Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
The Constant Weader is on sick leave today ...
I did, by hook or by crook, just manage to get my column in at the New York Times eXaminer. Title: "Women Need Not Apply." Please don't tell me about all the typos. I know they're there (and here!). The front page of the NYTX is here.
Well, one more thing: John Cassidy of the New Yorker on Obama's Osawatomie speech.
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is something a little different: an open letter to a hedge fund billionaire (and all-around pompous ass).
Here's a straight report by David Nakamura of the Washington Post, on President Obama's speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. The transcript of the speech is here. Here are a few opinions about the speech:
... Steve Benen: "You want a populist president, putting the interests of working families and the middle class above all? You’ve got it. For 55 minutes, Barack Obama made the case for progressive governance while destroying the foundation for the right’s vision." ...
... David Dayen of Firedoglake, who has been appropriately aggressive in his criticism of President Obama, gives the President mostly high marks for his speech yesterday but notes that Obama is still pushing the "belt-tightening" bit, which is stupid. Dayen is no Obamabot. ...
... Charles Pierce has another good take, calling out the good, the bad & the meh. And Pierce gets the Tea Party to a tee. ...
... Greg Sargent: "Obama’s speech in Kansas, which just concluded, was the most direct condemnation of wealth and income inequality, and the most expansive moral defense of the need for government activism to combat it, that Obama has delivered in his career." ...
... New York Times Editors: "Tuesday’s speech, in fact, seemed expressly designed to counter Mitt Romney’s argument that business, unfettered, will easily restore American jobs and prosperity. Teddy Roosevelt knew better 101 years ago, and it was gratifying to hear his fire reflected by President Obama."
In a New York Times eXaminer essay, Prof. Rena Steinzor of the Center for Progressive Reform explains why Cass Sunstein's little in-house (the "house" being the White House) industry lobbying and bean-counting organization is undermining agency and Congressionally-imposed regulations -- at a cost to Americans Sunstein doesn't bother to calculate. And while she's at it she lampoons David Brooks for his man-crush on Sunstein.
Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "Rather than responding to the motivations and demands behind the antigovernment uprising, opponents and political analysts say, the government [of Syria] has stubbornly clung to the narrative that it is besieged by a foreign plot."
Curtis Cartier of Seattle Weekly: "A U.S. District Court judge in Portland has drawn a line in the sand between 'journalist' and 'blogger.' And for Crystal Cox, a woman on the latter end of that comparison, the distinction has cost her $2.5 million.... Cox argued in court that the reason her post was more factual was because she had an inside source that was leaking her information. And since Oregon is one of 40 U.S. states including Washington with media shield laws, Cox refused to divulge who her source was.... The judge in Cox's case, however, ruled that the woman did not qualify for shield-law protection not because of anything she wrote, but because she wasn't employed by an official media establishment." ...
... Cartier, again: "Bruce E. H. Johnson ... is a veteran litigator in the field of free speech and media law. In 2006 he drafted Washington state's media shield legislation, and in 2007 the state legislature passed it into law. He says that had Cox's case been heard in a Washington court, the outcome (at least in regards to the shield law) would have most likely been different."
Peter Wehrwein of Harvard Health Watch: "Dr. Michael Roizen, of RealAge.com fame, says presidents age twice as fast as normal when they’re in office. The main cause, he says, is 'unrequited stress — they don’t have enough friends to mitigate the stress.' ... The only problem with this notion of accelerated presidential aging is that it just ain’t so, according to S. Jay Olshansky, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a longevity expert. In an article in tomorrow’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Olshansky says his research into presidential life expectancy found ... most of them lived long lives and beat the longevity expectations for their time."
What I Did on My Vacation. John Leland of the New York Times: Today, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed is at work in his cubicle at the New York State Transportation Department in Buffalo. But for eight months, starting last November, he took a leave of absence, which he used to serve as "the prime minister of his native country, Somalia, one of the most chaotic nations on earth."
Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Donald Trump's Republican presidential debate took another hit Wednesday when White House hopeful Mitt Romney said he wouldn't participate in the event." With video.
Right Wing World
Civil Right, Tea Party-Style. Dana Milbank: ultra-conservatives Members of Congress has become the champions of minority fetuses. ...
... Civil rights for fetuses, yes; for gay actual people, not so much:
Just when you thought Barack Obama couldn’t get any more out of touch with America’s values, AP reports his administration wants to make foreign aid decisions based on gay rights. This administration’s war on traditional American values must stop. Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money. -- Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) ...
... The underlying news story is here; also linked in today's Ledes.
