Why I Like This Solar Marketing Campaign

Clean energy has become a huge part of the political campaign this year. And certainly not in a good way. The last election cycle, all the candidates went out of their way to express their support for renewables. This year, 81% of attack ads have been about energy — many of them directly attacking technologies like solar.

With the renewable energy industry suddenly finding itself in a brutal political battle, it’s easy for many of us to get wrapped up in push back in this post-Solyndra world.

That’s why I like the ad campaign below so much. Produced by the solar services company SunRun, the ads completely avoid the exhausting political debate and put solar in a humorous frame that people can relate to — similar to a beer or car commercial. By treating solar like any other consumer product, these ads help normalize the industry.

Ultimately, this is the type of marketing campaign that — if scaled properly  — has the potential to drown out the vicious, false attacks from political organizations like Americans for Prosperity and American Crossroads.

Too bad companies like SunRun don’t have tens of millions of dollars to throw around for national advertising.

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Midday open thread

• Today's comic is Assaulting Austerity by Mark Fiore:
• At this late date, it never was going to happen:
  

  Democratic officials tell POLITICO that the DNC convention isn't moving anywhere in the wake of an anti-gay rights vote by North Carolina voters.

  "The convention is staying in Charlotte," said Kristie Greco, director of communications and public affairs for the Democratic National Convention Committee.

• Harry Reid will be sad to see soon-to-be-former Senator Dick Lugar go ... and he managed to smack the teabaggers while saying so:
  

  ?Throughout the history of this country, even in the most trying times, that?s times of great social and political unrest, our elected representatives have worked together despite their differece to do what?s right for all Americans,? he said. ?So I worry when I see dedicated patriot like Sen. Lugar drummed out by tea party zealots for being too willing to cooperate. But that?s what happened on Tuesday.?

• Cue the right-wing outrage:
  

  Federal authorities said Wednesday that they plan to sue Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office over allegations of civil rights violations, including the racial profiling of Latinos.

• Hillary, 2016:
  

  They may have dealt a huge blow to her campaign in 2008 but Iowa Democrats love Hillary Clinton and express strong support for her if she was to run again in 2016.

  Clinton has an 88/6 favorability rating with Democrats in the state. 62% say they would like her to be the nominee in 2016 to 14% for Joe Biden, 4% each for Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Cuomo, 2% each for Russ Feingold and Brian Schweitzer, 1% for Martin O'Malley, and 0% for Mark Warner. Clinton's support is pretty universal. 66% of women, 57% of men, 65% of liberals, 58% of moderates, 63% of Democrats, and 61% of independents support her.

• The self-declared constitution-lovers will no doubt be 100% behind this decision:
  

  A Montana judge has struck down the state's ban on prescription birth control coverage for teenage girls enrolled in its low-income health insurance program

  Healthy Montana Kids, the insurance program for families with incomes up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level, had covered prescription contraceptives for uses such as preventing acne or easing cramps, but it would not cover contraceptives to prevent pregnancy.

  District Judge Jim Reynolds of Helena ruled Friday that those regulations violate the Montana Constitution's privacy and equal protection clauses, and he prohibited the state from enforcing them.

• Michael Bloomberg's New York City ... but hey, maybe they were wearing hoodies:
  

  Most troubling, the NYCLU report seemed to bear out charges of racial profiling in stop-and-frisk situations. In precincts where blacks and Latinos are least represented among the population (14 percent or less), blacks and Latinos were nonetheless the target of 70 percent of stops. Perhaps most staggeringly, the the Wall Street Journal highlighted that the number of stops of black men between the ages of 14 and 24 (168,126 ) exceeded the total city population of black men in that age range (158,406).

• Sheesh, Vladimir, don't let it go to your head:
  

  Russian President Vladimir Putin won't be attending next weekend's G8 summit, the White House announced Wednesday evening. [...]

  ?Noting his responsibilities to finalize Cabinet appointments in the new Russian government, President Putin expressed his regret that he would be unable to attend the G8 Summit at Camp David on May 18-19,? the White House said in a statement. ?President Obama expressed his understanding of President Putin?s decision and welcomed the participation of Russian Prime Minister Medvedev at the G8 Summit.?

