Posts Tagged ‘Karl Rove’
Wednesday!
* A bounce house flew away with three children inside. Unreal.
* Also unreal: Homeless Football Player Can’t Receive Fans’ Aid Due To Criminal Cartel’s Insane, Abusive Rules. Here are the salaries the administrative staff of Boise State athletics will be making while their unpaid employee is homeless.
* Think of the NCAA as a cheering squad, that gets all up into your personal life. Former Oklahoma center Gabe Ikard is a courtside fixture at Thunder games with his girlfriend. He stated in a radio interview with WWLS’ the Morning Animals that Oklahoma’s Compliance Dept. made his girlfriend sign an affidavit their relationship was legitimate and was not a ruse to provide extra benefits to an Oklahoma football player. Ikard was one of the players embroiled in “Pastagate,” where Oklahoma self-reported a secondary violation and ordered him to pay $3.83 to charity for excessive pasta consumption.
* I didn’t realize until I spoke to Rebecca Schuman about her Amherst-banning-frats piece how misguided it was. Without explicit exceptions for emergencies and assault-reporting this kind of blanket ban is obviously unworkable, and almost certainly not Title IX compliant.
* Hey, fellow educators! It’s your cousin, Gerry. You know that consolation you’ve been taking that at least your life’s work is meaningful? Well, listen to this!
* Vigilante feminism at Columbia.
* The Washington Post assigns five reporters to chase down a lie Karl Rove just made up on the spot.
* Sandy Hook ‘Truther’ Tells Victim’s Mother Her Daughter Never Existed.
* Arguing that school closures in cities across the country disproportionately affect African American students, community activists filed three federal civil rights complaints Tuesday challenging closures in Newark, New Orleans and Chicago and called on the Obama administration to halt similar efforts elsewhere.
* Boosting school funding 20 percent erased the graduation gap between rich and poor students.
* Cell Phone Video Shows Police Choking, Kicking 6th Graders.
* Fox greenlights “last man on Earth” premise it must know will get canceled immediately. They must know.
* io9: The Strange, Post-Soviet Architecture of Astana, Kazakhstan.
* “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end. I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon, and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed for even an instant. If you seek to help, join the open source community and fight to keep the spirit of the press alive and the internet free. I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.“
* “You mention in your book that Snowden’s moral universe was first informed by video games.”
* Today in academic journals: Board Game Studies.
* Spurious Correlations. The truth is out there!
* Back to the top of the order: How artificial intelligence is about to disrupt higher education.
* And the Pope gets deep into my wheelhouse, says the Church would baptize aliens.
Speaking during the homily at his daily morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta inside Vatican City where he lives on Monday, he told his mostly clerical audience that they should keep an open mind to anyone—or anything—seeking God. “If—for example—tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here… Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them… And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?” he asked parishioners. “When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, ‘No, Lord, it is not prudent! No, let’s do it this way…’”
Friday!
* First, the big news: Casey Affleck has admitted I’m Still Here is a hoax. Shock! Terror!
* Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will hold “competing” rallies on the Mall in Washington, D.C., to restore sanity and keep fear alive respectively. I think this is a good idea and I’m glad they’re doing it, but it’s frustrating to once again see legitimate criticism of Bush equated with totally insane criticism of Obama in the name of “balance” and “moderation.”
* Our long national nightmare is finally over: Karl Rove has surrendered to Christine O’Donnell.
* Science has proved Facebook causes flu and little kids have been mocking us this whole time.
* Understanding the Tea Party, from Glenn Greenwald. A good pullquote: Given all that, I’d really like to hear what it is about Christine O’Donnell, or Sharron Angle, or any of these other candidates that sets them apart from decades of radical right-wing elected officials who came before them? They seem far more similar to me than different. When was this idealized era of GOP Adult Reasonableness?
* The first Earth-like planet orbiting another star will be announced in May next year, if the discovery of extrasolar planets continues at its present rate, say researchers Samuel Arbesman from Harvard Medical School in Boston and Gregory Laughlin at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
* The U.S. poverty rate is at its highest level since 1994. Matt Yglesias:
Melissa Boteach, my colleague who focuses on poverty issues, points out that congress has the opportunity to act before things get even worse:
In just two weeks a job-creation engine known as the TANF Emergency Fund will expire, forcing states to begin shutting down successful partnerships with the private sector that have already created nearly a quarter-million jobs for low-income families. Congress must act before September 30 to extend the TANF Emergency Fund for another year and allow this innovative jobs program to continue.
Unfortunately, congress is typically more interested in the tax burden of millionaires than in the welfare of the poor and near-poor.
* Self-absorbed, self-indulged, and self-loathing, the Baby Boom generation at last has the chance to step out of the so-called Greatest Generation’s historical shadow. Boomers may not have the opportunity to save the world, as their predecessors did, but they can still redeem themselves by saving the American economy from the fiscal mess that they, and their fathers and mothers, are leaving behind. Via the latest MetaFilter post on the ongoing Third-Worldization of America.
* Making puppets with Jim Henson. Also via MetaFilter.
