Proposal: The Confluence Run for the Working Class

Update: Please note that this is my proposal and does not necessarily reflect the ideas of other writers at The Confluence.  No other writer at The Confluence was consulted in the preparation of this post.  I am speaking for me only.

Endorphins can do funny things to your thought processes.  I began running last year and I am still not very good at it.  Just to give you an idea of my running condition, my present limit is about 2.7 miles on a treadmill.  It takes me about 35 minutes with warm up and cool down.  Running is *hard* for me like other exercise routines are not.  But one thing that I have noticed is that when I’m in the midst of a run, with my power songs blaring in my ears, I start to get visions of things that might be.  Sort of like Galadriel’s mirror but with a lot more sweat and heavy breathing.

Usually, the vision is prompted by the question, “How do we motivate the working class to fight for itself?”  I’d like to quote from Hell’s Kitchen from yesterday’s survey results thread because she summarized all that is wrong with America:

I am a 70 year old female. My parents were the swing generation from working class to middle class. I have a masters degree in computer science and am retired. I am married to a Keynesian economist, but one who is not on to POTUS and thinks I am uncharitable. My sister and I are supposedly middle class but in 1991, I consciously abandoned the middle class for my working class roots.

Why?

The corporation I worked for dumped an entire department of 75 people. However, it was not the loss of the job itself that turned me back, it was the gratuitous cruelty involved in the matter. I thought if it’s simply an economic matter for the firm, why not make it as easy as possible for every one involved?

Instead, we were told repeatedly how awful we were and how glad they would be to get rid of us, but they couldn’t fire us until we finished our projects. And that’s just the general atmosphere. That doesn’t include the individual acts of cruelty by corporate leaders against vulnerable employees.

I decided at that point that the middle class – especially the white collar middle class – was an illusion. I don’t care how professional your job is, what kind of degree you have – if you depend on a paycheck for your living and someone else has the say-so about whether you get that paycheck or not, you are not middle class, you are working class. The sooner people wake up to that reality, the quicker we’ll find political solutions to our problems.

Having been asleep during Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I, and then the 2000 election, I woke up. With the shock of the 2000 election, I thought surely the Democratic Party would wake up. In 2004, I began to realize that there were problems with my party.

Do you hear that, Chris Bowers, “Creative Class” wannabe extraordinaire?  There is no Creative Class.  If you rely on someone to pay you for your work, and not on your investments for a living, you are working class.  Your fate is no different than a auto worker or teacher or chemist or retail sales manager.  You can be replaced by the Japanese, Chinese or a call center operator in Hyderabad. We are all in this together.  Jettisoning the ‘old coalition’ from the Democratic party was quite possibly the stupidest thing that A-listers bought into last year.  They reduced their ability to fight the erosion of their way of life.  They just don’t know it yet, but they’re about to find out.

The problem remains though, how do you motivate people to fight for themselves?  How do you get people together and bring critical mass to their voices?  How do you effectively reconstitute the voices that were squelched in the past several decades?  The media is not our friend.  We know that none of the cable news channels are going to report on any serious challengers to the status quo.  And in this modern media age, there is further atomization of possible collective action.  Each person has the option to get their own sources of information, follow their own interests, find their own entertainment.  While that can be an enriching experience, it can also be isolating from common principles.  How do we herd millions of cats?

It was on one of my runs that I thought about how we can get around the media filter and increase our visibility while at the same time spread a message.  I propose The Confluence Run for the Working Class on July 4, 2010.  The run can be a 5K run or walk, nationwide.  There are online tools at Nikerunning that can help groups organize such events and challenges.  The participants can organize the runs locally and in the lead up to the run,  do practice runs together through the streets of their towns, parks, neighborhoods.  We can wear T-Shirts that say The Confluence Run for the Working Class.  The goal is to attract attention and to get as many people as possible to run on July 4, 2010.  Maybe there can be a rally at the end of the run in a prominent public place.  We have to plan and organize what message we want to deliver at those rallies.  For practice runs, we can put together iMixes for iPods with motivating music.

Now, for the message, we need to get serious about organizing.  Jangles has suggested that we form a PAC and register as a non-profit.  I know we tried this before but it’s time guys.  Before we start brainstorming on this, please hold your creative energies on the your personal beliefs.  I guarantee you that a comment thread is not the best place for such a thing.  Those statements of beliefs get way too flowery, idealistic and out of touch with average everyday people.  We need to focus our attentions up front on organizational discipline.

So, I want to open the floor to consideration of the proposal for The Confluence Run for the Working Class.  Please don’t whine about how you can’t run or haven’t exercised in forever.  See your doctor before you start any exercise program.  If you can’t run it (yet), walk it.  Or, if you’re disabled, wheel it.  Besides, if you want to change the country, you have to look like you have the energy to do it.

Please take the poll below to indicate your support of an investigation into the feasibility of the inkling of having a run of the type described in the post above, recognizing that no other writer of The Confluence was consulted before this PROPOSAL was posted.

Have at it.

The Confluence Demographics Survey Results

This is an update to the survey post I did on Tuesday.  We were having trouble with the graphics but have fixed the pics now.  Enjoy!

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Thanks to everyone who took our survey.  That would be 561 of you!  The survey was not intended to be scientific in any way.  It was more or less a show of hands to help us determine who our readers are.  It also wasn’t freeped.  There were a couple outliers.  They were dead giveaways.  It seems that children can’t help adding stupid comments to their responses. We have removed them.

Other than that, what does our survey say about us?  Well, we haven’t thoroughly analyzed and crosstabbed everything yet but in general, we’re very much like Firedoglake’s demographic.  We’re well-educated and fairly affluent.  That is not to say that people who don’t have degrees aren’t smart.  Maybe Jane Hamsher would say such a thing but we never would.  We suspect there are more than a few Michael Faradays in our cohort who don’t have degrees but still managed to get Obama’s number from the very beginning.  But enough talk, let’s do the numbers.

Note: You’d be surprised at how many grey hairs there were at YearlyKos 1 and 2.  The lefty blogosphere is older than you’d think.

Note: This is unsurprising.  We’ve tried hard to make sure women feel comfortable commenting here.  Of course, men are also welcome.

Note: Our readership is primarily straight but the gay community is well represented and should feel welcome here.

Note:  *Most* of you in the ‘other’ category have JD’s, followed by MDs.  The remaining others are working on their PhDs or other advanced degree.  Some others have degrees I’m not familiar with.  I’ll try to break this down a bit more later.  I’ll also try to cross check “some college” with age to see if it correlates to students.  (in my copious free time…)

Note:  This one surprised me.  Most of us make more than the average American.  Some of you answered for yourselves only and not for your entire family.  Why the Democratic party would want to throw away all of these potential donors is mystery to me but I guess we’re just not rich enough.

Note: Preliminary analysis shows that the less money you make, the more likely you are to be socialist.   Readers in the $80-100K range tended to identify more as Democrats.  Above that level, there were more Independents.  Ideas, anyone?

Note: I regret not including more categories for this question.  Most of the ‘others’ worked in the medical industry but some of you others had some very cool jobs.  We have published novelists and museum administrators and some very well paid bloggers among our group.  I’m still reading through all of the responses but, in general, I’d say our lives are fascinating.

Note: Many of you wealthier readers consider yourselves to be very liberal.  I guess you didn’t forget how you got to the top.  Well done.  We may be the voters now known as Liberal Not Democrat or LNDs.  The party is starting to fidget about us.  Good.  I suspect we are the ones who brought down Corzine.  Our numbers are small right now but growing.  We provide the margin of victory for some Democrats.

Note: This was no surprise, except for the fact that Joe Biden didn’t get even one vote from among our ranks. Eventually, even Joe got one vote.

Note:  My apologies to the Native Americans and bi-racial readers.  The survey was prepared rather quickly and the responses were already coming in when I realized my mistake.

Ok, so there you have it.  My initial impressions are that we are not Reagan Democrats.  We are mostly middle class to upper middle class, relatively well paid and smart.  We wouldn’t be outliers on Firedoglake or any other lefty blog.  We are them.  All you lurkers who have been afraid to identify yourselves with us can relax.  We’re smart, whether we have degrees or not and we’re not easily fooled.  The only thing that separates the rest of the lefty blogosphere from us is our higher number of female readers (a plus!) and the fact that we caught onto Obama earlier than they did.  We’ll have to do another survey to find out why that is.  Anyone have any ideas?

Epiphanies: My Dawning Realizations about Barack Obama

Dawning realization

Epiphany: a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b : a revealing scene or moment

Yesterday, Riverdaughter suggested that we make this “Epiphany Weekend” at TC. The idea is to look back over the past couple of years and recall the epiphanies that we had early on that made us so highly skeptical about Barack Obama as a candidate for President.

For me, the very first wake-up call I had about Obama was this diary at Dailykos way back in September 2005. In the diary, then Senator Obama lectured the Kos community about “tone, truth, and the Democratic Party,” which defending Democratic Senators who had voted to confirm John Roberts to the Supreme Court. In the diary Obama strongly criticized people at Dailykos and other liberal blogs who wanted Congressional Democrats to stand up for Democratic principles and stop rolling over for Bush on every issue. (I have used bold type to highlight a couple of sections.)

According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists – a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog – we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda. In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in “appeasing” the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda….

I think this perspective misreads the American people. From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don’t think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

It’s this non-ideological lens through which much of the country viewed Judge Roberts’ confirmation hearings. A majority of folks, including a number of Democrats and Independents, don’t think that John Roberts is an ideologue bent on overturning every vestige of civil rights and civil liberties protections in our possession. Instead, they have good reason to believe he is a conservative judge who is (like it or not) within the mainstream of American jurisprudence…

In the rest of the diary, Obama attempted to make a case for the kind of “consensus-building” we have been watching since he moved into the White House–the kind where the Democrats compromise their values ahead of time and continue to compromise them in the face of Republican (and Blue Dog) objections.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more “centrist”…. Too often, the “centrist” label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education and tackling poverty, I don’t think Democrats have been bold enough. But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don’t work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of “framing,” although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It’s a matter of actually having faith in the American people’s ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.

Of course Obama never made clear what “core values” he would be willing to stand up for.

Reading this diary was my first wake-up call–it gave me my first real clues to who Obama really was. Before that, my only impressions of him were based on the speech he had given at the 2004 Democratic. He had come across to me as really smooth and slick, but nothing he said in the speech was really earth-shaking and none of it was memorable enough to stick with me. Still, I think I my overall impression was positive. But after reading Obama’s Kos diary, I my impression of him started to turn more negative.

Look on the bright side, the T Pyxidis could end it all

T Pyxidis, the supernova poised to destroy the earth at any time.

OK, we can all stop worrying about the economy, the healthcare debacle, and the state of affairs in general; it looks like a supernova named T Pyxidis may be plotting our demise and ready to end all of our anguish.

T Pyxidis, a star on the verge of growing too massive and collapsing into a type Ia supernova, was discovered to be closer to Earth than previously thought – close enough to end life here when it finally explodes. NASA

Doomsdayers and 2012 blog-keepers, take note. Astronomers at this week’s American Astronomical Society meeting revealed that a massive white dwarf star in the throes of multiple nova is much closer to our solar system than once thought. When it does finally collapse into a type Ia supernova — okay, if it collapses into a type Ia supernova — the resulting thermonuclear blast will destroy life on earth. Seriously.

According to scientists:

“…the next blast is nearly 20 years overdue…”

Even if T Pyxidis doesn’t do us in, the volcano that is my beloved Yellowstone has been grumbling lately, giving scientists some agita over possible destruction of our continent:

“Depending on the nature and magnitude of a particular hazardous event and the particular time and season when it might occur, 70,000 to more than 100,000 persons could be affected; the most violent events could affect a broader region or even continent-wide areas.”

So stop yer bellyaching.  It’ll all be over soon.  Can I get an “Oh Great?”

Oh yeah.  This is an open thread. In the meantime, enjoy the beauty of a Yellowstone prismatic spring.

Kicking off Epiphany Weekend: Reprising PUMA Power

Good morning, all!  It’s been another busy week in the suburban jungle.  Epiphany was two days ago and we missed it.  But we have had many epiphanies over the past couple of years about the Democratic party, Barack Obama and what they were up to.  We were right more often than not.  We never would have dreamed in a million years that the party would actually have the chutzpah to dump 18 million voters using the FL and MI disenfranchisement mechanism.  But it did.  Everything else that followed from that was entirely predictable.

So, I’m going to open Epiphany weekend for The Confluence.  Over the next couple of days, we’ll dredge up the muck that we saw and from which we made entirely rational extrapolations about what kind of president Barack Obama was likely to be.  You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.  All you had to do is work with the evidence at hand.  It was all right there if you cleared the smoke from your eyes.

Here’s the first post from June 2, 2008 called PUMA Power.  The Confluence has evolved away from PUMA since the election.  We’re trying to find a new definition for ourselves.  For the time being, we are simply The Confluence.

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PUMA Power

Posted on June 2, 2008 by riverdaughter

The Party Unity My Ass un-Party (PUMA) was born yesterday. We already have many new members. But, some of you may ask, what does it mean? How can we make a difference? Before I get to that, I’d like to refer you to one of Anglachel’s latest posts, The Idea of Obama. I think that what Anglachel is describing is a kind of “puppy love” or an infatuation. The situation we have here is precisely the reason why superdelegates were created in the first place. There is a unacknowledged immaturity about the Obama faction that many parents among us will recognize. Here’s the money quote:

The deep problem of Obama’s campaign is that he and his supporters do not want to face the political reality of their own conflicting desires. They both want to sweep to victory in November and they want to purge the party of anything connected to the Clintons, which includes all of the voting contituencies represented by that amazing and talented duo. The failure of the Unity Pony stems directly from that fantasy of majority status without majority support and the political work and compromises that go with cultivating that support. Thus, their model for unity is unanimity through elimination, purging the ranks of the unclean and unbelievers.

They will not acknowledge that Hilalry is a legitimate political actor and reduce her to an inhuman monster and enemy. They will not acknowledge that her supporters have sound, rational reasons for our support, and reduce us to mindless fools and spoils of war. They shift blame for their own choices and actions onto us and expect that we will cater to their whims.

Like adolescents, they insist on making their own decisions and yet expect us to get them out of a jam later. They hate us because of who we are and yet they need us in order for them to get what they want. And the superdelegates are the too permissive parents who are giving in to them because they can’t handle the screaming and guilt trips that will follow if they don’t.

This is where we come in, PUMAs. We will fill the role that the superdelegates have abrogated. It is our job to say “no”. We do not want to lose in 2008. We do not want another four years of Republican rule. We want 4 years of intelligence, competence and courage in a time of what will surely be a very critical time in our nation’s history. Terrorism is still out there. There are two wars going on. Our military is stretched so thinly that our national security is compromised. We have an energy crisis and many families are hurting. Our financial institutions got themselves over their heads. And there is a serious environmental catastrophe at hand in global warming.

Now is not the time to put a love object in office, a weakling who will be entirely dependent on his power elite enablers. Or worse, he may be a dissembler who has barely disguised his contempt for the voters.

There will be a lot of calls for “Unity!”. But let us acknowledge what this really is. “Unity” is a weapon that the party is going to use against us. It is the emotional blackmail of the teenager. “If you don’t let me have my way, it will be all YOUR fault if something bad happens!” “If you don’t get in line, it will be YOUR fault if we lose.”

Don’t give in to this. This is where a parent’s mettle is tested. When the stakes are not high, like staying up too late on a school night, we can afford to let them live with the consequences of their actions. When the situation is critical, we have to be firm. We have to give them choices. We have to tell them that we will not be willing participants in their destructive behavior. We have to tell them that the consequences of their behavior will fall on *their* heads. We have to take away the car keys. Not ground them. Just not aid them in doing what they want. We have to exert our authority.

That goes for superdelegates as well who are failing in their responsibilities. We will hold them accountable as well. If they allow these children to run the house, they will have to live with the consequences, not us.

Barack Obama is a ruthless campaigner who has brought out the worst in the political system but no matter how far he has come, he is a failure. He has failed to live up to core Democratic principles, He has failed to respect the voters. He has failed to disguise his contempt for average, hard working American men and women. And because he has failed in so many ways to appeal to the electorate at large, he will fail the ultimate contest. He will be a failed presidential candidate. We do not wish to be associated with failure while there is still time and an opportunity to avoid it.

We will not be blackmailed into party unity in order to indulge irresponsible people in their fantasies. Our votes belong to us and we will do with them what we feel is best for us, the party and the country.

News from the Land of the Ice and Snow

Well, I’m actually snowed in today . . . I tried getting out yesterday afternoon & couldn’t make it out of the cul-de-sac & since then we’ve had nothing but snow (well, we’ve had nothing but snow since before Christmas) so I’m not even going to try today.

And if things weren’t going to be bad enough this year, our furnace went out Sunday night and it’s just barely limping along now. Luckily our house is well insulated and even though we’ve kept it off at night (as the temperature dropped to about 3°) the house hasn’t gotten below 55°.  Still.

OK, enough whining . . . . These links come from BostonBoomer (with my deepest appreciation) and I’ll find more throughout the day:

Is the health care bill at risk?

Dodd retirement could help banking bill

Dodd headed to Treasury?!

White House won’t answer questions about health care transparency

WH sex scandal: Peter Orzag dumped his pregnant gf for ABC newswoman

US learned intel on underwear bomber while he was enroute to Detroit

Ted Koppel may return to ABC to host This Week

Obama Advisor says security report “a shocker”

Please post your favorite links in the comments & I’ll post an update to this as I find more.

Will the iSlate save journalism?

The tubez are all abuzz over Apple’s upcoming announcement on January 26.  Gadget enthusiasts all around the world are speculating about what Apple’s Steve Jobs is going to pack into the new iSlate, if that’s what it’s called.  There’s an online document of the alleged specs that have us scratching our heads and salivating at the same time.  The screen is either going to be 7.5 inches or 10 inches.  (Whip out your big ten inch, Steve!)  Other fantasy document specs include a 120 GB hard drive, a new OS called Clouded Leopard (Jeez, we should have seen that one comin’) and a built in projector.  OooooOOOOOoooo!  That one has piqued my curiosity.  It kind of makes sense too.  If the screen is only big enough to type on a touch screen, how will you view the content?  Ohhh, project it onto something.  D’oh!

Steve Jobs, if you’re out there, I promise to be your best friend if you let me review one of them big ten inches.  And I’ll be nice.  Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not but there are a lot of gearheads out there who think a WiFi Newton on speed is not really necessary, especially if you have a laptop or iPhone.  I can envision busloads of schoolchildren dumping their lead weight laden backpacks for iSlates.  Maybe there’s a way to turn this sucker into an electronic notebook device for labrats that they can use to jot down how many moles of whatever they used for their reactions and that they can upload to a server later.  And I guess the skeptics haven’t been through an airport in the last 9 years where you have to dump the contents of your carry-ons whenever some authority figure demands it.  Who wouldn’t want the convenience of a neat  device you can carry in your hands that is a little bigger than a Kindle while you listen to your music through your stereo bluetooth as you stand in the Security line reading a document your downloaded from your cloud account or a copy of the NYTimes from the iTunes store?

Now, about that media content the iSlate is supposedly going to deliver in living color.  The newspaper industry is hurting.  What Craigslist hasn’t snatched from the classified section, the internet has downloaded for free.  Of course, the newspapers have brought some of this down on themselves.  Someone at the Times with a degree from Acme Business School made the idiotic decision to charge for the Op/Ed columnists a couple of years ago at the same time that  blogs started teeming with good Op/Ed writers while leaving (what should have been) the news content unguarded on the net.  The real assets of the newspaper business, should they care to invest in them, are the news collecting bureaus around the world.  There’s no substitute for actually being there, as we have learned from the Iranian protest movement and Twitter.

With Twitter, the news certainly looks fresh and has the immediacy of being there but there’s virtually no way to make sure that what is being posted is true and not a plant.  Unfortunately for the Times, there’s no way for us to tell if they’re just reporting propaganda either.  Remember Judy “Gorgeous Glass” Miller and her quaking Aspen friends who were all connected at the roots?  Was that a bizarre story or what?  When the paper that writes the stories becomes the story, it starts to lose credibility.  I know that I dropped my subscription specifically because of Judy Miller.  But it I had a subscription today, I would probably have cancelled it this morning when I found out that Arthur “Punch” (or is it “Pinch”?) Sulzberger, the Times publisher, is friends with Steve Rattner who is trying to primary Kirsten Gillibrand by running Harold Ford Jr. for Senator of NY.   Great!  Just what we need.  Another pandering male conservative Democrat because female senators are so plentiful. I don’t even know Pinch (or Punch) and I already dislike the fact that he feels he can arrogantly use the power of his mighty ink to scuttle Gillibrand simply because his friend Caroline Kennedy didn’t get the plum appointment when Hillary resigned.  It makes him look vengeful, petty, selfish and careless.  Sort of like Arthur Frobisher or some other self-centered and corrupt uber rich person with a conscience that only extends to his own personal wealthy clique.

Would I pay a subscription for the NYTimes on an iSlate?  I guess it would all depend on the content.  I lived for a couple of years without Paul Krugman or had to get his column via backdoor means.  I suppose if Punch (or Pinch) would leave the writing and editorializing to the real journalists and if I could be certain that those journalists weren’t part of some bizzare neocon plan to take over the world, I might cough up a few cents every day to read it on an iSlate.  But I hope that Jobs is busily getting the rights to a bigger movie library to project onto a nearby wall.  I wouldn’t bet my company on the likes of Punch or Rupert Murdoch.  They can’t be trusted.

It’s Hump Day again – so go out and bust yours

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So much for that permanent Democratic majority:

Chris Dodd to step aside
Embattled Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) has scheduled a press conference at his home in Connecticut Wednesday at which he is expected to announce he will not seek re-election, according to sources familiar with his plans.

In shocker, Dorgan announces retirement
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced this evening that he’s retiring at the end of his term, a shocking development that threatens Democratic control of his Senate seat next year.

Democrats are Dropping Like Flies
ABC News’ David Chalian Reports: Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado, who was in for a tough reelection fight this year, canceled a scheduled fundraiser this evening and has decided not to seek reelection, according to Democratic sources familiar with the governor’s plans.

“Rats deserting a sinking ship” is a more accurate description. Don’t forget that in Pennsylvania we have the specter of the White House backing a DINO-GOP for the Senate nomination over a genuine Democrat. But fear not, here comes Mighty Mouse to save the day:

Harold Ford Jr. Weighs a Challenge to Gillibrand

Encouraged by a group of influential New York Democrats, Harold Ford Jr., the former congressman from Tennessee, is weighing a bid to unseat Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in this fall’s Democratic primary, according to three people who have spoken with him.

If Ford runs and loses I’m sure the media will tell us how NY Democrats are old, bitter, clingy racists.

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Joan Rivers bumped off flight in Costa Rica when Continental gate agent finds passport suspicious
Rivers, 76, was deemed a danger to national security and booted from a Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica on Sunday by a jittery Continental Airlines gate agent who found the two names on her passport fishy.
Her passport reads: Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers. Rosenberg was her late husband’s last name.

She’s lucky they didn’t rendition her to Gitmo. She fits the profile of a terrorist. Meanwhile in Seattle:

Military Blogger Michael Yon Detained, Handcuffed by TSA in Seattle Airport

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Pelosi On Obama: ‘There Were A Number Of Things He Was For On The Campaign Trail’
It turns out that only the stupid Obots believed Obama’s campaign promises. The smart Obots knew he was lying but voted for him anyway.

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France to introduce new law banning ‘psychological violence’ in marriages
Married couples in France could end up with criminal records for insulting each other during arguments.

Under a new law, France is to become the first country in the world to ban ‘ psychological violence’ within marriage.

The law would apply to cohabiting couples and to both men and women.

It would cover men who shout at their wives and women who hurl abuse at their husbands – although it was not clear last night if nagging would be viewed as breaking the law.

The law is expected to cover every kind of insult including repeated rude remarks about a partner’s appearance, false allegations of infidelity and threats of physical violence.

Marriage just ain’t what it used to be.

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Randy Johnson
Big Unit retires after 22 seasons and 303 victories

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Have a nice day. Or don’t. It’s not even 5 am out here in the middle of nowhere and I’m going back to bed.

Oh my…This is interesting…

Via Real Clear Politics:

C-Span’s Brian Lamb has written to Congressional leaders asking them to allow C-Span cameras in the room during the final negotiations on the health care reform bill. Lamb’s letter is here (PDF) He wrote in part (h/t RCP):

President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system. Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.

Watch the campaign promises.

How will Congress and President Obama weasel out of this one? Post your educated guesses in the comments.

Tuesday Mid-Morning News and Views

A confused-looking President Obama meets with NSC chief Denis McDonough about failed underwear bombing

Good Morning Conflucians!!! Dakinikat has jury duty this morning and Riverdaughter is tussling with the charts at Survey Monkey, so I’m going to get us started today with a few links to stories that interested me this morning. As always, post your own choice links in the comments.

First up, Joseph Cannon has provided more information and background on the Afghan bombing that I was speculating about yesterday. My head is spinning after reading that, but I plan to keep following this story anyway.

President Obama has finally returned from vacation and will be getting updated on all the latest crotch-bomber intel, according to CNN.

Obama will meet with FBI Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano Tuesday, an administration official told CNN.

Obama will get an update from Mueller on the FBI’s investigation. Obama will get information from Holder on the prosecution of the suspect in the botched Christmas Day airline bombing. And he will get an update from Napolitano on her review on detection capabilities, the official said.

After the meeting, Obama will make public statements about his findings and an initial series of reforms to improve the country’s ability to thwart future attempts to carry out terrorist attacks, according to the official.

The president met with Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan for 90 minutes on Monday and is scheduled to meet with him again Tuesday, the official said.

And then I suppose Obama will be headed back to the golf course?

Mickey Kaus wants to know: Wherein lies the greatness of Janet Napolitano?

She gave an awful public performance in the wake of the Flt. 253 terror incident–assuring air travelers that “the system worked” when the one obvious thing was that for whatever reason the system didn’t work, as President Obama acknowledged a few days later. She then seems to have panicked and pressed the “Friends, Save Me” button.

Then he links to a lot of articles by smarmy villagers like David Broder and MoDo defending Napolitano. Will she stay or will she go?

The U.S. embassy in Yeman is open again, according to the LA Times.

U.S. officials said they reopened the embassy today because a Yemeni counterterrorism operation on Monday “addressed a specific area of concern.”

Yemeni officials reportedly killed two and injured two suspected Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula operatives Monday. The Interior Ministry today said it had arrested five other “terror elements” in and around the capital and Hudaydah province.

The ministry said it had beefed up security measures around foreign embassies and residential districts favored by the international community in Sana, according to Yemen’s official Saba news agency. An unnamed official told Saba that security forces had imposed a “cordon” and round-the-clock surveillance around Al Qaeda militants.

Commenter Laurie posted this piece by John Pilger in the New Statesman: Welcome to Orwell’s world Pilger argues that the US is Oceania and I guess Obama is Big Brother. It would be hard to pick an except from this piece–you need to read the whole thing.

Here’s an interesting piece by Professor James Petras on how China and South Korea are beating the pants off U.S. in economic terms while our government focuses on military power and empire building.

The story told by the articles and headlines in a single day’s issue of the Financial Times reflects a deeper reality, one that illustrates the great divide in the world today. The Asian countries, led by China, are reaching world power status on the basis of their massive domestic and foreign investments in manufacturing, transportation, technology and mining and mineral processing. In contrast, the US is a declining world power with a deteriorating society resulting from its military-driven empire building and its financial-speculative centered economy….

[….]

To become a ‘normal state’ we have to start all over: Close all investment banks and military bases abroad and return to America. We have to begin the long march toward rebuilding industry to serve our domestic needs, to living within our own natural environment and forsake empire building in favor of constructing a democratic socialist republic.

When will we pick up the Financial Times or any other daily and read about our own high-speed rail line carrying American passengers from New York to Boston in less than one hour? When will our own factories supply our hardware stores? When will we build wind, solar and ocean-based energy generators? When will we abandon our military bases and let the world’s warlords, drug traffickers and terrorists face the justice of their own people?

What are you reading this morning?

HAVE A TERRIFIC TUESDAY, CONFLUCIANS!!!!!!!