RIP, Bernie Mac

by folkbum

I'm at the age now where 50 does not seem a reasonable age to die. Especially of something like pneumonia.

Pigs Fly -- WSJ Runs Pro-Obama Editorial

By Keith Schmitz
From the GOP House Organ:

Looks like Obama does have a plan to lower pump prices, and it is not the imbecilic drill, drill, drill...drill.

Obama is pushing for a stronger dollar, and the WSJ gives Obama points for that. Of course what the Murdock Street Journal may not like is to achieve it in part, Obama hopes to bring the budget more into balance by jettisoning the tax treats for the tax cheats.

As Woody Allen once said, "the lion shall lie with the lamb, and the lamb won't get much sleep."

Now it looks like McCain is beginning to loose his cheering squad.

Watch for more fraying around the edges.

Affairs

by folkbum

John Edwards has joined the likes of Newt Gingrich and John McCain: Presidential aspirants or candidates, for whom I did not vote and for whom I will never vote, who cheated on their ailing wives and then lied about it. Sickening.

Olympians

By 3rd Way

I like the Olympics. A recent review of their charter confirmed my admiration. Their charter states under the “fundamental principles of Olympism” Point One: Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles. Point Two: The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. Point Four: The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. The organisation, administration and management of sport must be controlled by independent sports organisations.

The thing I don’t I like about the Olympics, other than that whole rewarding-a-Communist-country-with-deplorable-human-rights-and-trade-policies thing, is the sense of elitism. Does anyone out there know somebody that is a synchronized swimmer? How many people can afford to own, train and compete with a show jumping horse? Who out there can afford to own and train with a racing sailboat?

There is a barrier between many of the world’s children and sports participation. Football (or soccer) is the most popular sport in the world because it is easily accessible. All you need is a ball and a place to kick it. A world event should showcase sports that everyone can participate in. As the world’s population moves into cities, the Olympics should showcase more sports that are practiced in the urban environment. I bet nobody knows a Pentathelete, but everybody knows a kid that rides or has ridden a skateboard.

Kids from all different backgrounds all over the globe ride skateboards. It is as easily accessible as soccer. All you need is a skateboard and a place to ride it. If the Olympic committee wants to meet the points of their charter and “blend sport with culture and education” and promote the “possibility of practicing sport” for all individuals, is there a better sport to promote than skateboarding?

If there was an American Olympic Skateboarding team the best athlete from Milwaukee that you have never heard of would have a good chance of making it. The video below is of Greg Lutzka skating the streets of Milwaukee before he left the city and became one of the top professional skateboarders in the country. It is pretty cool to see amazing tricks pulled off around recognizable landmarks.

Conventions

by folkbum

folkbum's rambles and rants key team member Keith Schmitz is going to Denver later this month for the Democratic National Convention, and he expects to send regular updates. I'm really quite excited about it.

Also, an old ally Nick Catalano, who was in the thick of the Dean campaign back in 2004 while still in high school, is trying to get to the convention, too, as a College Democrat. But he needs a little bit of coin to make it happen. He also made a widget:



And while I'm at it, I'll add that Sean Hackbarth, with whom I disagree about pretty much everything, is trying to pay his way to the Republican National Convention. He wants more than Nick's $300; you can help him here.

Titles

by folkbum

I've been trying one-word titles. Blogger uses the titles in post URLs, and sometimes they can get a little windy. Here's a post URL of mine from last month, juxtaposed with one from earlier today:
http://folkbum.blogspot.com/2008/07/magic-of-context-ii-obama-explains-his.html
http://folkbum.blogspot.com/2008/08/waste.html

Not that anyone ever types out URLs anymore, but I thought I'd give it a whirl for a while. Lemme know if you got a problem wid it.

Retail Counter Intuitive

By Keith R. Schmitz

American Apparel is taking their grunge appeal clothing line to China.

What's the big deal?

Wal-Mart and other retailers for years now have been selling us cheap Chinese goods. Though they are promising us low prices it is a circular scam with millions of American losing high paying jobs to China and elsewhere having to shop at places like Wal-Mart because our working folks are making minimum wage if they are lucky to get a job.

