Blog Title: Corrente | Boldly shrill ...

Politics and Media Headlines 12/2/08

Extra Bonus Quote of the Day (Political Wire)
"I'm sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me." -- President Bush, in an interview with CNN.

Resting a wee bit easier (by J -SOM at Liberal Rapture)

Hillary Clinton will be the next Secretary of State… Other than the Kennedy clan there is no other political family that has been such a powerful force for good. (The Kennedys are behind everything from the Peace Corps to the Special Olympics.) Hillary has spent a large part of her working life on women and children's issues. And The Clinton Foundation is a remarkable success. Of course, The Clinton "family" as a force is but 2 people. Given that one can presume that Obama will have to spend an enormous amount of time on the failed economy - Hillary Clinton may well carve out an enormous power base in the world and the White House. This would be good news. There are few people in D.C. I trust more than Hillary Clinton to be the face of America around the world. Read more…

"Staples posts higher-than-expected quarterly profit"

That's because all the "creative [cough] class types on Wall Street are hanging out their shingles as consultants, and they need office supplies (or think they do). Read more…

Instead of closing Gitmo, why not give it back to Cuba?

Now that would be change! Gwynne Dyer in the Daily Gleaner:

U.S. president-elect Barack Obama inherits the in-box from hell, but an all-points crisis like the present one also creates opportunities for radical change that do not exist in more normal times.

As Rahm Emanuel, his newly appointed chief of staff, put it: "Never waste a crisis."

Is Obama clever enough and radical enough to seize those opportunities?

For example, he has promised to shut down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

While he's at it, why not hand the whole U.S. military base at Guantanamo back to the Cubans? Read more…

Left blogger on the teebee from under the bus

Fascinating post from Chris Bowers. And despite the snark I'm about to inflict -- it's my nature -- I'm sure gawd happy it's Bowers on the teebee instead of the Cato Institute's loathesome Lord Kos. Bowers writes:

I have several thoughts on all of this:

First, it is really difficult to blog when you are always receiving media requests.

Oh, the humanity!

This has happened to me twice before, in October of 2006 and July of 2007. Then, just like now, I remember thinking how the publicity generated from blogging was, ironically, keeping me from actually blogging. Read more…

Atheist Rage In KY

Haw.

An atheists-rights group is suing the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security because state law requires the agency to stress "dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

American Atheists of Parsippany, N.J., and 10 non-religious Kentuckians are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, set to be filed Tuesday in Franklin Circuit Court.

Edwin Kagin, a Boone County lawyer and the national legal director of American Atheists, said he was appalled to read in the Herald-Leader last week that state law establishes praising God — and installing a plaque in God's honor — as the first duty of the Homeland Security Office.

The state and federal constitutions both prohibit government from getting involved in religion, Kagin said Monday.

"This is one of the most outrageous things I've seen in 35 years of practicing law. It's breathtakingly unconstitutional," Kagin said.

Yes. Yes, it is. Go KY atheists! And FSM be praised for McClatchy for bringing us this news.

Max Baucus wants to tax your health insurance benefit

Because this was such a vote getter for McCain:
Democrats may tax health benefits

Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, recently issued an 89-page health policy paper that many see as an important Democratic blueprint for health reform. His paper raises the possibility of capping tax breaks for health insurance premiums based on income, value of health benefits, or both. Read more…

Single payer advocates emerge into the spotlight

Chris Frates of Politico writes another let's you and him fight article, but at least single payer advocates get to speak for themselves.

“These guys have unions as part of their coalition, but apparently they don’t understand collective bargaining. If you don’t ask for something, you’ll never get it,” said Chuck Idelson, spokesman for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the nation’s largest nurses union.

The nurses union believes that by not pushing for a single-payer system, HCAN and its allies are setting Americans up for failure.

Check out this quote by Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now: Read more…

How do you build consensus on criminal prosecutions...

... when those who would be prosecuted are part of the consensus-building process?

Answer: Read more…

Shocks, eh?

Bloomberg:

“We have gone through in the last year a remarkable set of events, ranging from housing market to credit market to financial market shocks,” James Poterba, president of the NBER and an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an interview. “The collection of shocks is a very rare coincidence. It is not terribly surprising you might get a longer-than-average downturn.”

Reminds me of the kind of story that reads "in a series of unrelated incidents," which practically begs the reader to connect the dots.

In this case, Poterba speaks of a collection of effects (the shocks), from which the careless reader might infer that each shock has a separate cause. Read more…

America’s Investment Deficit: Putting our money where our mouth is

How Corporatists and Progressives can work together for a better America and a better world. Read more…