truesee's Blog

An uproar over Palin — Bristol, that is

The 'Dancing with the Stars' contestant is voted by viewers into the finals. Critics charge that 'tea party' activists did some scheming at the ballot box in favor of Sarah Palin's daughter.

Marie Elena Fernandez

Los Angeles Times

November 18, 2010

Bristol Palin, left, and her partner Mark Ballas perform during "Dancing with the Stars." (Adam Larkey / ABC)

When TV viewers voted Bristol Palin into the finals of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars," one of prime time's most popular shows, her opponent Brandy cried, a Wisconsin man shot his television in disgust, and the blogosphere lighted up like a Christmas tree on fire.

It was the seventh consecutive time this season that the 20-year-old newcomer to dance performance had beaten out an opponent despite having lower scores from the judges on TV's second most-watched program, which draws an average audience of more than 20 million. The reason for her surprising success, charged fuming critics and some viewers across the Internet, was that "tea party" activists had spearheaded a campaign that essentially stuffed the show's ballot box in favor of Sarah Palin's daughter.

This latest reality show tempest highlights the power of popularity over talent when mostly unregulated public voting is involved and, perhaps more dramatically, the polarizing effect of the Palin family name, which received prominent attention earlier this month in one of the most heated elections in recent memory.

Dems vent to leaders as losses set in

The meeting, which began at noon, stretched on for hours after the caucus passed a resolution allowing first defeated members and then returning lawmakers to address their colleagues for five minutes apiece. Staffers were kicked out of the meeting.

While many Democrats offered kind words, thanks and support for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), defeated Reps. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), Travis Childers (D-Miss.) and Bill Foster (Ill.) called for new leadership, lawmakers said.

Boyd told The Hill that leaving Pelosi as the public face of the caucus would undermine candidate recruitment efforts in 2012.

“I don’t know how you recruit for some of these seats,” said Boyd. “How are you going to recruit somebody to run — a moderate, Blue Dog Democrat — to run down there? Can’t do it.”

Democrats are girding for an internal showdown on Wednesday as they meet for caucus elections over the objections of a growing number of lawmakers who want them postponed. Pelosi surprised many Democrats two weeks ago when she announced she would seek to stay on as the caucus leader.

Two Democrats, Reps. Peter DeFazio (Ore.) and Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), plan to call for a secret-ballot vote on their proposal to push the leadership elections into December, a scenario that would give opponents of Pelosi more time to rally support for ousting her from the party leadership.

Lawmakers described a tense meeting where members offered candid views of why they believed their party had lost at least 60 seats and their majority just two years after a historic presidential election where everything seemed to be going in the Democratic Party’s direction.

“People are being very forthright about what went right and what went wrong, how they feel about their colleagues,” Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) said.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) called the outpouring “cathartic.”

The caucus gathering was one of several meetings planned for this week where House Democrats are airing their frustrations with the party message, strategy and leadership. Pelosi is trying to hold onto power despite the Democratic defeat, arguing that the election results were a reflection of an ailing economy and not her own low standing with the public.

While the liberal Speaker retains broad support within a smaller and more left-leaning caucus, a smattering of lawmakers from both sides of the ideological spectrum have said she should step aside. The conservative dissidents are now led by Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), who confirmed on Tuesday that he would challenge her for minority leader.

Shuler reiterated that he did not have the votes to win the race, but he said his leadership bid was not a protest campaign. “It’s not sending a message, it’s standing up for what you truly believe in,” Shuler said. “This is about we have a leadership that lost the most significant votes in almost a century. That’s what it’s really about, is getting that changed.

 “In the NFL,” the former Washington Redskins quarterback added, “if you lost significantly, you were replaced.”

 Shuler, who was first elected in 2006, said he was not actively collecting votes and did not know how much support he had. While only a handful of Pelosi foes have told The Hill they would back Shuler, one Blue Dog Democrat said Shuler could expect a minimum of 30 votes in the caucus election. Nearly 100 would be needed to win.

As Shuler launched his own quixotic campaign, DeFazio and Kaptur stepped up their push to delay Wednesday’s leadership elections until after the Thanksgiving recess.

DeFazio said Wednesday that 19 Democrats had signed on to a letter asking for a postponement and that he would ask for a vote at the outset of Wednesday’s leadership election meeting.

