On Friday, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) addressed the United States’s current unemployment crisis and claimed the iPad was “probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs.” Jackson, himself an iPad owner, expanded on his statement by pointing to the recent bankruptcy of Borders Books. “Why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes and Noble? Just buy an iPad and download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine,” the Congressman said. He also cited Chicago State University’s initiative to replace textbooks with iPads for freshman students. Jackson stated that the goal of the University was to create a “textbookless campus within four years.” “What becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs?” Jackson asked the House. “What becomes of bookstores and librarians and all of the jobs associated with paper? Well, in the not-too-distant future, such jobs simply won’t exist.” He also took issue with the device’s production overseas: “The iPad is produced in China. It’s not produced here in the United States. There is no protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work.” According to Neowin: It seems that Jackson has changed his views significantly since last month when he said that the iPad was “revolutionizing” the country” and that it would “fundamentally alter how we will educate our children” followed by making a suggestion that there should be an “iPad for every student in the nation”. Business Insider reponds, “Obviously he ignores all the wealth the iPad has created in America, and the fact that there are all kinds of other jobs that have been created around the iPad ” WATCH: [via Real Clear Politics]
Continue reading …AP Falsely Claims Scott Walker Admitted Collective Bargaining Restrictions Won’t Save Money
April 18, 2011 No CommentWhile Scott Walker has become a hero to conservatives by taking on the public sector unions driving the state's budget into the red, he is as close to universally vilified on the Left as any public figure in America today. Every proclamation and action from Walker is subjected to intense scrutiny. Thus, no doubt, there was much consternation when Laurie Kellman of the Associated Press reported that Walker had stated – in a Congressional hearing, no less – that restricting collective bargaining for Wisconsin public employees would not save the state any money. That statement was, of course, contrary to a number of Walker’s claims made while trying to get his budget repair bill through the Wisconsin state legislature. So for him to admit that a prominent element of the legislation – which opponents had dubbed a “union-busting” provision – was not actually meant to be a budget-balancing measure amounted to a stunning admission on his part. But there was just one problem with AP’s claim: it was flat-out untrue. Here’s what the AP reported on Friday, regarding Walker’s testimony before a House committee last week: Democrats at Thursday’s hearing were combative. Just how much did weakening government workers’ collective bargaining rights save the state of Wisconsin? demanded Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. “That particular part doesn’t save any,” Walker replied. Earlier in his testimony, he told the committee the changes would save local governments in Wisconsin more than $700 million a year. The pivotal difficulty with this story line is that it isn’t simply slanted or misconstrued; it is totally inaccurate! What Kellman describes never happened . The Walker quote itself is accurate, but it’s Kucinich’s quesiton that Kellman completely misrepresented. Kucinich was not, in fact, asking about collective bargaining rights at all. The inquiry he was actually proffering was about the amount of money that would be saved if unions were required to hold regular votes in order to maintain the status quo of representing their members, as is clear in this video and transcript: Kucinich: Your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members. Can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget? Walker: That, and a number of other provisions we put in because if you’re gonna ask,…if you’re gonna put in place a change like that…we wanted to make sure that we protected the workers of our state so that they had a right to know what kind of value they got. It’s the same reason we gave workers the right to choose, which is a fundamental American right…the right to choose whether or not they wanted to be part of a union… Kucinich (interrupting): Would you answer the question? How much money does it save, governor? Just answer the question. Walker: That particular part doesn’t save any. If this is a mere mistake, devoid of any willful forethought, at the very least, the Associated Press owes a correction to all of its readers and to Scott Walker for its misrepresentation of the facts. Did Kellman even watch the short video of the segment in question before reporting on the exchange? It would seem that even a lackluster attempt to gather the facts would have dispelled the notion that Kucinich had asked about the collective bargaining provisions of the budget repair bill. It may well have been an honest mistake on Kellman’s part, but David Stein of CounterContempt.org opines that something more sinister at play here . As Stein notes, there are a number of tricks in the Old Media playbook that are fairly routine. These include sleight of hand maneuvers such as devoting a vastly greater percentage of print lines or broadcast minutes to a liberal source over a conservative one, then blaming the resulting imbalance on a paucity of space or time. Stein observes that such tactics occur rampantly among Old Media types, but he clearly feels that this particular instance comes under a more overt heading. Eight brief months ago, after Helen Thomas involuntarily vacated her plum front row seat in the White House briefing room, the AP beat three leading contenders to replace her. If recognition at high levels is any indicator of respect, then based on this promotion, the Associated Press has room to boast of the esteem in which it is held. Thus, is it not incumbent upon a news organization that has been awarded such a substantive measure of what passes for mainstream credibility to police their reporting on key figures in the news with closer scrutiny?
