Thursday Reads
Posted: January 6, 2011 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, psychology, Team Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: "professional left", 2010 Census, Barack Obama, BP oil spill, child pornography, Daryl Bem, dying birds and animals, Emptywheel, ESP, Howard Dean, John P. Wheeler III, memeorandum, murder, Pentagon, political advertising, Poverty, psychology, Robert Gibbs, senior citizens. social programs, smear campaigns 48 Comments
Out of Town News, Harvard Square
Good Morning!!
Gee, it’s great to be back in Beantown, even though my house looks like it was hit by a tornado. I already had books stacked all over the place because of my book selling project. I brought more books with me from Indiana, and I haven’t completely unpacked and put my stuff away. I’ll be cleaning up for a couple of days. At least I got everything out of the car today and went to the grocery store. Driving 1,000 miles in two days makes me really spacey though, so if I don’t make sense in this post, please try to make allowances.
You’ve probably heard already that Robert Gibbs plans to leave the White House in February to be an “outside political adviser” to Obama’s 2012 campaign. It’s the top story on Memeorandum right now.
“Robert, on the podium, has been extraordinary,” Mr. Obama said, declining to answer questions about who he intends to hire for any position. “Off the podium, he has been one of my closet advisers. He is going to continue to have my ear for as long as I’m in this job.”
Mr. Gibbs will remain part of the president’s inner circle of political advisers, along with David Axelrod, a senior adviser, and Jim Messina, a deputy chief of staff, who also are leaving the White House to focus on the president’s re-election effort. Mr. Gibbs will defend Mr. Obama on television – and will expand his presence on Twitter and other Internet platforms – as well as beginning to define the field of 2012 Republican presidential candidates.
“Stepping back will take some adjusting,” Mr. Gibbs said in an interview Wednesday morning. “But at the same time, I have a feeling that I will keep myself quite busy, not just with speaking, but continuing to help the president.”
He said he has no intention of establishing a political consulting or lobbying business, but he intends to work from the same downtown Washington office where David Plouffe has spent the last two years.
When I first heard this news, my first thought was about the role that Gibbs played in 2004, when he resigned from the Kerry Campaign and joined an “independent” group that produced the infamous attack ad that showed a photo of Osama bin Laden while the announcer described Howard Dean’s supposed deficiencies in foreign policy. It sounds like Gibbs will be more out front in 2012, but I’m betting he’ll still play the attack dog role–smearing opponents and generally saying the things Obama doesn’t dare say himself.
According the NYT story,
The leading potential replacements for press secretary include Jay Carney, a spokesman for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., along with Bill Burton and Josh Earnest, who work as deputies to Mr. Gibbs. Other candidates also could be considered, an administration official said.
Emptywheel says Robert Gibbs will now become part of the group he derided as press secretary: “the professional left.”
Back when Gibbs was attacking the Professional Left, he made a distinction between the Progressives outside of DC and those inside DC squawking on the cable programs.
But if Gibbs is going to stay in DC, hanging out on Twitter, and appearing on the speaking circuit, doesn’t that make him a card-carrying member of the Professional Left?
Except the bit about him being so conservative, of course.
LOL
Out in the land of real Americans, 1 of 6 of us lives in poverty–including many senior citizens.
The number of poor people in the U.S. is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans — many of them 65 and older — struggling in poverty due to rising medical care and other costs, according to preliminary census figures released Wednesday.
At the same time, government aid programs such as tax credits and food stamps kept many people out of poverty, helping to ensure the poverty rate did not balloon even higher during the recession in 2009, President Barack Obama’s first year in office.
Under a new revised census formula, overall poverty in 2009 stood at 15.7 percent, or 47.8 million people. That’s compared to the official 2009 rate of 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million, that was reported by the Census Bureau last September.
Across all demographic groups, Americans 65 and older sustained the largest increases in poverty under the revised formula — nearly doubling to 16.1 percent. As a whole, working-age adults 18-64 also saw increases in poverty, as well as whites and Hispanics. Children, blacks and unmarried couples were less likely to be considered poor under the new measure.
