MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
|
|
In the News
By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, Dec. 28/29, 2011
[....] Pentagon officials said they have eliminated 27 jobs for generals and admirals since March, the first time the Defense Department has imposed such a reduction since the aftermath of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize.
The cuts are part of a broader plan to shrink the upper ranks by 10 percent over five years, restoring them to the their size when the country was last at peace, before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 [....]
By Tara Parker-Pope, Dec. 28, 2011 for the Jan. 1, 2012 New York Times Sunday Magazine
[....]“What we see here is a coordinated defense mechanism with multiple components all directed toward making us put on weight,” Proietto says. “This, I think, explains the high failure rate in obesity treatment.”
While the findings from Proietto and colleagues, published this fall in The New England Journal of Medicine, are not conclusive — the study was small and the findings need to be replicated — the research has nonetheless caused a stir in the weight-loss community, adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges conventional thinking about obesity, weight loss and willpower. For years, the advice to the overweight and obese has been that we simply need to eat less and exercise more. While there is truth to this guidance, it fails to take into account that the human body continues to fight against weight loss long after dieting has stopped. This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat. [....]
By Greg Miller, Washington Post, Dec. 27/28, 2011
No excerpt will suffice; if you're interested in the topic, you need to read this. As Ta Ne-hisi Coates put it: There's a lot to chew on in Greg Miller's piece on the expansion of the drone program under Obama.
By Helene Cooper, New York Times, Dec 28/29, 2011
WASHINGTON — [....] “This is not a Lincoln bedroom guy,” said James Carville, the Democratic strategist, referring to the guest bedroom at the White House where President Bill Clinton put up supporters and donors. “In fact, he’s the anti-Lincoln bedroom guy. He doesn’t seem to relish, or even like, having politicians around.”
To many in Washington — including those, of course, who crave presidential face time — Mr. Obama’s seeming aloofness is risky. He is the nation’s politician in chief, and the presidency has always been first and foremost about politics.
“It’s about building relationships,” said Gerald Rafshoon, a television producer who was President Jimmy Carter’s communications director. “Some people are saying he’s a recluse. You don’t want that reputation. He needs to show that he likes people.” Mr. Rafshoon’s old boss, an outsider to Washington when he became president, recently wrote in his book “White House Diary” that he did not socialize enough when he was the chief executive [....]
Newt is not going away so easily it would seem.
With days to go before the Iowa caucuses, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is surging to a statistical dead heat with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, according to a new Newsmax/InsiderAdvantage poll.
The Iowa contest is now in “total and complete chaos, ” declares Insider Advantage chief pollster Matt Towery, who says this weekend’s final campaign push will be decisive.
The Newsmax/InsiderAdvantage poll shows Gingrich, Romney, and Paul in a statistical tie, with each getting 17 percent support of likely GOP voters in Iowa.
The top three candidates are followed by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum with 13 percent support; Rep. Michele Bachmann at 12 percent; Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 11 percent; and former Utah Gov. and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman with 3 percent — statistically tied in last place with an unnamed candidate.
Mitt continues his climb. 30% is within his site. Can he do it? The fallout of Newt's Virginia blunder may showing up now. There is no movement on the candidates below, except for Huntsman who has climbed back to 2%. The None/Any/No Opinion is at 16%. Iowa approaches.
What does this mean for the progressive movement in this country? Are a lot of people really liberals who just don't know it? Are we really a center-right country like the pundits keep trying to assert?
I would say that Huntsman does seem to me to represent that mythical average American, not quite liberal, not quite conservative. Sort of like Obama. In the end, I think this shows more about how people perceive theirs and the candidates ideologies, rather than reflecting actual alignments.
Americans perceive Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul as closest to themselves ideologically, and Michele Bachmann and Barack Obama as furthest away.
A USA Today/Gallup poll asked Americans to rate their own ideology -- and the ideology of the eight major presidential candidates -- on a 5-point scale with 1 being very liberal and 5 being very conservative. Americans' mean score on this scale is 3.3, meaning the average American is slightly to the right of center ideologically. Huntsman's score matches that at 3.3, but that mean rating excludes the 45% of Americans who did not have an opinion of Huntsman. Of the better known candidates, Romney's and Paul's 3.5 scores are closest to the average American's ideology.