Continue reading …Dana Perino Accuses President Obama of ‘Saying Offensive, Crazy Things’ in Budget Speech
April 18, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Well it looks like we’ve got another Republican who is terribly offended by President Obama’s budget speech; former Bush Press Secretary turned Fox shill Dana Perino. Perino accuses President Obama of “saying offensive, crazy things” in his budget speech, but doesn’t bother to fill us in on just what those things were, other than to lie and say that President Obama called the Republicans un-American, which he didn’t. I’m sure she thinks that expecting anyone to possibly pay more in taxes is just crazy talk as well, but she didn’t bring that up here. Here’s a little reminder for Perino of what the President did say : Now, to their credit, one vision has been presented and championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates. It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that. These are both worthy goals. They’re worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known certainly in my lifetime. In fact, I think it would be fundamentally different than what we’ve known throughout our history. Full transcript below the fold. WILLIAMS: — in terms of this Republican field, right now the big money is standing on the sidelines. Everybody is holding their powder dry because they don’t see anything out there that indicates that any of these guys can beat President Obama. So what do you see going on? You see Donald Trump rise to the top of the polls. Donald Trump, out there yesterday, talking to Tea Party people. And they’re all talking to Tea Party people now. Sarah Palin, talking to Tea Party people. Pawlenty, talking to Tea Party people. Haley Barbour, talking to Tea Party people. And they’re saying crazy stuff. I mean, how is Haley Barbour going to get away with saying, oh, we shouldn’t be involved in the war in Afghanistan? Donald Trump saying, you know what? Those Japanese — after the tsunami and earthquake, those Japanese have been ripping us off for a long time. These are offensive, crazy things, but they just like to stir it up. WALLACE: OK. All right. But let’s talk, though — I’m going to take one of your points — don’t look at me like that. WILLIAMS: Well, I’m surprised. WALLACE: I’m going to take one of your points, which is the idea that there is — people are waiting to see who else is going to jump in. And I want to address that with you, Dana, because given the relative lack of excitement about the current field, some people are suggesting that — and let’s put a couple of candidates on the screen — that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, or Congressman Paul Ryan could get in the race as late as next fall and still have a chance. Is that possible? PERINO: Well, I think anything is possible. And I call that the “maybe someone will emerge caucus,” because there is not anyone that has really taken fire. I want to address one thing on the point, though, which is that there is another person in this presidential race saying offensive, crazy things. And that is President Obama, who called the Republicans un-American this week in a speech in which he invited people. Now, you can do that if you want to make it a hyper-partisan thing. But the poll you haven’t shown yet is that 70 percent of the American people, according to Gallup, think the country is on the wrong track. So, I think if I were President Obama’s political team, I would think, wow, we should have had a better week last week than we did. Rising gas prices will continue to dog them, and maybe somebody will emerge out of this Republican field that will be able to catch people’s attention and go the distance. h/t Media Matters
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New York’s blubbing bloggers fall for this horsey transfer from the National Theatre, but critics find some strings attached So if a theatre critic walked into a Broadway bar, and the barman asked: “Why the long face?”, it would be fair to assume that said pint-puller was not a man of culture. Long faces are very much in vogue on Broadway right now. Pop down to the Lincoln Center on West 65th, for instance, and it seems you’ll find little else. There are several long faces on stage, and hundreds more in the audience. All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that War Horse (the puppet-filled play that’s wowed London audiences since 2007) transferred to Broadway last week, and is making New Yorkers weep like