Fact-esque

Amex Inaugurates the Corporate Nanny-State

In a move we all expected would first be made by health insurance corpo's denying coverage to people with "bad habits", American Express has started lowering customers' credit if they don't like where that customer does his/her shopping. And no, this isn't an Onion joke.

Sarahcuda's Kid's Boyfriend's Mom Arrested on Drug Charge

Poor Sarah Palin. She just can't catch a break. And this wasn't even one of her lies.

[Sherry] Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston , who Gov. Sarah Palin said was the father of Bristol Palin's unborn child. Levi Johnston joined the Palins at the Republican National Convention when Palin was running for vice president. It was during the convention that the governor and her husband, Todd, announced Bristol's pregnancy.

Sherry Johnston was arrested around noon Thursday by troopers serving a search warrant in an undercover drug investigation. A standard press release issued by troopers said Johnston was arrested on six felony counts: second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance - generally manufacturing or delivering drugs - as well as fourth-degree misconduct involving controlled substances, or possession.

My friends from Alaska tell me the whole state's like that. I can relate. Most of my family comes from or still lives in Maine. Very much the same pattern.

Cabin fever is a killer.

The Price of the Auto Bail-Out: The Death of UAW

There appear to be all kinds of ifs, ands, and buts in Bush's $17+Bil bail-out of a corrupt auto industry.

The emergency bailout of General Motors and Chrysler announced by President Bush on Friday gives the companies a few months to get their businesses in order, but hands off to President-elect Barack Obama the difficult political task of ruling on their future.

The plan pumps $13.4 billion by mid-January into the companies from the fund that Congress authorized to rescue the financial industry. But the two companies have until March 31 to produce a plan for long-term profitability, including concessions from unions, creditors, suppliers and dealers.

In February, another $4 billion will be available for G.M. if the rest of the $700 billion bailout package has been released.

Musings from a Monkey

I should be old enough - I've certainly seen enough - that this sort of thing doesn't either depress or surprise me but I guess I'm not since it does both as well as piss me off. The Dimwit-in-Chief, the tramp clown president who couldn't be bothered to read books - too "effete" - and had to have the news fed to him pre-digested by aides like momma's vomit to a baby bird, the sly, crass, vulgar baboon who smirked when he signed death warrants, is running around giving "reflective" interviews in his last days to neophyte reporters simply awwwwwed by the presence of His Holiness the Emperor.

President Bush shared some bittersweet reflections on Thursday as he looked back fondly on his White House days but regretted his inability to win passage of immigration legislation and to change the tone of debate in the capital.

Even if they're tongue-in-cheek (which is doubtful) his descriptive image of himself makes the fantasies of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land look like hard science.

"Transpartisanship" Is the Definition of Insanity

In the wake of the Rick Warren controversy (Joan Walsh is scathing about it), Glenn Greenwald wants to go beneath it and talk about the underlying issue: "transpartisanship". He finds it necessary to remind people of the history that, around here, we take it for granted everybody knows. Maybe he's right, but it's hard to believe. I mean, I know Karl Rove once said something to the effect that the life span of a Mayfly is longer than the memory of the electorate, but jeezum, have we really already forgotten everything that happened before last month?

The one question I always return to when I hear this -- and we've been hearing it a lot to explain the Warren selection -- is this:  in what conceivable sense is this approach "new"?  Even for those who are convinced this will work, isn't this exactly the same thing Democrats have been doing for the last two decades:  namely, accommodating and compromising with the Right in the name of bipartisan harmony and a desire to avoid partisan and cultural conflicts?  This harmonious approach may be many things, but the one thing it seems not to be is "new."

***

What did all of those post-partisan, cultural outreach efforts generate?  Hatred so undiluted that it led to endless investigations, accusations whose ugliness was boundless, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and ultimate impeachment over a sex scandal.  Bill Clinton was anything but a cultural or partisan warrior.  He was the opposite.  And that was what he had to show for it.

