How K Street beat Obama - Byron Tau - POLITICO.com

How K Street beat Obama - Byron Tau - POLITICO.com:

Barack Obama promised to take on Washington’s revolving door culture.

Washington won.

 

A POLITICO review shows that the Obama administration
has hired about 70 previously registered corporate, trade association
and for-hire lobbyists. And many of these former lobbyists work at the
highest levels of government.

Outrage in Ferguson after police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown - Vox

Outrage in Ferguson after police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown - Vox: On August 9, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was killed by a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, MO. Eyewitnesses to the shooting report that Brown was killed while attempting to surrender, but police say that Brown assaulted the officer before the shooting.



 The incident provoked immediate anger and frustration in the community and around the country. The killing of Eric Garner, also an unarmed black man, by New York City police last month revived a public conversation about the history of police violence against black men, and the killing of Brown has inflamed it.

Miho Aikawa photographs people eating dinner in her series, “Dinner in NY.”

Miho Aikawa photographs people eating dinner in her series, “Dinner in NY.”: More than four years ago, Aikawa decided to explore the many manifestations of modern dinners by photographing people eating in New York, focusing specifically on “private dinner moments, which take place regularly and more often.” She found subjects through friends and asked them to eat as they normally would in order to better reveal “part of the person's lifestyle.” What she found was that dinner today involves a lot of multitasking and, increasingly, a lot of media consumption. “The spread of the Internet, computers and cellphones in recent years has given people many methods of communication, and dinner has lost its original essence as an occasion to socialize with others,” she said.

Lawfare › The Case for Seeking Congressional Authorization for Iraq Strikes Just Grew Stronger

Lawfare › The Case for Seeking Congressional Authorization for Iraq Strikes Just Grew Stronger: If the President plans to engage in military operations in Iraq for “months” (and almost certainly longer) in an effort to address the militant threat posed over the long term there, then the case for doing so in reliance solely on his inherent Article II self-defense power just grew weaker, legally and especially politically, and the case for seeking authorization from Congress for the military strikes just grew stronger. As I noted yesterday, the case for seeking congressional authorization in this context was made forcefully and persuasively less than a year ago by President Obama himself, when he explained why he was seeking congressional authorization prior to military strikes in Syria. (The Syrian strikes were supposedly going to be “limited in duration and scope,” unlike the longer term strikes now planned for Iraq.) The President said last year that “all of us should be accountable as we move forward, and that can only be accomplished with a vote”; and that “the country will be stronger if we take this course [i.e. congressional authorization], and our actions will be even more effective”; and that “[w]e should have this debate, because the issues are too big for business as usual”; and that “our democracy is stronger when the President and the people’s representatives stand together.” If this was true last year, why not now, with even greater force?

New Research: White Voter Support for Fewer Prisoners Depends On Who’s Locked Up - COLORLINES

New Research: White Voter Support for Fewer Prisoners Depends On Who’s Locked Up - COLORLINES: “Many legal advocates and social activists seem to assume that bombarding the public with images, statistics and other evidence of racial disparities will motivate people to join the cause and fight inequality,” Hetey said. “[But] our research shows that numbers don’t always speak for themselves,” Eberhardt said. “Reducing inequality takes more than simply presenting people with evidence of extreme inequality.”

Ebola Experts Warn of an African ‘Apocalypse’ - The Daily Beast

Ebola Experts Warn of an African ‘Apocalypse’ - The Daily Beast: The outbreak is getting worse.

It’s already an unprecedented outbreak, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden says, and the number of infected and killed by Ebola will likely soon outnumber all other Ebola outbreaks in the past 32 years combined. According to the CDC, there have already been more than 1,700 suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola in West Africa, and more than 900 deaths—numbers that Frieden later called “too foggy” to be definitive. Ken Isaacs, the vice president of Program and Government Relations for Samaritan’s Purse, painted an even bleaker picture. According to the World Health Organization, West Africa has counted 1,711 diagnoses and 932 deaths, already, which could represent only a small fraction of the true number. “We believe that these numbers represent just 25 to 50 percent of what is happening,” said Isaacs.

