Central Perk

It’s snowing in my neighborhood. Apparently the cottonwood trees are pollenating and everything is covered in fluffy white fuzz. It’s like Christmas without the presents. Or any vacation days. Or sub zero temperatures. So nothing at all like Christmas then.

I’m watching Olberman and O’Reilly split screen. Bill is trying to wrap his head around the idea that someone can oppose torture (illegal) while supporting a woman’s right to choose (legal) while Keith sports some hair he must have borrowed from Mitt Romney. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

After a few false positives last week, the Brazilian navy has found pieces of wreckage from Air France Flight 447. What happened to the aircraft still remains a mystery. Due to the location of the wreckage, it is quite possible that the flight data recorders are lost under 4 miles of salt water and may never be recovered. Bad ending to a really bad story.

Monday afternoon the Supreme Court ordered that the sale of whatever is left of Chrysler to Fiat be delayed so that three Indiana Pension Funds can make the argument to the court that they should get more money out of the deal. So much for an expedited bankruptcy. The court offered no reason for it’s decision and no timeline on how it intends to proceed. But in the event the issue is not resolved by June 15th, Fiat can walk away from the deal, leaving Chrysler no alternative but to file for Chapter 7 and liquidate. Ever notice how there’s always one guy on the team who only seems to care about his own stats? It matter that the team is collapsing around him, that the quarterback has to cut back on his deep throws, that the tailback has to split carries with the fullback, that the receiving tight end has to stay in to block to help out a banged up offensive line. As long as he gets his catches, the team be damned. The Indiana Pension Funds are the Terrell Owens of this Chrysler bankruptcy. They don’t really care if a few hundred thousand people lose their jobs, as long as they get a hundred percent return on their investment. Patriots, one and all. Yes, I’ve heard the bogus complaints by people who know better that the UAW “took no haircut” throughout this bankruptcy, that the only thing they gave up was a day of vacation and the antiquated notion of job security. The automakers have been slashing jobs left and right since 2005. Since that time over 100,000 UAW manufacturing jobs have been eliminated in the United States alone. Chrysler has cut it’s manufacturing positions in half. Most retired UAW employees no longer have the pensions they worked half their lives for, or the healthcare benefits they’d been assured of. All their wages have been scaled back, and about two-thirds of them now find themselves under new management. For their trouble, the UAW has been rewarded with a 55% stake in two car companies currently worth absolutely nothing. While all this was happening, the investors in both General Motors and Chrysler - including the Indiana Pension Funds - were being paid what they were due. They didn’t find that unfair at all. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

UPDATE: On Tuesday evening the Supreme Court decided that the Indiana Pension Funds had not met the burden of convincing four of the nine justices that the issue raised is serious enough to warrant a full hearing, and that a majority of the court will conclude that the lower court decision was wrong, thereby clearing the way for the sale of Chrysler’s assets and for them to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the week. Turns out that the pension funds claim that they would receive only 29 cents on the dollar for their investment was, at best, inaccurate, to the tune of 43 cents. Indiana Pension Funds purchased $42 million worth of bonds for a fire-sale price of $17 million. Under the terms of the bankruptcy they are set to recover $12.2 million, 72% of the money they paid into the company. And that’s a guaranteed 72% of their investment, not the 55% of nothing the deal grants to the UAW.

On Tuesday morning the Treasury Department announced that 10 of the major recipients of TARP funding have been cleared to begin returning taxpayer dollars to the tune of $68 billion. According to Geithner, that money will be held in case it is needed to stabilize some other failing institutions, then used to pay down the budget deficit and by extension the national debt. If by some miracle taxpayers get all of the $700 billion TARP and TALF funding back from the banks, it will reduce a $1.2 billion budget deficit to a manageable $500 billion. If, by some miracle.

In an interview with PBS last week on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham made it clear that while he “would really like to vote for confirmation,” he finds himself unable to do so because then Senator Obama voted against seating Justices Roberts and Alito. Nice to see that Lindsey Graham never graduated from the third grade. Note to Senator Graham; grow a spine. If you want to vote for confirmation, vote for confirmation, if you don’t, then don’t. But for crying out loud, do it based of some kind of principle, not some ridiculous elementary school grudge.

On a related issue, much continues to be made of the assertion by some that due to an extra-contextual phrase in a speech, Judge Sotomayor is some sort of “reverse racist.” I stumbled across this gem today in the form of an e-mail to National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation.” The e-mailer prefaced his comments by stating that it wouldn’t have mattered to him if Sotomayor was “a man, woman, transgender, green, black, red or white, she erred in her comment that her world view is better than that of a white male.” (Which is not at all what she said, but I guess facts aren’t really relevant here.) The e-mailer went on to write, “...it is different, differently informed, but a brilliant white male once said that all men are created equal. We should find another justice who is capable of thinking larger than his or her self.” Not surprisingly, it never occurred to the writer of that e-mail, that the brilliant white man who penned those famous words contradicted those words every single day of his life on his estate full of men and women he most certainly did not consider equal. I respectfully submit that had Thomas Jefferson been privy to the “richness of experience” of even one of the slaves held at Monticello, it might not have taken 182 years for this country to legally recognize the truth of his statement.

