aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Monday, April 30, 2007
Grudging respect
I like Hillary. So does Atrios. And Matt Stoller:
I’ve done a fair amount of blogging about the Democratic machine and what a problem these people really are. While Hillary Clinton is in bed with these people, she has also had a long career in Democratic politics. She faced the smear machine in the 1990s way before any of us were organizing on her behalf. For better or for worse, Mark Penn had her back at that time, and that matters to Senator Clinton.
I don’t agree with her policy choices and judgment, and I often question her character in this context. But she’s also a gutsy and extremely intelligent politician, and we ought not to forget that. You cannot discount what it means to have a woman running for President, and how she brings intelligence, resolve and poise to that role. It’s our role in politics to bring her to a different place, to show her that progressive politics can be done with progressive structures, and that the perceived double-talk on single issue micropolling is no longer necessary or productive. Ultimately, and this may not be possible though I think it will be, we will have to figure out how to work together as strong allies. Both Clinton and the blogs went through the crucible of the right-wing smear machine, and it’s hard to discount that.
I’m less ambivalent about her than either of them are. But their grudging respect bodes well for her. BTW, the name’s Hillary Clinton.
UGA student offers rare praise for Democrats
UGA Sophomore Matthew Pearl guest blogging at The Moderate Voice:
Recently I’ve held the belief that Republicans have had such great success(until recently) in national elections because of the sheer deftness with which they do politics. From massive grassroots organizations to their mastery of the vernacular and defining terms to their advantage, Republicans are just good at painting themselves as good and Democrats as evil or incompetent.
Well, today, I was having a conversation with my sister about the trouble Alberto Gonzales is in, and I realized the strategy that the Democrats are using to weaken the administration. That strategy is also absolutely awesome in every way; I tip my hat to them, seriously. [...]
Effectively, the Democrats are using the Administration’s secrecy against it. By trying to keep secrets in the face of congressional and other investigations, high-level administration officials are putting themselves in a position to be indicted by a vindictive Democratic Majority and sympathetic Judiciary.
So the Administration is beginning to find its self in a bit of a Catch 22: either tell the truth and look bad or try to hide the truth and have the possibility of looking even worse (along with some jail time).
It’s not often that I applaud the Democratic Leadership in congress, but I have to tip my hat to Pelosi, Waxman, et al.
Might this augur a turning southern tide?
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and debt dismay
The national pastime has gotten costly for a family these days. $80 tickets for the dugout; $23 for the Pavilion Right Field Bleachers in Wednesday’s Atlanta Braves game with the Philadelphia Phillies. Credit Slips:
The Atlanta Braves recently became the first sports franchise to offer a finance plan for their tickets. Articles here and here give some details. Essentially,if you are spending $200 or more, GE Money will offer so-called "90 days same-as-cash" financing. If you don’t pay before 90 days, then the APR is between 20 and 25 percent. The Braves management says that they have lots of fans who "want the ticket package" but "don’t have that amount of cash on hand." Is this what we mean when we say that the democratization of credit improves consumers’ quality of life? Maybe the answer depends on whether you are a Braves fan, or even a baseball fan?
No word on whether you can finance the hot dogs.
Shame roundup
Again, the hypocrisy is appalling but the real cost is the criminalization of our kids and a culture panicked over sex offenders as a result of the guilt and shame of policy makers and law enforcement types suffer over their own behavior!
Mr. Figueroa, who was once head of a national child predator task force, was arrested after exposing himself to a 16 year old girl in a mall. This statement from the article:
Figueroa was suspended from his post as the special agent in charge of the Tampa office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security. If he is not fired by August, he will be eligible for retirement at age 50.The we get Mr. Doyle, another Department of Homeland Security official arrested for soliciting a "minor", in reality, a law enforcement deputy, for sex over the internet.
But, add these two arrests of child predators to the Texas Youth Prison scandal. Not only local prosecutor’s, but the Texas Department of Justice U.S. Attorney, pursued no charges as this scandal continued for years. But, this statement should say it all about how pervasive the problem was:
A convicted sex offender who was fired this week from his job at a West Texas youth prison said he told his employer of his background when he applied for the job. David Andrew Lewis, 23, was fired from the Texas Youth Commission’s Coke County Juvenile Justice Center when state investigators discovered he was a convicted sex offender. Mr. Lewis was fired by the GEO Group, a Florida-based private company that runs the all-male facility in Bronte, about 30 miles northeast of San Angelo.
[...] President Bush signed a bill to help end trafficking of women and children for prostitution, yet, we get a youth sex scandal in Texas and Bush administration officials involved with at least one escort agency we know of, not to mention, the child predators who were arrested out of the DHS. Let’s not forget that the U.S. Attorney for the Mariana Islands was forced out amid investigations.
So what was found to be occurring in the Mariana’s? We are told:
Human rights and labor investigators have found rampant abuses there over the years, notably the trafficking of women for a commercial sex trade and the exploitation of mostly female workers from poor Asian countries in a largely foreign-owned garment-manufacturing industry that uses the territory to turn out “Made in U.S.A.” clothing exempt from U.S. tariffs and quotas.
As a lobbyist for the Northern Marianas government and, subsequently, the garment industry on the main island of Saipan, Abramoff enlisted DeLay and other Republican leaders in a battle against the Clinton administration, human rights groups, labor unions and a bipartisan group of lawmakers to preserve local control over immigration and the minimum wage.
[...] If Texas couldn’t stop the molestation of our children, allowing it to occur for years; If Florida supplied one (that we know of) convicted sex-offender to those youth prisons; If the U.S. Attorney investigation into the Mariana’s included garment shops using female workers as prostitutes; If President Bush says one of his key issues is the trafficking of women and children for sexual slavery… doesn’t this say enough to us?
Tony Snow is back
Just saw him on GMA. He’s his same old self.
On George Tenet’s book:
“...There’s been no [administration] attempt to try to link Sadam to September, 11...”
On the DC madam:
“...Let’s just see how this thing plays out. I think you’re getting ahead of the story...”
RELATED: Tenet on 60 Minutes. Atrios on the implications for the media of the list.
Warner Music needs a wake-up call
Join us today in calling on Warner Music to drop their opposition to DRM free digital sales and make their catalog available through online music stores free of Digital Restrictions.
Make a call today! All the folks listed below work in Warner’s New York offices. Try to make your calls in the morning on the East Coast. If your on the West Coast, you might want to wait until around 10AM PDT (after lunch for those on the East Coast).