The irony of Barack Obama's presidency in one sentence - Vox

The irony of Barack Obama's presidency in one sentence - Vox: Obama pushed more change through the political system than any serious observer expected: he passed health-care reform, as well as the largest stimulus and investment package in American history, and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms (which are working better than most realize). He brought the Iraq war to a close and he actually did find and kill Osama bin Laden. There's much left on his to-do list, but even in places where he's failed to pass his legislative remedies into law — like immigrant reform and cap-and-trade — he's used or is using executive actions to make huge strides.

But he didn't do all this by fixing American politics. He did all this by breaking American politics even further. Obama hasn't healed the divisions between Democrats and Republicans. Rather, he's one of the most polarizing presidents since the advent of polling:

Faith In Humanity Restored! These Reddit Users Ca... | ClickHole

Faith In Humanity Restored! These Reddit Users Ca... | ClickHole: “In order for these websites to remain profitable, they constantly need new content,” Olson said. “That’s why I, and many other Redditors, try to help them out as much as we can by providing them with a reliable source of free content they can post as their own.”

“The fact is many of these websites simply don’t have content of their own to post,” Olson added. “They just don’t have that much to say. It’s heartbreaking.”

This is not a one-time occurrence either. Time and time again, the Reddit community has banded together in order to create content that can be shared far and wide on other websites that need it to make money. It’s truly something to marvel at.

President Obama's Impossible Choices in Iraq - The Atlantic

President Obama's Impossible Choices in Iraq - The Atlantic: The optimal policy in Iraq right now is beyond my knowledge. I strongly suspect that it is beyond everyone else's knowledge too, but if the choice is between trusting the neoconservatives or Obama, as depressing as that choice is to me, I have no problem determining who's been wrong on Iraq earlier, more often, and with greater consequences in the past, though they never admit it. Hawkish hubris and irrepressible faux-certainty makes Obama look good by comparison, quite a feat given his own ample missteps and shortcomings. Let's all hope that in the present crisis he succeeds spectacularly, whatever that means, remembering that none of us would know just what to do in his place.

America's Moral Obligations in Iraq - The Atlantic

America's Moral Obligations in Iraq - The Atlantic: As I have learned myself very painfully, there is an enormous amount the United States cannot do. It cannot solve Iraq’s political problems. It may not even be able to hold Iraq together. It cannot solve the horror in Syria. It cannot defeat the Taliban. It cannot stop Libya from descending into anarchy. But it can save the people in the Sinjar Mountains, both by dropping supplies to keep them alive, and by bombing ISIS so Kurdish forces can retake the areas nearby. And in so doing, it can stop genocide. Thankfully, Obama is doing just that.

The End of ‘Genius’ - NYTimes.com

The End of ‘Genius’ - NYTimes.com: The pair is the primary creative unit — not just because pairs produce such a staggering amount of work but also because they help us to grasp the concept of dialectical exchange. At its heart, the creative process itself is about a push and pull between two entities, two cultures or traditions, or two people, or even a single person and the voice inside her head. Indeed, thinking itself is a kind of download of dialogue between ourselves and others. And when we listen to creative people describe breakthrough moments that occur when they are alone, they often mention the sensation of having a conversation in their own minds.

This phenomenon is so uncanny that the writer Elizabeth Gilbert has proposed that we return to the myth of the muses to help characterize it. That doesn’t mean there literally are “fairies who follow people around rubbing fairy juice on their projects and stuff,” Ms. Gilbert has said. But the core experience described by the muse-creator interaction — that of one entity helping to inspire another — is almost always true.