The politics of fear and loathing raised a reported $14 million dollars for the Republican party Monday night at a dinner in Washington D.C. Luminaries like Jon Voight and Sarah Palin, and retreads like Newt Gingrich spent their time at the microphone accusing Congressional Democrats and specifically President Obama of everything from failure to oppression to tyranny to being a “false prophet.” I firmly believe that language is important - that words mean things. And the extreme hyperbole and incredible disingenuous nature of those comments is pathetic. The idea that this president is some sort of oppressive tyrant bent on subjugating Americans is absurd and obviously false to anyone capable of formulating coherent thought, so the fact that those assertions can be used as applause lines in speeches to a certain segment of the population is disturbing and somewhat depressing. We know what real tyrants are like. The 20th century was plagued by them. Men like Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot, men who murdered tens of millions of people and oppressed millions more to achieve some bizarre notion of utopia. To equate the President of the United States with monsters like those for the sin of temporarily nationalizing a handful of financial institutions and two car companies in an attempt to prevent the collapse of the American economy is a perversion of language so disgusting it should be disavowed by every reasonable individual, and the people who spout such drivel should be relegated to the fringes of society - if recognized by society at all.

Walmart announced plans to open 150 stores and hire 22,000 workers nationwide this year. Apparently, when the going gets tough, the tough go to Walmart. I have to admit, I’m a little conflicted about this. There’s nothing negative about 22,000 new jobs in this economy - even if they are nothing more than unskilled, minimum wage positions. But as a pseudo-architect, the thought of 150 new Walmart stores blighting cities all across America makes me sick to my stomach. I think we can do better. I know we can.

The city of Atlanta has begun its campaign to demolish all of its public housing projects by June of next year. It’s an enormous task - Atlanta has has the fifth-largest public housing agency in the nation with approximately 20,000 units. Having worked with public housing agencies for the past nine years, I think this is nothing short of a great idea. It’s sad that it has taken so long for society to realize that when you treat people like cattle, herding them into claustrophobic dilapidated projects, you’re going to get out exactly what you put in. Relocating all those residents will not be easy, it will not be cheap and it will not be without problems. Chicago has been undergoing a similar transformation for several years now with mixed results. But nobody makes the argument that things were better in the projects. It’s a step in the right direction. Keep walking.

Finally, an early morning fire destroyed the Grandview Topless Coffee Shop in Vassalboro, Maine, the same coffee shop that created national media buzz when it opened this past February. Arson is suspected, but no one has been arrested in connection with the blaze. What is it about bare breasts that makes people crazy? Is it the roundness? The firmness? The perk? What is the problem? If you don’t like breasts, don’t look at them. Burning down their place of employment accomplishes nothing. The breasts will still be there. They’ll just work somewhere else and be viewed by other people. Breasts are here to stay. Deal with it.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Just finished skimming some comic art of vamped-up Disney princesses. Creepy. Interesting, but creepy.



General Motors, the American industrial icon, filed for bankruptcy on Monday. Accordingly, it - along with financial megalith Citigroup were dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average after 83 years as part of the index. How the mighty have fallen. I don’t have much to write about this, as pretty much everything I noted regarding the Chrysler bankruptcy applies to General Motors. On the plus side, the quick and tidy Chapter 11 reorganization of Chrysler by the federal courts that the experts insisted was impossible appears to be less than a week away from completion, indicating that a similar treatment of GM might also be possible. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the entire state of Michigan hopes that is the case.

An Air France A330 Airbus in flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared from radar Monday morning and is presumed down in the Atlantic. Last radio contact put the aircraft in the midst of heavy turbulence. Several minutes later air traffic control received automated messages of electrical failures, then nothing else. On Tuesday afternoon, Brazilian air force aircraft spotted a three-mile-long trail of wreckage scattered on top of the water. Speculation is that the plane may have been struck by lightning in a storm. This in and of itself is not unusual, airplanes are struck by lightning all the time. But if that is indeed the case, it seems Flight 447 was unable to dissipate the charge. Whatever the cause, it’s been a terrible day for every family that arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport expecting to pick up their loved ones. There’s a reason I don’t like to fly.

Infamous Kansas-based abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his church on Sunday. This marks the first time in 11 years since an abortion provider has been murdered. Tiller was no stranger to violence - his clinic was bombed in 1985 and he survived being shot in both arms in 1993 by individuals violently opposed to his practice. Police arrested 51-year-old Scott Roeder in connection with the murder. Apparently Roeder has a history of protesting at abortion clinics and posting about Tiller on various pro-life websites, but, every major pro-life organization stumbled over themselves this morning to issue statements condemning Roeder’s alleged actions. Two weeks ago in his speech at the University of Notre Dame, President Obama made the point that so many people are either unable or unwilling to concede. At its core, this issue is fundamentally irresolvable. There is no common ground between the poles of a woman’s right to choose vs. a fetus’ right to life. So, as a society we are forced to find some other way to mediate our disputes and work toward a common goal of reducing the number of abortions in this country. It’s more than unfortunate that there are some people who believe that bullets are an acceptable form of mediation.

Arkansas police arrested a 24-year-old Little Rock man in connection with a shooting at a military recruiting office leaving one soldier dead and another wounded. Yet another individual who thinks bullets are an acceptable form of mediation.

