Here we go again

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Welcome to post-racial America, where the only thing that matters is race.

CNN:

Rep. Danny Davis, a Democrat from Illinois and mayoral candidate in Chicago has a message for former President Bill Clinton: Butt out.

Davis, a onetime ally of Clinton’s, issued a strongly worded statement Tuesday, in which the Chicago Democrat said he is “seriously concerned and disturbed” by the news Clinton plans to throw his weight behind ex-Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and make a campaign stop in the Windy City next month.

“The African American community has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with the Clintons, however it appears as though some of that relationship maybe fractured and perhaps even broken should former President Clinton come to town and participate overtly in efforts to thwart the legitimate political aspirations of Chicago’s Black community,” Davis said in the statement.

The pushback from a prominent member of the black community echoes that which greeted Clinton in 2008 as he campaigned on behalf of his wife, a presidential candidate at the time battling then-Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton – long a popular figure in the black community – saw his approval numbers sink among that demographic as he took sharp aim at Obama and questioned the freshman senator’s competancy to sit in the Oval Office, sometimes in terms conceived as particularly harsh.

[…]

The Chicago Sun Times’ Lynn Sweet reports that Carol Mosely Braun, a former ambassador to New Zealand under Clinton and now a candidate for mayor in Chicago, is also calling on the former president to back off.

Her statement:

“Bill Clinton is an outsider parachuting in to support another outsider. Rahm’s residency status continues to be challenged in court. It’s not yet clear that he will be on the ballot. At the same time former president Clinton risks his legacy and the great respect that he has enjoyed among African Americans by coming to Chicago to endorse Rahm Emanuel who is running for mayor against two black candidates.

“Clinton should remember New Hampshire where he called Barack Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq ‘a fairy tale.’ He was wrong.

“Clinton should remember South Carolina where he played the race card painting Obama as “the black candidate”. Again he was wrong. Bill Clinton will be wrong again if he gets involved in the Chicago mayoral contest. He should stay home and avoid the cold.”

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First of all let me say that I don’t like Rahm Emanuel. Although I was never one of those DLC-phobics I didn’t care for him even before he hooked up with Barack Obama. I hope he loses the election.

Secondly, unless Hillary really plans on running again I doubt the Big Dawg gives a shit about his approval ratings. If she runs in 2012 against Obama I doubt the Chicago mayoral race will be the first thing on the minds of African American voters. If she runs in 2016 against a slate of white Democrats I doubt it would make any difference either.

But this race card shit has got to stop.

Whatever Bill Clinton’s motives for supporting Rahmbo, I’m sure race was not one of them. The people turning this into a racial issue are Danny Davis and Carol Mosely Braun. They should be ashamed of themselves.

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(h/t Angienc)

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Better late than never

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Elizabeth Warren:

No one has missed the headlines: Haphazard and possibly illegal practices at mortgage-servicing companies have called into question home foreclosures across the nation.

The latest disclosures are deeply troubling, but they should not come as a big surprise. For years, both individual homeowners and consumer advocates sounded alarms that foreclosure processes were riddled with problems.

While federal and state investigators are still examining exactly what has gone wrong and why, two things are clear.

First, several financial services companies have already admitted that they used “robo-signers,” false declarations, and other workarounds to cut corners, creating a legal nightmare that will waste time and money that could have been better spent to help this economy recover. Mortgage lenders will spend millions of dollars retracing their steps, often with the same result that families who cannot pay will lose their homes.

Second, this mess might well have been avoided if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had been in place just a few years ago.

CNBC:

U.S. home foreclosures jumped in the third quarter and banks’ efforts to keep borrowers in their homes dropped as the housing market continues to struggle, U.S. bank regulators said on Wednesday.

The regulators said one reason for the increase in foreclosures is that banks have “exhausted” options for keeping many delinquent borrowers in their homes through programs such as loan modifications.

Over at TalkLeft Big Tent Democrat says that people are figuring out that HAMP is a SCAM.

Remember Hillary’s HOLC plan?

If we do not take action to address the crisis facing borrowers, we’ll never solve the crisis facing lenders. These problems go hand in hand. And if we are going to take on the mortgage debt of storied Wall Street giants, we ought to extend the same help to struggling, middle-class families.

The next time some Kool-aid swilling Obot troll claims “Hillary would have done exactly the same” swat him with HOLC.

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WikiLeaks vs. The Pentagon Papers

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Floyd Abrams:

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg decided to make available to the New York Times (and then to other newspapers) 43 volumes of the Pentagon Papers, the top- secret study prepared for the Department of Defense examining how and why the United States had become embroiled in the Vietnam conflict. But he made another critical decision as well. That was to keep confidential the remaining four volumes of the study describing the diplomatic efforts of the United States to resolve the war.

Not at all coincidentally, those were the volumes that the government most feared would be disclosed. In a secret brief filed with the Supreme Court, the U.S. government described the diplomatic volumes as including information about negotiations secretly conducted on its behalf by foreign nations including Canada, Poland, Italy and Norway. Included as well, according to the government, were “derogatory comments about the perfidiousness of specific persons involved, and statements which might be offensive to nations or governments.”

