CQPolitics.com - CANTON, Ohio -- $1.50 still gets you a day of downtown parking in this rusty town of 78,000 residents, where the unemployment rate hovers well north of the national average and local business leaders say there are few reasons to be optimistic.

Democratic Kansas House candidate Dan Manning said he came home from work early Saturday morning and found a death threat clipped to the outside of his apartment door.

Outside of joining the locals in a deep and contented chuckle over the whole "STAY OFF THE GREEN LINE" matter, I'm not sure what there is to say about this coming weekend's "Glenn Beck Sings A Song Of Myself" rally on the steps of the Lincoln memorial. Weirdly, people only seemed to get terribly concerned about how it will be held on the same day of Martin Luther King's historic March On Washington this week, despite the fact that this has been known from the get-go. I'd have never imagined this was necessary, but on the off-chance that you're confused about whether Glenn Beck and Martin Luther King are the same person, here's some exhaustive research from Media Matters demonstrating this is not the case. As Dave Weigel points out, it might be more worthwhile to be upset about "the b.s. way [Beck]'s selling" the rally. Not that this breaks with any of Beck's established traditions! But, as Politico's Ken Vogel reported, what's noteworthy is that Beck's fameball act is starting to irk some of his nominal allies, spurring some skepticism of his motives: The rally and Beck's increasing political forays have made him an object of suspicion among some conservatives, even as they acknowledge his influence and potential importance as a spokesman. "The conservative movement is still split on Glenn and whether he's doing it for himself or doing it for the movement," said Erick Erickson, founder of the influential conservative blog Red State. Erickson said he's offered his assistance to Team Beck in his political exploits, which in the past year have included a high-profile battle with the White House, the creation of a network of perhaps hundreds of political groups, and the keynote speech at a major conservative political conference. "Until that question is resolved, I think you're going to see some groups hesitant to go all in with him." Some tea party leaders have rejected Beck's requests to help with the rally because of concern over his inflammatory rhetoric and fear that he was seeking to leverage their organizational know-how and grass-roots credibility for his own financial benefit, providing little in return. "They wouldn't even give us a booth," said a leader of a tea party-related group that rejected Beck's entreaties. "I resented their presumption that a relatively small organization like ours would use our connections to promote an event where Glenn Beck and FreedomWorks are featured, and we get no recognition at all. No thanks." Well, Beck's insanely melodramatic video promotion of the rally, replete with Goldline scamflackery and nutlog comparisons to Rosa Parks, the Wright Brothers, and the moon landing, isn't going to do anything to tamp down that nascent skepticism: [Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

We are in the midst of the biggest recall in American history. Obviously, I'm talking about eggs. Many of us have worried about this danger for years, but we were branded as "alarmists." These eggs have proven to be a huge danger to the health and vitality of our nation. Now, just to rub it in, I've heard rumors that the American Poultry And Egg Society is building a Cultural Center in Iowa. What makes it worse, is that they plan on building this only a few hundred yards from Wright County Egg -- where many of the tainted eggs came from. I don't mind the Society having a building to educate the public about chicken and eggs. However, it is incredibly insensitive of them to have the Center so close to the site of this disaster. I don't feel I have to be politically correct when it comes to chickens. This is a democracy and the Land Of The Free and all that stuff, so we have always permitted all foods to be eaten here. However, traditionally, the United States has been a Meat Country. Beef was considered to be one of the healthiest foods. We ate red meat to get stronger. Then along came some "scientific" research that claimed that things like "cholesterol" and other invisible "dangerous" chemicals were in red meat, and that chicken was healthier for us. Oh, really? When was the last time a steer with salmonella laid an infected egg? In American tradition, chicken and eggs are not on the same level as many other foods. For example, we eat turkey on Thanksgiving. A Christmas goose or ham is on many tables. Can you imagine there ever being a tradition in our country of having people over on Flag Day to eat an omelet? The disease that these eggs carry, obviously, comes from hens. And how do these hens get it? They get it by eating feed that has been infiltrated by rat or mouse droppings. Even those on the political left must see this as disgusting. The touchy-feely, latte-drinking San Francisco liberals will tell you that chickens should be treated the same way that we treat all other animals that we eat. That's a good idea in theory, but no other animal's disease has invaded our country on this scale. Half a billion -- that's billion with a B-- eggs have been recalled. To give you a visual, if you put a billion eggs end to end around the world, well, uh, it sure would make a mess. So while it's true that the majority of chickens (and their eggs) may pose no threat to America, the threat from a minority of them is so great, that we have to be wary of all chickens. I'm not chicken-phobic, but times have changed. We must be vigilant. Those who make their living from chickens should be sensitive to this fact and put their Poultry Cultural Center somewhere other than in the middle of America's farm country. A good place might be downtown Manhattan. I also can't help wondering if some of these eggs were smuggled into the United States from other countries. Doesn't half a billion sound like a huge number of eggs to come just from Iowa? This is something that I hope the government will look into. We should take precautions just in case our enemies are using tainted eggs to weaken the greatest nation in the world. It's just possible that we finally have an answer to that old question: "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Because there weren't enough border guards to stop him." Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from "Sesame Street" to "Family Ties" to "Home Improvement" to "Frasier." He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. He can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com. Check out his website at lloydgarver.com and his podcasts on iTunes.