And yet, the psychopathic Villagers plan to cut social programs. Brilliant.
Wonk the Vote wrote about all the strange deaths of birds and fish lately. Raw Story has more:
The Star reported Wednesday that more than 40,000 dead Velvet swimming crabs have appeared on the Thanet shoreline in England. Dead starfish, lobsters, sponges and anemones were also found.
Tony Child, Thanet Coast Project manager, told the Star that the same thing happened two and five years ago. He suspects that the cold temperatures are to blame.
Am I the only one who thinks the BP oil could have migrated pretty far by now and could be causing problems for sea creatures? Just a thought….
I’m always fascinated by crime stories. I heard about this strange one yesterday on NPR.
A former Bush aide whose body was found at a Delaware landfill was acting erratic before his death, and may have been involved in a plot to burn down his neighbor’s house, published reports suggested Wednesday.
It sounds like this guy had a psychotic break or something. But why was he murdered?
Wheeler, 66, was found dead in Cherry Grove landfill on Dec. 31. Police have been piecing together clues from his final days.
The former presidential adviser was seen in Happy Harry’s pharmacy last Wednesday, around 6 p.m.
“He said, ‘Can you give me a ride to Wilmington?’ and that was a flag,” pharmacist Murali Gouro told The News Journal. “He looked like he was a little upset.”
Wheeler left after declining the pharmacist’s offer to call a cab, officials said.
Less than an hour later, a man matching Wheeler’s description asked a parking lot attendant in Wilmington for help finding his car.
“He really didn’t look good to me,” Iman Goldsborough told MyFox 9 in Philadelphia. “I asked him are you okay? He was like, no. He was just trying to get warm.”
“He didn’t have a coat on. And it was really cold out this evening. And he had one shoe on, and he was wandering around, looking around.”
“He had on a black suit and burgundy penny loafers. And he was holding one shoe in his hand,” she said.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
A Vietnam veteran who became a driving force behind the controversial memorial on the National Mall, Wheeler worked on nuclear, chemical, and cyber issues at the Pentagon. He was the first chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a tireless advocate for veterans.
Wheeler left his office outside Washington on Dec. 28. His body was found in Wilmington on Friday. He was scheduled to take a Amtrak train from Washington to Wilmington on Thursday.
[….]
Police say they have no suspects and have released few details about the slaying – in part because they themselves have so many unanswered questions, including where the killing took place.
“We’re still trying to [find] the crime scene,” said Newark police spokesman Mark A. Farrall. “We’re working a lot of leads.”
Farrall has said that Wheeler died shortly before his body was discovered Friday, but has not described how Wheeler died – whether, for example, his death was caused by gunshot, bludgeoning, or some other violent act.
I hope we get more information on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets hushed up.
The New York Times has a fascinating psychology story. An eminent and high respected social psychologist, Daryl Bem, has a journal article on ESP that has been accepted by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, one of the most respected peer-reviewed psychology publications. My adviser once told me that if I could get an article in this journal, I would be almost guaranteed an academic position.
Psychologists, like members of many other research fields, are very leery of research that might embarrass them–regardless of how legitimate the results are. Personally, I believe in following the data where it leads you, but lots of researchers put blinders on when it comes to research on ESP and other PSY phenomena. I had a professor when I was an undergrad who did research on things like dreams, visualization, and subliminal perception, but he could only get away with it because he had tenure.
From the NYT story:
The paper describes nine unusual lab experiments performed over the past decade by its author, Daryl J. Bem, an emeritus professor at Cornell, testing the ability of college students to accurately sense random events, like whether a computer program will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. The studies include more than 1,000 subjects.
Some scientists say the report deserves to be published, in the name of open inquiry; others insist that its acceptance only accentuates fundamental flaws in the evaluation and peer review of research in the social sciences.