Apparently I was so wrapped up in trying to instruct winners to act like winners last week that I missed a couple big stories. The biggest of these was President Obama’s decision to nominate 2nd Circuit Federal Appellate court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill Justice David Souter’s soon-to-be vacant seat on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the first Latina and only the third woman to sit on the high court since it’s inception in 1789. As usually happens when a justice is formally nominated, every special interest group in the country releases a pre-fabricated form criticism of the nominee. In this instance, since the nominee was selected by a Democratic president, liberal activist groups praise her adherence to established precedent and belief in unenumerated rights, while conservative activist groups decry her as a judicial activist extremist.

All this criticism is of course nothing more than code for whether or not said interest group agrees with her politics. When a judge has served on the bench as long as Judge Sotomayor has, darn near everyone can find a ruling or an opinion or a statement he/she takes exception to. Conservative talking heads have made much ado about a single line from a speech Sotomayor made several years ago that reads as follows: “...I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” De-facto GOP spokesman Rush Limbaugh and Republican retread Newt Gingrich immediately decried her as a raving liberal socialist racist, and demanded she withdraw herself from consideration. I guess in the age of Twitter-sized attention spans it’s pointless to expect the media to investigate or report anything beyond the sound-bite, so I have included some of the relevant context of the speech below.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach. For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

After putting the sound-bite in context, it’s pretty clear that Judge Sotomayor is trying to make the point that every human being undergoes different life experiences and it it absurd to think that those life experiences never influence our judgement. But through understanding how our experiences shape our decision-making we can then be vigilant in keeping our assumptions, presumptions and perspectives in check when making decisions. Not racist. Cautious.

As a matter of practicality, short of discovering that Sonia Sotomayor is really a Romulan spy sent to prepare mankind for an impending invasion, there is nothing Republicans can do to derail this nomination. They have only 40 senators, and if they delay hearings until September as ranking member of the judiciary committee Jeff Sessions wants to do, the electoral farce in Minnesota will be resolved, Al Franken will be seated as the 60th Democratic senator and there will be no way for them to hold the process hostage with a filibuster, as many conservative activist groups are demanding they do. And truthfully, even if Franken is not yet seated, unless Sotomayor is Karl Marx reincarnated, Olympia Snow or Susan Collins will provide the cloture vote to prevent the filibuster. So, all they can do is continue to be the party of “no.” And for what purpose? Sotomayor’s replacement of Souter will not shift the ideological balance of the court. The only thing marching to war against a qualified female Hispanic nomination does is hurt the GOP with Hispanic voters, as if the incendiary rhetoric over immigration hasn’t done enough damage to that relationship. The first rule of warfare is to know your enemy. The second is to pick your battles. So far they’re failing on both accounts.

In a related story, de-facto party spokesman Limbaugh is in rare form, assailing the President over the nomination and the nominee over her existence. For years, many Democrats seems anxious that there seems to be no single coherent powerful voice to challenge him from the left. Fortunately in his case, no challenger is required. On an episode of his radio program during the confirmation battles over Justices Roberts and Alito, Limbaugh blabbered the following into the golden EIB microphone:

“I’m tired of these Democrats acting like they won the election. Somebody needs to stand up and say, “When you win the election, you pick the nominees. Until then, shut up! Just shut up! Just go away! Bury yourselves in your rat holes and don’t come out until you win an election. When you win an election, you can put all these socialist wackos, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, all over the court, but until then, SHUT UP! You are really irritating me.”

That’s right. You just read Rush Limbaugh telling Rush Limbaugh to shut the bleep up. What do you suppose the odds are on him talking his own advice?

The California Supreme Court upheld the validity of Proposition 8 making same-sex marriage illegal throughout the state. However, the court also ruled that the 18,000 marriages performed during the period of in which same-sex marriage was legal in California are also valid, and will remain so. Given the facts of the case, it was really the only conclusion the court could come to. However, being California, the players on both sides of the debate realize that the conflict over same-sex marriage is far from over, and will probably be waged again at the ballot box in November, 2010. A team of high-profile attorneys have filed a federal lawsuit charging that Prop 8 violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Many feel it’s too early to mount a Supreme Court challenge, and they’re probably right. But discretion has never been the better part of activism, has it.

The FBI foiled a terrorist plot foiled in New York City by providing the would-be bombers with fake C4 explosives and dummy surface-to-air missiles. Fake C4 and dummy surface-to-air missiles. I hope all terrorists are this stupid.

Finally, Ashton Kutcher, television star and veteran of such movie masterpieces as “Dude, Where’s My Car?” has threatened to stop “tweeting.” Apparently, Twitter is rumored to be negotiating a deal for a reality television show that would put “ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.” Kutcher fears such a program could lead to celebrities - namely himself - being stalked by crazy fans. I hate to say it, but he’s not as dumb as he looks. Of course it would lead to celebrities being stalked, which at some point would probably lead to a celebrity being kidnapped, harmed or worse. But let’s be honest about something. Ashton Kutcher is partially responsible for creating the culture in which a reality show of this nature could thrive. He is part of the entertainment system that now celebrates ordinary everyday idiots for accomplishing nothing more than making fools of themselves on television and on YouTube. If all one has to do to achieve national recognition is to appear in a poor-quality web video falling off the chair he/she is dancing on in his/her living room, how big of a leap is it to assume one can achieve similar fame by chasing down and harassing a celebrity for a hidden camera? Oh wait, I think Kutcher’s already made that show. Might he have “Punk’d” himself with this Twitter nonsense?

It Doesn't Matter What Your Name Is!