American Apparel is swimming against the tide, importing their made in LA clothing to the Chinese.

Company CEO Dov Charney said the company would pay sales clerks in the Chinese stores hourly wages exceeding the U.S. minimum of $5.85, which in some parts of China is more than a worker makes in a day.

Here's the interesting part. AA will be paying their Chinese clerks above minimum US wages. Bear in mind what the average Chinese gets paid. My wife and I visited a hutung in Beijing and met a couple who were making $100 a month. Their college educated daughter who works in IT gets $300 a month.

We hired a driver for the full day who had a late model Audi and charged us $45 a day.

American Apparel was looking to open in time for the Olympics, but dealing with the 13 layers of bureaucracy has put a crimp in their plans.

The expansion into China, first reported by trade publications Women's Wear Daily and DNR, could lead to the opening of five stores there by year's end, Charney said. The first three shops will open this spring, he said.

"Once we see the momentum in one store -- it's going to be fluid -- we'll open another," he said. "We think, over time, there's going to be a class of metropolitan adults who will appreciate exactly what we do."

Heckles

by folkbum

That liberal media is at it again:

Officials of the U.S. Secret Service say there is nothing they could have done to avoid an incident yesterday in which Barack Obama was heckled by a strangely behaving man in the press section during an appearance at an Ohio college.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was beginning a town-hall style meeting at Baldwin-Wallace College when John Quinn, a freelance photographer on assignment for Bloomberg News, interrupted him by calling on him to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Senator Obama went along and led the crowd through the pledge.

Mr. Quinn subsequently refused to give his name to other journalists in the press pen. A video of the incident shows Mr. Quinn shoving his hand into camera lenses, shouting at other reporters, and responding to requests for his name and press affiliation by saying, “I was speaking as John Q. Public.”

I just don't know what we should do about the liberal media. I mean, it just seems like they can't be stopped! Although it does sound like Obama handled the incident pretty well:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came to Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea Tuesday afternoon to talk about his energy policies, as he had earlier in the day in Youngstown.

But before he could delve into the topic, a man in the press photo gallery interrupted him, shouting complaints that the Illinois senator had not started the program with the Pledge of Allegiance. Many in the packed gymnasium murmured and some booed the disruption, but Obama took the heckler in stride and asked him to lead the pledge.

The crowd rose to its feet, Obama placed his hand over his heart and everyone recited the pledge. Obama thanked the man, who was not removed by campaign staff, and returned to his speech.

I haven't been to any McCain town halls or speeches yet this season--does anyone know if McCain makes a point of starting always with the Pledge of Allegiance, or is it just Obama that has to live up to that standard?

ACORN

by folkbum

If you read the right-wing blogs or listen to talk radio, I'm sorry you have to put up with that. Also, you probably heard about this story, that the "activitst" community organizing group ACORN noticed that a dozen or so of the 220 people it hired to register voters in Milwaukee were turning in voter registration cards that were either incomplete in some way or outright phony:

Criminal investigations could be launched against at least six voter registration workers who tried to add dead, imprisoned or imaginary people to the voter rolls, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission and the organization that employed them.

Officials are reviewing some 200 to 300 fraudulent voter registration cards, Sue Edman, the commission’s executive director, said Wednesday.

And even though the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now caught the fraud and reported it before the cards were turned in, the incident revived a four-year-old partisan debate over the integrity of Wisconsin’s voter registration process, as political groups step up efforts to sign up voters for the Nov. 4 presidential election. [. . .] ACORN found the problems and fired a dozen workers, Castore said. Five of them appeared to be working together, she added.

But under state law, all of the voter registration cards collected had to be turned in to the election commission, even if they were clearly fraudulent or incomplete, Edman said. ACORN sent in all the cards its workers had submitted, but flagged the fraudulent or incomplete ones.

Edman said she has referred six individuals to the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office for investigation. More could be referred within the next few days, after the commission staff finishes its review of the registration cards, she said.

