This is fantastic, and will be killer if they can scale it up:
Daily Archives: February 15, 2010
Monday Open Thread
It’s Monday and it’s time for an open thread. I’m hearing that we will get more snow tonight. They are calling for only 2-4,” which in a normal year would cause a panic but now we consider that a dusting.
PR disasters in the age of Twitter:
Kevin Smith, the writer and raconteur, was recently booted from a plane for being too fat. He’s a big guy, but not so big he doesn’t fit in an airplane seat — so this looks like some weird, nasty, rude policy being pushed by Southwest Airlines. It’s an injustice, but it’s also hilarious, because Kevin Smith is the kind of guy who can turn it into a 1½ hour rant.
It’s also amusing because Smith has 1½ million followers on Twitter, and he tweeted the whole escapade. He has far more followers than Southwest Airlines, and while maybe they’re trying to say their side of the story on the airline’s blog, Smith’s readers have melted their blog down.
Joe the Plumber thinks he was used by McCain, and doesn’t like Sarah Palin anymore:
Too funny:
Wurzelbacher touched on several different points during his speech, and many of them were surprising. He said he doesn’t support Sarah Palin anymore. Why? Because she’s backing John McCain’s re-election effort. “John McCain is no public servant,” he told the room, calling the 2008 Republican nominee a career politician.
I pointed out he’d just be plain old Sam Wurzelbacher of Ohio — Joe the Plumber wouldn’t exist – without McCain. His response was blunt. “I don’t owe him s—. He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it.”Wurzelbacher said, “McCain was trying to use me. I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy.”
So Joe the Plumber traveled around the country solely because McCain touted him as the everyman. McCain is responsible for unleashing this know-nothing on the nation and now he’s complaining that people have figured out he’s a phony. I’m so sad for him.
Breaking: Sen. Evan Bayh to Retire
Here’s the Washington Post report.
Bayh was a DINO who never took a bold position on anything, unlike his father, Birch Bayh, who was an early opponent of the Vietnam War.
The money (literally & figuratively) quote:
“After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned,” Bayh will say.
What’s the over/under on how soon his lobbying career begins? My prediction: It already has.
Coons for Senate’s Bad Start
I just got an email from the Coons campaign. The topic of the email was PayGo. Seriously?
Look, I like the idea of PayGo, but here’s how Coons puts it:
Every week, I’m watching Congress debate incredibly important issues that impact Delaware, even though they often don’t get much press attention. Last week, the House of Representatives voted to reinstate “pay-as-you-go” rules. It doesn’t sound exciting, but these rules make it much more difficult for Congress to increase spending or cut taxes unless they also vote for a way to pay for it. It’s an important tool to keep Congress from over-spending or enacting reckless tax cuts, and when George Bush and his congressional allies abolished these rules in 2003, it paved the way for the massive budget deficits that have troubled us for years.
As someone who has introduced tough budgets as New Castle County Executive, I’m troubled by these deficits; as Delaware’s Senator, I’d fight to keep “pay as you go” rules. Indeed, I was disappointed to see every Republican member of Congress vote against these common-sense rules.”We need leaders willing to make the tough calls, especially when taxpayer money is on the line.
How many times does Coons mention Mike Castle? Zero. He doesn’t mention that Mike Castle is a Republican member of the US House. I guess that we are supposed to infer that Castle is one of the useless Republicans that opposed PayGo. It’s looking like Coons isn’t serious about kicking Mike Castle’s ass to win this.
Look, Chris, if you want to win this, you have to point out that Mike Castle votes against the interest of Delawareans time and time again. You have to challenge Castle at every turn. You have to point out his hypocrisy every chance you get. Failure to do that, sends the message that you are just running to hold down the fort for Democrats, not trying to win the damn thing.
Utah Considering Plan To Make 12th Grade… Optional
Is it any wonder we have an education problem?
The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade…
…Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
This proposal strikes me as odd, especially coming from a group that constantly uses Think about the children mantra along with their critiques on the problems with public education. My first thought when reading this was… if children have completed their required classes by Junior year why not up the requirements?
And while I don’t dispute “Senorits” exists, I do question the priorities. It’s as if we’re willing to sacrifice the future generation for the present generation. God forbid we raise taxes when we could simply lower the education bar to save money. I’ll say it again, if Senior year is considered a waste of time why not add value?
That said, given we’re living in a time when a degree from Harvard or Stanford is something to sneer at I can’t say I’m surprised by this proposal. Although I am having trouble reconciling the Right’s disdain for intelleckchewals with their I’m proud of my Honor Student bumper stickers. There’s a big disconnect here, and I have to wonder what message their children are receiving. Mixed? Study hard, but getting into Harvard sucks?
It just seems to me that instead of promoting a way to get kids to ditch school our efforts would be better spent in finding ways to make Senior year really matter. As my Conservative friends like to say, the children are our future – not that they walk the talk when it comes to valuing intelligence or science, but it does fit ever-so-nicely on a bumper sticker.
