does it say about the current state of the country when sweeping reforms to the offshore drilling industry can only pass by a thin party-line vote?
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Saturday Hate Mail-a-palooza: Netroots Nation edition
31 July 2010
The crew over at Netroots Nation got some wingnut attention last week. Beck's and Limbaugh's retrogrades responded. See several of them below the fold.
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Saturday Hate Mail-a-palooza: Netroots Nation edition
31 July 2010
The crew over at Netroots Nation got some wingnut attention last week. Beck's and Limbaugh's retrogrades responded. See several of them below the fold.
Posted in Daily Kos, NewsComments (0)
Studies show dramatic decrease in plankton as planet warms
31 July 2010
New studies show that as much as 40 percent of the ocean's critical phytoplankton have disappeared. Who wants to guess why that might be? But in the long-term, nothing predicted the numbers of phytoplankton better than the surface temperature of the seas. Phytoplankton need sunlight to grow, so they’re constrained to the upper layers of the ocean and depends on nutrients welling up from below. But warmer waters are less likely to mix in this way, which starves the phytoplankton and limits their growth. No doubt our crack media will either not report theses alarming trends. Or they'll resort to industry shills like Junkman Steve Milloy, one of many energy funded rentboys who regularly carpet bombs newspaper editorial pages with climate change disinformation, to present a 'balanced' approach. Speaking of skeptics and assorted ignoramuses, whatever became of all those clowns yelling about global cooling last winter? Oh, yeah: An in-depth analysis of ten climate indicators all point to a marked warming over the past three decades, with the most recent decade being the hottest on record, according to the latest of the U.S. National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's annual "State of the Climate" reports. If the first studies are borne out, put them together with the latter and do the arithmetic. Hint: Soylent Green is people.
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Judge in health care law suit has financial ties to Virginia AG bring the case
31 July 2010
Sam Stein reports that the federal judge assigned to the first of the cases against the Affordable Care Act "has financial ties to both the attorney general who is challenging the law and to a powerhouse conservative law firm whose clients include prominent Republican officials and critics of reform." The judge, District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, could issue a procedural verdict on Virginia AG Ken Cucinelli's law suit, which seeks to deem the ACA unconstitutional, next week. [A]s judgment day approaches, a Democratic source sends over judicial disclosure forms Hudson filed that could raise questions about his impartiality. From 2003 through 2008, Hudson has been receiving "dividends" from Campaign Solutions Inc., among other investments. In 2008, he reported income of between $5,000 and $15,000 from the firm. (Data from 2009 was not available at the Judicial Watch database.) A powerhouse Republican online communications firm, Campaign Solutions, has done work for a host of prominent Republican clients and health care reform critics, including the RNC and NRCC (both of which have called, to varying degrees, for health care reform's repeal). The president of the firm, Becki Donatelli, is the wife of longtime GOP hand Frank Donatelli, and is an adviser toformer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, among others. Another firm client is Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General of Virginia and the man who is bringing the lawsuit in front of Hudson's court. In 2010, records show, Cuccinelli spent nearly $9,000 for Campaign Solutions services. How convenient for the Republicans.
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Judge in health care law suit has financial ties to Virginia AG bring the case
31 July 2010
Sam Stein reports that the federal judge assigned to the first of the cases against the Affordable Care Act "has financial ties to both the attorney general who is challenging the law and to a powerhouse conservative law firm whose clients include prominent Republican officials and critics of reform." The judge, District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, could issue a procedural verdict on Virginia AG Ken Cucinelli's law suit, which seeks to deem the ACA unconstitutional, next week. [A]s judgment day approaches, a Democratic source sends over judicial disclosure forms Hudson filed that could raise questions about his impartiality. From 2003 through 2008, Hudson has been receiving "dividends" from Campaign Solutions Inc., among other investments. In 2008, he reported income of between $5,000 and $15,000 from the firm. (Data from 2009 was not available at the Judicial Watch database.) A powerhouse Republican online communications firm, Campaign Solutions, has done work for a host of prominent Republican clients and health care reform critics, including the RNC and NRCC (both of which have called, to varying degrees, for health care reform's repeal). The president of the firm, Becki Donatelli, is the wife of longtime GOP hand Frank Donatelli, and is an adviser toformer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, among others. Another firm client is Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General of Virginia and the man who is bringing the lawsuit in front of Hudson's court. In 2010, records show, Cuccinelli spent nearly $9,000 for Campaign Solutions services. How convenient for the Republicans.
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