That effort could gain support from members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who had lingering questions over a deal brokered by Pelosi to create a new elected leadership position for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who accepted the post to avoid forcing the caucus to vote between him and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) for minority whip.

The CBC was scheduled to meet with Pelosi late Tuesday.

Still, other Democrats said the caucus should go ahead with the leadership elections before the Thanksgiving recess. “Just go do it,” Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said.

Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) said a large majority of Democrats still think Pelosi is best suited for the job.

“Most members, by far, suggested she should run,” Andrews told reporters. “I think she’ll be successful [Wednesday]. There’s a broad consensus ... that she will bring us back.”

Asked if Pelosi’s unpopularity in certain parts of the country could harm the party in 2012, Andrews dismissed the criticisms as an inevitable consequence of Pelosi’s effectiveness as a Speaker.

“Of course she’s going to be vilified,” he said, “because she got things done.”

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) said much of the discussion focused on how, looking forward, Democrats could sell their brand of legislating to voters who soundly rejected it in 2010.

“The talk in there is how to sell our message,” Ackerman said as the meeting neared its sixth hour. “We didn’t market it. People had no clue.”

The legislation passed by Democrats was “great,” Ackerman said, but the party simply “didn’t take credit” for it.

“It was easy to pin the tail on Nancy,” he said.

Sean J. Miller and Mike Lillis contributed to this article.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/hottopics/detail?entry_id=77239

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/25807193/detail.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/pets/galleries/animal_kingdom_oddities/animal_kingdom_oddities.html

Impeach Obama? What about Bush?

5:07 PM EST

November 11, 2010

Peggy Alley says President Obama should be impeached (Nov. 8, Article found under this one).   I remind Ms. Alley however, that all the conditions she mentions, including enforcement of immigration laws, existed, and in most cases were created, during the Bush administration.   American citizens were losing jobs, having their homes foreclosed on and having to choose between food and prescriptions.   Illegal immigrants were coming into the country in record numbers and sending their children to public schools.   In addition the Bush administration embroiled us in two wars and lied about the reasons for one of them, resulting in the deaths of thousands of young Americans.   We rewarded President Bush with a second term.

If we didn't impeach President Bush or even possibly charge him with war crimes, it is ludicrous to suggest impeaching a president who has spent two years trying to fix these problems with progressive reforms while being impeded on all sides by Republicans whose only interest is in the failure of this president.

Ann Power

Catonsville, Maryland

The Baltimore Sun

Obama should be impeached

2:56 PM EST

November 8, 2010

In response to the op-ed "Should Obama walk away?"  (Nov. 8), I say President Obama should be impeached for refusing to enforce our federal immigration laws.   At a time when American citizens are losing jobs, having their homes foreclosed on and having to make decisions between food and prescriptions, the president is allowing millions of illegal immigrants to sneak into our country, take resources and benefits that belong to citizens and send their children to our already overburdened public school systems.   Enough is enough!

Peggy Alley

Baltimore, Maryland 

The Baltimore Sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/

JOHN BRESNAHAN | 11/16/10 11:57 AM EST Updated: 11/16/10 12:11 PM EST

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) has been found guilty on 11 ethics charges, ending a two-year investigation into his personal finances.

A special eight-member panel of the House ethics committee, after deliberating for roughly six hours, found that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Rangel had violated House ethics on 11 of the 13 charges he faced heading into a rare public ethics trial.

Rangel, 80, walked out of his ethics trial on Monday, complaining that he had not been given enough time to find new legal counsel after parting ways with his previous law firm last month. The full ethics committee will now consider punishment for Rangel, and possibly refer the case to the House floor with a recommendation for a sanction against the lawmaker. Rangel is likely to face either a reprimand or a censure from his House colleagues.

The sweeping verdict on Tuesday morning offered a powerful conclusion to a two-year ethics investigation that has tarnished the political legacy of Rangel, a Harlem giant who was stripped of his Ways and Means chairmanship while he was under investigation. He came to the ethics trial as a diminished political figure, complaining that he did not have enough money for a lawyer.

