Send in the Clowns! OOPS! I mean the Anchors from those so-called major News Networks!
Posted: July 17, 2008 Filed under: No Obama | Tags: Afghanistan, iran, IRAQ, MSM echo chamber, MSM fullfers for Obama, Obama 2 CommentsNo one can question the role of the MSM as fluffers for Obama any more. Senator John McCain spent the last leg of the primary season tromping around the middle east with Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman in tow. I recall there was media present because Lieberman had to correct McCain several times about the difference between Al Quaeda and Shite insurgents supported by Iran. However, I do not recall that the trailers included ALL THREE Anchors of each of the non cable networks. This is the same group that I used to rely on for truth about Vietnam, Nixon, and Watergate. Wither art thou Walter Cronkite?
This is an even bigger shocker! I heard this from Greta Van Susteren on FOX. Oh, the SHAME! I’m admitting to watching FOX now in public! I first learned that the three amigos will be trotting around the globe with the anointed one from Greta on Fox after I got home from teaching a freshman seminar on Monetary Policy. I did not read it first from my subscription to the NY Times. I didn’t even hear it from my ol’ ninth ward slummin’, Vaughn’s visitin’, Ketel one drinkin’ friend Anderson Cooper or his producer Jamie! I’m still trying to find my bearings right now because I can’t BELIEVE I heard this from GRETA (http://gretawire.foxnews.com/2008/07/17/oh-oh-how-does-the-media-yes-the-media-explain-this-one/) before I heard it from Anderson Cooper or read it in the TIMES but I also have to say, I think the world is upside down at the moment. I think the gravitational pull of the earth has been disrupted somehow.
I’ll quote from the NY TImes out of habit and the fact I pay damn good money for my subscription.
Media Stars Will Accompany Obama Overseas
But when Senator Barack Obama heads for Iraq and other places overseas this summer, Mr. Williams is planning to catch up with him in person, as are the other two network evening news anchors, Charles Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, who, like Mr. Williams, are far along in discussions to interview Mr. Obama on successive nights.
And while the anchors are jockeying for interviews with Mr. Obama at stops along his route, the regulars on the Obama campaign plane will have new seatmates: star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines who are flocking to catch Mr. Obama’s first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. A “Meet the Press” interview is also being planned.
The extraordinary coverage planned for Mr. Obama’s trip, though in part solicited by aides, reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first black presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.
But the coverage also feeds into concerns in Mr. McCain’s campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the news media are imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates, just as aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton felt during the primary season.
Well, we know it’s an oddity when Obama takes a trip over seas to learn something, let alone something remotely related to working. We know that his senatorial duties overseeing the NATO commitment to Afghanistan have been scarce to nonexistent. We know now that Obama missed many of the higher level meetings on Iraq and when he did attend 1 out of 3 meetings, he asked about something other than Afghanistan. He never held a meeting for the sub-committee for which he holds the chairmanship. While trying to back Obama up, Joe Biden actually lets slip how badly Obama’s carried out any senatorial duties at all. But what do you expect from some one who has gotten more than full time pay for holding down part time jobs? Did we mention these were part time jobs he can’t even show up for?
This from ABC’s Jack Trapper today. ( source: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/)
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his allies have been hitting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, for not holding any hearings to examine the role of NATO in Afghanistan in his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs.
“He’s never had a hearing,” McCain said Tuesday, “so I am not surprised that all he has done is said, ‘Well, we need more troops.'”
In a letter to Obama earlier this week, McCain-backing Sen. Jim DeMint R- SC, wrote, “With oversight of NATO relations and its role in Afghanistan, I believe it is time for us to focus closely on these issues,” DeMint wrote, suggesting a meeting of the subcommittee upon Obama’s return from a much anticipated trip abroad.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., had previously told Meet the Press that “the reason Obama didn’t hold a hearing on NATO, I chair the committee. Every one of those committee hearings are held at full committee.”
But today Biden decided to take his defense of Obama one step further, writing to DeMint that there have been plenty of hearings on European Affairs, they’ve just been held at the “full committee level.”
“On the particular issue of NATO’s mission in Afghanistan,” Biden wrote, “We have held three Full Committee hearings in the last 22 months: one under Senator Lugar’s chairmanship (September 21, 2006: “From Coalition to ISAF Command in Afghanistan: The Purpose and Impact of the Transition”), and two undermine (March 8, 2007: “Afghanistan: Time for a New Strategy?” and January 21, 2008: “Afghanistan: A Plan to Turn the Tide?”). At all three of these hearings, we were fortunate enough to have the expert testimony—in addition to other witnesses, both in and out of government— of former NATO commander and Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, Gen. James R. Jones (USMC, ret.).”