there’s some sort of highly contagious tear-duct infection doing the rounds on the Upper West Side. And don’t just take my word for it. Here’s the horse’s mouth: “I wept silently yet uncontrollably,” writes blogger Lisa Lindblad . “I am not capable of emotional distance in the face of an animal’s pain nor an animal’s love. I was distraught. And, so, I made it through until intermission and then left. Reluctantly, sadly, but self-protectively.” Very wise, Lisa. Indeed, other audience members should probably have followed your lead. “At one point,” reports Melissa Whitworth in the Telegraph , “an elderly woman was so overcome that she fainted and had to be carried out by three audience members and attended to by paramedics in the lobby.” Golly. It seems Stateside audiences have fallen for the story of Albert (the Devon farmboy who goes searching for his beloved dobbin, Joey, on the battlefields of the first world war) every bit as fervently as we Brits – and none more so than Alan Miller, who blogs at A Seat on the Aisle . “[War Horse] is a story of honour and deceit, of man’s humanity and inhumanity to his fellow man, of children and adults, of mothers, fathers and sons, of envy and petty rivalries, of bravery and cowardice, of the horror and futility of war – in sum, of everything that makes man what he is, for better or for worse,” wrote Miller. Before disappearing into an oxygen tank for several days. But what about the critics? Well, they adore the life-like puppets, that’s for sure. “They are simply extraordinary creations,” says Chris Jones at the Chicago Tribune , who especially loves the way they “seem to pulse in the very air – breathing, churning and always teaching us, or maybe just reminding us, that the world never stands still and that all you can do is find your love and not get mowed down by the big guns”. What Chris said, says the New York Daily News’s Jerry Dziemianowicz , in slightly less purplish words. “The work by puppet designers Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler is exquisite,” Dziemianowicz writes. “They bring Joey and Topthorn, a fellow war horse, and other animals so authentically to life you believe you’re seeing the real deal.” But according to New York Magazine’s Scott Brown , it’s the brilliance of the puppetry that highlights the show’s flaws. “This horse is alert and alive,” says Brown of Joey. “[S]o much so, we realise only slowly that the script he’s dragging is neither.” Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal was even less impressed. “The fundamental flaw of War Horse,” writes Teachout, “is that Nick Stafford, who wrote the script ‘in association ‘… with South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, has taken a book that was written for children [by Michael Morpurgo] and tried to give it the expressive weight of a play for adults.” Not surprisingly, Teachout concludes, “Morpurgo’s plot can’t stand the strain.” As a result, argues the New York Times’s Ben Brantley , the acting is affected. “The characters are drawn in the broad strokes you associate with children’s literature,” writes Brantley. Brown concurs: “The more horselike the puppet became, the more puppetlike I found the human actors.” The thing that most jarred with our critics was the play’s – ***SPOILER ALERT*** – ending. Much of War House is explicitly critical of the horrors of conflict, but, says Bloomberg’s Jeremy Gerard , its finish blunts any pacifist message. “The climax, which is overwrought and even a bit silly, never is in doubt,” says Gerard, “ultimately robbing the play of deeper emotional involvement.” Perhaps. But try telling that to Lisa Lindblad, who never even saw it. Do say: I cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried. Don’t say: Like flogging a dead horse. The reviews reviewed: Puppets great. Ending sad. Broadway Theatre Patrick Kingsley guardian.co.uk
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Grau – Something About You (Original Mix) aye yo JUNO?!?! Mikael Stavöstrand – Slumb (Original Mix) Solar Powered Jupiter bound JUNO lands at Kennedy Space Center for … Juno , NASA’s next big mission bound for the outer planets, has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center to kick off the final leg of launch preparations in anticipation of blastoff for Jupiter this summer. The huge solar-powered Juno … Solar Powered Jupiter bound JUNO lands at Kennedy Space Center for … Juno , NASA’s next big mission bound for the outer planets, has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center to kick off the final leg of launch preparations in anticipation of blastoff for Jupiter this summer. The huge solar-powered Juno . … Solar Powered Jupiter bound JUNO lands at Kennedy Space Center for … The Juno spacecraft passes in front of Jupiter in this artist’s depiction. Juno , the second mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program, is solar poweredand will blast off for the largest planet in our solar system in August 2011 and … Is Juno an appopriate movie to watch with my dad? » Foxs News … My dad said he would watch a movie with me tonight. I got Juno for Christmas, and I was wondering if that would be awkward to watch with him. I’m thirteen if that helps. I think it would be pretty awkward, just because it refers to sex … Can i use a sprint sanyo juno with my boost mobile service? » Foxs … I use to have sprint and now im with boost mobile. can i use my sprint phone (pink sanyo juno ) that boost mobile just got? it the same exact phone but it does not have a place for a sims card in the back. How can i get my boost mobile … dropshipcell says: #Sanyo 2700 ( # Juno ) Full #Diamond Pink Silver Heart Protective Case — http://adf.ly/17ujX
Continue reading …Sen. Mark Warner: ‘Gang Of Six’ Looking At Social Security Changes, Not Raising Tax Rates
April 17, 2011 No Comment
WASHINGTON — The bipartisan “gang of six” may recommend changes to Social Security as part of its deficit-reduction plan, even though some Democrats have insisted such a proposal would be a non-starter. “You know, part of this is just math — 16 workers for every one retiree 50 years ago, three workers for every retiree now,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), a member of the group, told CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer on Sunday. Warner credited House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for producing a “serious” budget plan but criticized him for not proposing any way to raise revenues while transferring “more responsibility onto our seniors in terms of paying for health care.” “What we’re doing is we’re saying everything has to be on the table,” he said. “Entitlement reform, dramatic spending cuts, looking at tax reform.” While Ryan’s plan primarily talks about lowering tax rates, Warner said the gang of six is also looking at raising revenue by eliminating some of the tax expenditures. While getting rid of such deductions may be considered an increase in taxes, Warner said the group will not propose actually raising tax rates: WARNER: Bob, I think you’ve got to look at both sides of the ledger. Long before I was in politics, I spent 20 years in business. I built companies. And you’ve got to look at the revenue side. You’ve got to look at the spending side. We’re looking at a ratio of about $3 in cuts for every additional dollar in revenues. And the revenues we’re talking about literally are coming from lower rates, where we can lower our rates on individual and on corporate rates back to where they’re much more competitive on a worldwide basis. But we’re getting rid of a number of the tax expenditures. I mean, a fact that I’m not sure most Americans realize — we collect about $1 trillion a year in income taxes, yet we have $1.2 trillion a year in income tax expenditures, deductions, many of them that are popular, charitable deduction, home mortgage deduction. If we would cut back on some of those, we could actually lower rates and still increase revenues. SCHIEFFER: So that’s where you would get the additional revenues, by eliminating deductions, not necessarily by raising taxes? WARNER: We’re not talking about raising taxes. According to The Hill, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has insisted Social Security reform be part of the gang of six plan, while Democratic negotiators in the group, including Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.), have said it should be handled separately. A budget deal with changes to Social Security may face intense resistance from Democrats. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) suggested on CNN’s “State of the Union Sunday that his party won’t support Social Security reform as part of a debt-reduction plan. “I know debt limits frequently have things attached. I understand that,” he said. “But I have to tell you, if they wind up holding up things like Medicare, Social Security, these bedrock programs that help people in need, help form the safety net in our country, it is a non-starter, Democrats won’t vote for it.”
Continue reading …Sen. Mark Warner: ‘Gang Of Six’ Looking At Social Security Changes, Not Raising Tax Rates
April 17, 2011 No CommentWASHINGTON — The bipartisan “gang of six” may recommend changes to Social Security as part of its deficit-reduction plan, even though some Democrats have insisted such a proposal would be a non-starter. “You know, part of this is just math — 16 workers for every one retiree 50 years ago, three workers for every retiree now,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), a member of the group, told CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer on Sunday. Warner credited House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for producing a “serious” budget plan but criticized him for not proposing any way to raise revenues while transferring “more responsibility onto our seniors in terms of paying for health care.” “What we’re doing is we’re saying everything has to be on the table,” he said. “Entitlement reform, dramatic spending cuts, looking at tax reform.” While Ryan’s plan primarily talks about lowering tax rates, Warner said the gang of six is also looking at raising revenue by eliminating some of the tax expenditures. While getting rid of such deductions may be considered an increase in taxes, Warner said the group will not propose actually raising tax rates: WARNER: Bob, I think you’ve got to look at both sides of the ledger. Long before I was in politics, I spent 20 years in business. I built companies. And you’ve got to look at the revenue side. You’ve got to look at the spending side. We’re looking at a ratio of about $3 in cuts for every additional dollar in revenues. And the revenues we’re talking about literally are coming from lower rates, where we can lower our rates on individual and on corporate rates back to where they’re much more competitive on a worldwide basis. But we’re getting rid of a number of the tax expenditures. I mean, a fact that I’m not sure most Americans realize — we collect about $1 trillion a year in income taxes, yet we have $1.2 trillion a year in income tax expenditures, deductions, many of them that are popular, charitable deduction, home mortgage deduction. If we would cut back on some of those, we could actually lower rates and still increase revenues. SCHIEFFER: So that’s where you would get the additional revenues, by eliminating deductions, not necessarily by raising taxes? WARNER: We’re not talking about raising taxes. According to The Hill, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has insisted Social Security reform be part of the gang of six plan, while Democratic negotiators in the group, including Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.), have said it should be handled separately. A budget deal with changes to Social Security may face intense resistance from Democrats. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) suggested on CNN’s “State of the Union Sunday that his party won’t support Social Security reform as part of a debt-reduction plan. “I know debt limits frequently have things attached. I understand that,” he said. “But I have to tell you, if they wind up holding up things like Medicare, Social Security, these bedrock programs that help people in need, help form the safety net in our country, it is a non-starter, Democrats won’t vote for it.”
Continue reading …Hydraulic fracturing blasts at least 29 carcinogens and other hazardous chemicals deep into the earth to break up shale formations and get at oil and natural gas, says a new report released yesterday by House Democrats. Known as fracking, the industry used 780 million gallons of drilling fluids between 2005…
Continue reading …Framing The Debate: This Week Give Tea Party Reps Unchallenged Air Time. When Do Progessives Get A Turn?
April 17, 2011 No Comment
He who frames the debate, controls the debate. There’s a reason that this saying exists–it’s absolutely true and there’s no greater evidence of it than watching the Sunday news shows. Case in point: the Tea Party Caucus in the House. Now this group of newcomers rode into Congress last year on a wave of fear, lies and dissatisfaction with the pace of economic recovery. Their understanding of how government and the economy works is simplistic and single-minded, counting on the ignorance of voters. I’m more than a little annoyed by the overused analogy of running the country is like running a household writ large. Really? How many households have to negotiate trade agreements with other households? How many households issue bonds (which is where most of our debt lies)? Yet Christiane Amanpour allows Reps. Renee Ellmers, Steve Southerland, Joe Walsh and Allen West talk in exactly these terms without challenge or interruption. Okay. I’m sure that if the executive producer of This Week responded to my emails, he would say that having representatives from the majority party is an appropriate booking and that the Tea Party caucus is a notable movement of today. That’s an arguable position to take. However, how many freshman Democratic reps did ABC book after the Democratic sweep of 2008. None. I would also suggest that the media seems more enthralled by the tea party movement than most Americans. Why else would they cover exhaustively a few dozen protesters in Boca Raton and ignore the thousands protesting BP’s environmental violations ? Furthermore, is it too much to ask Amanpour to have her research done to be able to point out that cutting spending in a fragile economic recovery would send the country spiraling into a depression and that any threat of not raising the debt ceiling will extend the economic crisis worldwide ? How about merely pointing out that cutting taxes on corporations has not actually helped the economy over the last 10 years? Since ABC sees their role as simply a platform for ideas, the obvious question to ask is when will the Progressive Caucus get their turn? They’ve offered up a budget alternative to Paul Ryan’s. When’s their turn in the sun, ABC? Or is it that you just don’t want to frame the debate that way?
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