I’m sorry…WHAT…?!

From The Huffington Post

Despite efforts to evict the two states from the front of the presidential calendar, both managed to hang on for another election cycle that culminates with the Iowa caucuses on Thursday and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8. As a year of media attention reaches its crescendo, voters in other states are saying enough is enough.

According to a national survey conducted for The Associated Press and Yahoo News, just over half of all voters said New Hampshire and Iowa have an extraordinary amount of influence over who wins the two parties’ nominations.

Click for more

admin :: Jan.02.2008 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »

From The Huffington Post

Results of the much-anticipated Iowa caucuses are coming soon to a billboard near you.

Updates and results will be streaming on billboards at stop signs and intersections around the state Thursday — in a digital broadcast of sorts that will be the first of its kind.

Click for more

admin :: Jan.02.2008 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »

From The Huffington Post

Michael Bloomberg’s meeting with Unity ‘08 has some people speculating about whether Bloomberg and Chuck Hagel will run under that group’s banner. That raises a number of questions, such as: Would a Bloomberg/Hagel candidacy have a chance of winning? Would they be wise or foolish to join up with “Unity ‘08″ if they do run? Will they hurt the Democrats badly if they do?

Glenn Greenwald documents the excited chatter among DC insiders about this possibility - and why wouldn’t they be excited? David Broder and like-minded Beltway types have been waxing poetic about Unity ‘08 for some time now. They reckon that Americans are tired of partisan bickering and want a consensus government comprised of longterm Democratic and Republican party functionaries. Some of us have tried explaining that independents and other disaffected voters are anti-partisan, not bipartisan, but that argument’s getting no traction.

So, for anybody old enough to remember the sixties, let me break it down for you old-school style: Washington under the GOP has been one long extended mugging, going back to the “Gingrich revolution” of 1994. It’s been Altamont all over again, a crowd of bystanders beaten mercilessly by a gang of thugs with more authority than they can handle.

Anyone who has seen “Gimme Shelter” can remember how differently Mick Jagger and Keith Richards handled that situation. As unprovoked Hell’s Angels mercilessly pummeled audience members with pool cues, Mick avoided confrontation and sprinkled pious platitudes like pixie dust over the wounded and terrified crowd. “Oh, babies,” he cooed. “Can’t we stop fighting one another,” he said - as if it were a two-sided brawl and not a gang attack gone amok.

Keith, on the other hand, showed guts by taking the matter firmly in hand. “Cool it,” he said to the bikers, “or we stop playing. That guy,” he said as he pointed to one assailant, “that guy has to cut it out.” Meanwhile Mick kept crooning nonsense words. “Oh, babies, can’t we love one another?” Keith finally pointed to the head of the gang and said “Hey, you: F**k off!”

By then, unfortunately, it was too late. A mentally ill man had brandished a gun and been beaten to death. A court found that responsible guardians could have disarmed him without going to such violent extremes or hurting so many innocents. (War On Terror metaphors, anyone?)

Granted, Keith used rude language while Mick was impeccably polite. That alone would disqualify him in the eyes of the DC elite. But Mick stood by while people were beaten in his name, choosing to pretend it was a fight and not a one-way assault. Everybody associated with Unity ‘08 has taken the “Mick” position during this anti-Constitutional Republican riot. Only a Washington insider could think these are the right people to fix what’s wrong with our government.

Glenn does a good job summarizing Bloomberg’s record of Republican partisanship during the height of the gang’s assault over the last seven years. There’s also the Mayor’s systematic assault on civil liberties during the 2004 convention - not a good indicator he’s the man to clean up what’s wrong in Washington. And Matthew Yglesias explains why, although there are reasonable ways to be bipartisan, Unity ‘08 isn’t one of them.