We've been saying for months and months and months that what most bothered us about Obama was his naive, Dick Morris-y belief that you can appease Republicans. For some reason Obama thinks he can get away with the very same behavior that got Bill Clinton publicly pilloried - giving the GOoPers everything they said they wanted only to have the bar raised yet again and have even more outrageous demands made than before, which is then followed by a vicious and personal attack culminating in near-impeachment. With Republicans as with Hitler, enough is never enough and appeasement is seen as a sign of weakness and therefore a signal to demand even more concessions, after you make which they jump up and down on your neck with stiletto heels.

Obama-Warren: How Far Can You Lower the Bar Before You Stub Your Toe?

Or break your ankle.

We have all been advised by Obama's supporters and staff members to STFU and give Obama and his Cabinet choices some time to screw up before we start  criticizing anybody. Maybe, but there's another question that arises out of the rather lame excuses that these people are using to defend BO's nominees: "They're not as bad as the Bushies so we're better off." Oh yeah?

"Ray LaHood? Really?!?"

Obama has just picked another Republican for his Cabinet. This time it's Rep Ray LaHood from Obama's home state of Illinois. He's going to be - wait for it! - Transportation Secretary.

President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday picked Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Illinois, to be his transportation secretary, two sources tell CNN.

Obama will formally announce his choice of LaHood, a seven-term congressman from Peoria, at a press conference in Chicago on Thursday morning, the sources said.

LaHood is well-respected by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Now before y'all jump on my neck for criticizing Obama's choice without "giving him a chance", I just want to point out that I haven't criticized him. I can't. There's nothing to criticize. There's nothing to evaluate. There's, well, nothing.

“Ray Lahood? Really?!?” That was the reaction from the transportation and community development coordinator at the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology when I relayed the news that the retiring seven-term Republican congressman from Peoria was being considered as Secretary of Transportation in the incoming Obama administration. “You’ve left me totally dumbfounded. Ray LaHood?”

***

So what can we glean about LaHood's record on this issue? The moderate Republican has broken with his party over Amtrak funding, voting yes last summer to expand passenger rail service. In 2005, he told the Peoria Journal-Star that “we’ve got a good Amtrak system in Illinois and I don’t think we want to destroy it by talking about privatization.” In 2006, he received a 66 percent rating from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a major transportation construction lobby. He also voted in favor of the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act of 2008, a bill to promote increased public transportation use that garnered string bi-partisan support. Other than that, we know very little.

So as I understand this, LaHood - a Gingrich Republican, btw - is going to be SecTrans because the road builders' association likes him and he once said something nice about Amtrak?

Hey. My high school English teacher liked me and I once said something nice about the NEA. Can I be EdSec instead of Arne? Oh, wait. I'm not a Republican. Too bad.

Note: No Dear Leaders were overtly criticized or devalued in any way during the making of this post.

So Blackwater's Not Responsible for What Blackwater Does? Huh??

The State Dept's Inspector General says Blackwater may be barred from working in Iraq and has recommended a replacement be found.

An internal State Department report says Blackwater Worldwide may lose its license to work in Iraq and recommends that the agency prepare alternative means to protect its diplomats there.

The 42-page draft report by the State Department's Inspector General says the department faces "numerous challenges" in dealing with the security situation in Iraq, including the prospect that Blackwater may be barred from the country. The department would have turn to other security arrangements to replace Blackwater, officials said.

The State Department had no immediate comment on the report itself, but deputy spokesman Robert Wood said that after the probe is done, officials would look at "whether the continued use of Blackwater in Iraq is consistent with the U.S. government's goals and objectives."

Ah...yeah. Might have thought about that a couple years ago, saved a few lives, but what the hell. Blackwater CEO Erik Prince is a Bush supporter and a BIG donor. 'Nuff said.

It's nice that Blackwater's unrestricted arrogance and ham-fisted tactics are going to get slapped down for a change but this sentence (bolded) in the AP report has me puzzled:

The official said later that such a recommendation would not be made until after an investigation of last September's incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqis is complete. Five guards have been indicted on manslaughter and other charges stemming from that incident. The company was not implicated.

(emphasis added)

Could I have that again, please? Employees for the company have been indicted for murder in the performance of their jobs and the company isn't "implicated"?? WTF? How can that be? Is this some kind of post-Bush legal corporate theory wherein companies can't be held liable for their own training and hiring practices? Aren't responsible for anything their employees do even if they're the ones that told them to do it and showed them how?

I thought I knew something about the law but this is a new one on me.

Middle Class Moving Onto Welfare

After the Great Welfare Reform bill was passed, Bill Clinton's signature success, some of us were constrained by reality to point out that when the Good Times Turned Bad, as they inevitably would, people's need for help was going to explode and the whole system would be aimed at making sure they didn't get it. Well, as predicted the economy has imploded due to the scams and illegal maneuverings of our financial institutions and here they come. Only it ain't the poor what's filling out the forms. It's the middle class.

For the first time since welfare was redefined a dozen years ago, weaning millions of poor Americans from monthly government checks, the deteriorating economy is causing a surge in welfare rolls in a growing number of states.

The swelling caseloads pose the first hard test of the premise behind transforming the old system of welfare, once considered an open-ended right, into a finite program built to provide short-term cash assistance and steer people quickly into jobs.

Though still a fraction of the size they were at their height in the mid-1990s, welfare rolls recently have begun to climb again in at least a dozen states, according to interviews with state officials. In other states, applications are rising, foreshadowing more people on welfare soon. The trend has spread across the District, Maryland and Virginia.

More striking is who is coming onto welfare and why. Here in Florida, as elsewhere, the new face of welfare includes people who have tumbled from the middle class -- and higher -- after losing jobs, savings and self-reliance. And some are returning to welfare years after they thought they had found permanent work and independence. In the county that includes Fort Myers, nearly 40 percent of the 812 people who applied for welfare in October had never before asked for help.

Amy Goldstein, the WaPo reporter, seems surprised. The tone of the article is one of "Look at this! Who could have predicted it?" which marks a conservative these days. Confirming that diagnosis is the absurd assumption that welfare was at any time anywhere "considered an open-ended right". Welfare rolls have been down not because more people found jobs - they didn't - but because they were thrown off whether they had or not - the old conservative trick of denying eligibility and then claiming no one was eligible so there was therefore no need for the program. No one ever considered welfare a "right". They considered not going hungry or frozen in the richest nation in the world a "right", perhaps, but that's hardly the same thing.

Obama's Sec Ed: Not a Teacher

At Open Salon teacher/blogger Graeme Gilmann thinks Obama's pick of Arne Duncan as SecEd might not have been the best possible choice.

Duncan has some educational background but has not ever actually been a teacher. In 1992 Ducan became the head of a program called the Ariel Education Initiative which was started to enhance educational opportunities for children on Chicago's South Side. In 1998 he joined the Chicago Public Schools and later becameDeputy Chief of Staff for former Schools CEO Paul Vallas in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed by mayor Richard Daley to serve as CEO for Chicago public schools.

As a teacher, I am slightly uneasy with Obama's choice. One of the errors of the Bush Administration (among others) in directing policy for public education in recent history has been to treat students like numbers, foisting a plethora of standardized testing measures on students without proper support, financing, or meaningful connection to the real world. The present administration has been especially stubborn in upholding policies like NCLB (No Child Left Behind) with little or no regard for teacher perspective. (With very few exceptions, the teachers I have talked to hate NCLB, or at very least feel it is a well-intentioned measure that lacks the financial support and infrastructure to make it feasible). Attempts to modify or replace policies like NCLB have often been cast as desperate attempts by trenchant dissenters, teachers who lazily want to use their tenure to shield themselves from any unpleasant changes in the status quo that would threaten their practices or jobs. While such teachers undoubtedly exist, I believe that the majority of teachers are passionate, empathetic people who truly care about doing whatever is best for our students.

Personally, I'm not real concerned that Obama's going to stick with NCLB or demand Bushian/conservative rigid standardized testing, though I could be wrong. But even though I disagree with Gilmann's reasons, I have to say I agree with his concerns. Yes, a SecEd should be a proven administrator (especially with the mess Spellings et al left behind) but s/he should also be somebody with teaching experience.