“It’s craziness, pure craziness. I can’t believe a major journal is allowing this work in,” Ray Hyman, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University Oregon and longtime critic of ESP research, said. “I think it’s just an embarrassment for the entire field.”
The editor of the journal, Charles Judd, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, said the paper went through the journal’s regular review process. “Four reviewers made comments on the manuscript,” he said, “and these are very trusted people.”
I just love controversies like this. I love to see academic stuffed shirts get all in a tizzy.
Finally, from the Boston Globe: Pentagon lagged on pursuing porn cases
The Pentagon’s investigation of defense and intelligence employees who downloaded child pornography is being criticized in Congress after the Department of Defense acknowledged that its investigators failed to check thoroughly whether its employees were on a list of suspected porn viewers.
In 2006, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which conducts Internet pornography investigations, produced a list of 5,200 Pentagon employees suspected of viewing child pornography and asked the Pentagon to review it. But the Pentagon checked only about two-thirds of the names, unearthing roughly 300 defense and intelligence employees who allegedly had viewed child pornography on their work or home computers.
The defense investigators failed to check an additional 1,700 names on the list, defense officials have revealed in correspondence with Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa.
Good grief!
Soooooo…. What are you reading this morning?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
BB, thanks for the round-up. Glad you’re back!
Jay Carney would be a great replacement for Gibbs, but I suspect he’s too principled for that crowd.
And welcome back, BB. You were missed.
Thanks Purplefinn and Zaladonis. i’ve been keeping up with the posts as best I can on the road. Your Michael Vice piece was terrific, Zal.
HONK
I agree. Carney would be great. Hehe.
Welcome back BB!
Yeah, the bostonboomer is back in Boston! Good to see you got home safe BB.
On another note, is anyone having trouble seeing this mornings post? More specifically, trouble with this post disappearing when viewed using chrome?
I don’t use Chrome so I’m not sure what’s going on. I didn’t do anything differently than usual.
That sometime’s happens with a specific picture.
Still disappearing in chrome, I guess it is just that browser that is acting up. The other post are showing up fine.
I expect Gibbs to be a big part of the paid troll brigade (General?) which I feel is ramping up. I smell the trolls all over the place. Get ready for louder and more vicious assaults this time around. Hope and change is laughable so the only weapons left in their arsenal are lies and smears and trolls are the ones who dish them out. The media is still felting the one. I loved the Chris Cilliza piece on “Gibbs has tough shoes to fill”…. OMG, it was gag worthy. Pravda USA. Welcome to the Soviet Union.
I won’t miss Gibbs as spokesperson. I found him rather repulsive – surly even. His job was to give little information. We’re in the information age? More like needle in a haystack information with disinformation all around.
With the exception of Mike McCurry who was at least amusing, most of these press spokespersons are bona fide idiots. Ari Fleisher, Dana Perino, Scott McCullough to name a few.
Having to stand before a wimpish press corps who merely want “access” to power, the never ending dodging, weaving, and outright lying is about all they are good at. Gibbs fit in nicely with that crowd.
I also remember liking Joe Lockhart, who also seemed to have an amusing personality and was probably the perfect press spokesperson to handle Clinton’s impeachment.
But you’re right, as usual, about the rest of ’em.
Agree with that description completely.
Nope. I expressed the same thought on Wonk’s thread.
Count me in with you – I think that the dead and dying animals are telling us that the oil and dispersant are all over the place.
Birds in East Texas yesterday…
EAST TEXAS (KLTV) – First, it was Arkansas, then Louisiana, now hundreds of dead birds were spotted on an east Texas highway. The birds were found this morning on the highway 155 bridge at Lake O’ the Pines. It was an unsettling sight for several morning drivers along the 155 bridge, over a hundred clumps of gray feathers lining the roadway. Dead coots.
These events are more than disturbing. What the hell is going on out there?