Montana is one of nine states with provisions that say that the right of recall extends to recalling members of its federal congressional delegation, pursuant to Montana Code 2-16-603, on the grounds of physical or mental lack of fitness, incompetence, violation of oath of office, official misconduct, or conviction of certain felony offenses.
[Defense bill] H.R. 1540 ... prohibits use of Department of Defense funds to achieve LEED Gold or Platinum, with waivers possible if a cost-benefit analysis for the project can demonstrate payback. Exceptions may also be made without a special waiver if achieving Gold or Platinum “imposes no additional cost.” ...
The bill “represents a rollback of the federal government at the forefront of pushing green building and LEED,” according to green building attorney Shari Shapiro, Esq. “Over the last five years, the federal government has been one of the largest customers for LEED,” she says. Shapiro sees indications in other legislation that Congress is trying to “push back at the use of LEED particularly but also green building in general.”
The General Services Administration (GSA)... has responded to executive orders by requiring LEED Gold certification for all new construction and major renovations of federal buildings - putting GSA and Congress on a potential collision course.
[Hard to say what is driving this. Many of our private clients want us to design to LEED standards - but don't want to get enmeshed in the USGBC documentation process. At the same time, building codes are starting to incorporate LEED-like language, which would require the same efficiency without USGBC.]
Nate Silver has some interesting thoughts on the dynamics of this year's GOP caucuses.
The most interesting thing about the latest polls in Iowa (which are the basis for our forecasts) is that they essentially show a four-way tie for third place among the Republican presidential contenders, with Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all projected to receive between 11 and 14 percent of the vote.
This is especially interesting because these candidates, with the partial exception of Mr. Gingrich, have very similar platforms to one another. They are hoping for support from many of the same demographic groups, especially evangelical voters, and have struck many of the same themes in their attempts to appeal to caucusgoers.
If these candidates could somehow combine forces, they could very easily win the caucuses. Even if you exclude Mr. Gingrich from the group, Mr. Santorum, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry collectively have about 34 percent of the vote, well above the projected figure for either Ron Paul or Mitt Romney, the candidates leading the polls.
It’s fascinating to watch the long knives coming out for Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, now that according to some mainstream polls he has become the front-running candidate in the Jan. 3 GOP caucus race in Iowa, and perhaps also in the first primary campaign in New Hampshire.
Ben Nelson is hanging up his repub undercover Democratic place in history.
The Senator made Baucus look like a liberal.
But then again, a repub will most probably replace him and just filibuster every damn thing the dems would like to do.
Or the repubs take over the Senate and we can all move to Canada.
Worked for some of my anti-war friends!
Newt and Mitt are converging with a quarter of the support each. This leaves half of the field "open." The Virginia debacle doesn't seem to have wounded Newt too badly in the public national opinion so far (the delegate loss is another matter). This is the third straight day Mitt has gained a percentage point, so the question is whether he can continue this and move past the 25% percent mark. With all of the candidates totaled together, there is still 21 percent of the voters not accounted for. At this point one would have to believe many are waiting to see how the first rounds of contests go.
Frontloading HQ has an interpretation - Mitt still in charge. Surprise, surprise. This is in large part due to a number of the Super Tuesday contest have a Winner-Take-All allocation if the winner gets over 50%, which Mitt will achieve if the Bachmanns and Santorums drop out. But even if it is just Mitt vs. Ron vs. Newt, the likelihood of any of these three getting 50% is very low - in my humble of projection opinion.
Newt continues to show his plummet has ended and is leveling out with a quarter of the support. Mitt takes another uptick, narrowing the gap between him and Newt to 3, yet has yet to get back to his recent high point of 25 back in early December. Will Newt's latest blunder in Virginia begin to chisel away at his support? Now that the sprint to the Iowa finish line has begun, will the stump speeches ignite the tea party support for him? And will more exposure to Mitt begin to undermine his current showing of a mini-surge? And what about Paul, who dipped a percentage point to 12? Will an Iowa win and strong showing in NH make him an actual force to be reckoned with?
By Connie Cass, Associated Press, Dec. 23, 2011
Washington • Why do kids believe a chubby guy in a flying sleigh can deliver joy across America? Because their parents do. A whopping 84 percent of grown-ups were once children who trusted in Santa’s magic, and lots cling to it still. [....]
Two-thirds of parents with kids under 18 say Santa’s an important part of their celebrations this year. Moms, especially, have a soft spot for the man in red — 71 percent of them say he’s important, and that’s a big jump from 58 percent just five years ago.
His overall popularity is up slightly from an AP-AOL poll in 2006, before the recession hit. In these bleaker times of homes lost to foreclosure and parents sweating out their next paychecks, the poll shows Santa riding high with families both wealthy and poor. [....]
A little evidence that Newt, while suffering under the blistering gang tackle in Iowa, has been able to solidify a base of support in Iowa.
Some interesting points from ARG [emphasis mine]:
Among likely Republican caucus goers saying they will definitely participate in the caucus, Gingrich leads with 22%, followed by Romney at 20%, Paul at 17%, Perry at 10%, and Bachmann at 8%.
Among likely Republican caucus-goers saying they are supporters of the Tea Party, Gingrich leads with 29%, followed by Paul at 17%, Romney at 16%, and Bachmann and Perry at 11% each. Among likely caucus goers saying they are not supporters of the Tea Party or that they are undecided about the Tea Party, Paul and Romney lead with 22% each, followed by Gingrich at 15%.
It may be that the attack ads on Newt has given him an air of being the anti-GOP-Establishment candidate among a number of the party's alienated and disillusioned.
The possibility that Newt will not only achieve a close third place behind Ron and Mitt, but also grab second place is definitely still alive. Who knows a surprise victory may be in the works, but I doubt that given his lack of ground game.
Another day passes and Newt remains as the front runner. Mitt has been able to recover half of his drop from yesterday, and close the gap between him and Newt from 6 to 4 percentage points. But it seems that Newt's plummet has ended and he leveling out ahead of Mitt. Or so it might seem.
Except for Newt, everyone was either flat or down a percentage point or two. Looks like Mitt can only dream of 30% as he matches his mark from November 17. Newt could very well be establishing himself as the real front runner in the race he it turns from Iowa toward NH and SC.
I see this kind of talk on late nite cable all the time!
IS IT OF A CHEMICAL NATURE OR PLASTIC.
If this extension lasts more than four hours....
“Huntsman, a consistent but never doctrinaire conservative, would present the greatest challenge to Obama,” the paper wrote, saying “If elected, he would provide mature, informed and steady leadership,” and citing Huntsman’s career as a public servent at various levels of government.
But while Huntsman got a gold star, the paper saved its best lines for criticism of the two New Hampshire frontrunners, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “With Gingrich, voters would get an unpredictable, unprincipled nominee and, should he be elected, a white-knuckle four years of an imperial presidency,” the Monitor wrote.
For Romney, the paper riffed on the Democratic National Committee’s favorite theme — there are two Mitts, and it’s a mystery to which one will show up. Voters don’t know if they’ll get “…the moderate Mitt who was once pro-choice, in favor of a health-care mandate, a supporter of the auto industry bailout and a believer that human activity was contributing to climate change — or the newly conservative Romney, who opposes abortion, claims the reason for climate change is unknown, opposes a health insurance mandate and claims that bailing out Detroit was a mistake.”
Every percentage point that peels off of Mitt in New Hampshire is one more step to the eventual implosion of his campaign. This is one is suppose to win in the lead up to Florida.
The aggregate numbers from the lastest poll in Iowa - from We Ask America - tell pretty much the same story as other recent polls. Paul is leading, Mitt right behind him, and Newt third. None of them broke 20%. The number that jumped out at me, however, was in the age breakdown: Bachman, who was in fourth overall, had 50% of the vote in the 18-24 age group. The closest anyone got in taking an age group was Paul who had 30% of the 35-44 age group. I thought this might be blip because of the sampling size. But in the Dec. 5th poll she had 40% of this age group, Nov. 28 she garned 54% and the Nov. 6 poll showed her with 41% support. (She was also winning in the 25-34 age group with 26%, 31%, 44%, 44% respectively, although her support from these folks is trending down). What is it about Bachmann that resonates with these young voters? What does this mean for the future of the GOP? Will whatever is resonating fade away as these voters get older? Questions to ponder.
Awfully embarrassing in a post-Seinfeld era.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a double-dipper, collecting a salary and retirement benefits simultaneously, according to a personal financial disclosure form made public Friday.
The report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows that Perry is collecting his $7,700 monthly state pension in addition to his nearly $133,000 annual salary as governor. State law allows any employee to begin collecting retirement benefits if their years of military and state service plus their age adds up to more than 80.