In Defense of Banks and Bankers | Finsurgency

In Defense of Banks and Bankers | Finsurgency: The good news, for bankers, is that there is a way forward. There is a role, or a set of roles, for banks in all of these business that may not be exciting, high growth or particularly sexy, but can be high margin and massively defensible. Banks should a)manage regulation and compliance; b)manage security/fraud/identity and c)steward depositor capital into risk managed pools. Each of these roles demands a separate blog post, but suffice it to say that each is a critical infrastructure layer across the core segments of banking, and banks are uniquely situated, in terms of current regulation, technology assets, brand identity and culture, to own each layer. By focusing on these roles and not trying to compete with nimbler foes, banks could massively reduce overhead, value at risk and operational complexity. The banks themselves, and the bankers who work there, would go back to being perceived as pillars of the community, literally supporting the entire ecosystem of commerce. Not entirely incidentally (at least not for me), a thousand or more entrepreneurial flowers would bloom, as businesses sprung up around the banks, fulfilling the customer facing and innovation functions that so desperately need to be filled. I predict that companies like American Express (great at payments & brand), Capital One (great at marketing & credit risk) and Goldman Sachs (great at trading technology) would “de-bank”, and choose to partner with Citi, BofA, JPM and others, who would shed many non-core businesses. This restructuring of the financial sector would put the US back on the path to being the global leader in this area, as well as de-risking the global economy.

A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast - The Washington Post

A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast - The Washington Post: Election fraud happens. But ID laws are not aimed at the fraud you’ll actually hear about. Most current ID laws (Wisconsin is a rare exception) aren’t designed to stop fraud with absentee ballots (indeed, laws requiring ID at the polls push more people into the absentee system, where there are plenty of real dangers). Or vote buying. Or coercion. Or fake registration forms. Or voting from the wrong address. Or ballot box stuffing by officials in on the scam. In the 243-page document that Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed on Monday with evidence of allegedly illegal votes in the Mississippi Republican primary, there were no allegations of the kind of fraud that ID can stop.



Instead, requirements to show ID at the polls are designed for pretty much one thing: people showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to each cast one incremental fake ballot. This is a slow, clunky way to steal an election. Which is why it rarely happens.

Max Schireson's blog | Thoughts on technology and the tech business

Max Schireson's blog | Thoughts on technology and the tech business: Earlier this summer, Matt Lauer asked Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, whether she could balance the demands of being a mom and being a CEO. The Atlantic asked similar questions of PepsiCo’s female CEO Indra Nooyi. As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO.

While the press haven’t asked me, it is a question that I often ask myself.



Here is my situation:

* I have 3 wonderful kids at home, aged 14, 12 and 9, and I love spending time with them: skiing, cooking, playing backgammon, swimming, watching movies or Warriors or Giants games, talking, whatever.
* I am on pace to fly 300,000 miles this year, all the normal CEO travel plus commuting between Palo Alto and New York every 2-3 weeks. During that travel, I have missed a lot of family fun, perhaps more importantly, I was not with my kids when our puppy was hit by a car or when my son had (minor and successful, and of course unexpected) emergency surgery.

Anatomy of a Power Grab - NYTimes.com

Anatomy of a Power Grab - NYTimes.com: No, it’s more than that. Immigrants affected by the policy wouldn’t just know that the United States isn’t going to move heaven and earth to deport them — something that’s already true in most cases, which is why Eric Posner, writing in the New Republic, feels comfortable casting the move under consideration as just the formal acknowledgment of “current practice.” (He also feels comfortable because he’s an explicit presidential caesarist, something liberals inclined to invoke his arguments might want to keep in mind.) But he’s wrong: Current practice may includes at best a modest risk of deportation for individuals here illegally, but it does entail some risk, both for the immigrants themselves and for employers who hire them, because the laws are on the books and at least partially enforced. Whereas Obama’s proposal would make that risk go away, by formally changing the status of the people affected: They would become lawful residents, with work permits and Social Security numbers. The White House would grant them, in other words, roughly the kind of provisional status that’s been a sticking point throughout the Senate and House debates on this issue. Obama wouldn’t just be sparing illegal immigrants deportations or exercising prosecutorial discretion in who gets deported; he would be legalizing them.