Castore said her group would cooperate fully with any official investigation. A prosecutor in the district attorney’s white-collar crime unit did not return a call seeking comment.

Another 1,500 to 2,000 voter registration cards were incomplete, and ACORN is trying to help the commission staff fill in the blanks, Castore said.

The righties, predictably, flipped out. It was "attempted voter fraud," or "just a little vote fraud." "ACORN [is] making it up again," one said. One referred to ACORN's "fraudulent techniques," one called ACORN "America's favorite voter fraud organization," and another implied that ACORN was "out there [. . .] actively trying to undermine the system." Flipping out, I tell you.

But that's because all those people apparently can't read. I'll quote some of that story again, this time with bold print:

Criminal investigations could be launched against at least six voter registration workers who tried to add dead, imprisoned or imaginary people to the voter rolls, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission and the organization that employed them. [. . . T]he Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now caught the fraud and reported it before the cards were turned in [. . .]. ACORN found the problems and fired a dozen workers [. . .]. ACORN sent in all the cards its workers had submitted, but flagged the fraudulent or incomplete ones. Castore said her group would cooperate fully with any official investigation. [. . .]

Another 1,500 to 2,000 voter registration cards were incomplete, and ACORN is trying to help the commission staff fill in the blanks, Castore said.

Got that? ACORN identified their own workers breaking the law and fired them. ACORN turned over the evidence of the lawbreaking to the city officials. ACORN is trying to help city officials straighten out the mess, and ACORN will cooperate with the criminal investigation that rightly will follow.

(UPDATE: To make it more clear, here is the AP article on the story: "ACORN [. . .] employees reviewed forms turned in by canvassers before submitting them to the commission, Castore said. She said about 96 percent of the forms turned out to be legitimate. 'If there was any suspicion of either fraudulent activity or just really sloppy work, we terminated them, and we informed the elections commission,' Castore said. 'We were catching it.' [Milwaukee election commissioner Sue] Edman agreed the group uncovered most of the problems.")

But who are the rightie-tighties blaming for all of this? ACORN, of course--and many of them are not mincing their words at all in accusing the group of purposely perpetrating fraud. That's not only factually inaccurate, it's probably actionable libel. Too bad they couldn't bother to read what actually happened to see that ACORN here is doing the right thing, the legal thing, the ethical thing. Those who lie about what ACORN is doing are the ones who are frauds.

Waste

by folkbum

From the tree-huggers (the "today" references are actually to yesterday):

As John McCain is paying a visit today to the Enrico Fermi nuclear generating station in Monroe, Michigan he can be expected to tout his costly plan to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 and 55 more after that. This plan would effectively double the number of nuclear reactors and the amount of dangerous high-level nuclear waste that would need to be transported across the country.

The Sierra Club is today calling attention to the YouTube video that surfaced earlier this year which shows John McCain clearly saying—while shaking his head ‘no’—that he would not be comfortable with nuclear waste traveling through his own home state of Arizona on its way to the unsafe and unproven Yucca Mountain site—something for which John McCain has been one of the Senate’s biggest proponents.

The video can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPlaHQCKc34

Transcript (beginning at 1:14): Interviewer: What about the transportation? Would you be comfortable with nuclear waste coming through Arizona on its way, you know going through Phoenix, on its way to uh Yucca Mountain? McCain (Shaking Head): “No, I would not. No, I would not.”

“Why does John McCain think it’s ok for hundreds of tons of dangerous nuclear waste to go through Wisconsin but yet too dangerous to go through his own state?” said Rosemary Wehnes, Midwest Associate Rep. “John McCain simply can’t have it both ways when it comes to the nuclear waste issue. Right now he supports running shipments of dangerous nuclear waste through Wisconsin and sticking Nevadans with 77,000 tons of it forever, while at the same time saying he’s uncomfortable with it going through his own backyard for even a day.”

The bulk of Wisconsin nuclear waste (185 casks) would be transported through Milwaukee, including waste shipped via Lake Michigan into the Port of Milwaukee.