But Biden’s letter brought attention to the fact that Obama did not attend two of those three hearings — and for the third, on March 8, 2007, Obama only asked one question, one unrelated to Afghanistan.
So we have the least knowledgable person on earth about the status of Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan whose knowledge basically comes from what he reads from teleprompters leading three other folks with limited knowledge that basically comes from what they read from teleprompters on a tour of the world. I now know completely where that old phrase ‘the blind leading the blind’ originates.
Come some one please wake me from this extremely bad dream. Especially the one where I flip the channel to AC and watch him announce how Bill Clinton is fully behind the Obamanation from Illionois. Hell must’ve frozen over. I’m watching Fox and Bill Clinton is saying polite things on tv about Barack Obama and oh, did I mention crude oil has gone below $130 a barrel?
Senators Clinton and Murray take on the HHS Department
Posted: July 17, 2008 Filed under: Hillary Clinton: Her Campaign for All of Us, Women's Rights | Tags: Birth Control, bush war on birth control, Hillary Clinton, patty murray, women's health, women's reproductive rights, Women's Rights Comments Off on Senators Clinton and Murray take on the HHS DepartmentYesterday, folks woke up to the new assault on birth control. Shero’s Senator Clinton and Patty Murray are on top of this. Both penis-impaired presidential candidates remain silent. The is especially appalling because ONE of them was endorsed by NARAL.
From our Sheros:
“It is outrageous that the Bush administration is once again putting ideology over women’s health. Instead of undercutting access to contraception and family planning services, the Bush Administration should put prevention first,” said Senator Clinton.
“On the first day of his administration, the President reinstated the Mexico City global gag clause, a harsh, anti-family planning policy that hurt the world’s poorest women and children. Now, on his way out the door it appears that he is trying to limit women’s health care options here at home,” Murray said. “This misguided attempt to restrict health care services and limit access to contraceptives defeats our common goal of reducing the number of abortions in this country.”
Additionally, both Senators sent a joint letter to the Secretary that heads the Health and Human Services Department:
Secretary Michael O. Leavitt
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201Dear Mr. Secretary:
It has come to our attention that the Department of Health and Human Services may be preparing draft regulations that would create new obstacles for women seeking contraceptive services.
One of the most troubling aspects of the proposed rules is the overly-broad definition of “abortion.” This definition would allow health-care corporations or individuals to classify many common forms of contraception – including the birth control pill, emergency contraception and IUDs – “abortions” and therefore to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it.
As a consequence, these draft regulations could disrupt state laws securing women’s access to birth control. They could jeopardize federal programs like Medicaid and Title X that provide family-planning services to millions of women. They could even undermine state laws that ensure survivors of sexual assault and rape receive emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms.
We strongly urge you to reconsider these regulations before they are released. We are extremely concerned by this proposal’s potential to affect millions of women’s reproductive health.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely yours,
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
Senator Patty Murray
If Obama is serious about getting women’s votes, then he needs to get serious about standing up for women’s rights. Where is the voice of the presumed democratic candidate for president on this issue? It’s time for all women to get behind the movement to stop Obama’s throne grab in Denver.
Bush and his Theocrats wage their War against Birth Control AGAIN!
Posted: July 16, 2008 Filed under: Women's Rights | Tags: Birth Control, Bush's war on Birth Control, Women's Rights 12 CommentsOne of my progressive friends stays on top of all issues and has an extensive email list leftover from the Presidential Primary 4 years ago. We remain in touch. One of the Doctor’s on her list emailed us this bit of information concerning the ongoing attempt by religious right elements in the Bush administration to label everything associated with birth control abortion then de-fund it so it is unavailable to the most vulnerable women or make its use outright illegal.
It is amazing to me that we continue to fight the battles we thought won years ago. Margaret Sanger would be outraged.
DAILY WOMEN’S HEALTH POLICY REPORT
NATIONAL POLITICS & POLICY | Bush Administration Developing Rule That
Could Limit Access to Birth Control
[July 15, 2008]
The Bush administration is developing a regulation that would define
abortion as “any of the various procedures — including the
prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the
performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in
the termination of the life of a human being in utero between
conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation,”
the New York Times reports. The draft proposal leaked to the Times
also would require all recipients of aid from HHS to certify they
will not refuse to hire health care workers who object to abortion
and certain types of birth control.