I sure hope somebody is going to notice the fine piece on the front page of Thursday's New York Times about how easy it is to get around the Volcker rule. Remember how the Obama team that came up with its reregulation proposals seemed to push Paul Volcker aside? The former Federal Reserve chairman was supposed to be running a committee on the subject for the president, but even he let it be known no one was talking to him much. Volcker was concerned that commercial banks were using insured depositor money to make risky investments and to drive huge bonuses -- and the Fed and the FDIC would be left picking up the pieces. The system should not be bearing that much risk, he wisely figured. And to be fair, he had long felt this way. After an earlier front page Times piece by Lou Uchitelle on Volcker's concerns, Obama suddenly embraced a limitation on such trading -- the Volcker rule. There were many Volcker photo ops. There would now be a ceiling on what trading could be done for the banks' proprietary accounts -- its own assets. The Dodd-Frank bill embraced the idea. Problem solved. No way, of course. The trouble is, banks have been trading for their own accounts to one degree or other for decades while making markets for their customers. In the late 1970s and early 1980s in particular, they first discovered they could generate big profits if they bought extra securities (or derivatives) at propitious times under the guise of keeping inventory to facilitate trades of their investors and corporate clients. They could also hedge their positions by selling. In truth, it wasn't even a disguise. They gambled money, but like all market makers, they had an insider's edge. And they made fortunes. Some of the investment bankers, in particular, loved the traders who took the big risks. Of course, occasionally, they lost big -- and some of the losers made headlines. But mostly they made out like bandits. Over time, the lucrative practice was moved to the "proprietary" desks. That's where Howie Hubler lost nine billion dollars in a mammoth mortgage transaction for Morgan Stanley, as reported by Michael Lewis in The Big Short. I was never clear why the press didn't make more of that after Lewis divulged the unpublicized catastrophe. No one ever lost that much money on a trading desk before. Once not long ago, if you lost $200 million it was a scandal. Now Nelson Schwartz and Erich Dash have put their finger on what seemed to be hidden from view. The banks do a lot of this all the time, and they are doing it big-time again, the reporters found out. As they quote one consultant, "You can use client activity as a cover for basically anything you are doing." And the fact is that they do, and have done so for a long time. As the Times reporters write, "For all the talk of shutting down trading desks and reassigning employees to prepare for the Volcker Rule, proprietary-style trading will probably survive, if under a different name." So much for the Volcker rule. And the great man himself (that is, Volcker) never came to grips with this immense hole in the regulations, either. High risk on Wall Street will go on. Meantime, Sheila Bair found it necessary to argue in this week's Financial Times that stronger capital requirements will make the financial system better -- that is, help allocate capital where it is actually needed and useful. She apparently feels she has to defend higher capital requirements against influential complaints coming from the powerful financial community that they will undermine lending and raise interest rates. Yes, and regulations to limit oil spills will raise gas prices, higher wages will undermine corporate profitability and capital investment, and product safety standards will limit the number of toys parents can buy for their kids. Industry goes on and on. As if, suggests Bair, the earlier inadequate capital requirements resulted in no financial or social cost. Consider the credit crisis and the recessionary aftermath. The financial reregulation package was never strong enough, but the battle to make work even what was passed, will go on. Nothing is quite so irksome as the financial community talking about how little TARP cost taxpayers as banks paid back their bailouts. First, TARP should probably have made money, like Warren Buffett will on the money he lent Wall Street. But second, the big cost is severe and ongoing recession resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars of lower federal tax revenues for years, unemployment rates near ten percent, and weak capital spending. Let's keep straight how much financial excess has and will continue to cost America. Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0. Sign up for weekly ND20 highlights, mind-blowing stats, event alerts, and reading/film/music recs.

Apparently, the Harris Teeter grocery store chain has something called the "Fresh Catch Club," and yesterday, its members received an email, flagged by Sarabeth Guthberg at 1115.org, that read, in part: This week's Fresh Catch feature item is fresh wild caught 13-17ct Head-On Gulf White Shrimp, harvested from the crystal clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf white shrimp are just starting their summer season. These shrimp are plump and juicy, waiting to be grilled on the Bar-B-Que. They also make an excellent shrimp cocktail or just about any Shrimp dish you can think of. Harris Teeter strives to deliver the highest quality and safest seafood available. The Gulf oil spill has severely affected the shrimp and the seafood industry in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Although Texas has not been impacted by the oil spill, the best way we can support this industry is by buying Gulf seafood. And you will only find it at Harris Teeter Fishermans (sic) Market. Satisfaction guaranteed or we'll double your money back with your VIC card. Yes, these shrimp come from "crystal clear waters," yadda yadda blah, oh, by the way -- side note: remember that whole Deepwater Horizon thingy? As Guthberg points out, the text implies that the bounty comes from Texas, customers don't get any explicit direction, like, say: "Don't worry, this stuff all comes from Texas!" Earlier this month, ABC News reported that while officials as high up as President Obama himself were insisting that seafood from the affected region was safe, many Gulf Coast shrimpers didn't "want to risk their reputations on possibly tainted catches." It sort of makes you wonder about the ones who did! A week after that ABC news report, the Washington Post published a story along the same lines: Federal officials said it was safe. They had allowed states to reopen harvest areas, they said, only after tests on fish and shrimp showed no signs of oil or dispersants. In fact, federal officials said, they did not turn up a single piece of seafood that was unsafe to eat -- even at the height of BP's oil spill. But, like many things in the Gulf of Mexico, Monday's ritual only looked like a return to normal. In some places, the start of shrimping was greeted with suspicion instead of joy. Some fishermen and their families worried that the government's testing was inadequate -- and that if any seafood diners wound up with a plate of oil-tainted scampi, it would be a knockout blow for their industry. In Venice, La., a shrimper was told he wouldn't be paid for his catch until the buyer ran it through tests. "The fishermen don't want to make people sick. I wouldn't feed that to my children without it being tested -- properly tested, not these 'Everything's okay' tests," said Tracy Kuhns, a shrimp-boat owner from Barataria, La. She said that because she and her husband were not confident in the government's assurances they had not gone shrimping Monday. Two days later, Vicki Seyfert-Margolis, Senior Adviser to the Food and Drug Administration, told Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that the Feds weren't even testing seafood from within the "oiled areas" of the Gulf of Mexico: So, to all of my fellow Harris Teeter consumers, hear me: Maybe your fresh catch comes from Texas, but I am typing CAVEAT EMPTOR just as hard as I can. RELATED: Get Your Plump And Juicy Gulf Of Mexico Shrimp Now! [1115] [Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Before Hurricane Katrina struck, New Orleans was far from a model of environmental sustainability. The centuries-old houses with 10-foot ceilings that lend the city its charm were horribly energy inefficient, nearly every building in the city was vulnerable to heavy flooding, and the city had no LEED-certified buildings or an energy code before the storm. Soon after Katrina and the inadequate government response to the disaster, environmental non-profit Global Green capitalized on the opportunity to rebuild the city as an international example of sustainability. Through green affordable housing projects, education initiatives to teach residents about global warming and sustainability, and efforts to green local schools, Global Green hopes to achieve the greatest impact possible on New Orleans while inspiring national and international governments to follow suit. "The response has been pretty phenomenal," said Matt Petersen, President and CEO of Global Green. "We came here with this vision for New Orleans to have another thing it's known for, besides great food, music, culture. We wanted architects and contractors to get educated on how to do green buildings, and we firms there to be able to compete for jobs in other places with their green expertise. And I feel really good about what we've been able to accomplish in five years." Today, Global Green's impact can be felt all over New Orleans. Following a high-profile collaboration with Brad Pitt, there are now more green single-family affordable housing units being built in New Orleans than in any other U.S. city. Louisiana currently has the most progressive solar tax credit in the country, hundreds of green building products are now available there that weren't before, and tons of green building projects are underway in New Orleans--including 73 LEED projects and an estimated 500 LEED-certified homes. (http://tinyurl.com/2dt67q5). Petersen says the organization's greatest success has been the greening of schools in the area, which had significantly reduced energy costs and provided cleaner air and a healthier overall environment for New Orleans students. "The highest-impact, although the least known of our successes has been our schools project," Petersen told HuffPost. "We have impacted six schools directly and created a policy to impact eight more. We've created some curriculum for environmental education programs, gotten parents more involved in fundraising, helped the district negotiate with FEMA to get full cost reimbursement, and updated energy efficiency for four schools, saving a total of $25,000 per school." Shannon Jones, the executive director of Tulane University's Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, said Global Green's impact on the quality of New Orleans schools has been immeasurable. "Before Katrina, schools in this area required about a billion dollars in maintenance," she said. "Now we're building schools that also are more environmentally sound, and it's saving them a lot of money on electricity." Global Green has also had a number of policy successes: They influenced the state government to offer a 50 percent solar tax credit and to consider green criteria in allocating low-income housing tax credits, the staff co-chaired Mayor Landrieu's new transition team on sustainable energy and the environment, and they have been invited to submit a bid to run the city's weatherization program for the next three years. Despite New Orleans' progress in becoming a greener city, Petersen said the recent Gulf oil spill was a sobering reminder of the need for stronger environmental initiatives and policies across the world. "With global warming, flooding is going to be part of New Orleans' future, whether by levee break or sea water rise," he said, "but in light of the Gulf Oil Spill, we realize that rebuilding a more energy-efficient New Orleans isn't enough. We must invest in a green energy future for the Gulf and the nation. We must embark on a national campaign to reduce gas emissions. Because the reality is that if we don't do something about global warming, New Orleans is going to be lost."

The Taiwanese have done it again. Next Media Animation has released a CGI recreation of all the recent events surrounding the Park51 controversy and anti-Muslim incidents with immaculate detail. The video covers the heated confrontation between anti-Park51 protesters and a random African American construction worker. Then it moves on to the protests over a proposed mosque in Murfreesboro, TN and a Florida church's plans to burn Korans to honor 9/11 victims. The video also covers President Obama's support for the center and finishes off with the stabbing of a Muslim cab driver and a reference to the not-so-sacred buildings near Ground Zero. This isn't the first time Next Media has animated a gripping American news story. They did a brilliant job of recreating the drama surrounding flight attendant Steven Slater's meltdown and Tiger Woods' marital woes. See all the CGI mosque madness in the video below:

AP - With his Oval Office speech Tuesday night, President Barack Obama will signal a shift in America's focus from the Iraq War to the war in Afghanistan, his spokesman said Thursday.

It's Women's Equality Day, the date marked to celebrate women getting the right to vote in our nation 90 years ago today. It's both hard (and easy in some sad ways) to believe that it was just 90 years ago that women got the right to vote in our nation. Reflecting on this, I called my grandmother, who turns 95 this year, to see what she recalled about women winning the right to vote, and who had this to say with a twinkle in her voice: "Well, I wasn't able to vote when I was 5 years old and women first got the right to vote. Although as a child I thought I should be able to vote, but of course I couldn't. I had to wait for what felt to me like a very long time to be old enough to vote. I remember when I first voted and going into the polls. I remember that all my girl friends voted too. We all voted. We wanted to take part in what was going on in the world. The only way we could do that was by voting." Fast forward 90 years to now in 2010: Women do have the right to vote, we also have a modern economy with women comprising 50% of the entire paid labor force for the first time in history this year, and women now take part in what's happening in the world in many more ways than appeared possible to my grandmother when she could first vote. But that doesn't mean women in our nation have achieved equality yet. That's right. It's not yet time to pop the bubbly and celebrate victory on Women's Equality Day just yet. There's one very large group of women in particular who are experiencing significant inequality in our nation: Mothers. The issue of wage and hiring discrimination against mothers is bigger than most people realize. The maternal wall is what's standing in the way of most women even seeing a glass ceiling. In fact, while most women without children make 90 cents to a man's dollar, mothers make only about 73 cents to a man's dollar, with mothers of color experiencing increased wage hits. Since over 80% of women in our nation have children by the time they're forty-four years old, the majority of women face this kind of discrimination at some point in their lives. And, this discrimination can't fully be blamed on mothers for choosing different career paths, as many have done. In fact, there was a study done on this very topic at Cornell University a couple of years ago which found that even when people have identical resumes, education, and job experiences, women with children are 100% less likely to be hired. There's real discrimination here. As a result, families are struggling. Moms who work full-time still struggle to put food on the table. This hurts children. This hurts taxpayers. This hurts us all. Case in point: Almost 1 in 4 kids in our country are experiencing food scarcity due to family economic limitations, according to the USDA. In this economic downturn the paychecks of moms are critical to keeping families afloat. In fact the majority of families need two parents in the labor force to make ends meet these days. Frankly we have 1950s public policies when it comes to families, while the rest of the nations in the world have sped ahead. Without such policies, having a baby is a leading cause of poverty spells in our nation. One of the big reasons for this is that people end up having to quit needed jobs when they don't have the bridge of paid family leave for a few weeks after the birth of a baby--like 177 other countries do. We can do better. We can't celebrate Women's Equality Day just yet. We need to see family economic security polices pass that are the norm in most other nations--policies that studies show help lower the wage gaps--including paid family leave, access to affordable childcare, sick days, flexible work options, and the Paycheck Fairness Act among other things. Modern women are between a rock and a hard place, and we need to band together in organizations like MomsRising.org to push for family economic security policies that make it possible for everyone--not just moms--to be able to excel at work, to have a life, and to care for loved ones. There are now more ways for women to be involved in our nation than in my grandmother's time when she felt the only option open to her was voting. It's now time to use those increased options for our voices to be heard to take those next steps for family economic security policies and to lower the wage gaps so we can fully celebrate Equality Day with our daughters and granddaughters. Here's to making it so!

The Upshot - The White House press corps may look a bit different when President Obama returns from Martha's Vineyard, with a couple of changes in the past two days. Michael Shear, a White House reporter for the Washington Post, is joining the New York Times, according to sources with knowledge of the move. Shear leaves the Post [...]

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is backing conservative candidates -- many of whom ran against chosen heirs of the GOP establishment in the primaries. The risk? If DeMint's picks lose in November, party-establishment types are likely to blame him for pushing unelectable candidates onto the ballot.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Today is Women's Equality Day and the 90th anniversary of the effective date of the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed equal political rights for women. It may seem unbelievable to many Americans today, but for most of this country's history, women were denied the franchise in states across the country (some states allowed women to vote before ratification of the 19th Amendment, others did not). Indeed, the story is even more complicated and disturbing than that: as part of the otherwise inspiring and momentous adoption of the 14th Amendment in 1868, which enshrined birthright citizenship and equal civil rights and due process for all Americans, the Constitution actually allowed the denial of political rights to women, imposing a sanction only on the denial of the vote to "male inhabitants" of a state. This was the first use of a gender specific term in the Constitution, and some women's rights advocates opposed ratification of the 14th Amendment on this basis. The adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920 reflects the arc of our constitutional progress. Americans rightly celebrate the Constitution's 1787 Framers for creating the best and most durable form of government in world history. But we should all also be keenly aware of the important blind-spots in the amazing vision of the white men gathered in Philadelphia in 1787. It took the heroic labors of successive generations of Americans to eliminate slavery, give women the vote, and create the increasingly "more perfect union" we live in today. In a brilliant speech supporting the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy called our constitutional history a "journey" that: began with improvements upon the foundation of our Constitution through the Bill of Rights, and then continued with the Civil War amendments, the 19th Amendment's expansion of the right to vote to women, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the 26th Amendment's extension of the vote to young people. These actions have marked progress along the path of inclusion, and have recognized the great diversity that is the strength of our great Nation. This story of constitutional redemption should inspire all Americans, but progressives particularly because progressive social movements have been the motivating force behind just about every successful effort to make our Constitution better. At the same time, progressives should be focused hard and energized in response to the strange brew of constitutional ideas emerging from the Tea Party, which seeks to return to the America of the 1787 Framers and, as Jim Linn, a Tea Party member from San Diego explained to the Washington Post, this "would mean scrapping a lot of the Amendments." Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, and others, have called for repeal of the 16th Amendment, which reinstated the progressive income tax. Utah Senate candidate Mike Lee, and others, have called for repeal of the 17th Amendment, which provided for direct election of Senators. And established politicians on the right including Senator Lindsey Graham are now calling for repeal of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment -- which guarantees that everyone born in this country is automatically a citizen -- an effort that, if successful, would be the first time in history we have amended the Constitution to make it less egalitarian. In short, today as we celebrate the 19th Amendment, the progressive story of our constitutional history -- the story of our still unfinished constitutional journey towards a more perfect union -- is under assault. This weekend - the weekend 47 years ago when Martin Luther King inspired the nation and the world with his "I have a dream speech" - Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin will be rallying at the Lincoln Memorial, the site of Dr. King's speech, for an event designed to "restore honor" and return us to our "nation's founding principles." It is ironic that Beck, Palin, and their Tea Party friends chose the Lincoln Memorial to stage their rally, given that they tend to ignore the constitutional progress urged by Lincoln, secured through a bloody civil war, and written into the Constitution in the post-war amendments -- except, of course, when they are calling to repeal part of these amendments. As the shouts of Beck and Palin dominate the news this weekend, progressives should ensure that the words etched on the Lincoln Memorial are not forgotten in the midst of Tea Party rhetoric. As Lincoln made clear in his Gettysburg Address, the United States was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that 'all men are created equal,'" but it was only after the Civil War and several constitutional amendments that our country experienced "a new birth of freedom" and the promises of our Nation's Founding were kept. Progressives have a great answer to the calls from the Tea Party to a return to our founding principles: the Constitution we have today is better because of a series of Amendments that have made the nation more free, more equal and capable to meet the challenges of the 21st Century world. Today's anniversary of the 19th Amendment -- and the very sight of the Lincoln Memorial at Saturday's rally -- should be timely reminders of that constitutional progress. We need to get that story out.

Back in the days of the crazy housing boom in Boston, when prices went insane, jumping by hundreds of thousands in a few short years, the Mission Hill triple-decker where I rented an apartment for my daughters and myself was sold to a gonna-get-rich-condo guy who quadrupled our rent to an impossible sum. We moved to farthest reaches of our beloved neighborhood, so far only our zip code kept us there. I was better off not looking in the corners of that scabby apartment. One closet I barely opened, terrified of the ancient unmovable dirt hosting God knows what. Moreover, this apartment wasn't even secure; an absentee landlord bided his time waiting for the right price. I lived on the precipice of hating the place and being terrified that that I'd lose it. Then a housing lottery rescued me. Now I could buy a home where no one could throw me out. Not rent. Buy! Affordably buy a beautiful brand-new townhouse. It was part of a mixed-income, owner-occupied, townhouse community being built in Mission Hill. The homes were engendered by the hard work of (and I know I'll forget someone precious, so forgive me) the Bricklayers Union, led by Thomas J. McIntyre, Governor Dukakis, Mayor Ray Flynn, Mission Hill activists (always the best!) the instrumental and always wonderful State Representative Kevin Fitzgerald (rest in peace, Kevin,) and Senator Ted Kennedy. When the time came to celebrate publicly, a team of politicians and their staff came to my house for a press conference. I cleaned, put out food, and worried that my shiny new carpet would get dirty as everyone clomped through my home. Most of the politicians and their aides were friendly. Some I already knew. However, in the midst of political men who turned their faces to the camera like flowers to the sun, a few truly noticed that I was more than a single mother who'd been given a leg up and took me out of the role of stereotype. Kindness spilled from Governor Dukakis. Kevin Fitz was, as always, a supportive and loving man. Senator Ted Kennedy behaved like an absolute favorite uncle in the world. He leaned against the windowsill, ate the fruit and cookies I'd put out, and asked about my life. Where did my children go to school? What sort of work did I do? How did I like the neighborhood? How was I doing? He spoke to me as though he had all the time in the world -- not ever looking for the cameras roaming the house. Senator Kennedy helped me get a house, a home. Now another young woman and her children live there. I hope they feels the presence of the Senator -- larger than life, yes, but also life-size. Able not only to help build homes -- but to become a neighbor. Rest in peace, Senator.

A special investigation concluded he may have given misleading testimony about his intention to pay for World Series tickets last year. The matter was handed to the Albany County district attorney to consider criminal charges.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

On the one hand, there is the college graduate, honored with scholarships and fellowships, who graduated from a top ranked University. That student went on to doctoral study in the 13th ranked program in politics in the United States. Having earlier completed the requirements to become a Berkeley, California police officer, this individual transferred graduate study from the 13th ranked academic program to the top ranked program to continue doctoral study. The first person in his company to cover the "Silicon Valley" territory, this individual has researched for UNESCO, been one of only two California "Bullet Train" analysts, advocated for and taught children in academics and sports and has consulted government notables while managing congressional campaigns. He has met President Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, Abby Rockefeller and Buddy Guy. He has been a radio interview broadcaster and once wrote articles for a national magazine. On the other hand, there is the individual who attended five undergraduate colleges, four of which few have ever heard. Ultimately graduated in communications, became a broadcaster, a city councilperson, a mayor and finally a governor. This was all done from a small town perch that saw no national or worldly oversight and allowed this individual to make egregious errors of grammar, substance and professionalism before an international audience. So whom are we talking about? Well the first individual receives a total of $474.00 as his only stipend from the federal government or anyplace else. He was the first person with Native American and "other" heritage to market computers for a major manufacturer and has at the same time been discarded by the American socio-political and business communities for not displaying his "killer instinct" in business. He has avoided being a "Barracuda" in the business place and his name is Butch. Butch is a "Knowbody" and really doesn't count -- so we'll end with him for now. The other notable is Sarah Palin. Ms. Palin's creation of the word repudiate is merely one in several errors attributable to her since her star has risen in the Republican Party. As if to "stamp" that group with its own erroneousness, Ms. Palin, the darling of old white guys, has been given carte blanche to say and do almost anything because she is the new standard bearer of the old Republican recalcitrance to learn anything other than what Republicans think they already know. But this newfound dalliance with submerged octogenarian libido does not belie the fact that Palin offers nothing of substance to the political landscape once on the national or international stage. And that this stanchion of the mentally Lilliputian is a millionaire with influence, while true achievers as the one listed above are dying, speaks volumes about the "god bless America" of our forebears. Making America safe for the Palins of the world, while disavowing those who have truly worked to achieve says just how topsy-turvy this nation has become. Conservatives are correct! America is dying! But it is not because of the changing access by ethnic groups that those "Tea Party" transparent veils of race decry. It is because of the far-far-far-right's wanton affair with ignorance, and an unwillingness to appreciate objective information for what it is. Mass media should have long ago brought these transgressions to the fore of national consciousness but has failed their charge. It seems "newsworthy" does not always mean truthful and definitely avoids that which is accurate. And the American financial distribution order is just as remiss and complicit. We charge Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, for having structured forms of corruption in his government and then we offer Sarah Palin, Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele and Michele Bachman to the world as viable alternatives. All of these individuals, along with many more of the right-winged offertory, share histories of "intellectual challenge" and socio/political myopia. The stupidity in that charge about Karzai would be like allowing our CIA to nefariously create the Taliban to disrupt Russian governance and then not expect this Frankenstein to turn on us. Ooooops! I recently purchased canned cat food at half price merely because the manufacturing company was changing its label. There was nothing awry with the product, but the labeling was wrong. A clearly competent white male has been denied his business "birthright" merely because he can't butcher the language and doesn't have okay legs. America has no sense of perspective, province or propriety when it comes to dolling out its political and corporate favors. This is not a good sign and we all will pay -- including the decision makers who blithely carry on their agendas without looking at the long view. And it is satire that accompanies my earlier comment about "clearly competent white male ... birthright." Butch is but an example and if his blonde, blue-eyed pedigree is cast aside for the sake of incompetence and cronyism, heaven help us all. So the next time we get a new politician on the scene, or a new Congressperson or Senator, or a new Treasury Secretary or Presidential Chief of Staff, we should be a bit more discerning about what we are getting, from either side of the aisle. And we should entertain no structures that allow for elites and "special circumstances" to undermine our commitment to fairness. Any Quayle that can win office in any state should give us great pause. After all, at the feet of unfairness crouches oligarchy, elitism, cronyism and sadly, the current American way of strife.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's campaign is taking aim at some of challenger Sharron Angle's most controversial and eyebrow-raising positions. A new 30-second ad being rolled out by the four-term incumbent's camp serves as a relentless attempt to reiterate a familiar line of attack criticizing Anlge as "just too extreme." "What do you call a candidate who says the way things are going that time may be coming for Second Amendment remedies, an armed response to our government?" asks a narrator in the spot. "Who says a teenage rape victim should be forced to have the baby? Who proposed a Scientology massage program for prisoners? And who says that Medicare and Social Security violate the Ten Commandments?" And, Angle's camp out with a new ad too. Set to music, the spot called "Love Triangle" paints the relationship between Reid, President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as what "may be the most tragic love story of our time. WATCH:

Five years have passed since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other areas along the Gulf coast, resulting in nearly 2,000 deaths and total property damage estimated at over $80 billion. The failure of the levee system and subsequent flooding of New Orleans triggered the damage or destruction of over 200,000 homes in New Orleans and the displacement of more than 800,00 people. Many of us have vivid images of the ensuing relief chaos, so eloquently captured in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke. I was working in Accra, the capital of Ghana, when the Katrina disaster occurred. The immediate reaction of one of my Ghanaian coworkers was to state, "America will rebuild New Orleans in no time!" With my natural cynicism, I asked, "Why are you so confident that American will react quickly?" My Ghanaian coworker countered, "America is the richest, most powerful country in the world. You even put a man on the moon. If America can spend billions of dollars on wars in Iraq, it can certainly rebuild a city in no time." He then proceeded to challenge me, "Of course, America is a very corrupt country with a dirty history of oppression, injustice and slavery. While America likes to lecture Ghana about corruption, every African knows all about Halliburton's no-bid contracts and their connections to your Vice President." He then qualified his initial statement by saying, "America could rebuild New Orleans in no time, if it wanted to." When our conversation ended, I walked away with many thoughts spinning in my head. I remembered how outside the United States, people are often more aware of other countries, cultures, history and news than Americans. Perhaps this is a reflection of America's educational system, America's embedded self-perception of exceptionalism or merely a negative side-effect of America being so powerful. I remembered the launching of the 2003 Iraq invasion and how pathetic Colin Powell appeared trying to defend the upcoming invasion with "evidence of weapons of mass destruction" that wouldn't convince most schoolchildren, let alone the rest of the world. I remembered the feelings of helplessness as the American government insisted on waging a war, with virtually no debate or discussion in Congress or in the media while public protests were actively suppressed. Finally, I remembered my grandfather's collection of newspaper cover pages. His favorite was the 1969 moon landing as he insisted that the manned moon landing was the greatest event in all of history, not merely US history. Mankind, he argued, had been staring at the moon throughout history, and America will always be known as the first country to place a human there. Five years later, I dread running into that same Ghanaian coworker. He would undoubtedly remind me of the government's poor response to those suffering during Hurricane Katrina. He would point out the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failures, FEMA's issues, the needless death and the slow recovery of many parts of the city. He would soon swing the conversation to talk about more recent events. He would cite how the US government can find so many billions of dollars to support banks, bankers and other financially and politically elite, as well as pay for wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan but how America is torn apart arguing about providing basic health care to all its citizens. He would point out that the ugly reality of American inequality raised its head in the government's reaction to Katrina. He would remind me of the media's obsession with race-based stories about chaos and hooliganism, prominently displaying images of armed national guards. Lastly, he would conclude that "A person, group or even a country's priorities are reflected in how they spend their time and money. America could have rebuilt New Orleans in no time, if it wanted to." My response would be, "You're right that America can do almost anything, including rebuilding New Orleans in no time, if it wants to. We can solve issues like poor public education, incomplete and exorbitantly priced health care, high crime rates, huge incarceration rates and massive inequality it we want to. It all depends on how America choose to allocate its resources including time and money. Remember, we were the first to land a man on the moon"

Reuters - The land owner and developer building the long-delayed new World Trade Center sealed a deal on Thursday to speed construction just over a year shy of the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Filed under: Sarah Palin, Poll Watch, 2010 Elections, Conservatives, Tea PartyNearly three in 10 Americans say they are supporters of the Tea Party, according to a new survey, while more than half the respondents say they hold negative opinions of the conservative grassroots movement. A CBS News Poll released Thursday found 29 percent of those asked considered themselves Tea Party supporters and 54 percent did not. Fully 17 percent had no opinion either way. The results are similar to last month's but show more support for the Tea Party than in April of this year, CBS said. Not surprisingly, a majority -- 56 percent -- of Tea Party supporters identified as conservative. Of those, 44 percent are Republicans, while 43 percent said they are independents. Not many at all, only 13 percent, called themselves Democrats. The survey also asked Tea Party supporters what they think of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has become an icon of the movement. Forty-five percent of Republicans, 41 percent of conservatives and 49 percent of Tea Partiers hold favorable opinions of Palin, according to CBS. But among the public overall, Palin doesn't get such positive ratings. Only 23 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of the former vice presidential candidate, while 40 percent view her unfavorably. Read the poll results, including its sampling methods, here. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

AP - Seizing on a day of bright summer sunshine, President Barack Obama headed to the links on Thursday for another vacation round of golf.

Politico - A subcommittee plans to investigate two Iowa farms linked to a massive salmonella outbreak.

Steve Chapman, Chicago Trib

Steve Chapman, Chicago Trib