He offered a brief but spirited defense on Monday, then walked out after just 30 minutes, leaving the special adjudicatory panel to try him in abstentia. The bipartisan panel quickly heard the evidence and agreed in less than 24 hours that Rangel had violated a wide range of ethics rules.

Rangel was facing a 13-count “Statement of Alleged Violation” that included allegations that he improperly solicited millions of dollars from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York, failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets on financial disclosure forms, illegally maintained multiple rent-stabilized apartments in a luxury Harlem apartment building and failed to pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45198.html#ixzz15Sz8FA6S

Sir, There's a Camera in Your Head

The project is being commissioned by a new museum in Qatar. But the work, which would broadcast a live stream of images from the camera to museum visitors, is sparking a debate on campus over the competing values of creative expression and student privacy.

Wafaa Bilal, an Iraqi assistant professor in the photography and imaging department of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, intends to undergo surgery in coming weeks to install the camera, according to several people familiar with the project.

For one year, Mr. Bilal's camera will take still pictures at one-minute intervals, then feed the photos to monitors at the museum. The thumbnail-sized camera will be affixed to his head through a piercing-like attachment, his NYU colleagues say. Mr. Bilal declined to comment for this story.

The artwork, titled "The 3rd I," is intended as "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience," according to press materials from the museum, known as Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Bilal's work would be among the inaugural exhibits of Mathaf, scheduled to open next month.

Because Mr. Bilal is an active professor, teaching three courses this semester and scheduled to teach this spring, his special camera could capture not just his personal activity, but also his interactions with students.

That possibility, of exposing private encounters without participants' consent, has raised concerns among NYU administrators and faculty.

"Obviously you don't want students to be under the burden of constant surveillance; it's not a good teaching environment," said Fred Ritchin, associate chairman of the department.

After Mr. Bilal received the commission, he informed the department chairwoman, Deborah Willis, of his project in January. "I said, what if students are upset?" Ms. Willis recalled. "What if you're documenting what they don't want you to see?"

Ms. Willis and Mr. Bilal brought the issue to the attention of the deans, Ms. Willis said, and Mr. Bilal presented the concept for his project at a faculty meeting several months ago, according to a university spokesman, John Beckman.

"It's fair to say that a good deal of discussion ensued," Mr. Beckman said. The school is still determining what rules it will set for Mr. Bilal and his camera on campus.

During the course of the discussions, Mr. Bilal has informed all of his students of his plans and has agreed to cover the camera with a black lens cap while on university property, according to Mr. Ritchin. Another proposal would require him to turn off the camera while in NYU buildings, Mr. Beckman said.

Mr. Bilal's personal activity is a separate matter, of course. "I guess anybody accepting a dinner invitation will have to realize that certain things will be going on," Mr. Ritchin said.

While Mr. Bilal's project represents a novel challenge for NYU, it is hardly the first time his work has caused a stir.

For a 2008 project, "Virtual Jihadi," Mr. Bilal hacked a video game to insert an avatar of himself as a suicide-bomber hunting President George W. Bush. The work incited a wave of protests, both for and against it, and eventually the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Mr. Bilal's defense after the exhibition was shut down.

In his 2007 work, "Domestic Tension," Mr. Bilal confined himself to a gallery in Chicago for a month, inviting the public to visit a website where they could "shoot" the artist by remotely firing a paintball gun at him.

And in June, Mr. Bilal tattooed on to his back a map of Iraqi cities for a work called "...and Counting." The names of the cities were spelled out in Arabic script, with dots added to mark the location of American and Iraqi casualties.

The new museum where Mr. Bilal's camera-based work is to be shown is overseen by the Qatar Musuems Authority, whose other projects include the National Museum of Qatar and the Museum of Islamic Art, which opened in 2008.

A curator of the exhibition that includes Mr. Bilal's work says the artist defies categorization. "He's not really a photographer, he's not really a video artist, he's not really a performance artist," curator Till Fellrath said.

"Whatever artwork he creates, he doesn't want people to just look at it, he wants them to participate in it."

Analysis: Europe is next test for weakened Obama

 

     

WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 15, 2010 2:07pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If President Barack Obama is not yet convinced that his international star power has faded, his next round of transatlantic summitry should clear up any lingering doubts. 