Did you check out the google map that Woman Voter posted in my thread? Holy frickonastick:
http://bit.ly/bundles/jwarren/1
Holy frickonastick is right! Heavy concentration of animal deaths in areas which could have been reached by Gulf of Mexico waters and/or by wildlife which fed in that area!
That map is alarming, to say the least.
I’d like to see the statistics on those mass deaths – dates, locations etc.
purplefinn @ 10:48, if you click on each little marker/event on the google map, the links to the actual articles pull up.
Thanks!
I didn’t see that…must below. I have trouble seeing the nesting on my pc, but can see it on apple? Go figure, as I can also see it on my iPhone?
WTV,
What did you think of the Google map of all the events worldwide?
http://bit.ly/bundles/jwarren/1
JW, is a former professor/academic (math I think), techie person and proponent of FIOA…etc.
I’m not WTV, but I’ll jump in with an observation. Except for the U.S. all of the events worldwide shown on that map seem to have happened in coastal areas. In the U.S. they happened in coastal areas and interior areas mostly due north of the oil spill area.
Woman Voter, my first thoughts… a) it was super smart to start a catalog using google maps, and b) is seafood safe to eat?
The Wheeler story gets weirder by the day, thanks for the links bb. Something fishy there, I think.
CNN iis reporting that two million-that’s million-dead fish have been spotted in Maryland.
I’m no chicken little but I’m really getting scared.
I mourn for the wildlife and it’s all too canary in the mine for comfort.
The interesting thing is that Argentina, via the clip yesterday said they were going after who ever was responsible? Then this morning via radio an English scientist that calls in mentioned HARP and its testing as a possible/responsible party. 😯 He also said that to expect earthquakes in the first areas where the first birds/fish died.
Oh and where is Al Gore now when we really need him?
Did the oil companies scare him off with massagegate?
Dunno, but he, or someone in his name, blogged about it over at algore.com.
Just because he writes doesn’t mean the media’ll give him any attention, on this matter. If it’s about possibly canoodling with a woman, or divorcing or whatever, hell yea, he’ll get a LOT of attention.
Yup, the Chicago way rules the day.
Just shoot me now. More Investment bankers, lawyers, and Chicago thugs.
Josh Earnest
… that’s a pretty horrible name for a Press Secretary … Josh-ing AND Earnest?
oy!
waiting for press secretary Just Bullshit. That’d be most accurate.
When I was down in Grand Island watching the President’s group meandering down the highway to the pre-arranged photo op spot, I was amazed at the press corps entourage. None of them left the glass globe to actually talk to any of the real people that were lining the highway. They’d obviously been trained to stay within the perimeters or else. There was quite an assortment of Louisiana folks very close to the pre-arranged area too. Any of those folks could’ve probably given them more news that was created for the reporter dudes on that bubble train. They didn’t even go near the actual clean up zones. Press Secretaries must have special hell realms. No one can create that much bad karma and not get a special hell hell realm.
Imagine where Dante would have placed them…
give me a giggle just thinking about it.
LOL!
And hear, hear!
All those kills are happening in places where the gulf currents feed; including the one’s in Europe. If you compare that with the maps where the oil was supposed to go if it was still pumping full force, I think you’d be amazed.
Notice where Maryland is … then check the one’s that take it to Europe and the time line. Very odd coincidence if you ask me.
The go google Benzene,Methylene Chloride, and Hydrogen Sulfide. Nasty Nasty Nasty stuff.
Some oil tar balls just showed up in the West Coast, but they are saying it could be a ‘natural’ occurrence???
More Nonsense from my pathetic governor:
In related news … I’ve decided that I should clean out my bathroom closet.
I just wanna know, really, wanna know, who was the first one to try snorting bath salts. And why?
I mean, there are just things it would never occur to me to put up my nose. Bath salts is one of them. I guess I’m just an old fuddy duddy.
I may be understanding wrong but whatever Jindal is talking about seems to be drugs being disguised as bath salts, not actual bath salts
That said, Jindal’s rhetoric is so embarrassing: