WORD OF THE DAY: schwarmerei
Pronunciation: (shver-muh-RY)
Meaning: noun: 1. Extravagant enthusiasm. 2. Excessive sentimentality.
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TAKE ACTION
The Other 98%– Making Democracy Work for the Rest of Us
K Street Lobbyists
Check out these facts:
-In the two years leading up to the catastrophic spill in the Gulf, BP hired twelve lobbying firms and paid them $32 million to press their agenda in Congress. [Source]
-Wall Street banks are spending $500 million a year to block the financial reform legislation. [Source]
-Since 1998, the financial sector, including the insurance and real estate industries, has spent more money on federal lobbying than any other sector. In 2009 alone, these companies spent a whopping $465 million. [Source]-243 lobbyists for the six biggest banks used to work in the federal government – That’s about 40 revolving-door lobbyists per bank. [Source]
-The six big banks have spent close to $600 million on lobbying, trade association activity and political contributions since the first major federal bailout of Bear Stearns in March 2008. [Source]
-Citigroup employs 55 revolving-door lobbyists, more than any other big bank or financial industry trade association. [Source]
-At nearly $266.8 million, the pharmaceutical and health products industry’s federal lobbying expenditures not only outpaced all other business industries and special interest areas in 2009, but stand as the greatest amount ever spent on lobbying efforts by a single industry for one year. [Source]
-Insurers have played the inside game, spending about $40 million on an army of lobbyists and
lavishing campaign contributions on Democrats and Republicans to kill the public option. In all, the health industry spent $133 million in the second quarter of 2009 alone, more than a million bucks a day. [Source]
-The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading opponent of the Democrats’ plans for health care reform, Wall Street reform, climate change and unionization efforts, once again ranked as the top dog on K Street this quarter. The Chamber and its subsidiaries spent nearly $30.9 million on federal, state and grassroots lobbying activities. [Source]
-In all, special interests spent $3.47 billion lobbying congress last year. [Source]
-In 2010 alone, the oil and gas industry has spent over $38 million on lobbying. [Source]
-At least 150 former members of Congress were actively lobbying their former colleagues last year. [Source]
-62% of Americans believe Wall Street executives were dishonest with the public during the recent financial meltdown. [Source]
BUDGET
GOP Wants to Cut Entitlements
House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he’s determined to offer a budget this spring that curbs Social Security and Medicare, despite the political risks, and that Republicans will try to persuade voters that sacrifices are needed.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Boehner said House Republicans would offer a budget for the next fiscal year that sets goals for bringing the programs’ costs under control. But he acknowledged that Americans aren’t yet ready to embrace far-reaching changes to Social Security and Medicare because they aren’t aware of the magnitude of the financial problems.
“People in Washington assume that Americans understand how big the problem is, but most Americans don’t have a clue,” Mr. Boehner said, speaking in his Capitol office. “I think it’s incumbent on us, if we are serious about dealing with the big challenges, that we go out and help Americans understand how big the problem is that faces us.”
He added, “Once they understand how big the problem is, I think people will be more receptive to what the possible solutions may be.”
Mr. Boehner also spoke forcefully in favor of raising the government’s debt limit, a move strongly opposed by many conservative House Republicans. He reiterated that the action would have to be coupled with significant spending cuts.
[…]
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week showed less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the government’s financial woes. But a majority supported reducing benefits for wealthier retirees and raising the Social Security retirement age.
ECONOMY
As Manufacturing Demand Grows, So Do Jobs
It would be easy to think that factory work is slowly disappearing in this country. But there have been steady job gains recently: Just last month, manufacturing created 33,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department.
[…]
Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s top economic adviser, was with the president when he got news of this latest round of jobs numbers. “Well, you know, he was happy — I got a fist bump,” Goolsbee said.
Goolsbee has been watching the unemployment rate fall sharply this winter — from up near 10 percent to 8.9 percent.
“This three-month drop from 9.8 [percent] is the biggest three-month drop in 27 years, and that’s clearly the right way we want to be moving,” he says.
It doesn’t mean the unemployment problem is over. But companies are hiring at a pace that should continue to bring down unemployment slowly.
Behravesh says he only expects the rate to fall to around 8 percent by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, there are still 6 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months.
The Real News on Jobs
Robert Reich:
But to get to the most important trend you have to dig under the job numbers and look at what kind of new jobs are being created. That’s where the big problem lies.
The National Employment Law Project did just that. Its new data brief shows that most of the new jobs created since February 2010 (about 1.26 million) pay significantly lower wages than the jobs lost (8.4 million) between January 2008 and February 2010.
While the biggest losses were higher-wage jobs paying an average of $19.05 to $31.40 an hour, the biggest gains have been lower-wage jobs paying an average of $9.03 to $12.91 an hour.
In other words, the big news isn’t jobs. It’s wages.
For several years now, conservative economists have blamed high unemployment on the purported fact that many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech jobs market.
So if we want more jobs, they say, we’ll need to take pay and benefit cuts.
And that’s exactly what Americans have been doing.
Employers have demanded wage and benefit concessions from their unionized workers and often got them. Detroit is creating auto jobs again — but new hires are getting about half the pay that auto workers were getting before. Airline workers are taking home 30 to 50 percent less than they did years ago. And so on.
Conservatives say it’s not enough. That’s why unions have to be busted — and why some governors are seeking to abolish laws requiring workers to become dues-paying union members in order to get certain jobs. Hence, the fights brewing in the Midwest.
Meanwhile, millions of non-union workers have accepted cuts in pay and benefits just to keep their jobs. Health benefits have been slashed, pension contributions from employers dramatically cut, wages dropped or “frozen.”
Millions of private-sector workers have been fired and then re-hired as contract workers to do almost exactly what they were doing before, but without any benefits or job security.
The current attack on public-sector workers should be seen in this light. The charge is they now take home more generous pay and benefit packages than private-sector workers. It’s not true on the wage side if you control for level of education, but it wasn’t even true on the benefits side until private-sector benefits fell off a cliff. Meanwhile, across America, public-sector workers have been “furloughed,” which is a nice word for not collecting any pay for weeks at a time.
At this rate, the unemployment rate will continue to decline. But so will the pay and benefits of most Americans.
Conservative economists have it wrong. The underlying problem isn’t that so many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech labor market. It’s that they’re getting a smaller and smaller share of the pie.
U.S. Shouldn’t Cut Spending Now
Eugene Robinson:
After slamming Democrats for not focusing on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” Republicans have decided to ignore their own winning message in favor of “cuts, cuts, cuts.” This is bad economics — and bad politics.
If you don’t believe me, read a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, published Thursday, that has what should be sobering news for Republicans who keep telling us that their radical assault on the size and scope of government has the support of “the American people.”
It doesn’t, according to the survey — not even philosophically. When asked whether government, in general, is trying to do too much or not doing enough, 51 percent said government should do more. That’s not exactly a mandate for slashing federal, state and municipal programs and trying to turn public employees into a caste of untouchables.
[…]
For Republicans in Congress, especially the fired-up new majority in the House, there is plenty of cautionary news. The poll listed a number of issues facing the country and asked respondents to rank them in order of importance. Then the pollsters tallied how many respondents had ranked each issue either first or second in priority.
A pretty impressive 40 percent said that “the deficit and government spending” should be considered the federal government’s No. 1 or No. 2 task. But a far more impressive 56 percent said that “job creation and economic growth” should be given first or second priority.
[…]
According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, three-quarters of Americans would oppose significant cuts in Medicare or Social Security. If Republicans were really serious about deficit reduction, they would be trying to explain why they believe such cuts are necessary. Democrats ought to be talking about entitlements too, by the way, along with reasonable budget cuts. But the debate should take account of the undeniable fact that people actually want government services — which, unfortunately, have to be paid for.
So both parties should be explaining why any reasonable deficit-reduction program will include tax increases. “Cuts, cuts, cuts” isn’t a plan. Right now, it’s just a bad slogan.
HEALTH
Gabrielle Giffords Shows More Progress In Recovery
Among Giffords’ other visitors has been Stephanie Aaron, her rabbi and good friend. Aaron described Giffords’ progress to The Associated Press on Thursday after a visit to the hospital over the weekend.
She said Giffords sang Don McLean’s “American Pie” with husband Mark Kelly and his two daughters, and that she knew the words better than the three of them. Musical therapy is an important part of her recovery as doctors use song in attempt to improve her brain function, along with physical, occupational and speech rehabilitation.
Aaron said Giffords also chanted a Hebrew healing prayer with her, although the congresswoman didn’t know the words beforehand.
Aaron said she would tell Giffords the words, and the two would chant, with Giffords getting frustrated at times.
“I would just stop, hold her hand and say, `Gabby, it’s OK. Just breathe.’ And we would sit together and just breathe,” Aaron said. “And what very much uplifted me was when I was leaving … she got tears in her eyes and she hugged me. I said, `Gabby, what do you need to remember?’ And she said, `Breathe.'”
HEALTH CARE
As Health Costs Soar, G.O.P. and Insurers Differ on Cause
As Congress continues to debate the new health care law, health insurance costs are still rising, particularly for small businesses. Republicans are seizing on the trend as evidence that the new law includes expensive features that are driving up premiums. But the insurance industry says premiums are rising primarily because of the underlying cost of care and a growing demand for it.
Across the country, premiums have more than doubled in the last decade, with smaller companies particularly hard hit in recent years, federal officials say.
[…]
Some insurance industry lobbyists say the new federal health care law is driving up premiums. But Vincent Capozzi, senior vice president for sales and customer service at Harvard Pilgrim, said that only one percentage point of the increases here was attributable to the federal law, mainly its requirement for free coverage of preventive services.
Another percentage point results from new state laws requiring coverage of hearing aids and certain treatments for autism, Mr. Capozzi said. Most of the remainder, he said, reflects increases in the use and cost of medical care by small-group customers, with adjustments for demographic characteristics like age.
In many cases, insurance coverage is shrinking as deductibles are increasing and choices of hospitals are more limited.
[…]
Obama administration officials said several provisions of the new federal health law would help make insurance more affordable.
Insurers must publicly justify large rate increases, and they must spend at least 80 percent of premium revenue on health care. Starting in 2014, each state will have a central market where consumers and small businesses can pool their purchasing power and buy insurance. In theory, the exchange could bring more insurers into the market, increase competition and drive down prices.
In his budget address on Feb. 15, Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, said hospitals were part of the problem. Instead of using their “excess cash” to reduce health care costs, Mr. Lynch said, “hospitals spend it on advertising, trying to attract market share from each other, buying physician and laboratory practices across the state, and then increasing overhead charges to patients.”
[…]
Mr. Sevigny, the insurance commissioner, had been poised to award a $610,000 contract for work on a health insurance exchange. But he pulled back the contract, financed entirely with federal money, after Republicans raised questions.
“It would be frivolous to spend taxpayer dollars on implementing a law that could very well be thrown out” by the courts, said William L. O’Brien, speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
The House Republican leader, D. J. Bettencourt, said, “We don’t want to become addicted to federal money.”
Republicans are trying to block or slow the creation of insurance exchanges in several other states as well. Delays will make it more difficult for states to meet federal deadlines, and Mr. Sevigny said it was important for state officials to understand that the federal government would itself set up an exchange in any state that did not do so.
To some people hammered by rising premiums, the federal law offers a glimmer of hope.
“It’s imperative that we move forward with a plan that spreads the cost of insurance over a large population,” said Mr. La Tourette, the florist. “I’m just thrilled that President Obama was able to get health care passed in any form. We can improve it later. I’m terrified that it will be repealed.”
IMMIGRATION
The Anti-Arizonans
In dozens of states considering such crackdowns — including Nebraska, Indiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas — elected officials, law enforcers, business owners, religious leaders and regular citizens are providing the calm voices and cool judgment that are lacking in the shimmering heat of Phoenix.
They are reminding their representatives that replacing federal immigration policy with a crazy quilt of state-led enforcement schemes is only a recipe for more lawlessness and social disruption, for expensive lawsuits and busted budgets, lost jobs and boycotts. And all without fixing the problem.
This isn’t just an immigrants’ cause. Business owners in places like Kansas and Texas, the attorney general in Indiana, Catholic and Protestant bishops in Mississippi — these and hundreds of other community leaders have been sending a contrary message.
The businesses say bills to force employers to check workers’ legal status are redundant, costly and anticompetitive. The clergy members have denounced bills to criminalize acts of charity, like driving an undocumented immigrant to church or the doctor. Lawyers have said new layers of enforcement paperwork would heavily burden legitimate business and overwhelm state bureaucracies.
Police chiefs and sheriffs are leading the skeptical resistance to the bills, which frequently involve having local police checking the immigration status of people they stop. A report released on Thursday by a national police research group looked at cities where police officials had been drawn into heated immigration debates. Its conclusions: federal enforcement is no job for local officers, who should be forbidden to arrest or detain people solely because of their immigration status.
The reasons: it costs too much, prompts false-arrest lawsuits and frightens law-abiding immigrants. “I have a responsibility to provide service to the entire community — no matter how they got here,” said Chief Charlie Deane of the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia. “It is in the best interest of our community to trust the police.”
The chiefs of Nebraska’s two largest police departments — in Lincoln and Omaha — recently told the State Legislature basically the same thing.
A peculiar mix of nativism and immigration panic has pushed the immigration debate far out into the desert of extremism. It’s going to take a serious effort by saner voices to ensure that what happens in Arizona stays there.
JUSTICE
Jared Lee Loughner Charged With Murder Of Giffords Event Participants In New 49-Count Indictment
Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused in the January shooting spree in Tucson, was indicted on additional federal murder charges by a grand jury yesterday for allegedly murdering “participants at a federally provided activity,” the Justice Department announced Friday.
The news out of the 49-count superseding indictment is that Loughner is now charged with the murder of non-federal employees who were participating in the event held by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) back in January.
From the beginning of the criminal case against Loughner, federal prosecutors have been grappling with which aspects of his alleged conduct constitute federal crimes. The latest version of the indictment shows that Justice Department prosecutors have found what they feel to be a proper legal basis for expanding the federal case against him.
Indiana Secretary Of State Indicted On Voter Fraud Charges
Secretary of State Charlie White, the top election official in Indianapolis, is facing seven felony counts, including voter fraud, perjury and theft, all connected to what a prosecutor said was an attempt to hold on to his seat on the town council even though he was living outside of his designated district.