House panel: No administration wrongdoing in Benghazi attack - SFGate

House panel: No administration wrongdoing in Benghazi attack - SFGate: Among the Intelligence Committee's findings, according to Thompson:

 -- Intelligence agencies were "warned about an increased threat environment, but did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened."

-- "A mixed group of individuals, including those associated with al Qaeda, (Moammar) Khadafy loyalists and other Libyan militias, participated in the attack."

 -- "There was no 'stand-down order' given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, no illegal activity or illegal arms transfers occurring by U.S. personnel in Benghazi, and no American was left behind."

-- The administration's process for developing "talking points" was "flawed, but the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis."

SERIOUSLY? Secret’s PR head complains about people writing horrible things without accountability | PandoDaily

SERIOUSLY? Secret’s PR head complains about people writing horrible things without accountability | PandoDaily: Sarah Jane Sacchetti, the head of communications for anonymous libel app Secret (who previously held the same job at teen suicide encourager, Formspring) has responded to my post about how her boss doesn’t care if teens kill themselves because of their app.

Did she express any concern for Secret’s users?

Did she pledge that the company will take steps to protect teenagers from cyberbullying?

Noooooooo.

Rather — and I swear I’m not making this up — Sacchetti complained that she is “always taken aback when people write horrible things without talking to the people they target”.

Again, this is the head of marketing for AN APP WHICH ALLOWS PEOPLE TO WRITE HORRIBLE THINGS WITHOUT TALKING TO THE PEOPLE THEY TARGET.

Group of Liberal New Yorkers Wants to Legalize Weed | FiveThirtyEight

Group of Liberal New Yorkers Wants to Legalize Weed | FiveThirtyEight:

Some of it is that I get irked when elites get credit for publicly taking “bold”
positions that other folks came to much sooner. This is particularly
the case when the position is one you’d expect them to have held in
their private lives all along.



But there’s a particularly large gap between elite and popular opinion on marijuana policy. Consider that, according to The Huffington Post,
none of the 50 U.S. governors or the 100 U.S. senators had endorsed
fully legal recreational marijuana as of this April — even though some
of them are very liberal on other issues, and even though an increasing
number of them represent states where most voters support legalizing
pot.

Democrats Are Way More Obsessed With Impeachment Than Republicans | FiveThirtyEight

Democrats Are Way More Obsessed With Impeachment Than Republicans | FiveThirtyEight:



Impeachment chatter has also become common on cable news. On Fox News this month, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, called for Obama’s impeachment, for instance. But for every mention of impeachment on Fox News in July, there have been five on liberal-leaning MSNBC.




This data comes from a Lexis-Nexis search of transcripts on each
network. It counts each mention of the words “impeach” or “impeachment.”
The terms were used 32 times in a single episode of MSNBC’s “The Ed
Show” on Monday. (Ordinarily, I’d adjust for the overall volume of words
spoken on each network, but I know from my previous research that MSNBC and Fox News have about the same number of words recorded in Lexis-Nexis.)

Zionism and Israel’s War with Hamas in Gaza - NYTimes.com

Zionism and Israel’s War with Hamas in Gaza - NYTimes.com:

This,
as a Zionist, I cannot accept. Jews, above all people, know what
oppression is. Children over millennia were the transmission belt of
Jewish survival, the object of what the Israeli novelist Amos Oz and his
daughter Fania Oz-Salzberger have called “the intergenerational
quizzing that ensures the passing of the torch.” No argument, no
Palestinian outrage or subterfuge, can gloss over what Jewish failure
the killing of children in such numbers represents.

The
Israeli case for the bombardment of Gaza could be foolproof. If
Benjamin Netanyahu had made a good-faith effort to find common cause
with Palestinian moderates for peace and been rebuffed, it would be. He
has not. Hamas is vile. I would happily see it destroyed. But Hamas is
also the product of a situation that Israel has reinforced rather than
sought to resolve.

This
corrosive Israeli exercise in the control of another people, breeding
the contempt of the powerful for the oppressed, is a betrayal of the
Zionism in which I still believe.