Coming off a marathon Asia trip where Obama often found himself rebuffed by fellow world leaders, he will head to Europe this week where the agenda will be clouded by a growing divide over economic strategy and a sense of neglect among traditional U.S. allies. 

His challenge is to reassure European partners that, despite political weakness at home and embarrassing setbacks abroad, he remains committed to better cooperation on issues ranging from the war in Afghanistan to the fight against trade protectionism. 

But it will not be easy for Obama, whose Democratic Party suffered heavy losses in this month's congressional elections, to dispel the impression that his stature has been diminished on the world stage. He will attend back-to-back NATO and European Union summits in Lisbon on Friday and Saturday. 

"The tricky thing for Obama is to show the Europeans not only that he's still important to them but that they're still important to the U.S.," said Sally McNamara, a European affairs expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. 

Accustomed to being at the center of U.S. foreign policy, Europe may be feeling jilted. 

Despite the European love affair with Obama when he was elected two years ago, he has let transatlantic ties slip down his priorities list while focusing on rising Asian powers like China and India and domestic concerns such as high unemployment and an anemic economy. 

It will not be lost on his European hosts that Obama, who visited Europe six times in his first year, is dashing to Lisbon for little more than 24 hours on the ground after conducting a 10-day four-country tour of Asia.

The White House insists that Obama's engagement with economically dynamic Asia will not come at the expense of America's "enduring partnership" with less-vibrant Europe.

But analysts believe sweeping Republican gains in the November 2 midterm elections, which could cause legislative gridlock, will make it harder for him to make progress on top European concerns like financial regulation, climate change and trade. 

BACKLASH FROM EUROPE? 

Obama may also have to deal with fallout from last week's Group of 20 summit in Seoul, where he faced a backlash over U.S. monetary easing policy, resistance to his push for hard targets on global balanced growth and reluctance to join in pressuring China over its currency.

Reflecting a growing estrangement over economic policy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron have strongly opposed Obama's call for stimulating economic expansion with more government spending. They prefer to stress fiscal discipline. 

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble took the rhetoric to a new level earlier this month when he said the Federal Reserve's decision to pump $600 billion into the U.S. economy was "clueless." Germany, China and other big exporters see it as a backdoor way to cheapen the dollar and give U.S. goods a trade advantage. 

Meeting first with NATO leaders and then with heads of the 27-nation EU, the world's biggest economic bloc, Obama will undoubtedly seek to ease tensions.

Topping the NATO agenda will be Afghanistan. Obama wants allies to commit to a blueprint for shifting primary security responsibility to Afghan forces by 2014. He is mindful of NATO's need for an exit strategy in the increasingly unpopular war but hopes to avoid a disorderly rush for the door.

How well he fares could be a sign of how much sway he still holds with Europe. Though Obama remains popular among ordinary Europeans, their leaders are no longer starry-eyed about him.

Many welcome his more multilateral approach after what critics derided as "cowboy diplomacy" under George W. Bush.

But there is also disappointment in Europe that Obama has not done more to advance the fight against climate change or meet his promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo.

Nearly two years after he took office, traditional European powers have also seen their international clout heavily diluted with his push to elevate the G20 over the G8 as the main forum for coordinating global economic policy.

"It's a touchy issue," said Charles Kupchan, an expert on international relations at Georgetown University. "On Obama's watch, there has been a demotion of Europe's voice."

The EU summit was originally scheduled for May in Madrid, but it was called off after Obama decided not to go. U.S. officials said it would have been little more than a photo-op.

Then the euro zone debt crisis erupted, with the near-collapse of Greece's sovereign debt market and a spillover effect on U.S. financial markets and the economy.

That sent officials scrambling to reschedule the summit, which now is sure to discuss Ireland's emerging debt woes.

Obama said last week at the G20 that he had developed "genuine friendship" with some foreign leaders, including Merkel. But European diplomats demurred, saying he had mostly forged working relationships, not close personal bonds.

Born in Hawaii and raised partly in Indonesia, Obama -- who lacks the instinctive European focus of his predecessors -- has declared he wants to be America's first "Pacific president." Europeans may be wondering where that leaves the Atlantic.

http://www.kcra.com/r/25795718/detail.html

The lawsuit contended the California law usurped a federal prohibition on giving educational benefits based on residency to illegal immigrants but not all U.S. citizens.