White was indicted by a grand jury in Hamilton County on three counts of voter fraud for allegedly lying about his address when he voted in last year’s Republican primary, the Courier-Journalreports. In addition he’s facing charges of perjury, fraud on a financial institution (for lying about his address) and theft for keeping the salary he received as a member of his town council after he moved out of his designated district.
MEDIA
Really Bad Reporting in Wisconsin: Who “Contributes” to Public Workers’ Pensions?
When it comes to improving public understanding of tax policy, nothing has been more troubling than the deeply flawed coverage of the Wisconsin state employees’ fight over collective bargaining.
Economic nonsense is being reported as fact in most of the news reports on the Wisconsin dispute, the product of a breakdown of skepticism among journalists multiplied by their lack of understanding of basic economic principles.
Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans.
Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, created the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not.
Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.
[…]
The question journalists should be asking is “who contributes” to the state of Wisconsin’ s pension and health care plans.
The fact is that all of the money going into these plans belongs to the workers because it is part of the compensation of the state workers. The fact is that the state workers negotiate their total compensation, which they then divvy up between cash wages, paid vacations, health insurance and, yes, pensions. Since the Wisconsin government workers collectively bargained for their compensation, all of the compensation they have bargained for is part of their pay and thus only the workers contribute to the pension plan. This is an indisputable fact.
Not every news report gets it wrong, but the narrative of the journalistic herd has now been set and is slowly hardening into a concrete falsehood that will distort public understanding of the issue for years to come unless journalists en masse correct their mistakes. From the Associated Press and The New York Times to Wisconsin’s biggest newspaper, and every broadcast report I have heard, reporters again and again and again have written as fact what is nonsense.
News outlets sue Wisconsin governor over lack of response to email requests
Isthmus, an alternative newsweekly in Madison, WI, announced on Friday that it has filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker under that state’s Open Records Law.
On February 17, Walker claimed to have received more than 8000 emails on his budget repair bill, with the majority urging him to “stay firm.” The next day, he upped the figure to 19,000. Isthmus presented Walker with a request to see those emails, first by hand-delivered letter and the next week by emails to Walker’s spokesperson and his legal counsel.
The Wisconsin Associated Press, which is also participating in the lawsuit, filed similar requests at about the same time. Its second email broadened the request to include “all emails the governor has received that mention the budget repair bill.”
POLITICS
The GOP’s entitlements problem
Chris Cillizza:
To put it another way: Why would Obama go first, when he knows he just needs to wait for Republicans to go first?
Republicans have a whole caucus of freshmen elected with tea party support who will eventually push the issue to the forefront, and Democrats know this.
When they do, the proposals are likely to be very unpopular and force those Republicans into a tough position. For Democrats, saying ‘no’ to those proposals will be relatively easy; for Republicans, it will be a dance between pleasing the base and irritating lots of independents.
Unlike many other areas where voters are happy to see cuts, the entitlement programs are a political minefield just waiting for unsuspecting politicians to wander along.
And in a more neutral election year, that could cause all kinds of problems for Republicans — or at least, more than they did in 2010.
Tea Party Tailspin
Charles Blow:
Staunch Tea Partiers seem to be guided by the worst kind of fundamentalist political extremism — immutable positions derived from a near-religious adherence to self-proclaimed inviolable principles. This could well be their undoing.
During the right’s season of anger, passion and convictions galvanized Tea Party supporters into an army of activism. But the vehicle is outliving its fuel. The movement is losing momentum. In fact, Tea Party-backed governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin could be providing the rallying cry on the left to pick up the mantle of anger and send the momentum back the other way.
If Tea Party leaders continue to operate as if anger is still a major part of their arsenal and Republican politicians continue to feel pressured into untenable positions, Democrats could enjoy their very own Charlie Sheen-ism come 2012: “Winning!”
David Koch Claims He Doesn’t ‘Directly’ Support Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
Conservative billionaire David Koch, co-owner of the $110 billion dollar Koch Industries chemical and petroleum conglomerate, provided a “lengthy” interview to Boston Globe reporter Stephen Smith yesterday.
[…]
According to Smith, Koch was both “amused and bemused” by the prank [phone call to Governor Walker], but said he has “no relationship with the governor and didn’t directly support him.” But through political action committees and right-wing front groups, Koch has actually provided much of the muscle for Walker’s election and his current anti-labor power grab:
– Koch Industry’s PAC provided $43,000 in funds to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign, and funneled $1.5 million to the Republican Governor’s Association, which in turn spent $65,000 supporting Walker and $3.4 million in ads attacking Walker’s Democratic opponent.
– David Koch is the founder, financier, and chairman of Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing “grassroots” front group. Americans for Prosperity, according to the New York Times, pressured Walker before he was even sworn in to take on public sector unions. Americans for Prosperity bused in Tea Party activists to support Walker’s current power grab, organized a major rally to support Walker, and has purchased$342,200 in ads supporting Walker and attacking his liberal critics. Earlier this week, Americans for Prosperity announced a ten city bus tour of Wisconsin to hold rallies to bolster Walker. Neither Koch nor Americans for Prosperity has revealed how much they are spending on this bus tour or rallies.