Local News
Los Angeles Times: "At a packed City Council meeting ... Los Angeles lawmakers Tuesday called for more regulations on how much corporations can spend on political campaigns. The vote in support of state and federal legislation that would end so-called 'corporate personhood' is largely symbolic.... The council resolution includes support for a constitutional amendment that would assert that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights, and that spending money is not a form of free speech."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Harry Morgan, the prolific character actor best known for playing the acerbic but kindly Colonel Potter in the long-running television series “M*A*S*H,” died on Wednesday morning at his home in Los Angeles. He was 96."
New York Times: "Health and Human Services Secretary on Wednesday overruled the ’s decision that emergency contraceptives be sold freely over the counter, including to teenagers 16 years old and younger."
Philadelphia Inquirer: "Prosecutors on Wednesday filed new child sex-abuse charges against Jerry Sandusky, bringing to 10 the number of boys they say the former football coach molested or raped over the past decade. State police arrested Sandusky at his State College home and led him, draped in a blue-and-white Penn State track suit, in handcuffs into court."
New York Times: "The 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack will be the last one marked by the survivors’ association. With a concession to the reality of time — of age, of deteriorating health and death — the association will disband on Dec. 31."
Washington Post: "A Republican Party that has for decades benefited from a commitment to lower taxes is now finding itself on the defensive on the issue, as members face a deep split over a Democratic plan to extend a payroll tax reduction.... House Republicans will hold a closed-door meeting Wednesday to discuss what to do."
Guardian: "President Barack Obama has told US officials to consider how countries treat its gay and lesbian populations when making decisions about allocating foreign aid. In the first ever US government strategy to deal with human rights abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens abroad, a presidential memo issued on Tuesday instructs agencies using foreign aid to promote such rights."
New York Times: "Politicians and officials criticized the on Tuesday and called for investigations after the release of comments on Facebook in which users claiming to be officers heaped scorn on revelers at the annual West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn. But, despite repeated requests, one person refused to comment: the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly."
AP: "With years of freedom hanging in the balance, disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday gets his final shot at trying to persuade a federal judge not to send him away for a lengthy prison term." ...
... Chicago Tribune: "Two things were clear Tuesday by the close of the first day of Rod Blagojevich's sentencing hearing: The former governor was likely going to be hit with a stiff sentence, and his legal team had abandoned its early hope of him avoiding prison altogether." ...
... Update: "Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison and fined $20,000 for what U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald famously referred to as a criminal corruption crime spree at the time of Blagojevich’s arrest three years ago."
New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked confirmation of Caitlin J. Halligan, a prominent New York lawyer, to be a federal appeals court judge, raising the question of whether a political deal to prevent the of most judicial nominations has broken down.... In a statement shortly after the Senate vote, Mr. Obama expressed disappointment and accused Republicans of undermining the judicial confirmation process for partisan purposes."
Washington Post: "A Virginia appeals court declared Thomas Haynesworth an innocent man Tuesday, clearing his name and acknowledging that he spent 27 years behind bars for rapes he did not commit. It is the first time the state has issued a 'writ of actual innocence' in a rape case without the certainty of DNA evidence. Haynesworth, 46, was supported by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) and two state prosecutors — all of whom concluded that he was mistakenly identified by a rape victim as he walked to a Richmond market for sweet potatoes and bread one February afternoon in 1984."
My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on today's heaping pile of deceit shoveled up by David Brooks. My editor tells me he has already received an appreciative letter from a law professor who was one of the principal authors of a study Brooks slyly misrepresents (without actually lying about it) in his column. The New York Times eXaminer front page is here.
Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is petitioning the UN over what it sees as a concerted efforted to disenfranchise black and Latino voters ahead of next year's presidential election. The organisation will this week present evidence to the UN high commissioner on human rights of what it contends is a conscious attempt to "block the vote" on the part of state legislatures across the US. Next March the NAACP will send a delegation of legal experts to Geneva to enlist the support of the UN human rights council." (This story got little coverage in U.S. media, tho the AP did have a story.) ...
... The NAACP is holding a Stand for Freedom march on the U.N. building in New York City this Saturday on U.N. Human Rights Day. Info is here.
Massimo Calabresi of Time: "The latest weapon Obama is wielding against Republicans is the fate of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau."
The Pelosi-Gingrich set-to begins here with Brian Beutler of TPM:
One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff. -- Nancy Pelosi ...
