Why Cain Matters

Why Cain Matters:

A reader makes an excellent point:

It occurred to me last tonight that there is a silver lining in the Cain scandals and the appalling reaction on the right. Yes, we have an entire party - in fact, the effective majority governing party of the last 40 years - dismissing sexual harassment as a concept, much less a problem. But. We also have a black man who stands credibly accused of serial sexual predation against unwilling white women, and the older, whiter, Southern portion of our body politic doesn't have a problem with that. In a way, that reflects breathtaking progress on the racial front for America.

A little patronizing, but a sign of how our defaults have changed. Cain's race is not a hallmark issue, and that's great.

Biased article, but worth reading for some parts

How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich | Politics News | Rolling Stone: The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy."

Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?"

The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!"

The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Taking down a rather harsh position

Are men with prostate cancer “privileged”? – - Macleans OnCampus: Manley concludes with a simple statement: “Prostate cancer is a hallmark of privilege. Deal with it.”

Well, sir; you’ve convinced me. Instead of donating my money to prostate cancer research this November, I plan to offer a hefty sum to whatever clearly starving humanities department at Concordia University you came from. Based on logic like that, by God, they need the money.

Cancer, Alex Manley, is never a privilege.

I can't believe I laughted out loud at this.

Live-Blogging The Michigan Debate - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast: 8.20 pm. So Gingrich would fire a fixed term appointee at the Fed and Bachmann says she alone can repeal a law. Good times.

Shrinking the presidency back down to size - The Washington Post

Shrinking the presidency back down to size - The Washington Post: If you believe that the state of the economy drives the electorate’s evaluations of our political leaders — and you should believe that — then you have to grapple with the fact that the president is primarily responsible for economic conditions and needs either Congress or the Federal Reserve to join him in making economic policy.

To some, this reads like a subtler defense of Barack Obama. An attempt not so much to defend his record but to distract from it, to offer an explanation for low approval numbers and high unemployment that doesn’t impinge on the president’s decision making. So perhaps it would help to start by stating my opinion on Obama’s presidency more clearly.

Confidence Game : CJR

Confidence Game : CJR: “The question that mass amateurization poses to traditional media is ‘What happens when the costs of reproduction and distribution go away? What happens when there is nothing unique about publishing anymore because users can do it for themselves?’ We are now starting to see that question being answered.”—Clay Shirky

“The whole notion of ‘long-form journalism’ is writer-centered, not public-centered.”—Jeff Jarvis

“As a journalist, I’ve long taken it for granted that, for example, my readers know more than I do—and it’s liberating.”—Dan Gillmor

“As career journalists and managers we have entered a new era where what we know and what we traditionally do has finally found its value in the marketplace, and that value is about zero.”—John Paton

“The story is the thing.”—S. S. McClure

WAN IFRA International Newsroom Summit: How The Crowd Saved Our Company � Digital First

WAN IFRA International Newsroom Summit: How The Crowd Saved Our Company � Digital First: Good morning.

As career journalists and managers we have entered a new era where what we know and what we traditionally do has finally found its value in the marketplace and that value is about zero.

Our traditional journalism models and our journalistic efforts are inefficient and up against the Crowd – armed with mobile devices and internet connections- incomplete.

Our response to date as an industry has been as equally inefficient and in many cases emotional.

Intrigue

Tree Farmers Blast ‘Sinister’ ‘Smear’ Of ‘Obama’s Christmas Tree Tax’ | TPMMuckraker: No, America, President Obama didn’t impose a 15-cent tax on Christmas trees because he “Hates Christians,” or because he’s keen to launch another front in the War on Christmas. Christmas tree growers had the plan all along.

Remember those “Got Milk?” and “Beef, It’s What’s For Dinner” ads? Well, Christmas tree farmers and retailers thought those are pretty nifty. Plus, with more and more people buying artificial trees instead of the natural ones, they wanted to protect their brand. So three years ago — before Obama took office — a group of them started studying the pluses and minuses of starting a so-called “checkoff promotion and research program” of their very own.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with Obama, it’s not a tax,” National Christmas Tree Association spokesman Rick Dungey told TPM. “I’m slowly but surely narrowing down who the culprits are who put out that sinister little statement for whatever reasons there were.”

Oh, Tannebaum!

Oh, Tannebaum!:

Act one: A blog post from Cheney vet/Heritage Foundation fellow David Addington, which now has more than 127,000 Facebook "likes."

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

Act two: An actual statement from the National Christmas Tree Association, which wants the tax and the federal program.

“This program was requested by the industry in 2009 and has gone through two industrywide comment periods during which 565 comments were submitted from interested parties,” the National Christmas Tree Association said in a statement, adding that nearly 90 percent of the state and multi-state associations who commented on the program supported it.

“The program is designed to benefit the industry and will be funded by the growers at a rate of 15 cents per tree sold,” the release states. “The program is not expected to have any impact on the final price consumers pay for their Christmas tree.”

Act three: Jake Tapper.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is
going to delay implementation a revisit a proposed new 15 cent fee on fresh-cut Christmas trees, sources tell ABC News. The fee, requested by the
National Christmas Tree Association in 2009, was first announced in the Federal Registry yesterday, and has generated criticism of President Obama from conservative media outlets.

One reason that the conservative movement's grip on the Republican Party has remained so tight -- a reason that the Tea Party is so successful -- is that its media and think tank infrastructure is so strong and so coherent. Here's a perfect example. Former Bush administration official (A) goes to Heritage (B) and writes item that is picked up by Drudge (C) and discussed on terrestrial radio and TV (D). Obama administration folds like an oragami swan. And I'm betting this won't be the last we hear of "Obama trying to put a tax on Christmas trees."

Lordy, I just hope that the Apple Pie Local 451 didn't demand any deals like this.

Short quote, long piece

Libya and the Left | The Point Magazine: In late March of 2011, a massacre was averted—not just any ordinary massacre, mind you. For had Qaddafi and his forces managed to crush the Libyan rebellion in what was then its stronghold, Benghazi, the aftershocks would have reverberated well beyond eastern Libya. As Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch wrote, “Qaddafi’s victory—alongside Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s fall—would have signaled to other authoritarian governments from Syria to Saudi Arabia to China that if you negotiate with protesters you lose, but if you kill them you win.” Qaddafi’s defeat seemed to send a message to American politicians and media instead. Contrasting Obama’s handling of Libya with Clinton’s handling of the Balkans, Malinowski observed that “Presidents get more credit for stopping atrocities after they begin than for preventing them before they get out of hand.”

To be referenced later

Straight, Gay Couples Lose Virginity On 'Glee' Episode, Spark Controversy | Fox News: The popular Fox comedy “Glee” is set to air an episode Tuesday featuring two couples – the heterosexual Finn and Rachel and the homosexual Kurt and Blaine – losing their virginity. And even before it’s even hit the airwaves, the episode has sparked controversy.

EW’s PopWatch describes the episode, titled “The First Time,” as “incredibly moving” and says the sex scenes are “handled very delicately.” But television watchdog group the Parents Television Council is outraged by the controversial storyline and what it says is a “celebration” of teen sex.

Denial...

The Cain Presser: Reader Reax:

Eeeeeek

How to Track the Huge Storm Bearing Down on Alaska: Alaskans are awaiting the landfall of a storm that may end larger than any on record in the area. Imagine a blizzard with near hurricane-force winds. The storm is tracking for a direct strike on Nome. "Alaska west coast to be hit by one of the most severe Bering Sea storms on record," the National Weather Service wrote in a special message. "A powerful and extremely dangerous storm of near record or record magnitude is bearing down on the west coast of Alaska."

The message concluded with a remarkably ominous tone. "This will be an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm of an epic magnitude rarely experienced. All people in the area should take precautions to safeguard their lives and property." The storm looks so bad that the National Weather Service had to reach back to a storm that hit in November of 1974.

It's really quite dirty.

Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks is a historical tableau, set in 1676, exploiting the legend of the reply that the Cossacks sent the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV. The Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host (from 'beyond the rapids', za porohamy), inhabiting the lands around the lower Dnieper River in Ukraine, had defeated Ottoman Turkish forces in battle. However, Mehmed demanded that the Cossacks submit to Turkish rule. The Cossacks, led by Ivan Sirko, replied in an uncharacteristic manner: they wrote a letter, replete with insults and profanities. The painting exhibits the Cossacks' pleasure at striving to come up with ever more base vulgarities. During Repin's time, the Cossacks enjoyed great popular sympathy. Repin also admired them: "All that Gogol wrote about them is true! A holy people! No one in the world held so deeply freedom, equality, and fraternity."

Mea Culpa

I Was Wrong, and So Are You - Magazine - The Atlantic: A Libertarian Economist retracts a swipe at the left—after discovering that our political leanings leave us more biased than we think.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer - YouTube

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer - YouTube

Rouse in oblivion five years after Baylor scandal - Men's College Basketball - ESPN

Rouse in oblivion five years after Baylor scandal - Men's College Basketball - ESPN: In an occupation in which rule-breakers repeatedly are given second chances -- Todd Bozeman paid $30,000 to a recruit while head coach at Cal and this year coached Morgan State; Indiana hired Kelvin Sampson, Oklahoma baggage notwithstanding; and Sampson's assistant, Rob Senderoff, who took the fall at IU for Sampson, was recently hired at Kent State -- Rouse is a basketball pariah. He said he has been blackballed, labeled a snitch and a turncoat.

What is quirky about the United States? — Marginal Revolution

What is quirky about the United States? — Marginal Revolution: Going abroad and then coming back, what struck me was how many American flags there are all over the place. For example, the bridge over the highway up the road from me has a flag on it that someone just stuck there, and car after car has a flag bumper sticker. And nobody seems to think it’s tacky or nationalistic.

Harsh, and deserved

Difference Makers : Lawyers, Guns & Money: Leaving that aside, consider McQueary’s subsequent behavior. It appears that he in effect decided his nascent coaching career was more important than stopping Jerry Sandusky from not merely raping little boys, but from using the Penn State campus to gather his prey, and using Penn State football games and practices to “reward” his little victims. In other words, this is a case in which McQueary, in the years after he actually saw Sandusky raping a little boy, came face to face with Sandusky in the company of the little boys Sandusky was raping at the time – and he continued to nothing further about it.

Point.....

Jack Abramoff’s guide to buying congressmen - The Washington Post: In the interview, Abramoff gives away some of the tricks of his former trade. The big one? Dangle a job, he told Lesley Stahl. “When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, ‘You know, when you’re done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider coming to work for us.’ Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to ’em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they’re gonna do. And not only that, they’re gonna think of things we can’t think of to do.”

Abramoff had softer methods, too. “I spent over a million dollars a year on tickets to sporting events and concerts and whatnot at all the venues,” he says. “I had two people on my staff whose virtual full-time job was booking tickets. We were Ticketmaster for these guys.”