– Koch’s other front groups have marshaled support for Walker. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a group financed with nearly $500,000 in Koch money and lead in part by a Koch executive, has pushed anti-public sector union legislation to Walker and the Wisconsin GOP. A wide range of Koch-tied groups, like the Reason Foundation and the Cato Institute, have also sung Walker’s praise in the media.
Despite Koch’s contention that he has not “directly” supported Walker, during the prank call between Murphy and Walker, Walker said he was coordinating with “your guy on the ground” — presumably referring to Tim Phillips, a top political deputy to David Koch and current president of Americans for Prosperity. Phillips, a former associate of Jack Abramoff, has a history of anti-Semitic smear campaigns and lobbying work on behalf of a forced-abortion sweatshop owner.
UNIONS
AFL-CIO Plans Another Big Saturday Rally At Wisconsin Capitol
Rasmussen Poll: Almost Six In Ten Wisconsin Voters Disapprove Of Gov. Walker
The Rasmussen poll is notable because, while PPP and GQR are Democratic pollsters, Rasmussen tends to tilt Republican, suggesting the results spell even more trouble for Walker.
Maryland Unions rally against “right-to-work” bill
Unionized workers filled the Senate Finance Committee hearing room and the third floor of the Miller Building on Wednesday afternoon to urge committee members to kill a bill that they said would deal a crushing blow to the state’s unions.
The bill, sponsored by Howard County Republican Sen. Allan Kittleman, would make Maryland a “right-to-work” state. This means that employers in the private sector could not require employees to join unions, discriminate against employees based on their union membership, or force employees who choose not to join unions to make any payments to the union. It would not have any impact on unions representing state or local government employees.
EXCLUSIVE: Ohio GOP Senator Yanked Off Committee Speaks Out, Was Informed 30 Minutes Before Anti-Union Vote
On Wednesday, just moments before a key committee in the Ohio State Senate was to vote on a GOP bill that would effectively dismantle public employees’ right to collectively bargain, the Senate’s Republican leader replaced a GOP committee member who opposed the bill with someone who supported it to ensure the measure passed.
[…]
sked about his abrupt removal from the committee, Seitz said it was “not unheard of, but not commonplace.” He couldn’t recall a time when something similar had occurred in the Senate. Moreover, he noted that his abrupt removal sends a bad signal to Ohio workers concerned about their own future:
SEITZ: [I told Niehaus] I’m not sure it looks real good, particularly in the context of a management rights bill, to have you exercise management rights over your own roommate, friend, and fellow party member. Because if that’s what can happen to a sitting state senator, what’s going to happen to you if you’re a nervous firefighter, teacher, or policeman — what’s going to happen to you if this bill passes?
Asked whether Niehaus’s move may have violated Senate rules because the president failed to officially declare the committee change before it went into effect, Seitz said that while he has “not independently researched it,” he was “of the opinion” that an official declaration was required. Seitz said he raised the concern with Niehaus, who “said that he had been advised by his legal counsel…that he had the legal authority to do it whenever he wanted to.” “I didn’t feel like arguing about it,” Seitz added.
Niehaus may have violated Senate rules by making the last-minute move:
Senate Rule 19 suggest the President of the Senate can change the makeup of a Committee, at will, but only by first issuing a Message (parliamentary term of art) that changes the membership. Yesterday, Niehaus issued no such message. He may issue one during the floor session, but that’s after the fact. There’s probably a parliamentary scramble to figure out if Niehaus’ replacement of Seitz for [state Sen. Cliff] Hite [R] complies with the Rules of the Senate.
UPDATE 2: Plunderbund notes that a GOP-controlled Ohio House committee will spend more time considering a radical anti-abortion law than the Senate Labor committee spent considering S.B. 5.
How big labor and progressive groups pulled off the biggest protests in 40 years.
Last Saturday’s “Rally to Save the American Dream” was the culmination of two weeks of protests and a 24-7 sit-in inside the Capitol. Not for 30 or 40 years have unions and progressive groups come together in such an outpouring of support for workers’ rights. What makes the Madison protests even more incredible is how spontaneous they have been: There has been no master plan, no long-anticipated strategy to turn Madison into ground zero for a reenergized labor movement.
What follows is a behind-the-scenes account of how the massive Wisconsin rallies came together, based on interviews with a dozen people who were intimately involved in them. It is by no means an exhaustive or complete account. But it offers a window into how the unions and their allies responded, swiftly and effectively, to what they saw as an existential threat.
AND IN OTHER NEWS…
Rolling Stone Readers Pick the Top 10 Greatest Cover Songs
MUSIC VIDEOS:
1. Jimi Hendrix – ‘All Along The Watchtower’
2. Johnny Cash – ‘Hurt’
3. Jeff Buckley – ‘Hallelujah’
4. Joe Cocker – ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’
5. Nirvana – ‘The Man Who Sold The World’
6. The Beatles – ‘Twist and Shout’
7. The White Stripes – ‘Jolene’
8. Nirvana – ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’
9. Guns N’ Roses – ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”
10. Muse – ‘Feeling Good’
[And my pick for the WORST. COVER. EVER!:]
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer.