... THEN it goes here, as reported by Justin Sink of The Hill: "Newt Gingrich said that a threat from ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to disclose information she learned while serving on an ethics committee investigating him during his time as Speaker of the House would 'totally abuse the ethics process' and violate rules of the House of Representatives." ...
... THEN it goes here, as reported by John Parkinson of ABC News: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi now says she is not sitting on a trove of opposition research on former House Speaker-turned-GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich."
Joe Nocera writes in praise of Dr. Don Berwick, whom Republican Senators refused to confirm as Director of Medicare. Why? Because they're real flames.
Right Wing World ...
Here's Ron Paul's anti-Gingrich 60-second spot:
... Rules. Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: " Radio giant Clear Channel Communications is removing San Francisco’s only progressive AM talk radio station from the band, replacing it with mostly conservative content like Glenn Beck and Fox News Radio. As Brad Blog reports, Green960-KKGN will now move to the 'radio ghetto' of FM HD2, which requires listeners to have an HD radio. Clear Channel ... now happens to be owned by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital.... Clear Channel is the nation’s largest radio network and the vast majority of their talk radio content — 86 percent, according to liberal talk radio host Bill Press — is conservative." ...
This Time Romney Flips Left! Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "On Monday, Mitt Romney embraced one of President Obama’s signature proposals — another one-year extension of a cut in payroll taxes, after just weeks ago deriding the idea as 'little Band-Aids' that offered only a temporary fix.... Newt Gingrich ... said months ago that he favored an extension." ...
... Steve Benen: "So, let’s see. First, Romney sort of endorsed the payroll tax break. Then he dismissed it. Then his campaign no longer wanted to talk about. Then he announced his support for it. Romney must realize that there’s a perception — based on voluminous evidence — that he’s a cowardly, unprincipled hack with no core beliefs who’ll shift with the political winds. And yet, the Republican presidential hopeful keeps offering proof that the criticisms are accurate." ...
News Ledes
NBC News: "Randy Babbitt resigned as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday after being charged over the weekend with driving while intoxicated."
AP: "Hundreds of people took to the streets of Moscow for a second successive day on Tuesday to demand an end to Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, defying a crackdown by tens of thousands of police reinforced by crack Interior Ministry troops. Police said they had detained about 250 people in central Moscow when they tried to stage an unapproved rally and held about 200 more in St Petersburg, where opposition forces have also been emboldened by the prime minister's worst election setback since he took power in 1999."
President Obama will speak about the economy in Kansas at 1:55 pm ET: McClatchy News: "Looking to inject his economic agenda with the grand sweep of history, he'll travel Tuesday to the small town of Osawatomie, Kan., the same place where Theodore Roosevelt a century ago summoned the nation to a new progressive era under what he called a 'New Nationalism.'"
New York Times: "In what officials say is the largest ever settlement in a government investigation of a mine disaster, Alpha Natural Resources agreed to pay $209 million in restitution and civil and criminal penalties for the role of its subsidiary, , in a 2010 mine explosion that killed 29 men in West Virginia."
Guardian: "The grand bargain struck by Germany and France to save the euro and restore confidence in the single currency was facing its first challenge within hours of being negotiated, after 15 eurozone nations were warned that their credit ratings could be downgraded. Just after crunch talks in Paris seen as vital to preventing the collapse of the euro, France and Germany were among the countries warned that Standard & Poor's was considering whether to reduce their ratings."
New York Times: At least 58 people were killed and scores wounded after bombers struck Shiite religious observances on Tuesday in three cities, detonating explosives amid crowds of worshipers in the first such sectarian attacks in a decade of war in Afghanistan."
The Secret Life of Gov. Willard. Reuters: "Mitt Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007 as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret, Reuters has learned.The move during the final weeks of Romney's administration was legal but unusual for a departing governor, Massachusetts officials say."
The Chicago Tribune has sort of a livebloggy thing on former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who faces a sentencing hearing today in Chicago. A New York Times story is here.
Cookie Crumbles, Takes Detestable Government Handouts. Wall Street Journal: Mary Brown of Panama City, Florida, "The woman chosen to represent the legal challenge to the Obama administration's health-care overhaul filed for bankruptcy in September after her business failed, a move that could pose problems for the high-profile lawsuit.... Without owning a business, it could be harder for Ms. Brown to argue she is harmed by the legislation. Meanwhile, her recent financial woes suggest the possibility she would be exempt from penalties for noncompliance with the individual mandate. That raises questions about whether the suit can be based on her experience.... Ms. Brown ... who is receiving unemployment benefits." CW: really, I don't bear this woman any ill will, but sometimes shit happens to selfish people, and it's hard to get all torn up about it.
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