Only 25% of American kids who took the ACTs are qualified for college

We're number one! Now back to the mosque.

New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S high-school students in the last few years.

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It's not a mosque, it's a Prayer Room

And so it explodes into dust. Gene Robinson on Countdown, saying in effect: "It's not a mosque, it's a community center with Prayer Room" (about 1:30 into the clip below).



A Prayer Room. If Park51 is a Mosque, then the Intel office in Cairo is a Mosque, and the Motorola office, and the Audi office. They all have "prayer rooms" so that devout Muslims can . . . pray. It's what Muslims do, several times a day. They usually look like offices. They're usually labeled "Prayer Room."

Every Western company in a Muslim country has a Prayer Room. Are all of these offices really Mosques?

And that's the central lie, both obvious and invisible.

There's an Action Opportunity in here. We could push to get corporate offices with prayer rooms labeled "Mosque". I'm serious; the campaign could start now.

Rule 14: Use their lizard brains against them. It's money in the bank.

Someday I'll give the whole list. This one is powerful though, and one that can be applied now.

(Hint: When there are many, start with one and stick with it. That's Rule 17. I stole it from Walter Reuther. So who — Intel? Moto? Nike? Pick one and just do it.)

GP

(Yes, I named "Harry Reid" in the tags. Fourth-and-goal and you threw an interception, sir.)

UPDATE: And as Briann points out in the comments, the Pentagon may be a Mosque as well. (Gasp!) Read More......

'Yes we can, but should we?'

This is too good not to pass on. If you haven't seen it yet, click and learn. Jon Stewart on the Little Mosque That Shouldn't:



My fave part? The trip to Beckistan. The phrase I'm gonna steal honor by remembering? Team Yes we can; but should we?

GP Read More......

FOX News parent corp gives $1m to GOP

Big surprise there. But should a company called "News Corp" really be giving partisan donations? When its business is supposedly producing objective news? Granted, it's business is NOT producing objective news. Rather, it's a propaganda organ of the GOP. But still, pretty tacky move, even for FOX. Read More......

Dr. Laura to quit radio over criticism of her use of n-word

Interesting story. I suspect Dr. Laura's past, and her present tendency to channel Judge Judy on steroids - i.e., way too forward, pushy and just downright mean with people - caught up with her on this one. Regardless of what she meant, she said it all the wrong way on a topic that obviously demanded care. Read More......

8 out of 10 Democrats who the Cook report just downgraded are Blue Dogs

It seems the Cook Report has just downgrade the election chances of 10 Democrats. Eight of them are conservative Blue Dogs. Adam Green of PCCC thinks he knows why.

"The big lesson of 2010 for Democrats will be that if you govern like a Blue Dog and put corporate contributors ahead of your constituents, you lose. If you listen to what progressives have been telling you all along and stand up to corporations on issues like the public option and Wall Street reform, you win -- especially among Independent voters." -- Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)

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Glenn Beck to host 'non-political' rally featuring Sarah Palin

Wash Post:

Social activists and civil rights leaders, among them the Rev. Al Sharpton, are planning marches and demonstrations -- including the unveiling of a nearly four-story-tall original sculpture on the Mall -- on Aug. 28 to coincide with a rally organized by Fox News personality Glenn Beck.

Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin among the scheduled speakers, will take place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech there.

"There will be absolutely no politics involved," [Beck] said.

And that's why Sarah Palin is speaking. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is in Columbus, Ohio today. He'll be at a fundraiser for Ohio's Governor Ted Strickland. Then, Obama is flying to Miami where he'll headline a fundraiser for the Florida Democratic Party. After that, back to DC. (It's good to have one's own airplane. Avoiding airport lines also makes this kind of travel a lot easier.)

Good riddance to Dr. Laura. She's leaving her radio show. And, hat tip to Media Matters for keeping up the pressure. On Larry King Live last night, Dr. Laura blamed Media Matter for her demise -- although it was all her fault. John has a long history with Dr. Laura. He helped launc StopDrLaura.com, a campaign that prevented her from having a t.v. show back in 2000. The woman is a hate-filled menace.

And, how about Blago? He beat Patrick Fitzgerald on all but one count.

We're getting a torrential rain storm in DC. And, we're under a flood warning. Local news keeps telling me that there are floods around the city and in the suburbs.

I've got jury duty again today. Read More......

White House stands firm on tax cut expiration (for now)

We are grateful for stories like these. Mark Zandi is floating a tax cut "compromise" that "temporarily" extends the Big Boy tax cuts (those on the $250,000+/year crowd).

Jared Bernstein, Biden's economics adviser, just shot that down in an interview with the Huffington Post. Sam Stein (h/t David Dayen):

A key member of the White House economic team is throwing cold water on a leading compromise proposal in the debate over the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

"There are many good reasons not to extend the high-end parts of the Bush tax cuts having to do with the fear that a temporary extension could be made permanent," Bernstein said. "What you are talking about -- a $30 to 40 billion range in terms of adding to the deficit by extending the high end -- could easily become $700 billion over a ten-year budget window." . . .

The White House has favored letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire as they are set to do under the law. But administration officials haven't been pressed about the middle-ground proposal. Bernstein's comments are the closest that White House aides have come to fully rejecting the idea and they portend an even more dramatic and heated political fight once the issue of the Bush tax cuts re-emerges following Congress' August recess.

Dear Team Matching Words to Deeds — more of this please. Thanks.

GP Read More......

Is this the run-up to war with Iran?

Back when dino's ruled the earth and Dick Cheney's heartbeat was a heartbeat away, I privately predicted war with Iran.

Then Adm. Fallon's opposition was revealed (good for peace); then Fallon was resigned (good for war; and yes, you read that right); then the bankers' house of cards stole the show, by falling (good for peace); then Obama was elected (seemed good for peace at the time). And then . . . we had a lull. Whew.

No longer. The drums are beating again. The September 2010 Atlantic features a cover story by Jeffrey Goldberg on Iran. The title: "The Point of No Return" (my emphasis throughout).

For the Obama administration, the prospect of a nuclearized Iran is dismal to contemplate— it would create major new national-security challenges and crush the president’s dream of ending nuclear proliferation. But the view from Jerusalem is still more dire: a nuclearized Iran represents, among other things, a threat to Israel’s very existence. In the gap between Washington’s and Jerusalem’s views of Iran lies the question: who, if anyone, will stop Iran before it goes nuclear, and how? As Washington and Jerusalem study each other intensely, here’s an inside look at the strategic calculations on both sides—and at how, if things remain on the current course, an Israeli air strike will unfold.

No less than James Fallows, writing for the Atlantic website, defends The Atlantic and excuses the article as "a strictly reportorial perspective."

Why is Fallows defending The Atlantic? Because Jeffrey Goldberg is one of the go-to guys when the neo-cons want to "prepare the battlefield" of public opinion, prior to putting their guns where the U.S. government's money is. And this article makes The Atlantic look complicit in a full-on move to back Israeli bombing.

Ken Silverstein writing in his Harpers digs, "Washington Babylon":

[I]f the article had been written by anyone else I might agree. But Goldberg’s past work as a dishonest advocate for the Iraq War and his long service in support of the Israeli military (literally for a time, when he served in the Israeli Defense Force) makes Fallows’s argument harder to accept. Goldberg has never seen an Israeli military action that he didn’t approve of. . . . If Israel does attack Iran, its supporters will surely point to Goldberg’s piece as evidence for why such a strike was necessary, just as President Bush cited Goldberg’s work in making the case for war in Iraq.

What should we make of this? By that I mean, who's the target of this "strictly reportorial" assault?

Is the current administration (whose motto seems to be "I brake for right-wing talking points") being played by the pro-IDF lobby? Or are we being played instead, by someone else — say, an admin insider whose mind is already made up?

Jeffrey Goldberg is clearly carrying someone else's water. Are we being prepared for war with Iran?

GP Read More......

They're coming for your Social Security — DCCC Chair Van Hollen joins the catfood crowd

This is an excellent segment by Cenk Uygur, subbing for Ed Schultz on The Ed Show.

First, Cenk bottom-lines the phony Social Security "crisis":

• There's a $2.5 trillion trust fund.
  
• They gave it to the rich and the military.

So clear, so obvious. (Our own discussion of the Trust Fund is here.)

Then Cenk interviews Democrat Chris Van Hollen, head of the DCCC (that's Rahm's old job; that's how we ended up with ilk like Heath Shuler). Ignore Van Hollen's pro forma Repub bashing; focus instead on Cenk's follow-up questions (starting at the 3:15 mark).



Would you like some Friskies with that obfuscation?

Van Hollen's weasel words are toast under these questions. "We won't cut benefits (but please don't notice I didn't mention the retirement age)." Note: Pelosi's an enabler; she has guaranteed a vote in the House on the Catfood Deficit Commission's "big complex" recommendations. (Click the link to see how she pulled that off.)

Social Security is also toast. Again, the DCCC is Rahm's old stomping grounds; it's the reason the Blue Dogs exist in such numbers. And Van Hollen runs the DCCC through the end of 2010 festivities.

It's gonna happen, folks. It's the end of an era, and Dems will be the reason. Like Nixon to China — Cenk said it right in his sign-off.

(Psst. Primaries.)

GP Read More......

New torture tapes put DOJ to the test

Scott Horton on the newly revealed CIA torture tapes (my emphasis throughout):

So the CIA apparently failed to destroy all the [torture] tapes, and now it must confront the fact that, even though the tapes were found, it continued to falsely tell a federal court that such tapes did not exist. We will learn soon whether special prosecutor John Durham takes his job seriously, or whether he will follow in the path of his former boss Nora Dannehy and sacrifice his reputation for the interests of his party.

The tapes were discovered by the CIA in 2007; their existence was revealed just recently, three years later, to the AP by:

several current and former U.S. officials [who] spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings remain a closely guarded secret.

In between those two events, the CIA lied twice to a federal judge. Oops. Draw your own conclusions, and stay tuned.

GP Read More......

Men are deadliest drivers for pedestrian

I see a large number of wives finally getting their revenge with this one. Read More......

Eleveld on Obama and the mosque

Kerry Eleveld from the Advocate:

[W]hat exactly is the administration's communications team doing? They either miscalculated the national mood or they misjudged how the president’s words would be received on Friday. But they unquestionably should have seen flashes of the firestorm to come from Sarah Palin and her cronies eons before they sent the president out to carry the torch for democracy.

Or is it possible that the president and his advisers understood exactly where this was headed but just couldn’t take the heat once they stepped into the pit? No matter what the answer, the White House squandered the president’s most precious commodity: his word — his compact of trust with the American people.

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Your cell phone photos may be stalking you

Kind of creepy.

When Adam Savage, host of the popular science program “MythBusters,” posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Instructions on how to disable the geotagging feature of an Android phone.
Embedded in the image was a geotag, a bit of data providing the longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Hence, he revealed exactly where he lived. And since the accompanying text was “Now it’s off to work,” potential thieves knew he would not be at home.

Security experts and privacy advocates have recently begun warning about the potential dangers of geotags, which are embedded in photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped smartphones and digital cameras. Because the location data is not visible to the casual viewer, the concern is that many people may not realize it is there; and they could be compromising their privacy, if not their safety, when they post geotagged media online.

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