The Sierra Club also pointed out that the very nuclear plant that Senator McCain is visiting today once suffered a partial meltdown. Indeed, a book about the incident is entitled “We Almost Lost Detroit.”

Now, you may not live near the Port of Milwaukee. I do. I feel roughly the same about the transport of nuclear waste through my neighborhood as McCain does about waste going through his.

The idea of nuclear energy is so tempting. There's no spew of particulates into the air. The supply of fuel is considerably closer to infinite than coal or natural gas or pagan babies or whatever it is We Energies is using now that's so expensive they keep jacking up our rates. But there is that whole thing about how the waste sticks around for, you know, centuries. That and the meltdowns. I just don't think the risks are worth saving the pagan babies, or diverting development funds from stuff that won't kill us or mutate our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren into Chuds. (Not that T. Boone's wind-farm windfall is anything but total BS.)

That McCain's a bit of a hypocrite about the matter is just an unsurprising kicker.

Anniversary

by folkbum

How are you celebrating?

Today marks seven years since the day President Bush received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” [. . .] At the time, Bush was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, TX and stayed on vacation the rest of August 2001. [. . .] The day after he received the memo, “Bush seemed carefree as he spoke about the books he was reading, the work he was doing on his nearby ranch, his love of hot-weather jogging, his golf game and his 55th birthday,” the Washington Post noted. Today — 2,557 days later — Bin Laden still remains free and “determined to strike in U.S.”

And let's not forget just how upset Bush was about the memo--so upset he started swearing at his staff:

[A]fter Bush was briefed by a CIA officer on the memo, Bush replied, "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

Overheard

by folkbum

On the Minneapolis to Milwaukee leg of the flight home Monday, we sat in front of an older Wisconsin couple whose third seatmate was flying into Wisconsin from California. Waiting for pushback from the terminal, as I busied myself with the in-flight crossword puzzle, I could overhear the conversation between the Wisconsin man and the California woman. It didn't take long to get to gas prices and taxes, and the man launched into full GOP Talking Points mode.

"Oh, Wisconsin's taxes are horrible, we got the fifth highest taxes in the nation," he said. This seemed to surprise the woman. He started on a litany of this and that and the other that gets tacked onto your Wisconsin tax bill. He claimed that 75 cents per gallon was the state gas tax (it's closer to 30 cents; California's gas tax is actually the highest in the nation). And so on.

I bit my tongue and just let the guy harangue himself out.

A few moments later, the woman asked about snow, and whether it was hard to get around in the winter with so much snow on the ground. Without even a single ounce of irony, the anti-tax, anti-government Wisconsin man said, "Oh, no, it's great. Every county has plows and they get the roads clear right away. Even a little bit of snow," he said, "and they're out there salting and keeping the roads plowed and passable. They do a great job."

I nearly fainted.

68th

by folkbum

Another front in the battle over whether gender differences are innate or cultural:

Ruth Marcus, a Washington Post columnist, thinks that it is the lack of political ambition which keeps women away from participating in political life. It's not discrimination that keeps the number of American women in Congress at 16 percent; the problem, she writes, is that women have an "inner glass ceiling": a tendency to give up too soon and too easily, a tendency to shirk away from the feistiness of political battles, a tendency to underrate their own abilities.

Marcus learned this from a recent Brookings Institute study by Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, which is summarized like this: "In this report, we argue that the fundamental reason for women's under-representation is that they don't run for office. There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition; men tend to have it and women don't." [. . .]

[T]he United States ranks 68th in the world in the proportion of women in national legislatures. Either 67 countries have women with more ambitious genes or both cultural values and the institutional aspects of political systems matter.