College students who are in the country illegally are barred from government financial-aid programs. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected eventually to decide whether the lower tuition rates also violate federal law.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/11/15/2010-11-15_three_soldiers_in_colorado_busted_during_attempt_to_rob_medical_marijuana_shop_v.html

Miller/NewsFormer Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is running for mayor of Chicago, and may have presidential aspirations down the road.

Egan-Chin/NewsWhether they admit it or not, Mayor Bloomberg and Sarah Palin (below) have eyes for the White House.

Reinke/AP

CHICAGO - This time it was Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, making the speech that he hopes is the start of everything for him. This time it was Emanuel, a White House insider turned into a political outsider this fast, standing in the Coonley Elementary School, talking about a vision for the future for his city and really talking about himself.

"The question in this election is who has the experience, imagination and strength to see a better future," he said.

He is the tough guy from the Obama administration who now wants to be mayor of Chicago, then see where he can go from there. But you know he sees Chicago as just the beginning of something grander for him. This is American politics now, in the age of Barack Obama. The Obama who came from Chicago and really nowhere to become President.

They all think they can make it happen fast, as fast as the country turned around on Obama. The smart guys, and there is nobody around smarter than Emanuel, understand this has become Attention-Deficit America now, our society flattening out faster than it ever has in history, voters unable to distinguish between message and messengers in the age of Twitter and the Internet and the demagoguery, left and right, of cable TV.

You think Rahm Emanuel doesn't think he can be President someday? Think again. You think Michael Bloomberg doesn't see a way to the White House for him in 2012 with the country this dizzy? Think again.

Bloomberg never wanted a third term because he thought the city needed him to save it from financial doom. He needed to keep himself in play. He needed to buy himself time, which means one more thing Bloomberg has bought, starting with influence. Mostly he needed a little more time to figure out if he can make his run before he is too old.

Suddenly nothing is impossible in American politics. All over the country there are on-the-make Republicans assessing their chance to make their run at Obama in 2012, from young congressmen like Eric Cantor from Virginia to Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, to a talking hairdo like Rick Perry in Texas. Chris Christie of Jersey, one of the most interesting guys around even though he looks like Gov. Ralph Kramden, keeps saying he isn't going to make his own run. We'll see about that.

There has rarely been a time more fluid than this, the politics of change in 2008 producing more change in 2010, even though all this change never seems to help voters, especially the ones from the middle class.

But they all see you can come from nowhere the way Sarah Palin, drum majorette for the Tea Party, has. Get big fast. Kirsten Gillibrand looked like some cute lightweight from upstate when David Paterson named her to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. Now you better watch Gillibrand, whether you think she has anything to say or not. She is young and good-looking and a moderate Democrat and before long, you will start to hear about her making her own run, whatever she says about that.

Two years ago, in the middle of the most thrilling race for the Democratic nomination the country had ever seen, Hillary Clinton was the most famous woman in the world. Now she is secretary of state and still Wife of Bill, and Palin, with the substance of a Hallmark card, has gone past her so fast it is as if Clinton has fossilized in front of our eyes.

You don't think things change fast? Suddenly George W. Bush is viewed as more of a statesman than Winston Churchill. And for what? Telling us he couldn't send troops into New Orleans after Katrina because it would have made the governor of Louisiana mad? Go back to Texas.

Nothing that happened with Bush is his fault. He sounds like the cowboy version of Isiah Thomas. But less than two years from when he officially left office, with approval ratings you could fit inside a shot glass, you get the idea that he could run against Obama's record - the way Obama ran against his record - and win.

Not long ago, somebody challenged Obama about his reliance on rhetoric over substance and he said, "Speeches got me here." They did. But as a Chicago political guy I know said Sunday, "Name one speech he's given as President that compares with what he did as a candidate."

This weekend Rahm Emanuel, one of Obama's inside guys, is the one who gave a speech in Chicago. Only it wasn't about Chicago. It was about him. A little guy thinking as big as you can, the way the mayor of New York does these days. The way they all do.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/11/15/2010-11-15_quick_change_rahm_just_latest_political_little_guy_who_thinks_big.html#ixzz15Mlajw7v

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/25776608/detail.html