Absolutely Free Advice For Chris Coons, Part 1
Part 1 – New Media
On the blogs, we all act as armchair pundits. Many people think our advice is worth what you pay for it, but the blogs do provide an insight into what the netroots is thinking. The netroots is fairly small compared to the whole Democratic party, but it does have outsize influence and is a source of money and “buzz.” So, what can Chris Coons do to generate some excitement in the netroots and translate that into the grassroots? Here’s my take:
Rock the New Media
What do I mean by new media? I mean blogs, social networking and You Tube.
— Hire at least one, possibly more aides to monitor and post on blogs. The blogs I recommend be monitored daily, if not more are the following: Daily Kos, Open Left, Think Progress, Fivethirtyeight, Talking Points Memo and Paul Krugman’s Conscience of a Liberal. Pundits to follow would include Ezra Klein (health care reform), Jonathan Cohn (health care reform), Glenn Greenwald (civil liberties), Spencer Ackerman (international policy) and TV pundits Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. If you monitor these people you will definitely know what is exciting the netroots.
— Sign up for a Twitter account. Use it! Use the account to direct followers to articles of interest (Castle does this), position papers, appearances and hopefully give everyone a taste of your personality.
— Use Facebook. For an example of how Facebook was used effectively, look at Rob Robinson’s campaign. He used Facebook to contact his followers about events and opportunities for volunteering. I thought it was quite effective.
— Hire a videographer. Have your videographer record your public appearances and put them on You Tube. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I say a video is worth a thousand op-eds. Have your videographer tape Mike Castle’s public appearances as well. You want to know what he’s saying and also if he makes a gaffe, you want to be able to take advantage of it. Also, be prepared for Mike Castle’s team to have a videographer follow you as well.
Part 2 will be published tomorrow and will discuss the issues that motivate the netroots.
Now it’s your turn. Is my advice good or bad? What advice would you give Chris Coons regarding the new media? What blogs and pundits have I left off the list? The floor is yours.
Rachel Maddow Takes On Congressman On Stimulus Hypocrisy
Rachel Maddow is rapidly becoming must-see TV. Sunday she was on Meet the Press and took on Rep. Aaron Shock (R-IL). Also notice how David Brooks at the end whines about the televised health care summit.
MR. GREGORY: Congressman Schock, where are the Republicans going to be on this?
REP. SCHOCK: Well, look, I think, unfortunately, it’s more of the same. I mean, all of this talk about bipartisanship, and yet the rhetoric doesn’t match the reality. As David Brooks mentioned, there was some, some Republicans who worked with Democrats in the Senate to come up with a jobs bill only to have their leadership put the kibosh on it. We, we are for creating long-term economic growth. You do that by incentivizing entrepreneurialism, risk taking, and investment. You do that through creating certainty in the markets through certain tax incentives. And that’s where we’ll be on a jobs bill.
MR. GREGORY: So it sounds like you’re–you like what the Democrats are doing here?
REP. SCHOCK: Well, I don’t like all the pork that was in the bill. Seven hundred eighty-seven billion dollar stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in, in history, one of the reasons why it didn’t create long-term growth is it didn’t have stimulative tax cuts in it, but rather a lot of pork and spending.
MS. MADDOW: Which are the least stimulative things in the stimulus. I mean, when you assess what creates jobs, in the stimulus band it’s the tax cuts that were put in in order to try to win Republican votes that didn’t come anyway that are the least effective thing in the stimulus bill. So the theory doesn’t match the practice here.
But, I mean, you, in your district…
REP. SCHOCK: Well, I, I can assure you…
MS. MADDOW: …just this week you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district. You voted against the bill that created that grant. And so that’s happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do, and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them. That’s, I think, a, a, a problem that needs to be resolved within, within your caucus, because, I mean, you seem like a very nice person, but that’s very hypocritical stance to take.
REP. SCHOCK: Well, Rachel, with all due respect, I can assure you Republicans were not consulted on the stimulus bill. That bill was filed at 11 PM the night before the 10:30 AM we began debating it. None of our amendments were considered. There was no debate and no bipartisanship on that bill.
MS. MADDOW: How about the…(unintelligible)?
MR. GREGORY: But, but answer–all right, let me, let me…(unintelligible)…Rachel, which is that the, the question about you–you’ve called for spending caps out of Washington.
REP. SCHOCK: Sure.
MR. GREGORY: But to Rachel’s point, does that mean that you will not accept any federal money that comes the way of your district?
REP. SCHOCK: No. I think that argument that liberals are making is absolutely ridiculous. With all due respect, Rachel, does that mean you’re going to give back your Bush tax cuts that you continue to rail against? The fact of the matter is our country operates and govern by a majority. And I, along with almost all of my Republican colleagues and a good number of Democrats, have voted against the stimulus, the omnibus, all of this runaway spending. But we’ve lost those battles in the House. And at the end of the day, my constituents…
MR. GREGORY: But you’ll take the money for, you’ll take the money for your district.
MS. MADDOW: Take the money and tout it…(unintelligible).
REP. FORD: Here’s, here’s, here’s a…
REP. SCHOCK: Well, let me finish. At the end of the day, my constituents and their children and grandchildren will be on the hook for the debt that’s being created by this majority…
MR. GREGORY: OK.
REP. SCHOCK: …and they deserve to have their fair share of federal spending.
MR. GREGORY: Harold’s turn.
REP. FORD: I was in Congress for 10 years. I can tell you, your party ran up a lot of debt. Matter of fact, we, we grew–from the eight years that President Bush was there, the rate of growth exceeded any other presidents in the history of the nation. So we found ourselves in a moment…
REP. SCHOCK: Until this one.
REP. FORD: Well, no, this, this president, he’s only been in a year. I know you want to blame him for everything, but you can’t blame him for quite everything yet. And I don’t want to blame President Bush, but we got to put it in context.
Two, I, I love it when Republicans talk about the desire to come around the table and work together. It was a Republican-Democrat thing that happened in the Senate. It was Grassley and Baucus, and it was Hatch and Schumer. They’re–that was the centerpiece of the, of the stimulus bill and the jobs bill that’s working its way through the Senate. But it was McConnell who told Reid the other day, “I will not work to, to, to collect any votes for this bill if you bring it to the floor.” There has to be a genuineness and a sincerity here. Republicans say they want deficit reduction and deficit control, they vote against a deficit commission. I do hope President Obama will use an executive order to create a deficit commission in spite of what Republicans may say. You can’t have it one day Monday in the morning and have a different message in the afternoon on, on, on Tuesday.
MR. BROOKS: But can I say this?
MR. GREGORY: Yeah.
REP. FORD: I think it just has to be fair. Now, Democrats deserve some blame here.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
MR. BROOKS: Yeah.
REP. FORD: But Republicans have to be, have to be honest, too.
MR. BROOKS: This conversation exemplifies what’s wrong with Washington. It’s like two guys fighting in the ocean to see who drowns first. I mean, the–it’s–both parties are responsible for the, the deficits, and both parties are responsible for the fiscal suicide. And if you look at the polls that came out–a whole bunch of polls came out this week and they show both parties very negative. Unprecedented levels of distrust in Washington. Unprecedented, historically high levels of people want to get rid of their member of Congress from both parties. A level of distrust of Washington that is absolutely unprecedented in American history. And it’s because the two sides are trying to fight each other than actually do something bipartisan or actually do anything.
MS. MADDOW: No, but…
MR. BROOKS: And so bipartisanship has become a wedge issue, a way to make the other party look bad. So bipartisanship has been twisted into just another partisan rant.
MS. MADDOW: But the issue is not bipartisanship qua bipartisanship. It’s hypocrisy. I mean, if you are for PAYGO, if you’re for a deficit commission until the president of the other party comes around for it, and then you’re against it? We’re not talking policy anymore, we’re not talking about bipartisanship. You shouldn’t be blamed for not getting Republican votes on that. That’s hypocrisy. If you vote against the omnibus bill, if you complain about the omnibus bill, if you tout your vote against the omnibus bill, it is hypocrisy to then go to your district and go to a ribbon cutting ceremony for something that’s funded by the omnibus bill that you voted against. It’s not just bipartisanship as a sort of platonic virtue.
REP. FORD: But, but…(unintelligible).
MR. BROOKS: Listen…(unintelligible)…Republicans say–I can pick up the Democratic points. If, if Obama wants to say, “I’m going to balance the budget,” and then say, “but I won’t cut taxes on the bottom 98 percent,” well, that’s also somewhat hypocritical or inconsistent. If he says…
MS. MADDOW: Or that’s focused policy.
MR. BROOKS: …”I want bipartisan health care,” but then invites the, the cameras into a bipartisan discussion and already has the plan he’s going to come with–out with after the healthcare summit, that’s also slightly political.
This is how it should be done media. I hope you’re paying attention. Interviewing doesn’t consist of reading one side’s talking points and then dropping the subject. It
Dredging the Delaware
The News Journal had an article on Sunday that tries to describe the current state of local environmental concerns about dredging this river. And this is a good article — to the extent that it provides a summary of the arguments against the dredge. I’ve still not seen any evidence provided — either in the form of a competing EIS or challenged sections about these concerns. But I still am agnostic on this project and not really interested in taking either side.
I am wondering here is there wasn’t a big, missed opportunity for some of the dirtiest areas in this river. It seems to me that an approach that would have traded permit approval with, for instance, Federal help in strong-arming the Deepwater site to clean up may have been a net win. Or conditioning permit approvals on specific habitat protections/expansions as part of the project. Or on ensuring that water/sediment flow is managed to ensure that habitat/wetlands are not damaged. After all, the vast majority of the benefits of deepening this river redound almost entirely to Pennsylvania, who has been doing the strong arming on this thing. There were likely alot of ways to get more environmental protections out of this for the Delaware portion during those years of review and delay. Not extracting some projects that may act to enhance or protect the river looks pretty shortsighted from here — as it looks as though the courts may just let this happen.
And while the court proceedings may take some time, it looks as though the Obama Administration has not provided any funds for this project in their latest budget. They didn’t provide any funds last year, either, but those funds were restored by Congress.