Many people need desperately to receive this message:
I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them.
You are not alone.
~~Kurt Vonnegut
SHATNER rips it! Beam me up with irony, Scottie…
Wouldn’t it be so helpful to our society if, upon reaching the age of 50, we were all required to live the rest of our lives as a spoof on our earlier selves?
Cher, I LOVE that Shatner cover! It’s so bad it’s phenomenal! And there’s a longer video on YT that has Bernie Taupin introducing it. His voice is exactly the same as Riffraff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Mind bending!
Whats– he was playing it straight too. People now think it’s a spoof or a joke. I should have put up the one where Taupin introduces him to show that this was serious! It’s priceless!
Just watching it again me me cringe. It leaves me giggling and speechless.
He’s got a whole album of that stuff, called “The Transformed Man”. It’s one of the most unintentionally hilarious “artistic” endeavors ever.
I’ve heard it whats, but can only take one song at a time. I get stuck on “MacArthur Park” every damn time. 😆
Well, can you take this one?
Whats– I haven’t even played it yet and just seeing that image made me laugh! OK–hitting Play now…
Oh dear gawd! It’s TOO much! 😆 😆 Again–speechless. Mr. TAMBOURINE MAAAAAN!!
I have to play it for the kids–what a pleasure that’ll be. They only know him from the Priceline commercials and a few ST episodes. Can’t wait.
That’s just funny as hell. Shatner doing the Kerouack bit. I did like his beat interpretation of Palin’s word salad.
Killgore, I bet they got the idea to do that from his, um, rendition of “Rocket Man.” I fact, now that I think of it I’m positive.(D’oh! Just made that obvious connection.)
It’s hiarious when Shatner does Palin. It really does sound like Beat poetry.
Here’s the real deal;
Way cool, brother!
KT. No wonder I feel so left in the dark….To the best of my knowledge, in reading other’s comments. Many of the folks that post are sometimes 30 to 25 years older than me, other than Caru, who is stating he is only 18.
Time for bottle of red.
Oh, those wine stained teeth.
Cher and KT, I think it’s actually a great credit, of a sort, to Shatner that at some point he realized that his whole oratory renditions of songs was a huge joke, and then he turned that around and began playing it for laughs. It must have been really humbling, and humiliating, at first, but he bounced back.
Whats– for a long time he kept us guessing too– did he get it? was he self-aware? He finally proved he was and as you point out, it took some courage. That, and realizing he could start a whole new career as a parodist of himself.
I’m pretty sure he didn’t get it. If you read the liner notes to “A Transformed Man” you’ll be pretty convinced not only he, but his collaborators felt they were on to something. It was the idealistic and experimental 60s, and they believed they were creating a new art form. Gene Roddenberry was being pretty experimental too, using sci-fi as social satire. Man, people were so radical back then? Dr. Seuss, All in the Family, Sesame Street, all preaching peace love and understanding.
Way off on a tangent here, but it just got me thinking how corporate and AWFUL entertainment is now.
wts, More often than not, when big money enters into any artistic endeavor, it kills it. The art then becomes, “product.”
Todays music business is a great example.
Quite right, whats! at the time it was dead serious. But there was a period in the 90’s (I think) where it seemed he might be pulling our leg OR he might still be deluded. And it wasn’t for a while when he decided to just run with it. A kind of limbo period.
I think Shatner, as a Hollywood personality is indestructable. He is very good natured about all the ribbing he gets for his melodramtic acting style. He’s been around a long time. And in Hollwood, that’s no small achievement.
I honestly think that Rufus Wainwright’s version of Hallelujah is better than Jeff Buckley’s one:
Totally agree, Caru.I actually prefer the original best, but Rufus’ is great too. I think the thing about Buckley’s version is that it is more emotional, but his voice is just not up to it, IMO. It doesn’t improve on the original at all.
I think Cohen’s original could have done with a bit more emotion to it.
Caru,
Few songs lend themselves to interpretation like this one.
Every person who sings it brings a unique level of emotion to it.
Jeff Buckley’s version is recent pain, as is K D Lang’s, and to some degree Alexandra Burke’s..
Rufus Wainwright and Bon Jovi’s is reflective pain.
IlDivo’s is a story.
My personal favorite is Leonard Cohen’s version.
This former Chicago girl needs the gospel/blues version.
His says pain I will never recover from, but I’ve moved on..
This is my favorite version..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTiXoMCppw
I can see myself sitting in a second story bar- blue with smoke and smelling of cheap beer, watching a guy who once wrote a song he lived more than sang..
Cher- Good edition, I’ve been a real fan of RR for quite some time, he is able to calmly discuss facts, stats and polls in depth. His assessment goes a long way in honest problem identification.
http://robertreich.org/
“We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.” K.Vonnegut
Dang, ghsts– I almost chose that Vonnegut quote.
and Reich is spot-effing-on!
cher, you chose a very good one also. Thanks for quoting one of the best novelists of the 20th century. Our Mark Twain.
Absolutley, KT. I loved every book, and what is so cool to me is that my son discovered them (in his teens) on his own and felt the same. I hope he reads them again when he gets a little older too.
cher, that is cool. I am re-reading some of them now. I read many in my early 30s, and reading them now, at 58, I have a much greater appreciation for his unique humor and his total humanism.
There are some that I have never read, mostly one’s written in his latter years.
I have an urge to read them now too.
Hmm, Raise the SS ceiling to 200,000 dollars– SS fixed.
Change hedge fund income as regular income- add progressive income brackets to cover those making over 250,000 dollars and a transaction tax on stock transfers, close corporate loopholes/corporate welfare, cut the MIC spending.
Return to the same Revenue intake as it was in the ’80’s.
Just a few ideas.
http://robertreich.org/post/3476451774
http://robertreich.org/archive
Bito– I know we’ve played with the budget before, but I posted another interactive yesterday and I found a surplus of $13 billion. If you want to fool around:
http://public-consultation.org/exercise/
Cher, I have played with many over the years, including the one you cite. I always seem to feel that some of the most obvious choices are left out. Can we have Drs. Paul Krugman, Reich, and Stieglitz draw up the choices?
OK, yes I am a proud trade-unionist re: commie-pinko. This deficit cutting fervor going on right now reminds me of 1937 only worse. Stop the spending now because we might recover. Why is the percentage revenue as part of the GDP as low as it was during the Eisenhower Admin? Why does our HC cost at least twice as much as any other developed nation.
How did we go through the Dust Bowl and the depression and still have hope? How did we go through the civil war and yet build the most modern rail system in the world? World wars, Korea, Civil Rights, Nam…. We as a nation still looked for a brighter future.
Now he have stagnant wages (or decreasing) for many, reduced HC, pensions, loss of homes….. Why? Because of fear mongers in the Republican/Fox party a nd of simple corporate greed.
We have talked about the “Gini” here many times and it is is right now as bad as it was in 1927-29.
If not now, Now, When?
Sorry for the rant.(no, I’m not. 😉
#WiUnion “Not Here, Not Now, NO WAY”
(Oooh look is that Charlie Sheen or just another squirrel?)
Squirrel?
Not Here, Not Now, NO WAY!
ghsts,
I find the situation on Union rights in this country a very serious subject. This is not just an attack on the Public Employees, this is an attack on all workers, their wages, their pensions/savings/homes/ their children’s education….. The list goes on.
Like weekends? Kiss that goodbye. Like a safe workplace? Give that one a smooch. Overtime? Fuggedaboutit.
Fabulous rant, bito. Who could deny all that you say? Not me–yet millions do deny that. It is so damn simple to understand what you say!
I have heard all the reasons such a large percentage of the population stupidly cannot see what’s so obvious, but I still cannot wrap my head around it. It is utterly baffling and therefore beyond frustrating and THE source of my usual despair.
But that was a great post.
ghsts, that is one of my favorite KV quotes. But then, there are so many.
True, he had a long productive life like Twain another of my favs. I read “A Man Without a Country,” one afternoon while enjoying my espressi in the local Borders, reflecting on “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is” oops. Sometimes I feel bad that his estate didn’t the $24, but it doesn’t bother me one bit that Borders went bankrupt.
ghsts, that is really a nice book. It lets us know Vonnegut on a more personal level.
ghts – I used to like RR until he gave aid and comfort to the very policies under Clinton that destroyed the working class and people. He has become emblematic to me of the utterly craven political appointee – he ignored what was convenient to ignore under Bill, and now assumes the mantle of progressive to dig Obama. But when he COULD have done something, he did not. He grabbed NAFTA with both hands. His appearance on a show about job creation ended with “so let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work” without saying one damned thing about what that meant. Not one.
He’s now the voice of working people and middle class families?Well, OK, but I don’t trust him at all. What’s he selling out behind our backs? I think of him as a shape shifter, and I do NOT appreciate him at ALL.
Hey choicelady, I would say just the reverse, ha. I hated him under Clinton, but started giving him an ear because lately thinking there was some sort of wisdom achieved unlike Carville from the mistakes of Clinton, and age. So forgive me when I say ‘see this is the shit that is wrong on the hill today.’ We’ve been bent over by dems/gop that went in and joined the darkside that I am disgusted by congressional common sense, (shhhhh…term limits.) After gw I just figured he was the best the DNC can offer better than rove.
You are so right about shapeshifting but isn’t that compromise, working with both sides of the isle, listening to all America, all the shit talk that pushes my buttons. This is what I love about WI and thugs like MM, no prisoners, let down the class war and the gop picks up the flag.