There is some big news this week. The President nominated what would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice to the high court on Tuesday, and in response, de-facto GOP leader Rush Limbaugh revealed himself once again to be the blithering idiot a growing number of people understand him to be. The California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, as well as the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in the state before it’s passage. A “homegrown” terrorist plot was foiled in New York City by fake weapons provided by the F.B.I. Mike Tyson’s 4-year-old daughter died in a treadmill accident at her home. And Ashton Kutcher threatened to stop twittering. But I’ll get to all that stuff later this week. Something’s been bothering me for several days now, and I want to get through that first.

Several years ago, before achieving moderate success in Hollywood, Dwayne Johnson was a W.W.E. professional wrestler known as “The Rock.” His character was brash, boisterous, arrogant and clever, a huge force of personality, and even as a heel (bad guy, for those not fluent in rastling-speak) he was an enormous fan favorite. As the Rock he delivered many witty quips and biting one-liners to the roar of an approving crowd. However, the witticism relevant to what I’d like to write about would happen as follows: During backstage “interviews,” the Rock would spend a few moments chatting up the interviewer, complimenting him/her on a question or an article of clothing. This would lead the interviewer to drop his/her guard an warm up to him a little. The Rock would then throw out a rather innocuous question, like asking the interviewer his/her name. And as soon as the interviewer opened his/her mouth to respond, the Rock would snatch the microphone from a startled interviewer, look him/her dead in the eyes and scream, “It doesn’t matter what your name is!,” then launch into his remarks concerning the upcoming match. I like to refer to that tactic as “controlling the message.”

Modern politics is a little like professional wrestling. Two bitter rivals, hyping themselves through interviews and public appearances, throwing metaphorical elbows and drop-kicks and head-butts in the policy debate, pinning the opponent by winning elections and legislative battles, then going out for a beer with the rest of the guys after the show. But more often than not, the real winner of a wrestling watch is not the guy that pinned his opponent, but the guy that controlled the message and the narrative of his character. Politics is no different. Winners control the message. Winning gives them the ability to so, and the fact that they do so enables further victories. It is a lesson all winners must learn in order to maintain their position at the top. And no winners in the history of politics more desperately need to understand this than the Democratic party.

This past week, the party lead by a president elected in an electoral college landslide, the party with a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate, the party with more votes in the House than they know what to do with, was completely and utterly defeated in the media this week by a party crushed in the past two two elections, feuding amongst itself and still without a legitimate leader. How did this happen? Because the Democrats failed to control the message. Democrats don’t know how to be winners.

Republicans understand one thing VERY well. Fear. The success of the Republican party is dependent upon creating a perpetual state of fear and loathing. As long as people are terrified, Republicans believe people will turn to them for protection from the ghouls and ghosts and goblins waiting to devour us just beyond our borders - and along the East and West coasts. And last week, the Democrats folded like a bad poker hand, the same way they’ve done time and time again in the face of even the most pathetic opposition. Save for six, every last Democratic senator voted against funding the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, a policy every single one of them voraciously endorsed barely four months ago. Instead of making the case that torture is amoral and unethical and should not be undertaken by agents of the U.S. government, Democrats wasted valuable time and resources trying to track down whether or not the CIA gave briefings when they said they did and what the Speaker of the House may or may not have known and when she may or may not have known it.

“But Mark, Nancy Pelosi knew...” IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT NANCY PELOSI KNEW, OR WHEN SHE KNEW IT! Torture is evil, and those who practice torture should be forced to face the consequences of their actions, regardless of who they are. I’ll be the last person to call for an investigation of the previous administration, for reasons I’ve detailed many times before. But if there is going to be some sort of investigation, then everybody connected with torture should be punished, regardless of party affiliation. If it turns out that the Speaker is culpable in some manner, then let the punishment fit the crime. The fact that she may or may not have been told some ambiguous morsel of classified information has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not people were waterboarded 183 times. NOTHING!

“But Mark, Dick Cheney says that if we don’t torture people and intern them indefinitely, then terrorism...” IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT DICK CHENEY SAYS! EVER! For six years nobody could get this guy to open his mouth to anyone with any information whatsoever! Now that nobody is interested in anything he has to say, he won’t shut up! Stop cowering in fear every single time someone utters the words national security! The Guantanamo Bay detention facility will be closed because America doesn’t hold suspects indefinitely without charge, without trial and without punishment. “Terrorists” will not be “released” onto the mainland to hide in your hedges and crawl in through your basement windows while you’re asleep. There are already more than a few convicted terrorists held currently in the nation’s supermax prison, none of them “radicalizing” the prison population, no attempts made to “liberate” them by sympathetic individuals or groups. How many assaults have been made on Guantanamo Bay to free the prisoners?

Grow a spine, Democrats. Quit cannibalizing each other the moment the opposition points a finger at you. And when somebody tries to slap a bumper sticker on you, stalk across the parking lot and key their car. You won the election, act like it. Your President is. Instead of sticking your finger in his eye, try learning something from him. In fact, learn this first: the media is not your friend. It is your tool. Use it to communicate your message. The media will print, blog or broadcast whatever you want, so long as it makes headlines. The President figured this out, who haven’t you? Give the media what it wants, give it headlines. Just make sure they’re your headlines. And make sure the message is loud and clear - louder and clearer than anything your opponents can eek out in the pauses between your sentences. It doesn’t matter what they think. When you want their opinion, you’ll give it to them. If you start acting like winners, people might actually begin to believe you are winners. Imagine the possibilities.

Resolved

I am watching a fascinating episode of Frontline regarding the makings of the current financial crisis and just how close we came to absolute disaster. This is the second time I’ve watched this and it’s just as riveting this time as it was the first time.

So, the big news of the weekend seems to have been President Obama’s appearance at the commencement ceremonies of the University of Notre Dame. In case some people have been living under rocks for the past four months, Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, has been roundly criticized by a particularly vocal group of Catholics and pro-life organizations for granting a pro-choice President an honorary law degree and allowing him to address the graduating class. The way cable news covered the weeks leading up to the speech one might have expected the pope himself to arrive from Rome with a literal army of cardinals, bishops and 700 Club members, ready to retake the sacred institution from the defilement of the presence of the President of the United States. However, as so often happens in these situations, the adults threw tantrums, acting like children and it was left up to the kids to remind them how to act like adults. While grown men tried to shout down the speech, pushed strollers with dolls covered in fake blood along the quad and flew banners with images of aborted fetuses over the campus, the students (95% of whom supported extending the invitation to Obama to speak) respected the office of the President, applauded when appropriate and showed the rest of the country that Americans are more than capable of civil disagreement without resorting to the demonization of the opposing point of view. Cheers to Notre Dame for inviting the President to speak. Cheers to Barack Obama for showing up and tackling serious issues with tact and diplomacy. And cheers to the Fightin’ Irish class of 2009 for demonstrating a dignity so often lacking in our society.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele found himself back in the news this week, vowing to take President Obama “head on” in the coming weeks. In remarks to an RNC meeting in Maryland, Steele told Republicans that “the era of apology is over,” and that a Republican resurgence is beginning. “This change comes in a tea bag,” he declared. Sigh. Still with the tea, huh. The one benefit Steele does seem to bring to the GOP is that he is often an amusing distraction from the ideological and intellectual cannibalism consuming the Republican party. Taking his tea-bagging message to the hip hop precincts.

Speaking of Michael Steele, the RNC as adopted a resolution demanding the Democratic party “stop pushing our country toward socialism.” This is a slight modification from the original resolution demanding the Democratic party rename itself the “Democrat Socialist Party.” Two things. First, you tried this already, remember? Black radical, Weather Underground, Obama sounds like Osama, fascists are communists are Democrats? You lost by eight million votes. Second, you might want to spend a little less time grandstanding and trying to define your opponent, and a little more time trying to define yourselves. Doesn’t matter who your opponent is if you don’t know who you are.

President Obama has selected Utah Governor Jon Huntsman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to China. Huntsman, a Republican fluent in Mandarin, was more than a little surprised at his selection, yet accepted the post anyway – pending confirmation by the Senate. Huntsman was considered by some to be a strong senatorial candidate in 2010 and perhaps even a presidential candidate in 2012. But he has decided to put those ambitions on hold for a while to serve in the administration of a political rival. Utah’s a lit like China, right? Sparsely populated, nothing but small towns and a leisurely pace of life. He should feel right at home.

Most Democrats cheered when on only his first full day in office, Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year. They would finally be rid of this legally dubious public relations nightmare carried over from the previous administration. They didn’t care how it happened, only that it did. But after a brief respite from the politics of fear, rumors and accusations began to swirl, accusations were made and panic set in on Capitol Hill. Republicans began to shriek about the President wanting to “release terrorists into the United States.” And instead of rationally refuting the insanity, Democrats all scrambled to be the first to cower under their desks in fear of unfounded accusations. Well done Democrats. That’ll show ‘em.

Let’s be perfectly clear about a few things. NO ONE in the Obama administration has EVER advocated RELEASING TERRORISTS into the United States. Contrary to what former vice president Cheney would like us all to believe, not everyone detained in Cuba committed or supported acts of terrorism against the United States. More than a few detainees have been determined over the course of their hearings to be of no threat to the safety or security of this nation. Of those that have been determined to be combatants or support terrorism, not one would be released to roam the highways and byways of the American countryside. The Justice Department proposal would deport some to whatever foreign countries are willing to take them and move the remaining prisoners to the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, or the ADX federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Leavenworth is situated in the middle of a U.S. Army base populated by 3,500 soldiers, and ADX Florence currently houses convicted terrorists Ramzi Yousef, Terry Nichols, Ted Kaczynski and Omar Abdel-Rahman to name a few. (Not to mention the brand new, high-tech, maximum security and completely empty prison in Hardin, Montana.) No rational human being could argue that either of those facilities is less safe than the glorified kennel at Guantanamo Bay. Yet instead of taking a stand and permanently burying the politics of fear, Democrats caved in to the NIMBY mentality and now stand willing to oppose out of one side of their mouths the very policy they’ve been cheering from the other side for the past two years. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Voters in California have rejected all special-election ballot measures designed to close a 20 billion dollar state budget gap. So now, California lawmakers will be forced to return to the legislature to try to hammer out some sort of agreement on massive spending cuts and tax increases to balance the budget. And that went soooo well the last time, didn’t it. There is an old saying, that citizens get the government they deserve. Nowhere in America is this truism more accurate than California. The Golden State’s propensity to litter its ballot with initiatives and clutter its calendar with special elections contributes in no small part to the perpetual paralysis in Sacramento. Before any bill or proposition or initiative is given an opportunity to produce a result, it is superseded, nullified or repealed by another in a special election. The direction of public policy in California depends entirely on which side of the bed the electorate rolls out of on any given morning. For crying out loud people, choose a candidate based out what he/she stands for, vote for him/her, and leave him/her alone to do the job you pay them to do. At the end of his/her term, if you like what he/she did, give him/her a second term, if you don’t, throw the bum out! Please, leave the ballot initiatives to people who actually know what they’re doing.