But could a “Mick Jagger” ticket of Bloomberg and Hagel harm the Dems in 2008? That depends. If the Democratic candidate adopts a “Mick” tone, too - especially if she or he is seen as just another Washington insider - then Bloomberg/Hagel could cut into their voter share significantly, even if they’re carrying the past-their-sell-by-date insiders who formed Unity 08. And civil liberties aside, Bloomberg and Hagel might actually run a fairly decent Administration. They would be competent technocrats, and their policies might be indistinguishable from those of a triangulating Democrat.

John Edwards has been auditioning for the Keith Richards role, and doing a pretty good job of it. Barack Obama’s trying something different, articulating some Keith-like goals with Mick-like eloquence. Either of them would fare better against a GOP-plus-Bloomberg field than Hillary Clinton would - that is, unless she changes her tack more than she’s been willing to do so far.

The fact is, she and Bill have been more muted than they might have been during the last few years of Republicans Run Amok. The strongest public anger we’ve seen from Bill was directed against 9/11 Truthers, not GOP miscreants. A little “How dare you?” action could have come in mighty handy right around 2003-2006, if it had been directed against the hijackers of the Constitution and not a fringe group with no power or platform. (Although we get a glimpse of his brilliance, too, in the way he told them he’d “be glad to talk with them” if they’d let him finish his speech. That’s the compelling Bill Clinton, the same one who said Seattle WTO protesters deserved a hearing.)

So how will it all play out? It’s too early to tell, of course. But whatever happens with Bloomberg and Hagel, it won’t make sense for Democrats to feed this notion of “partisan bickering.” If they wind up acting like Mick Jaggers, the next President’s inaugural address may start with these words: “Please allow me to introduce myself …”

A Night Light
The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog
Future-While-U-Wait
RJ Eskow at the Huffington Post

Click for more

admin :: Jan.02.2008 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »

From The Huffington Post

Des Moines, Iowa

Mike Huckabee huddled with a smattering of conservative bloggers a today, in a Des Moines hotel room packed with reporters and television cameras. “The greatest secret weapon we have is over 700 dedicated bloggers to get our message out to people,” said Huckabee, who credited conservative web activists — the “RightRoots” — for catapulting him past better funded establishment candidates. “We don’t have the kind of money that other campaigns have,” he explained, “a lot of the reason is because of the 700 bloggers out there pounding away on their keyboards and hitting the send button and making magic happen.”

Huckabee was flanked by actor Chuck Norris, who continues to deliver both star power and counterpunches against Romney on the campaign trail. “It was bloggers who introduced Chuck Norris to the Huckabee campaign,” said Huckabee, recounting how Republican bloggers were the first to alert his aides to an October WorldNetDaily column announcing Norris’s endorsement. The campaign drew over half a million dollars in donations after the endorsement. Today Norris floated a proposal for a “virtual barbeque” fundraiser at his 700-acre Texas Ranch on January 20th, which would tap web activists from around the country. The bloggers in attendance, who hailed from as far as Florida, Tennessee and Texas, in addition to local Iowa activists, responded enthusiastically to the idea.

Then Huckabee and Norris jumped on a telephone conference call with web supporters, fielding questions about the campaign, education policy and how Christian values motivate Huckabee. Huckabee credited the No Child Left Behind program for showing that “Every child in every school is important as an individual,” while contending that it did not fund enough programs tailored to serve students with disabilities nor provide sufficient music and art classes, which are crucial to developing the “left and right brain of the students.”

Nick Shayko, a 22-year-old who writes a small blog, “My Life as a Christian Conservative,” said he thought Huckabee did a good job speaking with bloggers today. “He’s right on all issues hat I love is he is a conservative and part of the social conservative movement,” he added.

Mike Huckabee speaks to web activists across the country during a conference call in Des Moines on Tuesday.

Click for more

admin :: Jan.02.2008 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »

From The Huffington Post

In all the excitement over the prospect that Hillary Rodham Clinton might be our first woman president, largely overlooked is the fact that, after trying numerous other strategies, she has ended up dependent on her husband to help her win.

Her campaign had begun by tagging her, simply, “Hillary.”

She would win this thing on her own.

Click for more

admin :: Jan.02.2008 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »

From The Huffington Post

Why do children tease? Because it feels good. It’s a substitute for having money.

If you’ve been following the Writers Guild Strike, you know some intemperate things have been said.

It’s a strike, and it’s been going on for a while, and the side that’s striking can get carried away, especially when they’re so obviously being dicked around.

So, yeah, things have been said.

The writers called the producers some names, and we got sarcastic, too. We spend too much time with other sarcastic people. We forgot, in the real world, being smarmy with someone gets your face pushed in.

Like what’s happening now. In week nine. When the producers are scuttling the entire TV industry to teach us a lesson.

Take that, writers.

And, you know, shareholders.

–

I guess we were trying to be cute, too. I mean, with the videos and stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDcAwHItApY

I understand that Bob Kushell’s wife wishes he’d leave her alone. I’ve worked with Bob. I’m not sure what that has to with residuals.

(Funny guy, though.)

I’m grateful that the actors are making “Speechless” videos, but the silence and the black and white can come off a little somber.

http://speechlesswithoutwriters.com/

We’re looking for a raise, not a cure.

But I can see how can see how the celebrity videos hurt the producers’ feelings, too. They show the actors hanging out with the writers even when they’re not being paid.

Somewhere, in their injured high school hearts, the producers secretly fantasize that the actors like them, and not just for the money. They don’t. Sorry.

And by “sorry,” I mean “haha fuck you.”

And there, see? I’ve lost my temper again.

–

So, of course, the AMPTP was going to react. They might have eaten it, and negotiated a deal and restarted the industry that pays them their salaries.

But that would have meant acting like businessmen.

Instead, they revamped their website.

They put up a big ticker - like the national debt clock - and last week, when it hit $151 million, they posted this:

“It’s official: The people in charge at the WGA have led working writers into a strike that has now cost those working writers more in salary and benefits than the WGA’s organizers ever expected to gain from the strike. And the strike continues because the union’s leaders are focused on jurisdictional issues that would expand their own power, at the expense of the new media issues that working writers care most about.”

I love any paragraph that begins: “It’s official.” Official according to whom? Jehovah? The NBA? You might as well just type:

Harrumph.
Signed, A Jackass

It doesn’t even have the ambition to be the hackiest opening of all: “It was bound it happen.”

I guess the ticker is supposed to make us mad at the Guild’s leadership: “Look what they’ve made management do to us.” But it’s a little like blaming mom for all the crying. If she’d just get a grip, maybe dad wouldn’t hit her so much.

Also, this isn’t about jurisdictional issues. It’s about a multi-issue negotiation that one side keeps leaving. And “the new media issues that working writers most care about?” Those are the ones where the AMPTP has come up from an initial offer of “zero” to “$250… reducible to zero.”

But let’s look at the deeper meaning of the big number, $151 million dollars.

Let’s say the writers have lost $151 million dollars in eight weeks. (It’s official!) And let’s say that $151 million dollars is what it would have cost the producers to give us what we want. It’s a three-year contract. That’s 156 weeks. This allows us to work back from the AMPTPs own numbers - let’s see, eight goes into 156 19.5 times - and see what the AMPTP believes the WGA’s demands would cost them.

5%

According to their own moronic ticker, on their own fatuous website, the AMPTP has calculated that the WGA is asking for a raise of 5%.

Over three years.

That’s less than inflation.

So, maybe the producers want to explain to the stockholders that they’d rather shut down than pay that.

Or that they have to shut down, because they’re running the business with such catastrophic stupidity they couldn’t even afford to pay it if they wanted to.

Or maybe they just don’t care. They’re children. And it’s not their money.

–

Bob Kushell does a room bit about a genie that’s one of the four or five funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Click for more

admin :: Jan.02.2008 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »