Archive for International
But They Can’t Take It
Posted by: | CommentsPolitico reported Wednesday that some Senate Republicans are none too happy with Sen. Al Franken (D-MN):
The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn’t doing much to stop them.
“Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape —and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.
Citing Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Politico notes that some senators were not “convinced that Franken was staying above politics.”
[Perform spit-take here.]
Not Exactly the Mercury Theatre on the Air
Posted by: | CommentsAt least the damage was minimal, Frank Rich suggests in this morning’s New York Times. It’s not as if the “balloon boy” fraud led the country into invading a sovereign country in search of nonexistent WMDs, or into investing in dot-coms with no business plans, or into buying oversized homes with no-income no-asset loans.
But “balloon boy” is this generation’s “War of the Worlds” hoax, Rich believes, “the inevitable product of this reigning culture, where ‘news,’ ‘reality’ television and reality itself are hopelessly scrambled” — a culture in which media snake oil salesmen are as likely to be suckered as their audiences, if not more so.
Rich observes,
As “balloon boy” played out, the White House opened fire on one purveyor of fictional news, Fox News, where “tea party” protests are inflated into a national rebellion rivaling the Civil War and where Glenn Beck routinely claims Obama is perpetrating a conspiracy to bring fascism to America. But the White House’s argument is diluted by the different, if less malevolently partisan, fictions that turn up on Fox’s competitors. On CNN, for instance, Lou Dobbs provided a platform for the nuts questioning Obama’s citizenship. When an ABC News correspondent insisted that Fox was “one of our sister organizations” in an exchange with the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, last week, he wasn’t joking.
Not that anyone around him would have gotten it if he were.
Saturday Reading (and viewing)
Posted by: | CommentsWe’re gearing up for another canvass here at Gordon For Asheville HQ. For those of you who couldn’t make it out to join us, here are some tasty tidbits that have accumulated in my queue.
Want to protect small farmers from massive multinational food conglomerates? “H.R. 6637, The Genetically Engineered Farmer Protection Act, places liability from the impacts of genetically engineered organisms on the biotechnology companies that created the GMOs, and protects farmers from law suits by biotechnology companies.” – Click here to sign the petition supporting this common sense bill.
My Uncle Aubrey builds affordable, energy efficient homes in an assembly line style. Louisiana system built homes are top-of-the-line energy efficiency, hurricane-sturdy homes. Click here to see a news report on this excellent product.
The 10th Annual Asheville Metro Economy Outlook took place this last week, and the Asheville Citizen-Times got it on video. Click here to see the video. Fast-forward about 20 minutes to get to the presentation.
Dick Cheney’s CIA Assassin program could operate anywhere in the world without Congress’ knowledge? We always suspected the worst about Uncle Dick, and this latest information underscores the premise. Hunting down Al Qaeda leaders is the right thing to do. Using an international secret police operating outside any legal authority is not.
Health Care Reform can not wait.
Monday Reading
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White rooftops: “Making roofs white “changes the reflectivity . . . of the Earth, so the sunlight comes in, it’s reflected back into space,” Chu said. “This is something very simple that we can do immediately,” he said later.”
AC-T Editorial says of state budget cuts in education: “We’d be cutting our own throats.”
Friday is Juneteenth: “Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.
From its’ Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.”
Tim Johnson dodged the slings and arrows of a criminal past and a dodgy diploma to be elected NC GOP Vice Chair. Tim Peck says that the Buncombe Vice Chair will vie for the top spot in the county party. And to thicken the plot, there’s an online schism between the Carolina Stompers and Thunder Pig over ‘attacks’ on NC GOP 1th Precinct Chair, Stephen Duncan.
Freedom To Marry: “The Obama Administration stumbled badly in defending the federal anti-marriage law, so-called “DOMA,” despite his repeated campaign promises to end this federal discrimination against married gay couples and their loved ones.”
Juan Cole: “I am aware of the difficulties of catching history on the run. Some explanation may emerge for Ahmadinejad’s upset that does not involve fraud… But just as a first reaction, this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene. And here is how I would reconstruct the crime.”
Follow Iran election situation on Twitter here
What are you reading?
President Obama From Cairo
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Shuler Sri Lanka Trip Drawing Rave Reviews
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In my other post about Heath Shuler’s trip to Sri Lanka, the praise he drew was primarily from pro-government sources in country. To add to the chorus comes Jim Luce at Huffington Post:
The American Congressman stated boldly, “I would like to congratulate the government of Sri Lanka in their victory over terrorism. We are seeing peace today for the first time in 26 years”
I could not have been more elated. It was the first time I have heard an American elected official seem to understand what has transpired here in Sri Lanka. As the only American journalist in the room, I was unsure if those gathered grasped the significance of his statement.
[...]
With that, Heath Shuler, U.S. Congressman from North Carolina — a thought leader and global citizen — ended his strong remarks in favor of the Sri Lankan government’s efforts to move forward into a future of diversity and prosperity.I warmly congratulated him for having been the first American political leader I have heard that actually understood what had transpired — and most importantly — what needs to transpire, here in Sri Lanka.
Shuler the statesman?
Heath Shuler in Sri Lanka
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Oh to have been a fly on the wall. Rep. Shuler may be beefing up his foreign relations credentials for a possible Senate run against Sen. Richard Burr with this trip to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence website:
“I congratulate the Sri Lankan government on their victory against the terrorists in their country, the LTTE. I also commend the remarkable work and efforts of the government of Sri Lanka in putting together the IDP camps in such a short period of time,” said United States representative Heath Shuler( Democrat- North Caroline) addressing a press conference held in Colombo, today( May 29).
Torture Memo – The Song
Posted by: | CommentsThe entire torture affair is a terrible chapter in our American history. This song captures the angst. Via BoingBoing:
Obama and Clinton Team Up Against Nukes
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been dreaming of this kind of foreign policy initiative since I was a teenager in the Reagan years. Want to make America and the rest of the world safer? Reduce the number of nuclear weapons on the planet.
Times UK: President Obama will convene the most ambitious arms reduction talks with Russia for a generation, aiming to slash each country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by 80 per cent.
The radical treaty would cut the number of nuclear warheads to 1,000 each, The Times has learnt. Key to the initiative is a review of the Bush Administration’s plan for a US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, a project fiercely opposed by Moscow.
Mr Obama is to establish a non-proliferation office at the White House to oversee the talks, expected to be headed by Gary Samore, a non-proliferation negotiator in the Clinton Administration. The talks will be driven by Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