After being ordered to have her 13-year-old son treated with chemotherapy for his cancer, a Minnesota mother has disappeared with her child rather than obey the court order. According to the doctors, chemotherapy is 95% effective in treating his type of cancer. But his parents opted instead to treat him with holistic medicine, and due to the fact that the holistic treatments were not improving his condition, the court stepped in and ordered the chemo. These cases are always difficult. As a parent, you have the right to raise your children as you see fit. However, at some point, the state has the obligation to step in and protect the welfare of children who are not being protected by their parents. Hopefully someone finds the kid before it’s too late.

Ex-Atlanta Falcon Michael Vick was released from prison yesterday after serving his 18-month sentence for federal dog-fighting convictions. As part of his post-prison rehabilitation program, Vick called the Humane Society and asked to work with them to develop programs aimed at eliminating dog-fighting. Like many people, I’m a little suspicious of Vick’s conversion from animal abuser to animal rights activist. The fact that a demonstration of remorse is a cornerstone of his re-instatement to the NFL cannot be ignored when considering his motives. But there are two other possibilities. One is that the loss of nearly two years of his life, his professional career and 100 million dollars actually brought home the reality of how serious and cruel his actions were, and because of that he has undergone a sobering change of heart. But the other is that maybe his motives don’t really matter all that much, as long as he accomplishes the goal of helping to reduce and eventually eliminate dog-fighting. To paraphrase the Humane Society, “there is a certain segment of society that we can’t reach because they aren’t listening to us, but if they are willing to listen to Michael Vick, then this is a venture worth pursuing.” I tend to agree. I sincerely hope Vick has had a change of heart. But even if he hasn’t, if he can get results where others have failed, more power to him.

Finally, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker and defensive Player of the Year, James Harrison declined the invitation to travel to the White House with the team to meet the President. The decision was not all that unusual. More than a few athletes on championship teams have declined similar invitations. In fact, Harrison himself declined a previous invitation issued the last time the Steelers won the Superbowl. What made this stand out was the asinine reasoning Harrison offered for his decision. “If you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Harrison said, “invite us to the White House when we haven’t won the Superbowl. I fully believe he would have invited Arizona had they won instead.” Um, yeah. That’s how it goes Jim. Winner goes to the White House, loser goes to the golf course. Why did you have to say anything? Why not just say you didn’t want to go and save yourself from looking like a complete imbecile. Football players have a hard enough time convincing people they are more than over-paid, muscle-bound buffoons without having you confirm the stereotype.

Remainders

Okay. So I missed a few things yesterday. Let’s get to those now, shall we?

Last week, the UK released a list of individuals barred from entering the United Kingdom for fostering extremism or hatred toward other individuals or groups. On the list are leaders of neo-nazi organizations, holocaust deniers, terrorists, and San Fransisco-based radio talk show host Michael Savage. Savage has threatened to sue. Now, I’m no legal expert, but I think that in order to win a defamation suit, Savage would have to prove he is, in fact, not a hater. Trouble is, he has 15 years worth of his radio show as evidence to the contrary.

Newscorp chairman Rupert Murdoch, announced last week that news websites owned by his company - including Fox News and the New York Post - will soon begin charging “handsomely” for the viewing of their content. Uh huh. Murdoch might as well have announced he intends to stuff hundred dollar bills into trash bags and burn them. I’m not sure why Rupert thinks he can get people to pay money for information they can get for free from any number of other websites, but I’m sure there are a number of others in the news industry hoping he can actually pull it off. That future looks pretty bleak right now.

Well, it’s finally happened. The romance born of an old man and a bumper sticker during the the 2008 presidential campaign has finally come to an end. Oh sorrow of sorrows, Joe the Plumber has left the Republican party. You can’t see it, but the tears are flowing over here. Seriously. What are we going to do without Joe the Plumber jokes? Okay, joke. Guess I answered my own question there, didn’t I.

Pop quiz hotshot. Your name is Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor. Your party just lost control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. Your party chairman has labeled your core voters bigots, and your party spokesman has made it clear that those with opinions differing from his own shouldn’t let the door hit them in the butt on the way out. You’ve formed a committee to travel the country to solicit ideas from the party faithful on how you can recapture your swagger and return to a position of prominence and leadership, but at every turn one of your own leaders stabs you in the back declaring you are leading the party down the road to ultimate ruin. What do you do? What do you do? Well, you issue the following statement in response to your critics, “We don’t lose our principles by broadening the debate.” Eric, that is absolutely true, I’m so relieved you’ve finally come to that conclusion. I’m sure you would now agree with the President when he applies the very same logic to matters of far greater importance than rebuttal of talk-radio hosts, wouldn’t you?

Finally, L.A. Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez has been suspended for 50 game for taking a “banned substance.” There is no official word on exactly what the banned substance was, but Manny insists it was NOT a steroid. Subsequent reports indicate that the substance is actually a female hormone, often taken by athletes coming off a steroid cycle to return their testosterone to normal levels. So, unless Manny can explain how he got pregnant and what happened to the fetus, he becomes the next in a far too long line of Major League baseball players to be caught cheating the game and the fan by using performance-enhancing drugs. Oh well. Guess that’s just Manny being Manny.

In Trump We Trust

Note to self: Jumbo omelette, followed by macho tacos, and rounded out with chips and salsa and mexican style burrito the following day equals two days of gastrointestinal hell spent tethered to the bathroom. Never do that again.

As a result of being tethered to the bathroom, my knowledge of the current events is limited. So, this post will be short, and probably limited to stories with brief headlines and easy punch lines.

Sarah Palin has signed an estimated 7-11 million dollar deal to publish a tell-all book about her life and political experiences. Apparently, Palin can’t wait to, “put (her) journalism degree to work on this and get to tell (her) story, Alaska’s story.” Yeah. You know what nobody cares about? Alaska’s story. But, I guess if people are willing to pay Sarah Palin millions of dollars to rehash things they’ve already heard, more power to them. This story bores me.

Former vice president Dick Cheney is at it again, running his mouth about his support for torture and dislike of Republicans that don’t measure up to his standards of conservatism and his hated of the current administration. What a turn-around for this guy. A medical miracle of sorts. After suffering through what must have been eight excruciating years of verbal constipation, Cheney suddenly can’t contain his verbal diarrhea. I can’t decide which is worse.

During the White House Correspondents’ dinner last Saturday night, President Obama directed some humor at RNC chairman Michael Steele, saying that the Republican party doesn’t qualify for a federal bailout, and that Rush Limbaugh doesn’t qualify as a troubled asset. While intended as a joke, a bailout is something the RNC might seriously want to consider, if they can stop bludgeoning each other long enough file the paperwork. Last week, Steele attacked former presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying the Republican base rejected him because they have issues with Mormonism and question his commitment to opposing abortion. Romney retaliated by suggesting Steele is unable to lead the party. Mike Huckabee savaged the new Republican “listening tour” as pathetic and laughable, and party spokesman Limbaugh made it perfectly clear that the Republican party is for zealots only, “moderates” like Colin Powell, or John McCain, need not apply. The reason Republicans are unable to mount coherent opposition to the Democrats is because they can’t seem to decide what they want that opposition to be. What is shaping up is a battle between conservative ideological purists and conservative pragmatists for control of the Republican party. The winner of that battle will determine the direction of the party and how quickly they will be able to return to prominence. I hope they’re capable of making the right decision. Not terribly hopeful that they will.

Love the new Burger King commercial with the Kingons. Not quite on the level of "phonebook implants," or "butts with sharp right angles," but funny none-the-less.

In a statement released yesterday, owner of the Miss U.S.A. pageant, Donald Trump, stated that despite the fact that she violated pageant rules by failing to disclose the existence of nude and semi-nude photos to officials, Miss California, Carrie Prejean will retain her crown because she’s just “so beautiful.” According to the Donald, if Miss Prejean wasn’t “so beautiful,” no one would care about what she said or what she did. So, because she is “so beautiful,” she should be allowed to flaunt the rules and keep her job. Sigh. In Trump we trust. I hope every single parent of a girl in America reads his statement to their daughters tonight. They have the right to know what type of world they’re growing up in.

Drumsticks

My box of chocolate bars arrived from England today. Cadbury Twisted bars. “Creme egg goo twisted in a chocolate tube.” Worth every euro.

I think I’ll start this week with the biggest, boldest, most earth-shattering headline of the day. President Obama and Vice President Biden went out for burgers today. That’s right, burgers. A burger run, made national news headlines. Apparently, no other president or vice president in the history of the Republic has EVER gone out for burgers. The press core even felt it necessary to report exactly what the president and vice president ordered, that the president was initially disappointed that Ray’s Hell Burger didn’t serve fries, but was placated with cheese and tater puffs, and that he offered to feed all the reporters on his tab despite the offer of an on-the-house meal from the owner. I guess nothing else happened in the world today. Mighty swine flu has been dethroned by a presidential cheeseburger.

Late last week Supreme Court Justice David Souter sort-of-but-not-really announced that he will retire from the court at the end of the term this summer. While not the oldest judge on the court at a relatively youthful 69, Souter has never cared much for Washington D.C., preferring to spend his time huddled away in his New England cabin scribbling thoughts on parchment with his fountain pens. One might think that there would be a certain period of time allotted for quiet reflection upon the nineteen year career of a distinguished Supreme Court justice. Of course, if one thought that, he or she was probably born yesterday and needs to lay off whatever it is he or she puffing. Souter had not officially informed the President or the public of his resignation when talking points and ads against perceived potential nominations hit the airwaves. The cable news pundits were already formulating the “short list,”Congressional Democrats were extolling the virtues of any number of pro-choice female Hispanic candidates and Congressional Republicans were demanding the President select a “strict constructionist” threatening to oppose any nominee that didn’t fit that mold.

Nothing breaks out the boxing gloves out in D.C. like a good old Supreme Court nomination battle. This is President Obama’s first opportunity to leave a lasting impression, and the GOP’s first real opportunity to unify around a single issue. However, this confirmation battle has the potential to deviate slightly from others in recent memory. Since Souter more often than not sided with the more liberal wing of the court on most issues, the appointment of a liberal-leaning judge to replace him would not alter the ideological make-up of the court. And, there is evidence to suggest that in a time of economic and employment uncertainty, the public has less of an appetite for watching representatives bicker over code words for pro-choice and pro-life candidates like “judicial activism” and “strict constructionist.”

Thus far, in spite of all the problems present in this country, the President has gotten the best of the Republican party. Since last October, the percentage of Americans who feel the country is headed in the right direction has jumped from 17% to 48%. Obama’s job approval ratings are in the upper 60s and his personal approval ratings are even higher. Meanwhile, despite a rebranding effort based on communication new ideas like tax cuts and further privatization, Republican approval numbers continue to be dismal. The President is playing them like Sun Tzu did the armies of Chu, and the Republicans either don’t realize it, or are incapable of preventing themselves from taking the bait. I understand that it is the job of the loyal opposition to oppose the party in power, but since that has done such a spectacular job of not working, perhaps they should try something different. Realizing that this Supreme Court appointment isn’t going to alter the make-up of the court, and that there is absolutely no chance of replacing Souter with Scalia lite, perhaps Republicans could try a less aggressive resistance to whatever semi-reasonable nominee the President eventually submits for confirmation. That might give some people the impression that at least on occasion, they are more than just the Party of No.

Quote of the week, from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs last week regarding Biden’s comments on not flying or riding the train due to the threat of swine flu: “I think the Vice President misrepresented what the Vice President wanted to say.” Why are people still surprised that Joe Biden says stupid things? Biden has been saying stupid things for as long as anybody can remember, and he certainly isn’t going to stop saying them simply because he’s vice president. We all knew what we were signing on for. Laugh it off and move on.

Apparently Rush Limbaugh is of the opinion that Sarah Palin is the most prominent and articulate voice for good old-fashioned American conservatism. Ouch. If Sarah Palin is conservatism’s most articulate defender, conservatism has less of a chance at a comeback than the Detroit Lions have of winning the Superbowl.

I haven’t talked much about hockey this playoff season. Mostly because my team has already been eliminated. But there are some great series being played that deserve mention. Chief among them, Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins. Ovechkin vs. Crosby. I don’t particularly care for either team, but I can’t take my eyes off this series. It is a crying shame that this match-up couldn’t play out for the Stanley Cup. Anyway, I’m holding out for a Boston/Vancouver final. I’m sure I’ll end up with the league’s dream scenario of Washington versus Detroit, but one can always hope.

Remember Miss California? Not too long ago she made news for an incredibly inarticulate defense of traditional marriage in answer to a question posed by pageant judge and faux-lebrity Perez Hilton. Mere days after her adoption and (self?)exploitation by opponents of same-sex marriage, word is that she failed to disclose to pageant officials that she had previously posed for nude photographs. All pageant contestants are required to inform pageant officials if they have previously taken nude photographs. Failure to do so is grounds for disqualification, so it appears as though Miss California is on the verge of being stripped of her crown. For her part, Carrie Prejean again claims she is being persecuted for her Christian beliefs, that the release of the pictures is part of a “vicious and mean-spirited” effort to silence her. You know what, all that may be true. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I don’t care that she’s an inarticulate advocate of traditional marriage. I don’t care that she had nude pictures taken of herself - in fact, I encourage it. But what I don’t understand is how Miss Prejean squares her Christianity with her beauty pageant participation. How is it that breast augmentation, topless photos, and strutting up and down a catwalk in a bikini sexually objectifying herself DO NOT conflict with her Christian notions of modesty, sexual purity and reflecting Christ with her actions? I submit that it might be Miss California’s hypocrisy, not her values many people have objected to.

Finally, last week a Rochester, New York television station ran a story on a local Popeye’s restaurant which had run out of fried chicken during a promotion and closed it’s doors for the remainder of the afternoon. The station sent out a camera crew and a reporter to interview angry customers lining up in the drive-thru only to discover there was no chicken. Of course, people were angry. Cheap chicken was promised, no chicken was available, who wouldn’t be upset. Responses ranged from patrons simply deciding to travel to another restaurant location, to irate individuals ranting about how Popeye’s promised cheap chicken, but didn’t order enough chicken and now there wasn’t any chicken and how on earth were they supposed to feed their kids and care for their families and yada yada yada. The problem? Of the dozen people interviewed for the story, every single one of them was black. For those of you who don’t know, there is an old cartoonish stereotype about black people loving fried chicken. And many viewers felt that such a story simply played into that stereotype. That may be true, but it’s painfully obvious that there is more than enough stupidity to go around with this story. I don’t think there’s much (if any) news value in a running a story about a fast food restaurant temporarily running out of chicken. And asking 12 people for their opinion on a fast food restaurant temporarily running out of chicken strikes me as nothing short of gratuitous. But just because someone gives you a microphone and a camera and the opportunity to make an ass of yourself, doesn’t meant you have to do it. Don’t go on camera ranting about how you now can’t feed your family because Popeye’s ran out of chicken. That makes you look like a lunatic. Don’t hand over your dignity on a silver platter. At least make them work for it. And by the way, who in their right mind calls their local television news crew when Popeye’s runs out of chicken? Never mind. I think I answered my own question.