Among the other startling statistics that you will learn when you, as they say, read the whole thing, is that only 24% of state legislators in the country are women. We have an opportunity to move those numbers a little bit, as there are a number of great Democratic women running as challengers or for open seats in the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate this fall. Consider supporting them through my ActBlue page, or visit them individually:

• Allison Page, SD-10
• Jessica King, SD-18
• Tara Johnson, SD-32
• Sandra Pasch, AD-22
• Sarah Bruch, AD-30
• Trish O'Neil, AD-47
• Penny Bernard-Schaber, AD-57
• Kristen Dexter, AD-68
• Mary Trip, AD-73
• Kris Wisnefske, AD-80
• Kelda Helen Roys, AD-81
• Judy Reas, AD-87
• Lou Ann Weix, AD-90
• Remy Ceci, AD-91
• Cheryl Hancock, AD-94
• Ruth Page Jones, AD-97

Also, I want to add Chris Sinicki, a solid progressive Democrat who is being challenged by an anti-woman Bob Jones University alumnus (partially funded by the anti-Catholic former Republican state senator Tom Reynolds) in the Democratic primary. I will also point out that we have two great women running in the primary for the first Congressional District, Paulette Garin and Marge Krupp. All of them could use your support!

Zip Code

By Keith R. Schmitz

The sagely Republican David Gergen hits the nail right on the head about the schoolyard mocking of Obama by pointing out "the Senator (McCain) was using coded messaging to paint Barack Obama as "outside the mainstream" and "uppity."

There has been a very intentional effort to paint him as somebody outside the mainstream, other, 'he's not one of us,'" said Gergen, who has worked with White Houses, both Republican and Democrat, from Nixon to Clinton. "I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background. We all understand that. When McCain comes out and starts talking about affirmative action, 'I'm against quotas,' we get what that's about.

Glad someone is calling out these people.

Elitist Candidate Leading Among the Bitter

Keith R. Schmitz

Hey label makers in the McCain campaign and in right wing fantasyland, here's a new one you can lay on Barack Obama -- working class hero.

If you want to get your fix for legends, prowl the right wing blogs and consume only GOP advertising that tells you the Barack is an empty celeb.

Unfortunately research comes crashing into the walls of the country club, this time revealing the Obama is favored by McCain by low-income voters by 2 to 1.

These folks may be bitter, and for good reason because this country is not in truth fulfilling its promise of opportunity for all. Sure you can cite examples of individuals wiggling out of the straitjacket of poverty, but these are far too often the exception and not the rule as the facts show.

This also gives a blow to the view of some (yours truly at times) that these folks vote against their self interest.

Well it looks like they wont. The trick now is to find ways to get them out to the polls and to thwart the GOP in key states from finding ways to disenfranchise them.

Vacation

by folkbum

I may well be the only man on the planet ever to spend a week in the Pacific Northwest and come back with a sunburn. Anyway, I'm back. What did I miss?

Leakers -- GOP Attacks Full of Hot Air

By Keith R. Schmitz

They just can't help themselves. The savaging of Obama is reaching new depths of the inane, and of course if he attempts to defend himself Sykes and others in talk radio whine "race card." But of course Charlie is supposed to be a NASCAR fan to cozy up with his radio crowd since he isn't an elitist, or at least he'll tell you that over a fine glass of wine.

Obama gives out some common sense advice on how to save energy, and this is what he gets (from Crooks and Liars):

“[Obama] suggested we put air in our tires to save on gas,” McCain told a group of voters. “My friends, let’s do that, but do you think that’s enough to break our dependence on Middle Eastern oil? I don’t think so.”

Well, Obama didn’t say we could break our dependence if we inflated our tires; he said we could save money and improve fuel efficiency. It won’t “break our dependence on Middle Eastern oil” if we open up more of America’s coastlines to oil drilling, either, but it’s suddenly become the basis for McCain’s entire energy policy.

But it seems Republicans really are worked up about this tire thing. Newt Gingrich went on about it on Fox News.

While Gingrich ranted, you could hear one of the Fox News personalities laughing a bit, as if the notion of routine auto maintenance, as a method of improving energy efficiency, was necessarily hilarious.

This clownarchy peddles this nonsense which passes for political dialogue to their sheeple viewers. The sad thing is rather than leaving the attacks to slimy surrogates, the once respected (for whatever reason) John McCain is doing the dirty work himself and may soon come off as bitter.

Bear in mind the small minds on the right still continue this "Al Gore says he invented the Internet" stupidity when he never said he did, but very much did help it come into being.