The diplomatic volumes were not published, even in part, for another dozen years. Mr. Ellsberg later explained his decision to keep them secret, according to Sanford Ungar’s 1972 book “The Papers & The Papers,” by saying, “I didn’t want to get in the way of the diplomacy.”

Julian Assange sure does. Can anyone doubt that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?

Mr. Ellsberg himself has recently denounced the “myth” of the “good” Pentagon Papers as opposed to the “bad” WikiLeaks. But the real myth is that the two disclosures are the same.

The Pentagon Papers revelations dealt with a discrete topic, the ever-increasing level of duplicity of our leaders over a score of years in increasing the nation’s involvement in Vietnam while denying it. It revealed official wrongdoing or, at the least, a pervasive lack of candor by the government to its people.

WikiLeaks is different. It revels in the revelation of “secrets” simply because they are secret. It assaults the very notion of diplomacy that is not presented live on C-Span. It has sometimes served the public by its revelations but it also offers, at considerable potential price, a vast amount of material that discloses no abuses of power at all.

Mr. Abrams should know what he’s talking about. He represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case.

So Abrams says that WikiLeaks is not the Pentagon Papers. I’ll go even farther and say that the Pentagon Papers is not the Pentagon Papers.

Some people think the Pentagon Papers were key to ending the war in Vietnam. But they were released in 1971, three years after the Tet Offensive which was the major turning point in public opinion. People today forget that Nixon ran for President in 1968 on a promise to end the war. By 1971 the Paris Peace Talks were well under way.

The Pentagon Papers were officially titled “United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense.” They were commissioned in June 1967 by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara:

McNamara claimed that he wanted to leave a written record for historians, but kept the study secret from the rest of the Johnson administration. Neither President Lyndon Johnson nor Secretary of State Dean Rusk knew about the study until its publication; they believed McNamara might have planned to give the work to his friend Robert F. Kennedy, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.

Instead of using existing Defense Department historians, McNamara assigned his close aide and Assistant Secretary of Defense John T. McNaughton, McNaughton’s aide Morton H. Halperin, and Defense Department official Leslie H. Gelb to lead the task force. Thirty-six analysts—half of them active-duty military officers, the rest academics and civilian federal employees—worked on the study. The analysts largely used existing files in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and did no interviews or consultations with the armed forces, the White House, or other federal agencies to keep the study secret from others, including National Security Advisor Walt W. Rostow.

The Pentagon Papers were the military’s version of history. They were prepared for political purposes and many of the “secrets” they revealed weren’t really secrets.

The Papers revealed that the U.S. had deliberately expanded its war with bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which had been reported by media in the US.

The Cambodians and the Laotians knew we were bombing targets in their country. So did thousands of pilots and other military personnel. The North Vietnamese knew about the bombings and the raids on their coast. The Chinese and Soviets knew all these things too.

These things were being reported in the media outside the United States. Just like in 2002 and 2003 when the international media were telling a different tale about Iraq.

So once again we have our media “revealing” things that would have been revealed long before if they were doing their jobs.

BTW – Ellsberg didn’t go straight to the New York Times:

Now opposing the war, Ellsberg and his friend Anthony Russo photocopied the study in October 1969 intending to disclose it. He approached Nixon National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Senators William Fulbright and George McGovern, and others, but nobody was interested.

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Wednesday, Put your left foot in, take your left foot out

At least with the Hokey-Pokey, the circle stays in the same place — we don’t have to do quick double-hops to move closer to “the center.”  In Washington, concepts like “the center” shift every couple of months.  So, today we see misleading headlines like:
Advice for Obama: Move to the center is a wise one

With a re-election bid looming, Chris Arterton, professor of political management at George Washington University, said a move to the center is a sure bet in part because it’s unlikely the president face a Democratic challenger.

“We’ll see a different Obama in terms of the kinds of issues he’s advancing and reaching to the center, yes, but I think characterologically, we’ve seen a president who really likes to bring people together, likes to take complex issues and see if there is some way of synthesizing what everybody is saying,” he said.

Morey said Obama must channel what worked in his 2008 campaign — returning to his insurgent roots and playing offense — while recognizing that a strong economy is the one thing that will please everyone.

“People are happy when we’re making progress. It’s a dynamic of human nature, and electorates are happy when we’re making progress, even if it’s inching our way along.”

(humming) Happiness runs in a circular motion …. Hey! we moved the game over here!!

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In the category of “I’m not a Lawyer But ….” I don’t really see how this counts as “hacking”

American charged with hacking after snooping on wife’s emails

A Michigan man has been charged under anti-hacking legislation designed to protect trade secrets after logging on to his wife’s email account and discovering she was having an affair.

Leon Walker, 33, faces a trial lawyers say could have significant repercussions given that nearly half of US divorce cases involve some form of snooping, such as reading emails, text messages or social networking.

Walker was charged after opening the Gmail account of his wife, Clara, who was married twice previously. Walker found she was having an affair with her second husband, who had once been arrested for beating her in front of her young son from her first husband.

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When is a drought not a drought?

Good signs for CA water supply in snowpack survey

California’s water managers were optimistic after Tuesday’s trek into the powdery wilderness to survey the state’s frozen water supply.

The water content of the snow in the Sierra is nearly 200 percent of average for late December, according to measurements taken manually and electronically throughout the state.

. . .

“Our situation when it comes to water is so precarious that we should probably remain in a drought situation until we can figure out how we can better deliver water to the entire state,” Cooney said. “We’re in such a world of hurt that perhaps there is logic that we always remain in a drought situation. Clearly the next governor will have this issue at the top of his list.”

I don’t know why anyone would get involved with Chicago politics if they didn’t have to but, President Clinton seems to love a challenge:

Bill Clinton, to stump for Rahm Emanuel, warned by Danny Davis: Stay out of Chicago mayor race

Chicago mayoral hopeful Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) shot a warning on Tuesday morning to former President Bill Clinton, coming to Chicago to stump for rival Rahm Emanuel: Stay out.

Davis said that if Clinton did campaign for Emanuel, it would “fracture” and perhaps break his warm relationship with the African American community if he came “to town and participate overtly in efforts to thwart the legitimate political aspirations of Chicago’s Black community.”

I think politicians must have really thick skins. After all the crap that went in during the 2008 campaign, I wouldn’t be thinking of Rahm Emanuel as a friend.

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Could this be true? I can’t imagine having sex after “a game” like this:

Oklahoma man says wife’s death was sex fantasy accident

Arthur Sedille was up-front with police: He would often put a gun to his wife’s head during fantasy sex play at their Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, home.

But Sedille said he didn’t know the gun was loaded when he pressed it to his wife’s head and pulled the handgun’s slide back during sex on the night of December 21.

Now Sedille, 23, is facing the possibility of a murder charge in Canadian County, Oklahoma, in the death of his wife, 50-year-old Rebecca Sedille — who died when the handgun went off in their bedroom.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed by Oklahoma City police, Sedille said the shooting was accidental. He called 911 afterward, according to police.

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If you collect pin-up photos of the Obamas you’re out of luck this year:

Obama: No shirtless pictures

The White House is taking extra steps to prevent photos of a shirtless President Obama on vacation in Hawaii.

The president and his family are on a snorkeling trip in Hamauma Bay Nature Reserve, and traveling press are under “explicit instructions that there will be no long lenses or other sneaky attempts to take pictures,” according to a pool report.

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I can’t tell who’s doing the freaking out here:

Latest Right-Wing Freak-Out: Obama Wants To Give Manhattan Back To Native Americans

The good news is that the right-wing isn’t talking about President Obama being a secret Muslim right now. The bad news is that they’re now concerned that he’s going to use his honorary status as a Crow Tribe Indian to return the United States to Native Americans.

The outrage began after the President announced on December 16 that the U.S. would reverse course and support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The Declaration was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2007, but the U.S., under President Bush, opposed it.

. . .

Last week, the “Director of Issues Analysis” for the Christian conservative American Family Association, Brian Fischer, wrote a blog post claiming that “President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords.”

“Perhaps he figures that, as an adopted Crow Indian, he will be the new chief over this revived Indian empire,” Fischer wrote. “But for the other 312 million of us, I think we’ll settle for our constitutional ‘We the people’ form of government, thank you very much.”

Are they serious?  And where does THIS move “the center”? Are we supposed to be happy next week when we learn that no one is going to give Manhattan away?

I can’t believe I missed this one

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Marc Rubin wrote this last week:

So amazingly, even in a year and in an election where it was virtually impossible for the Democrats to lose, the leadership of the Democratic party found a way to lose. It took two years and Obama botching everything from healthcare to the stimulus to the Bush tax cuts,but the defeat of the Democrats in the last election solely because of Obama’s failures was breathtaking in its scope.

Geraldine Ferraro was absolutely right even though she was torched by a knee jerk news media for saying it, that if Obama had been white he would have been a joke as a presidential candidate. Now Obama is president but the only ones laughing are Republicans while liberals, moderates and independents keep trying to figure out what went wrong. And the answer still is, nothing went wrong. Obama has been exactly the same duplicituous politician he was during the primaries and in his prior political career as he has been as president.

That Hillary Clinton was clearly the most qualified candidate was obvious then and more painfully obvious now. But those at MoveOn and the Huffington Post, and NY Times and the Nation and all those who turned a blind eye to Obama’s lack of qualification and character flaws because they wanted to support a black candidate for president, ironically had to take everything Martin Luther King lived for and took a bullet for — the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin — and threw it in a dumpster in order to do it.

You don’t have to wonder how different things would have been had the DNC and the press did nothing more than simply be honest. If the process had played out honestly Clinton most likely would have been the nominee since there would have been no disenfranchising of 1,600.000 voters in Florida and Michigan who voted for Clinton over Obama in landslide numbers (which is the real reason for the Florida and Michigan fiasco), and the entire set of expectations, fueled by the press, would have been different.

There’s more and you should read it. I guess I was so busy preparing for the Airing of Grievances that I missed it.

I know some people think we should stop talking about the past and move on. Yeah, that’s always worked so well before. To paraphrase Santayana, “Those who forget the past have no future.”

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