Lawyers and Bankers and Thugs, Oh My!
Posted: January 6, 2011 Filed under: Barack Obama, Team Obama, We are so F'd, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: Chamber of Commercie Lobby, Chief of Staff, Corporate Cronyism, The Chicago Way, William Daley 41 CommentsIf you need any proof that the Obama Presidency, Part Deux isn’t going to get any better, this is it. When is 
the last time you read that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce liked anything a Democratic politician did?
President Barack Obama chose former commerce secretary William Daley as his new chief of staff Thursday, bringing a renowned powerbroker on the wavelength of big business into his retooled administration.
…
The former commerce secretary is an imposing figure steeped in the ways of Washington. As well as his tenure as Clinton’s commerce secretary, he helped to negotiate congressional ratification of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
…
“This is a strong appointment. Bill Daley is a man of stature and extraordinary experience in government, business, trade negotiations, and global affairs,” said US Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue.
“He’s an accomplished manager and strong leader. We look forward to working with him to accelerate our recovery, grow the economy, create jobs, and tackle America’s global challenges.”
Yup. We continue on the Yellow Brick Road to the Chicago Way. Want some more information on this appointment?
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.
Didn’t we just do this?
Posted: January 5, 2011 Filed under: Environment, Farming, Food, toxic waste | Tags: bubble, commodity prices, corn, food, gm pigs, wheat 36 Comments(In which Sima works herself up into a frothing rant.)
Commodity futures prices, wheat, rice and corn, are rising again after a brief fall. In fact, they are supposed to top the records set in 2007/08 during the global food bubble.
Supposedly, Corn Rationing Needs to Begin:
“The corn market has one job and one job only—to go high enough to make people stop using the product,” says Ryan Turner, risk management consultant for FCStone, Kansas City. “We are past the point of encouraging more supply.” Turner predicts 2011 corn futures prices will exceed 2008 highs. “I don’t know if it will happen in January or June, but it will happen,” he says.
Soaring corn prices will slice into demand, with corn exports expected to fall first followed by feed usage. Analysts anticipate the cattle industry to begin rationing earlier than other livestock sectors due to poor margins, but rationing in poultry, hog, and dairy will be close behind. “It will be very painful,” Turner adds.
Those greedy so-and-sos! Imagine, eating corn and corn products? Making corn into feed to raise farm animals and then slaughtering those animals to feed humans. And furthermore, they feed the corn to dairy cows and produce milk and cheese and butter! Will the horror never end!
Obviously, everyone needs to suffer (UN: World Food Prices Hit a Record High in December). Especially the world’s poor. And those who produce the meat we Americans so love to eat are not to be excluded from the necessary pain. And those who produce the dairy we love to drink and nosh on with our imported European crackers. And those who make corn into tortillas, and those who make corn into corn syrup and those who make corn into ethanol… oh wait. Not those. In fact, those last ones may be part of what is driving the rise in corn prices. Nearly 1/3 of the 2010 US corn production was diverted to ethanol, after all.
Why oh why do people think they get to make up their own definitions?
Posted: January 5, 2011 Filed under: U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: feminism, Feminists 62 Comments
I’m opening up Pandora’s box. Why?
I’ve been in one of those long-winded Facebook discussions all day. I’ve gotten to the point now where I think no one under a certain age appears to understand that there is a mutually agreed upon definition of feminism. It’s been expounded on by a lot of folks for centuries now and to conveniently forget their contributions or to ignore them is a very bad thing. Feminism doesn’t mean you move through a cafeteria of ‘women’s rights’, check a few off, and if you agree on a high percentage of them you pass and get to call yourself a feminist . The tweet on the left demonstrates that the P woman appears to think–and I use that word loosely and in the most rudimentary form–the only thing separating her from radical feminists is her view on abortion.
I thought that her mistake would be self-evident as wrong to most women calling themselves feminists. I’m evidently very wrong about that. I’ve was told that being a feminist is the same as being female is the same as being feminine and that just being a man means you don’t get to be a feminist. (I’m sure Phylliss Schafly herself would shriek at that definition.) That’s just one of the creative definitions I’m seeing. There’s more to it than physiology and there’s more to it then saying you believe in equality for women.
Progressive Intrigue
Posted: January 5, 2011 Filed under: the blogosphere, the villagers, U.S. Politics | Tags: Arrianna Huffington, Huffington Post, HuffPo, James Boyce, Peter Daou, Vanity Fare 21 Comments
Arianna kills The New Yorker
I am just plain fascinated by the story that’s detailed now on Vanity Fare about the lawsuit against Ariana Huffington brought by Peter Daou and James Boyce. I remember when Ariana came to one of the early FDL book salons in search of progressive credentials. She even friended me on Face book at the time. She was–at best–a C lister then and I don’t even think I rate a letter even now. Peter Daou, of course, is familiar to any of us that were remotely connected to the Hillary Blogosphere or campaign back in the day. Peter is just one huckava nice guy among all of his other attributes. There evidently was some meeting in 2004 that all attended where Ariana supposedly walked away with the idea for HuffPo–an extremely valuable piece of blogosphere web estate–leaving the others out in the cold. Six years later, there’s a law suit. The entire thing seems made for a movie of the week and it’s drawing some flak for getting inspiration from the Facebook movie.
That meeting had a lot of witnesses …err.. attendees. Some of them are the A listers of progressive causes. The idea was to come up with a Democratic version of the Drudge report. Celebs reported to be at the table include David Geffen, Larry David, and Norman Lear. Oh, the casting possibilities just fill the mind! It is reminiscent of the founding of Facebook and parallels to the story and movie fill the Vanity Fare missive. Both of the plaintiffs on the suit have blogged for HuffPo at one time or another which also makes the situation quite tangled up and blue.
Wired–as with the weirdness surrounding the Wikileaks–figures prominently in the tale also. Dauo evidently reached the Rubicon when Andrew Breithbart claimed the HuffPo nativity scene as his own. Huffington said since Breithbart had not attended the 2004 discussion, he had nothing to do with the inception of HuffPo. During the discussion, she did not mention Daou or Boyce. She mentioned Larry David and wife. She talked about Andrew Sorkin. Meg Ryan even made a cameo appearance in the narrative. Lots of A Listers got their plug plugged. No Boyce. No Daou.
Daou and Boyce say that they were the ones who conceived of “a Democratic equivalent of the Drudge Report”—a shorthand description of what the Huffington Post is all about—and called it http://www.fourteensixty.com (for the number of days between presidential elections). According to their 15-page November 14, 2004, memorandum about “1460,” which Boyce gave Huffington before the December 3 meeting, the core objective of the Web site was to “use the potential of the Internet to the fullest extent possible to continue the momentum started during the [2004 presidential] campaign and re-organize the Democratic Party from the outside in, not the inside out.” Daou and Boyce say that they presented their general thoughts about 1460 at the December 3 meeting. (Full disclosure: Boyce has worked as a consultant for Vanity Fair.)
So, Huffington is now an alternative media doyenne who makes appearances on all the right Main Stream News Channels, talk shows, and panels. (I dare you to get her to friend you now!!) Also, there’s the little matter of how much HuffPo is worth. Asset pricing a website is always tricky business but given their traffic ratings, it’s probably worth more than The New York Times right now and probably The Washington Post. Plus, it doesn’t come with all that old timey print baggage like presses, labor unions, and delivery trucks. Well, to be more specific see The Vanity Fare article estimate. Yup, I can hear your whistle right over the cable modem.
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