Why do they do this nonsense? Oh yeah I forgot. They have nothing of benefit for the American people.

The Iceman Runneth

By Keith R. Schmitz

This post on Huffington Post by Milwaukean, movie script writer and frequent Morning Joe guest John Ridley hits the nail on the head so well that I offer it up:

Damn You Obama For Being So Cool!

Oh for the halcyon Eschaton-mongering days of the Daisy girl ads.

Give me, please, the salacious insidiousness of the Swiftboat Vets for Truth.

Give me any of that over McCain's low: the Britney/Paris/Obama ad.

And I don't mean low as in: low-class, cheap shot and underhanded. I mean low as in: "I pay you guys all that money, and this is the best you can come up with?"

The best political ads have always had text and subtext; the obvious and the arcane. The obvious text of B/P/O is: "would you all stop loving this guy so much, please!" The whole ad seems like an open admission by Camp McCain that, yes, Obama is young and hip and cool, and our guy has trouble ripping songs onto his iPod unless his grandkids are around to help him.

But the subtext is where the ad doesn't even get going. Contrast it with the infamous Willie Horton ads. The subtext there was: Watch out! Mike Dukakis is gonna let dark-skinned people break into your houses and deflower your ivory wives and daughters.

But the most fear the B/P/O can monger is: Watch out! These guys are going to get all the good tables at Le Bernardin, and you know I got knocked down five spots on the list to get my new Ferrari California because of one of them.

The ad openly admits what we already know: that Obama is a superstar.

And no matter whatever other racial difficulties America may have, it's got no problem with its superstars of color. Tiger or Denzel or Will Smith or Michael Jordan, for which the phrase "I want to have his baby" was created. Like a teenage girl Camp McCain has basically scotch taped a Tiger Beat Poster of Obama to the wall of America's bedroom so that we may now all sit, stare and coo "Isn't he dreamy?"

But this lameness is not limited to McCain. To this day -- though certainly seasoned with some racism -- the only strategy that seemingly anyone can come up with to wield against Obama involves admitting he's better than them. You know; he's that lucky black man who actually appeals to the populace. He's that elitist who got himself off food stamps and into Harvard. He's the arrogant guy who would hang out at country clubs...if he wasn't so busy playing pick-up games of basketball.

He's like a wealthy heiress, and I know 'cause I got me one!

While some take offense at the ad, not me baby. Oh happy day when the enemies of ascendancy have got to confess that people of color rock.

The only thing that's going to make me happier is when Camp McCain runs the Bea Arthur/Jack Klugman ad announcing that uncool is the new cool.

Media figures shall not gush and fawn over politicians

Or so they have been telling us.

Esperanza Unida's shafting of their workers goes on and on

via Global Girl - How about no more air-trips to Turkey for the Esperanza Unita's executive director, Robert Miranda, until Esperanza Unita pays their workers?

From today's MJS: Esperanza Unida's payroll problems continue under Miranda's administration:

Mark Freund, a former welding instructor and manager at Esperanza Unida, said he wasn’t in a position not to get paid, or to get paid late.

After repeated delays, he complained to the state Department of Workforce Development when his paycheck was 19 days late. After finally getting his check July 21, he said, he agreed to be laid off. But pay problems continue at the south side job training agency, where remaining workers still don’t get their checks on time. ... Maria Franco, hired a year ago as fund development administrator, said Esperanza owed her $1,000 in back pay, and $500 in vacation pay for about a month. Franco, who has worked for other Latino nonprofits, said she agreed June 27 to go on layoff, but returned the next week to finish her work. She said she was handed a three-day suspension for insubordination and escorted out. Later she received written notice from executive director Robert Miranda that she had been fired. ...“I don’t talk about disgruntled workers or their allegations. It’s a personnel matter,” he said Wednesday.

Miranda did confirm that staff members were not paid on schedule last week.

Maybe if Miranda, and his attorney, and his Board Chair, were not spending so much time disparaging progressives in Esperanza Unida's frenzied quest for electoral office, they would not be screwing over their workers so badly.