Monday, October 20, 2008

Kudos, KeithO & Brickbats To The Losers On The Other Side

The Geezer has made no secret of his animus toward KeithO on MSNBC. Tonight, KeithO returned that enmity by calling out all of the Dumbo "patriots": The Geezer, The Mighty Quinnette, U.S. Representative Michele McCarthy Bachmann (R-MN), and Fats Limbaugh. May all these "patriots" burn in Hell forever. And all they have to do is open their mouths so that all of their Dumbo followers can get to the same destination — by taking the dirt road. Dr, Samuel Johnson was correct: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." If this is (fair & balanced) condemnation, so be it.

[x MSNBC]
"Countdown With Keith Olbermann"
Special Comment (10/20/08)



[Keith Olbermann currently hosts "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" on MSNBC, an hour-long nightly newscast that reviews the top news stories of the day along with political commentary by Olbermann. A native New Yorker, Olbermann received a bachelor of science degree in communications arts from Cornell University in 1979.]

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Kudos To Khan, Brickbats To The Geezer & His Hate Mobs

At a recent campaign stop, The Geezer was confronted by an older woman who blustered that The Hopester was a "Muslim." General Colin Powell condemned The Geezer's response that suggested that a Muslim could not be a "God-fearing American." General Powell's example was the gravestone in the Arlington National Cemetery over the remains of Corporal Kareem Khan who died in action in Iraq in August 2007. Corporal Khan received the Bronze Star as well as the honor of burial in our most sacred ground. Shame on The Geezer. Shame on The Mighty Q. In their own way, both of them are worse than George Corley Wallace on his worst day. They babble about Joe The Plumber when they should give praise to Muslims like Corporal Kareem Khan. Thank you, General Powell for teaching us a lesson about patriotism. If this is (fair & balanced) love of country, so be it.

[x New Yorker]
Photo Essay By Platon
RIP, Corporal Kareem Khan



Elsheba Khan at the grave of her son, Specialist Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan.

[Born in London in 1968, Platon was raised in the Greek Isles by his English mother, an art historian, and Greek father, an architect, until the age of seven when his family returned to London. He attended St. Martin's School of Art, and after receiving his BA with honors in Graphic Design, he was then awarded an MA in photography and fine art at the Royal College of Art. Platon is now a staff photographer at The New Yorker magazine.]

Copyright © 2008 CondéNet.com

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Forget Joe, The Geezer's Favorite Plumber is Gordo (G. Gordon)!

In his interview with David Letterman on Thursday last week, Gap-Tooth asked The Geezer about hanging out with a terrorist himself: G. Gordon (The Plumber) Liddy. This domestic terrorist, at the behest of The Trickster, engaged in criminal acts to bring about The Trickster's reelection in 1972. Ultimately, The Geezer 'fessed up to Letterman, but qualified his association with the "Liddy paid his debt to society" trope. In today's op-ed piece, The NobelMan explores the Dumbo claim to be today's "Joe Six-Pack," "Joe the Plumber," or the 1970s "Silent Majority." It was fraud then and it's fraud today. If this is (fair & balanced) sewage conveyance, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
The Real Plumbers Of Ohio
By Paul Krugman

Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America’s divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the “silent majority,” the regular guys — white guys, it went without saying — who didn’t like the social changes taking place.

It was a winning formula. And the great thing was that the new packaging didn’t require any change in the product’s actual contents — in fact, the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever.

John McCain’s strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it.

Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the “pro-America” parts of the country — yep, we’re all traitors here in central New Jersey. Meanwhile we’ve got Mr. McCain making Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber — who had confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, alleging that the Democratic candidate would raise his taxes — the centerpiece of his attack on Mr. Obama’s economic proposals.

And when it turned out that the right’s new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Mr. Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man?

But what’s really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general?

First of all, they aren’t making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930.

Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 — but the average Ohio plumber’s income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000.

Third, Ohio plumbers have been having growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2007 only 45 percent of companies with fewer than 10 employees offered health benefits, down from 57 percent in 2000.

And bear in mind that all these data pertain to 2007 — which was as good as it got in recent years. Now that the “Bush boom,” such as it was, is over, we can see that it achieved a dismal distinction: for the first time on record, an economic expansion failed to raise most Americans’ incomes above their previous peak.

Since then, of course, things have gone rapidly downhill, as millions of working Americans have lost their jobs and their homes. And all indicators suggest that things will get much worse in the months and years ahead.

So what does all this say about the candidates? Who’s really standing up for Ohio’s plumbers?

Mr. McCain claims that Mr. Obama’s policies would lead to economic disaster. But President Bush’s policies have already led to disaster — and whatever he may say, Mr. McCain proposes continuing Mr. Bush’s policies in all essential respects, and he shares Mr. Bush’s anti-government, anti-regulation philosophy.

What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama? Well, Mr. Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets — and the second-highest bracket for a head of household starts at an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year.

Maybe there are plumbers out there who earn that much, or who would end up suffering from Mr. Obama’s proposed modest increases in taxes on dividends and capital gains — America is a big country, and there’s probably a high-income plumber with a huge stock market portfolio out there somewhere. But the typical plumber would pay lower, not higher, taxes under an Obama administration, and would have a much better chance of getting health insurance.

I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit.

But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans.

[Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page and continues as professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. He has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford. At MIT he became the Ford International Professor of Economics. Krugman is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes. In 1991, the American Economic Association awarded him its John Bates Clark medal, a prize given every two years to "that economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge." On October 12, 2008, Krugman won the Nobel Economics Prize.]

Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

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Revisionism 101: The Bradley Effect

[x Wikipedia]

Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley (December 29, 1917 – September 29, 1998) was a five-term mayor of Los Angeles, California, serving in that office from 1973 to 1993. He was the first and to date only African American mayor of Los Angeles. His 20 years in office mark the longest tenure by any mayor in the city's history. His 1973 election made him only the second African American mayor of a major U.S. city. The first was Carl Stokes of Cleveland, Ohio, who was elected in 1967. Bradley unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California in 1982 and 1986, having been defeated each time by the Republican George Deukmejian. The racial dynamics that appeared to underlie his narrow and unexpected loss in 1982 gave rise to the political term "the Bradley effect."

Tom Bradley was born in Calvert, Texas before his family moved west, picking cotton from Arizona to the Central Valley of Californa. Bradley's family moved to LA and he went through the public schools to UCLA on a track scholarship. Bradley left college early to join the LA Police Department. While a police lieutenant, Bradley took night courses at the Southwestern University School of Law and received his law degree. Bradley later passed the bar exam to become a lawyer. In 1963, Bradley was elected to the Los Angeles City Council and served there until he was elected Mayor in 1973. Tom Bradley's rise from picking cotton to Mayor of Los Angeles is the true Bradley effect. If this is (fair & balanced) historical reinterpretation, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
What Bradley Effect?
By Blair Levin

With only two weeks to go before the election, talk has turned to the Bradley effect. The phenomenon is named for Tom Bradley, the African-American mayor of Los Angeles, who lost the 1982 California governor’s race even though exit polls predicted he’d defeat his Republican opponent, George Deukmejian. Some white people, the theory goes, tell pollsters they will vote for black candidates and then, once in the voting booth, don’t.

While it’s no surprise that this has become a topic of discussion as John McCain and Barack Obama near the finish line, as someone who worked for Bradley’s campaign, I think it’s worth pointing out that the effect has been widely misunderstood.

On election night in 1982, with 3,000 supporters celebrating prematurely at a downtown hotel, I was upstairs reviewing early results that suggested Bradley would probably lose.

But he wasn’t losing because of race. He was losing because an unpopular gun control initiative and an aggressive Republican absentee ballot program generated hundreds of thousands of Republican votes no pollster anticipated, giving Mr. Deukmejian a narrow victory.

This is not to say that race wasn’t an issue; it was in 1982 and it has been since. But to those who keep citing the Bradley effect — not so fast. It’s more complicated than you think.

As we’re on the subject, we should free Tom Bradley’s name from an association he would have abhorred. After all, he practiced the sort of politics whose goal was to bring people together, not to play up their differences. He was the opposite of the “Us vs. Them” politics so often cited as demonstrating the Bradley effect.

I worked for Bradley in his 1973 mayoral campaign against Sam Yorty, the incumbent. Bradley was holding his own. But a key group, Jewish voters, was up for grabs. One Sunday, I drove Bradley to a banquet with a Jewish group. Walking in, I noticed many men wearing yarmulkes. I had one in my jacket and gave it to Bradley. He put it in his pocket.

When the event began, Yorty was called to the podium and given a yarmulke, which he put on. Then Bradley was called up. When offered a yarmulke, he said, “I have my own,” reached into his pocket, took it out and put it on. The response? Laughter, applause, smiles. It sent a message not of pandering — “I am one of you” — but rather, “We are all in this together.”

Bradley won the day and then the election. Over 20 years as mayor, he had the same effect on many diverse audiences. To me, that’s the real Bradley effect.

[Blair Levin joined Stifel Nicolaus in 2005, having joined the predecessor firm of Legg Mason Capital Markets in January 2001. He serves as a Managing Director and the firm's principal telecom, media and tech regulatory and strategy analyst. A native of Los Angeles, Levin is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale College and a graduate of Yale Law School.]

Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

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A Versus Daily Double: [1] If You've A Brain, You Won't Vote McCain & [2] Crash Dance

Marcy Shaffer is one of today's greats in musical parody. Roll over, Tom Leher. This blog becomes a vlog today. Follow the bounding ball and sing along. If this is (fair & balanced) singsong, so be it.

[Vannevar Bush Hyperlink Directory]
[1] Parody of "If I Only Had A Brain" (I Wouldn't Vote McCain)
[2] Parody of "Flashdance"

[x YouTube/VersusPlus Channel]

[1]
"If We Vote To Have McCain"
Parody by Marcy Shaffer of "If I Only Had A Brain" (Lyrics & Music by E.Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen)



[Gary Stockdale - Lead Vocal, Background Vocal
Greg Hilfman - Music Director]
__________________________________________________________
[2]
"Crash Dance"
Parody by Marcy Shaffer of "Flashdance — What A Feeling" (Lyrics by Keith Forsey and Irene Cara/Music by Giorgio Moroder)

[Gary Stockdale - Lead Vocal, Background Vocal
Scottie Haskell - Background Vocal
Angie Jarée - Background Vocal
Greg Hilfman - Music Director

The co-producers of VERSUS wrote:

So many wrongs. So little time.

Thus the genesis of VERSUS. Born of the conviction that musical parody is mightier than PowerPoint, VERSUS is an equal opportunity skewer-er of the ruthless, the truthless, the reckless, the feckless.

VERSUS parodies are written by Marcy Shaffer, whose professional writing experience includes television, film, lyrics, verse, and… musical parody. The parody lyrics on the page become the audio of VERSUS courtesy of some of the best musical talent in the business.

VERSUS is co-produced by Russ Meyer, a private equity veteran whose industry expertise includes financial services as well as entertainment.
]

℗ © 2008 RMSWorks LLC. Lyrics © 2008 RMSWorks LLC.

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