Talking about the Tea Party running out of steam.
They held some Tea Party pro-gun rally at the state Capitol yesterday. And the reporters outnumbered the people in the rally:
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_29e2c986-4671-11e0-924a-001cc4c03286.html
OH…that’s funny….hopefully they are running out of steam!
Pepe– I said they were a flash in the pan months ago, but I can now admit I only half believed myself. Now I know it’s true. They’ll linger for a while, but I bet by 2016 they will be forgotten.
What gets me is that they have been such a powerful force. At the same time, we know that they are a small percentage of the RW base. And I think that is one reason that Progressives are so frustrated that WE–the same percentage of the Dem base– are not listened to.
But I tell myself this: We see that the big majority of the country will not vote for them again. If the Dems only listened to the Left, we’d be in that same spot. Unhappily, I think this is a center-right country.
MAYBE, it’s because I just got home from an almost 3 hour statistics class; BUT I realized this afternoon, while reading Cher’s daily rundown, that I don’t usually comment on the content, because by the time I am done reading all the wonderful articles, I have SO many different thoughts, I can’t keep them all straight.
SO today, as I was reading, I took notes! 🙂
On Boehner and SSI….NO SSI is NOT the problem! If more Americans understood THAT, and understood the games the GOP is playing with the program and the FEAR mongering, they are employing…most Americans would tell the GOP to shut the f up! But sadly, too many don’t really understand government finance nor how the program actually works.
Robert Reich….I really like him. He tries so hard to get the proper message out…but sadly NOT enough people are actually listening! Wages have been stagnant for decades and are now TOO low for families in the US. COST of living is a FACTOR, that the media, politicians and the public ignores CONSTANTLY! THIS drives me ape shit batty. Even when comparing our wages to the 3rd world, one needs to factor in COST OF LIVING. AND another annoying thing often ignored is the Compensation of those at the top of these same organizations who are paying rank and file workers next to nothing, in comparison to what they are taking from the pie!
AND sadly most American’s just don’t get this! There was that poll not to long ago, which showed that most Americans completely UNDERESTIMATE the true level of income inequality in this nation!
Another bone of contention…which brings me to the fucking media and When I say media, I don’t just mean the supposed news. I’m talking ALL of it, movies, TV, Magazines, Ads, etc. THE gamut of information that is provided to the public…it all paints a FALSE picture of the reality of our lives in the US. Goebbels would be SO proud!
My favorite line on the media article was ‘Economic nonsense is being reported as fact”, while the article was referring to Wisconsin, this could be true for ALL economic news. GOOBLYGOOK, coming out of the mouths of IDIOTS without the slightest understanding of macroeconomic THEORIES is constantly being passed off as FACT! UGH!!!!!!!! Makes me want to go postal!
And Eugene Robinson is right…this is not the time to be cutting spending…WE have a friggin consumer economy! Spending is key to keeping it going! Regardless who does the spending. Stopping spending causes further deterioration to the economy! YIKES!
And lastly, I HATE the current GOP! They are nothing but liars and power hungry charlatans doing their masters (corporate Execs) bidding. THIS is not the party it once was. While I was never a fan of the GOP and didn’t agree with much of their ideas…I never hated them before 2000. I didn’t like them and disagreed with them…but didn’t out right hate them and what they were doing to our country…THE GOP of today, are a bunch of lying hypocrites and for the life of me, I don’t understand how so many CAN’T see what they are! Look at Walker as a prime example. The man is an idiot!
I’m in the same boat, Abby. My head is full of thoughts as I’m reading, but by the end my brain is going in too many directions to focus on just one item…
Oh, Abby– that gave me a good chuckle of recognition. I take notes on everything! I think it’s maybe because we are basically life-long students. If I could, I would have never graduated–just take classes eternally.
About SSI– Finally the media is putting it out there that there is no big problem. But why are we always reactive, instead of saying that from the get-go? Imagine how different if people had been hearing that SS is safe for months and the GOP had to try to convince them otherwise only now.
Same issue about the economic LIES everyone is told. I wonder if part of our messaging problem is that as progressives, we cannot imagine that anyone would outright LIE. Why would we even need to put out information that we assume (incorrectly) everyone already knows? Big mistake. We assume people are reasonable and fairly aware. Another big mistake.
Cher, that is a great point about the lying. I have a hard time accepting that people lie. I really do. That is a really good thought….I never thought of it that way before. I think you are on to something!
Abby, There’s probably a better explanation but the scenario is always the same:
The GOP puts out an outrageous talking point lie about something the dems propose or do, and the media runs with it for a few weeks. At first we can’t believe they just said that (think death panels), then we scoff privately, then we get furious, And only then do rebuttals start to appear from the Left. We lose months!
I think we need to look at everything proposed and try to think how it will be lied about and distorted. And say that from day one. (If we can even begin to imagine what they will lie about, that is.)
It’s like a sane person trying to anticipate what a certified lunatic will think of next.