Stephen Colbert on gay marriage

'> Read the rest of this post...

Friday night keyboard cat and the always creepy Glenn Beck

I almost forgot about this disgusting episode. It's not much of a surprise that Fox hired a person like this. Read the rest of this post...

Jon Stewart on Obama's trip to the Middle East

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Gordon Brown gets desperate

Hiring someone from TV to boost government ratings? I know the guy is a successful business person but c'mon. Really?

Sir Alan Sugar, the star of the UK version of the hit TV show “The Apprentice,” has been hired as enterprise czar by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the BBC reported Friday.

Brown is scrambling to reshuffle his cabinet in an attempt to shore up public confidence in the wake of numerous high-profile resignations from the party.

Sir Alan, who plays Donald Trump’s role in the UK’s version of the program, will be nominated for a seat in the House of Lords in order for him to take the government position, the BBC said.

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Bank lobbyists stronger than ever

What's the point of winning when your own team can't even hold its own on important legislation? This example of Democrats withering under bank lobbyist pressure should serve as an example of what is to come with the health care reform efforts. If Democrats were unable to stand up for their own against banks - you know, the banks that are being supported and kept alive by the American public - how is it going to be possible to deliver any meaningful health care reform? If this is the best they can do, hell, let the GOP take over again and drive it all into the ground until voters really get angry.

More from the NY Times on the defeat of the bankruptcy provision, courtesy of Democrats crumbling to lobbyist requests:

In the end, the banks’ startling success in defeating the provision, which was pushed hardest by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, caught even their lobbyists by surprise. Not only did they defeat the cramdown provision, but the banks walked away with billions in new bailout money.

The housing bill Mr. Obama signed on May 20 saves banks and credit unions at least $13 billion in special fees that they would have had to pay to replenish dwindling deposit insurance funds.

The outcome left some Democrats frustrated and fuming. “This is one of the most extreme examples I have seen,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, shortly before the vote, “of a special interest wielding its power for the special interest of a few against the general benefit of millions of homeowners and thousands of communities now being devastated by foreclosure.”

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Debris may not be from Air France jet after all

A troubling new development. Some of the debris, including the oil spill, aren't from the Air France jet. Investigators are still hoping that the passenger seat they found is from the jet, but nothing has been confirmed. Still creepy. Read the rest of this post...

HRC and Obama

There's a growing firestorm in the gay community over what exactly the largest gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, did or didn't agree to with the White House over Don't Ask Don't Tell, ENDA, Hate Crimes and more.

At issue: Did HRC agree to postpone White House action on DADT until next year, or longer?

I've talked to Joe (Sudbay) about this, and we think the brouhaha may be missing the point. The issue isn't whether HRC worked with the White House to prioritize Obama's gay rights promises, deciding to work on some promises this year, others next year, etc. In principle, that doesn't bother us, and in fact makes sense. I don't think either of us expected Obama to keep all 8, or so, promises in the first 100 days, or the first year. You have to approach these things methodically, and so long as we know absolutely, positively without question that x and y will happen this year, z will happen next year, and p, d, and q the years after that, we're less concerned about HRC, or anyone else, working with Obama to set up such a timetable for implementation.

The thing is, no one believes that the White House has any intention of doing anything, regardless of any timetable.

That is, I think, the conundrum HRC is facing. If the White House has decided to distance itself from the gay community (and that's certainly what the community believes), and HRC is seen as in cahoots with that White House, the community will naturally assume that HRC signed off on the White House's effort to put gay rights on the back burner indefinitely.

The irony here is that HRC is, I suspect, trying to burnish its image by cozying up to the Obama White House. And in normal times, such a strategy would make sense. HRC has faced a lot of criticism over the years that it's too willing to accept compromise, too unwilling to accomplish anything. I think a lot of that criticism has been unfair - it's awfully difficult to get anything done when Republicans control the Congress (and the White House) - and I tend to think of HRC the way Churchill thinks of democracy. But. I think HRC, and all the groups, make a grave mistake when thinking that being seen hand in hand with this president will somehow make all the old wounds go away. On the contrary.

People may generally love Obama. But gay people are pissed. And growing more so by the day. The overall impression in the gay community is that we've been, or are about to be, had by this administration; that someone in Obama-land (rhymes with Rahm) is telling the President that we're political pariahs who must be shunned at all costs. You don't get brownie points for being seen with those kind of friends.

Many of us have been worried that the Obama administration might be trying to Sista Souljah the gays (i.e., distance themselves from the gays to show just how independent, how "new Democrat," they really are). The irony is that the embattled lead gay groups, in order to survive in an increasingly angry post-Prop-8, and increasingly expectant post-MA-NH-VT-IA-ME-CT, world, may end up having to Sista Souljah Obama in order to regain credibility in the eyes of their own members. And if that happens, I can't name a single Democrat (or Republican for that matter) in recent memory who's been on the receiving end of our ire and walked away unscathed.

This isn't your daddy's gay community. Read the rest of this post...

Website owners in China respond to government blocking

Unlike the US internet companies who cooperate with the government, at least these sites are doing something. It's subtle but it's better than handing over the keys to the government. The Guardian:

Chinese internet users are rebelling against an internet crackdown brought in on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Twenty years after the pro-democracy protests that claimed the lives of hundreds – or even thousands – of unarmed civilians in Beijing, a number of websites appear to be making a veiled protest at state censorship by referring to the date sarcastically as "Chinese Internet Maintenance Day".

Earlier this week the government blocked access to a number of popular western websites, in what was widely seen as way of controlling access to information about the events at Tiananmen Square. Among the sites that were screened out were photo-sharing website Flickr, Microsoft's Hotmail email service and the popular online messaging site Twitter.

A number of other sites appear to have gone down over recent days, however, in a move that may be part of an ad hoc anniversary protest online.

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Advice from Krugman: "Don’t trust the insurance industry"

For whatever reason, the Obama administration seemed to ignore Paul Krugman when it came to saving the economy. Bad idea.

On health care, the President and his advisers need to listen to Krugman. Seriously. This is too important. Almost everyone in America who deals with an insurance company knows not to trust their insurance company. So, how is that so many people in positions of power are continually duped by them?

Members and staffers on the Hill need to read Krugman's's column today about the insurance industry -- and they all need to heed Krugman's advice:

Be warned, however. The insurance industry will do everything it can to avoid being held accountable.

At first the insurance lobby’s foot soldiers in Congress tried to shout down the public option with the old slogans: private enterprise good, government bad.

At this point, however, they’re trying to kill the public option in more subtle ways. The most recent ruse is the proposal for a “trigger” — the public option will only become available if private insurers fail to meet certain performance criteria. The idea, of course, is to choose those criteria to ensure that the trigger is never pulled.

And here’s the thing. Without an effective public option, the Obama health care reform will be simply a national version of the health care reform in Massachusetts: a system that is a lot better than nothing but has done little to address the fundamental problem of a fragmented system, and as a result has done little to control rising health care costs.

Right now the health insurers are promising to deliver major cost savings. But history shows that such promises can’t be trusted. As President Obama said in his letter, we need a serious, real public option to keep the insurance companies honest.

Once again, we're going to have to watch the Democrats on the Hill very, very closely. Many of them can't be trusted either. Some will sell us out to the insurance companies without a second thought. Read the rest of this post...

Obama needs to stop claiming credit for passing the Hate Crimes bill

Ben Smith wrote a rather large story yesterday about where the entire gay rights agenda, or lack thereof, stands with this White House. These two grafs stand out:

“The president remains fully committed to advancing LGBT rights. His positions on all of these issues are well-established and well-known. His staff continues to work with Congress on a variety of LGBT issues,” said Jim Messina, the deputy White House chief of staff who is the point man on gay and lesbian issues, citing White House efforts to move hate crimes legislation through the Senate. “While we recognize that some in the community are anxious, the president’s commitment has not wavered.”

....Messina, Bonin said, responded that the White House hadn’t forgotten, and complained that the administration hasn’t gotten enough credit for pushing to outlaw hate crimes against gays and lesbians.

Two points.

1. Positions matters for candidates. Actions matter for presidents. There is no indication that this White House is planning on doing anything, now or in the future, about any major presidential promise on gay civil rights, other than Hate Crimes, which doesn't count for much (as I explain below).

2. They want credit for pushing to outlaw hate crimes? Who exactly is the White House pushing? The bill passed both the House and Senate in the last, more hostile, Congress, and even survived a filibuster attempt. With even more Democrats in this Congress, there isn't anyone needing a push. Obama certainly deserves credit for saying he'd sign the bill, when Bush wouldn't. But that's different than claiming credit for "pushing to outlaw hate crimes" - in essence suggesting that White House pressure is partly responsible for a congressional vote that's already pre-ordained without their help.

Then again, if the White House ever told any of us what it was planning on doing on ENDA or any other key gay civil rights issue, other than reiterating past promises, perhaps we'd know what "push" they're talking about. But that's another story.

Another problem, the Hate Crimes bill is at the bottom of the totem pole, in terms of importance, of promises made by this president to our community. It's an important bill, but hardly as important as Obama's other gay civil rights promises. Yet, somehow, as Joe and I predicted, the Hate Crimes bill is now slowly being elevated to the status of Holy Grail of gay rights bills, as if it's as important as marriage, or DOMA, or DADT - it's not. (I'm leaving out ENDA, because I think it's dead for a long time coming. More on that later.) Our concern is that hate crimes will become law, and then we won't hear from President Obama ever again.

Joe and I helped this president become president. We don't regret that. But damn, it's as if someone in the White House is hell-bent on damaging relations with our community. And it's working. Read the rest of this post...

Job losses beat forecast, unemployment up to 9.4%

Another mixed bag report. Maybe the focus will be more on beating the forecast since it was such a significant miss. The key to moving past the recession will be improving the employment situation so this is big.

U.S. employers cut 345,000 jobs last month, the fewest since September and far less than forecast, according to a government report on Friday that was more evidence the economy's severe weakness was diminishing.

However, the Labor Department said the unemployment rate raced to 9.4 percent, the highest since a matching rate in July 1983, from 8.9 percent in April.

March and April's job losses were revised down to show a smaller declines of 652,000 and 504,000, respectively.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast non-farm payrolls dropping 520,000 in May. The unemployment rate had been forecast to rise to 9.2 percent.

Read the rest of this post...

Va. Governor's Democratic primary is statistical tie with four days to go

Yesterday, DailyKos released a poll of the Virginia Democratic primary. The vote is this coming Tuesday, June 9th. It's tight:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 6/1-3. Likely voters. MoE 4% (5/18-20 results)

Democratic Primary voters MoE 5%

Creigh Deeds (D) 30 (13)
Brian Moran (D) 27 (22)
Terry McAuliffe (D) 26 (36)
Undecided 17 (29)

Off the bat, the numbers are clearly a statistical tie, leading to the obvious conclusion that the best field organization is going to win this thing.

I don't have a horse in this race, but Markos makes a key point in his analysis:

Whatever the opposite of "momentum" is, McAuliffe has that.

I think I've experienced part of the reason why McAuliffe is tanking. McAuliffe has a huge financial advantage according to the Washington Post:

McAuliffe, a veteran fundraiser with political connections across the country, raised $1.8 million in the two-month period ending Wednesday. His $6.9 million war chest allowed him to start airing TV ads in January and this week expand his TV blitz into the expensive Northern Virginia market...

...McAuliffe's enormous financial edge -- he outspent Moran on television by more than 20 to 1 and Deeds by more than 2 to 1 through Wednesday -- has enabled him to mount a two-pronged assault, with money spent on advertising and on a sophisticated, staff-intensive effort designed to get his voters to the polls. But his prolific fundraising has also prompted his rivals to accuse him of trying to buy the office.

In DC, we're in that "expensive Northern Virginia market." So, I'm seeing a lot of Terry McAuliffe's ads featuring Terry McAuliffe. Let me tell you this: a little Terry McAuliffe goes a long, long, long way. His consultants made a mistake featuring McAuliffe so prominently in the ads. He's annoying and quickly becomes grating.

I just want the Democrat to win in November. The Republican candidate is a right-winger named Bob McDonnell. I've seen a lot of ads trashing McDonnell already - and he's on the air with his own spot. If McAuliffe pulls off the primary, he better get a new ad team or a new t.v. strategy. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Obama has developed a "Five Guys" obsession. Yesterday, during his tour of the Pyramids, he invoked the burger chain, "Five Guys was good, this was better." I get it. Five Guys is good, really good. One opened in Dupont Circle, near my place, about a year ago. I can't tell you how many times I've found myself in line ordering -- without even realizing it. The place has a magic pull. So, yeah, I'm sure the pyramids are probably better. But, it's hard to get Five Guys off ones mind.

So glad it's Friday...even a damp, rainy Friday... Read the rest of this post...

GOP more concerned with insurance industry than consumers

But since when did they ever care about consumers? Their arguments about driving private insurance out of business is laughable and so far from reality. I know Republicans don't like to travel beyond their little world, but they might look into a little provincial company called AXA that somehow survives with operations throughout Europe where national health care systems exist. The little venture somehow - who knows how - managed to buy a US insurer despite being headquartered in France. How a business could prosper in socialist central and then manage to expand and buy into a capitalist market is a mystery because we all know that only brave, hot dog and apple-pie eating American capitalists can build world business empires. The plucky little upstart has also managed to be the 15th largest company in the world. Go figure.

Maybe before the Republicans start crying about their friends going out of business they ought to look around and see what is happening in the real world. They are being drama queens when they make such silly statements about driving the insurance business out of business. This is going to be a brutal confrontation and it's clear the GOP will stop at nothing to block reform and change. Telling lies is all they have so more will come but their starting point is completely false and typical scare-mongering.

Opponents say private insurers could not compete with a public plan that didn't have to make a profit. They argue that private health plans would end up going out of business, leaving only an entirely government-run health care system.

There appears to be little room for compromise, with Republicans contending that no matter how a public plan is designed, it would inevitably balloon and crush the private market.

"It's kind of a litmus test sort of thing," Grassley said. "It's just very, very difficult, but I suppose that somewhere out there there's something that's politically realistic that's not a public option that satisfies Republicans and Democrats. But it isn't a government-run system," Grassley said.

What exactly is so difficult about improving health care for Americans? Maybe Grassley and the GOP can temporarily give up their health care program while working through this problem and see what a great system is out there for everyone else. Read the rest of this post...

Sony Ericsson to go green(er)

My first reaction to corporate pitches such as this is often suspicion but it's hard to argue against reducing the corporate footprint of such a major player in the mobile handset industry. Greenpeace raises a good point that the company could do more to offer recycling centers around the world but even still, it's encouraging to see business listening and acting appropriately without having to be forced. What a novel concept.

Sony Ericsson sells around 100m phones a year globally and wants to have a series of green improvements in all its phones by 2011. More than 31m phones were bought in the UK in 2008.

Most of the CO2 reductions in the two new handsets come from a significant reduction in the amount of paper that comes with the phone. The packaging is smaller and the user manual has been replaced with an electronic version contained on the phone itself. "The major benefit to the environment is the reduction of paper weight in transportation," said Mats Pellback-Scharp, head of the corporate sustainability office at Sony Ericsson. "Compared to the same product from the year before, we save 90% of the paper shipped to each customer. That's 3kg of CO2, 15% of the carbon footprint of the complete phone."

For older phones from the company, the box and manual weighed in at 550g. This has been reduced now to 42g and means that, more than 1m phones, Sony Ericsson will save 350 tonnes of paper, around 13,000 trees or 7,500 cubic metres of wood.

Inside the box, there are no plastic bags to wrap the various components and 80% of the hard plastics used on the phone are recycled. The company has also halved the amount of solvents needed for the paints by using water-soluble inks.

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More pressure on Brown to resign

The situation is not unlike Blair's final months, though this time, there is much more pressure and a Prime Minister who lacks the smoothness of Blair to negotiate. It's also Gordon Brown being chased out instead of him leading the chase. If there is a strong replacement candidate in the wings it would be a complete surprise but it would not take much to be a stronger candidate than Brown. What will next week bring for Gordon?

James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, last night dealt a ­monumental blow to Gordon Brown's chances of ­holding onto office when he dramatically announced he was quitting the cabinet and asking Brown "to stand aside to give Labour a fighting chance of winning the next election".

His statement, in effect declaring Brown unelectable, will further weaken the prime minister's waning authority and takes the challenge to his leadership to a dangerous level.

Purnell made his sensational move after polls closed in the local and European elections - in which Labour was subsequently decimated across the board, informing Brown by phone last night. It prompted a furious reaction in Number 10 with ministers saying Purnell was profoundly mistaken.

Elsewhere in The Guardian, Brown is referred to as "The half-dead prime minister." Ouch. Read the rest of this post...