* And All-Star Superman will be made into animated movie. I don’t know why it hasn’t been green-lit for the next live-action Superman yet. Jon Hamm could kill it.
Three for Wednesday
* And every freshman composition essay ever: Since The Beginning Of Time, Mankind Has Discussed What It Did On Summer Vacation.
Republicans in Disarray
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together! Karl Rove and Sean Hannity arguing! Mass hysteria!
Saturday Night Fever
* Fredrick Pohl has been blogging about his friendship with the young Isaac Asimov: 1 2 3 4 5. Via io9.
* Not only are young people stealing all our jobs, they’re criminals! Wake up, sheeple!
* David Neiwert links to Justine Sharrock’s Mother Jones piece about the Oath Keepers, a right-wing fringe movement focused on recruiting disaffected personnel in the military and law enforcement. It’s not good.
* Well, that’s unexpected: Texas Judge Rules Death Penalty Unconstitutional.
* Gawker salutes the time Karl Rove got beat up by a little girl.
* Judging from my treatment on Twitter I’m apparently the second-to-last person in America to remember Morgan Freeman was on The Electric Company. Only my old friend @drbluman is less informed…
NJ-Gov Part Deux
I really won’t be doing a lot of NJ-GOV blogging, but in light of my earlier post on the This American Life episode I find it interesting that Jon Corzine may have caught a break today in unsealed U.S. Attorney scandal emails that link Chris Christie to the Bush White House and Karl Rove.
Monday News Roundup
Monday!
* Almost as if they all receive their talking points from a single, central location, the entire right-wing spin machine has spontaneously decided to start talking about how the New Deal didn’t actually work. Uh, sure.
* The first link doesn’t make the absurdity clear, but Karl Rove is Twittering.
* Also in alternate-universe news: George Bush: Greatest President.
To prove his point, Barnes points to Bush’s “ten great achievements”:
1. Bush stood up to “global warming hysteria,” and helped undermine the agenda of “alarmists.”
2. He endorsed “enhanced interrogation,” “secret prisons,” and “wireless eavesdropping.”
3. He seized unprecedented executive authority, and ignored congressional attempts at oversight.
4. He offered “unswerving support for Israel.”
5. He signed the No Child Left Behind initiative.
6. He delivered his second inaugural address.
7. He signed the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
8. He pushed the Supreme Court even further to the right.
9. He improved U.S. relations with Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
10. He created a “fragile but functioning democracy” in Iraq.
You’ll note Barnes is padding his list just a bit—delivering a second inaugural address is sort of light for a “top ten accomplishments” list, as is “improved relations with Australia.”
* Also via Washington Monthly, Jon Swift has your retort.
* Not capturing Osama bin Laden isn’t on Barnes’s list, but Cheney tells us that doesn’t matter.
Today on CNN’s Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer asked Vice President Cheney, “How frustrating is this to you personally, knowing he’s [bin Laden] still at large?” Cheney hesitated, then simply replied that he would “obviously…like to solve that problem.” He added that it’s more “important” to “keep…this country safe,” indicating that bin Laden is inconsequential.
* North Carolina in the news! The Brunswick school district wants to teach creationism to kids. In 2008.
“I wasn’t here 2 million years ago,” Fanti said. “If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?”
There’s your evidence.
* Eight reasons why we are in a depression.
* Half of world’s population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100.
* After ten days of not sleeping, Randy Gardner was able to hold a press conference and beat a journalist at pinball. Note: this happened forty-four years ago, but I just found out about it yesterday.
Whatever Happened to Sarah Palin?
‘Whatever happened to Sarah Palin?’ Look for stories with that headline over the next few years—with polling like this Sarah Palin will likely never be a serious candidate for national office ever again. And that’s good news for all of us, in Real and Fake America alike.
The New Yorker has an interesting first-crack in the “Whatever happened to Sarah Palin?” genre this week, actually, with a post-mortem on how McCain ever came to make such a damaging choice.
With just days to go before the Convention, the choices were slim. Karl Rove favored McCain’s former rival Mitt Romney, but enough animus lingered from the primaries that McCain rejected the pairing. “I told Romney not to wait by the phone, because ‘he doesn’t like you,’ ” Keene, who favored the choice, said. “With John McCain, all politics is personal.” Other possible choices—such as former Representative Rob Portman, of Ohio, or Governor Tim Pawlenty, of Minnesota—seemed too conventional. They did not transmit McCain’s core message that he was a “maverick.” Finally, McCain’s top aides, including Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis, converged on Palin. Ed Rogers, the chairman of B.G.R., a well-connected, largely Republican lobbying firm, said, “Her criteria kept popping out. She was a governor—that’s good. The shorter the Washington résumé the better. A female is better still. And then there was her story.” He admitted, “There was concern that she was a novice.” In addition to Schmidt and Davis, Charles R. Black, Jr., the lobbyist and political operative who is McCain’s chief campaign adviser, reportedly favored Palin. Keene said, “I’m told that Charlie Black told McCain, ‘If you pick anyone else, you’re going to lose. But if you pick Palin you may win.’ ” (Black did not return calls for comment.) Meanwhile, McCain’s longtime friend said, “Kristol was out there shaking the pom-poms.”
McCain had met Palin once, but their conversation—at a reception during a meeting of the National Governors Association, six months earlier—had lasted only fifteen minutes. “It wasn’t a real conversation,” said the longtime friend, who called the choice of Palin “the fucking most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Aides arranged a phone call between McCain and Palin, and scrutinized her answers to some seventy items on a questionnaire that she had filled out. But McCain didn’t talk with Palin in person again until the morning of Thursday, August 28th. Palin was flown down to his retreat in Sedona, Arizona, and they spoke for an hour or two. By the time he announced her as his choice, the next day, he had spent less than three hours in her company.
Meanwhile, Palin is back in the news today with a revealing flub demonstrating that she either (still) has no idea what the vice president does or has a vision of expanded powers for the VP that rivals even Cheney’s.
What?
Colorado U.S. attorney Troy Eid, a Bush appointee, chose not to charge three meth addicts with high-powered rifles and a self-confessed plan with conspiracy to assassinate Barack Obama, against the suggestion of the FBI.
When police searched the hotel rooms and cars the men were using, they confiscated meth, needles, laptops, cell phones, a black mask, books indicating check fraud and forgery, bags of new clothes, tactical pants and bar coupons.
Based on the evidence, FBI special agent Robert Sawyer believed there was probable cause to charge the men with conspiracy to kill Senator Obama. However, US Attorney Troy Eid last week said there is insufficient evidence to indicate a true threat, plot or conspiracy against the senator.
The men were charged with various weapons and/or drug charges.
9Wants to Know has learned three men in Denver discussed assassinating U.S. Sen. Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention in Denver by sneaking into one of his events and shooting him with a gun hidden inside of a camera.
…
Johnson, Shawn Adolf and Tharin Gartrell all thought that Obama had a suite in the third floor of the Hyatt hotel, where they were staying. In fact, Obama was staying in another Denver hotel.
The men were doing methamphetamine inside the hotel with two women on Aug. 23 discussing the plot to kill Obama, according to federal records.
Adolf said, “It would not matter if he killed Senator Obama because police would simply add a murder charge to his pending charges,” according to the records.
There were seven outstanding warrants for Adolf’s arrest.
The underage woman told law enforcement that Adolf also talked about using “a high-powered rifle 22-250 from a high vantage point” to shoot Obama during his acceptance speech at INVESCO Field at Mile High.
Friday, Friday
Friday, Friday.
* Massachusetts has repealed the 95-year-old law that has been used to block out-of-state gay marriages, removing the last major barrier to nationwide legal challenges of marriage discrimination.
* There’s water on Mars (but don’t try to drink it). And there’s a liquid lake on Titan, too.
* Also in legal news: Bush’s claims of absolute executive privilege have been smacked down in the courts. Score another small victory for the rule of law, and start writing up that Karl Rove indictment.
* Garfield without Garfield book announced.
* The Los Angeles City Council has passed a year-long moratorium on new fast food restaurants in South L.A. (More at MeFi.) Food in this country, as we’ve talked about many times, is in crisis—but this is a symbolic gesture, not an actual policy.
* Also in food news: How Sysco came to monopolize most of what you eat. Also via MeFi.
* And now you can watch the growth of Wal-Mart across America. Locusts. Zombies. Plague.
Can McCain Win?
Marc Ambinder has a press release from the McCain campaign making the case McCain can win. Some of the charts are in fact pretty worrying:
I’ve been saying privately for a while that I think I know how McCain might win, and that’s to transmute Obama’s assertion of “better judgment” about the war into a claim that Obama thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us. Having been right in American politics isn’t necessarily better than having been as wrong as everybody else, and in fact there are even ways in which having been right can play as a disadvantage. One way to beat Obama—alongside the more under-the-radar patriotism smears and generic race-baiting—is to force him to explain, over and over again, just how it came to be that his judgment on the war was so much better than everybody else’s back in 2002.
A majority of the citizenry and nearly everyone in government supported the war, but not Barack Obama. In state (not federal) government, what did he see that no one else could see? What did he know that no one else knew?
(And of course: Or is he just a pacifist? Does he oppose all use of American military force, or just the use of military force against Islamic countries?)
Put another way, this is a claim that Obama was “right for the wrong reasons,” while McCain and The American People were wrong for the right reasons.
This is a tough argument to make at the same time McCain feels compelled to assert that he has actually been right on the war all along—but that contradiction isn’t necessarily all that devastating. If there’s one thing Karl Rove taught us, it’s to attack your opponent at their point of strength from your point of weakness. Thanks to the prolonged Democratic primary, Obama’s already been saddled with the elitist frame; I really think his advantages on Iraq could be neutralized using it, if McCain can thread that needle.
Naturally, I hope he can’t.
FOLLOWUP: But this is just silly:
I strongly encourage John McCain to make every effort to win California.