According to the Times, to receive funding under any program
administered by HHS, researchers, clinics, medical schools and
hospitals would have to sign “written certifications” that they will
not discriminate against people who object to abortion or certain
contraception. The certification also would be required of state and
local governments when allocating grants to hospitals and other
institutions that have policies against providing abortions, the
Times reports. The administration said it could discontinue federal
aid to individuals or entities that discriminate against people who
oppose abortion on the basis of “religious beliefs or moral
convictions.” The leaked proposal — which circulated in HHS on
Monday — said the new requirement is needed to guarantee that
federal funds do not “support morally coercive or discriminatory
practices or policies in violation of federal law.” The proposal also
expresses concern about state laws that require hospitals to provide
emergency contraception to rape survivors who request it, according
to the Times.Reaction
Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and
Reproductive Health Association, said, “The proposed definition of
abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control,
including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.” She
added, “We worry that under the proposal, contraceptive services
would become less available to low-income and uninsured women.” Nancy
Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, “Why on earth is
the Bush administration trying to discourage doctors and clinics from
providing contraception to women who need it?” Christina Pearson, a
spokesperson for HHS, declined to discuss the draft rule. “We don’t
normally comment on whether we are considering changes in
regulations,” Pearson said (Pear, New York Times, 7/15).
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?
abbr=daily2_&page=NewsArticle&id=11915&security=1201&news_iv_ctrl=-1
There continues to be an element in this society that will not let the majority opinion on reproductive rights and birth control stand. They have taken their battle against women and their radical views on the definition of human life to all levels of government. Their sneak attacks continue. Please write your congressional representatives and senators and ask them to stop the President from making law’s with executive rules.
Guest Post by Shtuey: Women’s rights: They’re not just for Women anymore
Posted: July 15, 2008 Filed under: Women's Rights | Tags: Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, Seneca Falls Convention, Sexism, Women's Rights 5 CommentsOn March 25, 1911 a tragedy struck the city of New York that forever changed the Women’s Movement. 
Near closing time, from an unknown source, a fire ripped through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory killing 146 people. Of those, 126 were women. Though valiant efforts were made to save the Triangle workers, a locked exit and inadequate fire escapes doomed many of the immigrant men and women that worked there. The grizzly scene of young girls holding hands with their coworkers, leaping to their deaths, rather than face the flames behind them, their burned and mangled bodies strewn upon the sidewalk, shocked the nation.
The women’s labor movement had been called to action two years earlier by Clara Lemlich, a 19 year old Ukranian Jewish immigrant who had been savagely beaten for her union involvement. Her modest but impassioned call for a vote for action began a shirtwaist makers’ strike that rocked New York City. The movement found new force in the deaths of the young women in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, an event which also drove the final push in the fight to secure the right of franchise for women in America, as was seen at the 1912 New York City March for Suffrage. Some 20,000 people marched. A reported half million lined the streets. But the coals that stoked the fires of these movements were not kindled on those ill fated floors of the Asch Building in Manhattan. The match was struck upstate, with relative quiet, 63 years earlier in the town of Seneca Falls.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott found themselves in a situation oft repeated in the past 160 years. Denied seats at the 1840 anti-slavery convention in London, due to their gender, Mott and Stanton agreed that a convention on women’s rights needed to be held. Eight years later it came to pass, the result of Mott visiting family not far from Stanton’s home in Seneca Falls, New York.
The call was unassuming. An unsigned notice was placed in the local paper advertising the convention. Three hundred-forty women and forty men, most from within a five mile radius, attended the convention.
The task of constructing a declarative document fell upon Stanton. Using the Declaration of Independence as her guide she constructed what she entitled the Declaration of Sentiments. Within this document lay the undeniable and unshakable truth still contested by the ignorant today (some of whom can be seen blathering away on an almost daily basis on cable television news networks): “All men and all women are created equal.”
One hundred and forty-seven years later, then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, went to Beijing to address an international women’s conference themed, “Listen to the Women.” In a singular act of bravery, and at great political and personal risk, Senator Clinton, standing on the shoulders of Stanton, Mott, Anthony, Lemlich, Roosevelt and others too many to name, changed the course of the conversation of women’s rights forever. Echoing Stanton’s declaration she proclaimed to the world; “Women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights.”
In other words, women’s rights: they’re not just for women anymore.
It is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as being owned solely by women. This is an issue of what it means to be human. In 1995 Hillary Clinton made it plain that it is no longer acceptable for anyone, regardless of gender, skin color, religion, sexual orientation, age, nationality, or creed to be oppressed whether it be physically, emotionally, sexually, or economically, and that it is time for all of us to take responsibility for protecting and defending each other’s rights to live lives of freedom and equality. Whether it is being paid equal wages for equal time, access to the same employment opportunities, or to share our lives with the partners of our choice, every American citizen should have equal protection under the Constitution of the United States, and every citizen of the world should be recognized as having equal protection of their inalienable human rights. There is only one race; the human race. When the rights of one human are violated, we are all violated. When one of us has obstacles thrown up against them, is oppressed, insulted, attacked, or enslaved then we are obligated by our mutual humanity to stand up in their defense. That is what Dr. King saw from the top of the mountain.
When Senator Clinton entered the 2008 Presidential Race she asked America to join her in a conversation, a conversation that began 160 years ago in Seneca Falls, New York. Today we ask you to continue that conversation. On Saturday July 19th, 2008 we ask you don your Hillary gear and gather together with your friends, your neighbors, your community, your country. We ask you to look at yourselves, look at your nation, look at your world, and take up the path that Hillary laid before us in Beijing. Convene in your homes, or in a public place. Read the Declaration of Sentiments. And read and sign a new declaration; a declaration that reaffirms the original Declaration of Sentiments, and issues a new call to embrace women’s rights as human rights; that demands that the rights of all people be protected and upheld.
You will find event details, and copies of both declarations at http://www.seneca160.us/
Join us in Seneca Falls. Celebrate the anniversary of Seneca Falls. Celebrate Hillary. Come join the conversation.
Fasten your seltbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night
Posted: July 15, 2008 Filed under: U.S. Economy | Tags: Add new tag, Bail out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, bernanke, paulso 2 CommentsGet rid of your variable rate loans quickly and hold on to your jobs. The Fed’s about to raise rates. Bernanke and Paulson continue the tango to deal with the economy. Today’s news brought a record, whopping exchange rate for the Euro against the dollar and at the moment the Dow Jones Average is down triple digits. If I thought my morning coffee and blogging was going to be quiet, I was wrong. What’s going on in the financial markets right now is to economists as Hurricane Katrina was to meteorologists. This is as big as it gets. So here’s the most interesting of all my MarketWatch updates this morning.
source: http://www.marketwatch.com/ (This is site is affliated with the WSJ)
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The potential for runaway price hikes is the top concern of Federal Reserve policymakers, according to testimony by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the accompanying report on the economic outlook of his colleagues on the central bank released Tuesday. FOMC members were more uncomfortable about the inflation outlook in June than they had been at any point in the year, according to the Fed’s monetary report to Congress. The Fed is worried that high oil prices, combined with the weak dollar, will increase business costs and prices. At the same time, it could make workers demand higher compensation because of the more expensive cost of living. As a result, most Fed members viewed the possibility that inflation could come in higher than expected in coming months.
I’ve been telling my students for months that interest rate drops were going to stop. I was rather suprised by the last one. However, problems in the housing market were trumping the higher inflation rates indicated by the CPI and the Fed’s preferred measure the CPE. Evidently, the Fed has decided that rising prices are more of a danger than a recession and have just announced in a big way there will be no more rate drops. My guess is they will quietly and slowly start pulling money out of the economy. Usually this is done with a series of open market sales of treasury bills by the fed. As the increased demand for the bonds/bills drives bond prices down, it will drive interest rates up.
So this market watch bulletin was followed by two other ones pretty quickly. One stated that GM was suspending dividends–something highly unusual for this type of stock. Also, it is cutting 20% of salary costs to boost it’s liquidity. This undoubtedly means either a hiring freeze or more layoffs. It’s possible it could be elimination of bonuses or salary cuts. Either way, it’s more bad news for the Michigan.
Then there was this next big of information. Did i mention my email box was full of MarketWatches today?
June retail sales fizzle despite stimulus
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – U.S. retail sales rose a disappointing 0.1% in June despite nearly $50 billion in stimulus checks for consumers, Commerce Department data released Tuesday revealed. Sales were boosted by higher prices for gasoline, food and other consumer goods. The figures are seasonally adjusted but are not adjusted for inflation. It was the weakest sales since February’s 0.2% decline. Sales in June were held back by the biggest drop in auto sales in more than two years. By contrast, sales at the malls and shopping centers were relatively healthy, stimulated by the tax rebate checks, Excluding the 3.3% drop in auto sales, sales rose 0.8%, the slowest in three months.
That didn’t surprise me at all. Rebates are usually the worst way to stimulate the economy. Most of them wind up paying off already purchased items. How many of you used the checks to pay down a credit card?
What continues to amaze me in all of this is the topics in political debate. The candidates are not getting that it’s the economy stupid! Obama is giving a ‘major’ speech on Iraq. McCain was out speaking to the Latino vote on immigration yesterday. Somebody needs to put these two through some freshmen economics courses and quick! Their lack of interest and knowledge is glaring and gives the appearance they really don’t care. Economic news of this sort is becoming a daily event. Their responses have been to send out their talking heads. Let’s face it, their economic advisers doing their thing on CNN and Fox, is not the same as the candidates showing some grasp of the problems. Frankly, I think they’re afraid of taking questions and looking ignorant. Obama is only effective on the teleprompter and McCain when he talks off the cuff. Any real dialogue would just emphasize their vacuity on the subject.
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