• TSA sucks.
• Hard to believe this is just around the corner:
  

  The flame that will burn during the London Games was lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympics on Thursday, heralding the start of a torch relay that will culminate with the opening ceremony on July 27.

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In 2011, NYPD Made More Stops Of Young Black Men
Than The Total Number Of Young Black Men In New York

During New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first year in office, the New York Police Department stopped and interrogated 97,296 people on the streets. By 2007, with the Bloomberg administration pushing the a stop-and-frisk strategy, police made more than a half a million stops. Last year, the figure rose to a record 685,724 people. And according to a New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) report, the vast majorities of stops — about 87 percent — were of blacks and Latinos. Despite robust defenses of the tactics, they appear to be less effective than the Bloomberg administration and NYPD claim.

Most troubling, the NYCLU report seemed to bear out charges of racial profiling in stop-and-frisk situations. In precincts where blacks and Latinos are least represented among the population (14 percent or less), blacks and Latinos were nonetheless the target of 70 percent of stops. Perhaps most staggeringly, the the Wall Street Journal highlighted that the number of stops of black men between the ages of 14 and 24 (168,126 ) exceeded the total city population of black men in that age range (158,406).

Along with the wildly disproportionate stops, blacks and Latinos were more likely to get frisked. Yet they yielded a smaller percentage of weapons than whites. The NYCLU produced these charts demonstrating the disparities:

On Bloomberg’s weekly radio show last month, Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the stop-and-frisk strategy, whose increased application they credit with a 50 percent drop in the city’s murder rate, but it’s not at all clear how this strategy produced such an outcome. Comparing 2003 and 2011, stops increased by more than half a million while only 172 more guns were found. That’s a jump of finding one gun for every 266 stops versus one gun per every 3,000 stops.

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GOP Rep Who Voted Down ENDA Claims Gay People Are
Already Protected From Employment Discrimination

It is not uncommon to believe that someone shouldn’t be fired for their sexual orientation — in fact, ninety percent of voters mistakenly say that federal law protects LGBT people employment discrimination.

It turns out that elected officials hold the same misconception — even ones who voted against such measures. Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX) today told ThinkProgress that he believes non-discrimination protections are in place for gay workers and that no “citizen of the United States should be discriminated against for any reason:”

STRASSER: Do you believe in other protections for gay people outside of marriage, things like hospital visitation or protection from being fired in the workplace?

MARCHANT: I don?t think any citizen of the United States should be discriminated against for any reason.

KEYES: So if there were legislation saying it?d be illegal to discriminate and fire someone for being gay?

MARCHANT: Those laws are already on the books.

KEYES: I don?t think that?s a law right now.

MARCHANT: Well, I?m not going to stand here and argue with you. I believe that those protections are afforded every citizen of the United States. Whether those laws are enforced or not, that?s up to the Justice Department. I believe that those rights are on the books.

Watch it:

Marchant seems to have forgotten about the role he played in blocking legislation that would have enacted the protections he championed today. In 2007, Marchant voted against the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, legislation that would have protected LGBT people from workplace discrimination.

In actuality, an employer is able to fire someone for being gay in 29 states and for being transgender in 34 states, and a huge number of LGBT workers have acknowledged discrimination at work.

Luckily, Rep. Marchant will get the opporunity to renew his commitment to fight discrimination of LGBT workers. A bipartisan group of senators released a letter today calling on Congress to hold hearings about putting a non-discrimination law in place. The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee will take up the issue on June 12.

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As NBC Mulls ‘Community,’
‘Parks & Recreation’ Renewals, In Defense of Short Seasons

In tonight’s finale of Parks & Recreation, we’ll find out if Leslie Knope won or lost the City Council seat she’s been campaigning for all season, but it’s still not clear if we’ll return to Pawnee next season to see Leslie take her place alongside Councilman Hauser in victory or revitalize the Parks Department in defeat. The same is true for Greendale Community College and the TGS writers’ room at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The speculation is that 30 Rock will be back for a short season, and that if Parks & Rec and Community get pickups, they’ll be shorter orders as well. That might mean fewer episodes of shows we love. But creatively, it strikes me as a good thing.

I’m a long-time advocate of shorter seasons, and I think we’ve seen a lot of illustrations of the foibles of trying to fit 22-episode orders into a 40-week period this year. Revenge‘s long hiatus slowed the momentum of the ABC Hamptons-set thriller down to a crawl, and the show’s gotten baroque and full of moody shots in its attempt to fill up episode space since its return. Community‘s disappearance from ABC’s airwaves for an agonizing and indefinite period left fans waiting, and while NBC tossed out and then yanked sitcoms like Best Friends Forever and Bent in quick succession. Now I understand that shows fail, networks need to replace things that aren’t working at all, and fans don’t want to wait a long time for their favorite shows to come back. But I’d much rather see short, excellent seasons of shows that are suited to it, and to see them run continuously rather than spaced out in seemingly random ways.

NBC’s Thursday night comedies seem uniquely suited to shorter, smarter seasons. 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation‘s shortened seasons were their best for entirely different reasons. 30 Rock‘s second season was shortened by the writers’ strike, but it was a hilarious, joke-dense season. “SeinfeldVision” and “MILF Island” were fantastic riffs on the industry that preceded the “Queen of Jordan” running gag the show is using now. “Greenzo” featured two of the show’s best-ever cameos in David Schwimmer and Al Gore. And “Sandwich Day” turned Liz’s love of food into a sign of something other than middle-aged singleton schlubbiness. No one has ever made scarfing a sub look so poignant before or since.

Parks and Recreation‘s shortened third season had tons of great comedic beats as well, but it also illustrated how sitcoms can pull off strong serialization without dropping plotlines for a long stretch of episodes or producing episodes that don’t work as standalones. The stated major arc of the season was the question of whether Ben and Leslie would get together, a will-they-or-won’t-they that fit neatly into a wide variety of settings. And it turned out that Leslie’s victories in restoring the Harvest Festival, over her rivals in Eagleton, and in organizing Lil’ Sebastian’s funeral were actually setting up Leslie being asked to run for office. The show didn’t always hit the same beats, and in fact in episodes like “April and Andy’s Fancy Party” and “The Fight,” we got to see a number of the vulnerabilities that would plague Leslie in her campaign this season, namely her desire for control.

The 22-odd episode season may be an industry convention, but that doesn’t mean it’s a creative imperative. If the 2012-2013 season is going to be the last year we have 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation and Community, I’d rather have one of those shows on every night for 36 to 45 straight weeks (with exceptions for holidays), and to have those episodes be uniformly excellent, no filler. And if television’s really just about selling soap, I’ve got to believe it might sell better with new programming rather than reruns and schedule gaps.

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Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Urges West Bank
Settlement Freeze Outside Existing Blocs

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor has emerged as a moderate voice in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet. Last month, he split with many of his Likud party colleagues, in arguing that “An attack on Iran wouldn’t add anything to [Israel's] security.” Today, in an interview published in the Times Of Israel, Meridor delivered harsh words to his colleagues who have overseen the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Meridor warned that the current calm in relations with the Palestinians might be producing “an illusion” among Israelis “that this is sustainable in the long term. It is not. It is an anomaly. We need to change it.”

The deputy prime minister urged the government to freeze further settlements “across the line of the [settlement] blocs or the fence or whatever you call it,” a reference to the Israeli West Bank barrier which is partially built along the 1949 armistice line, or “Green Line.”

Meridor emphasized that he was not advocating for a freeze in construction in East Jerusalem, but urged the Prime Minister’s office:

[D]on?t build all over the place, because this is the most damaging of all the things that we are doing to ourselves in the world. Because people say: ?You offer the Palestinians a state. But if you build there in every place, you don?t really mean it.?

The views expressed in the interview are closer to the Obama administration’s policy of opposing all settlement construction and endorsing a negotiated border between Israel and a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders but with mutually agreed upon land swaps. Meridor said:

I think we are at the beginning of being able to do it. Because President Obama spoke of swaps, not of [an Israel withdrawn to the lines of] ?67? And Bush spoke of it? So we already see a basic understanding of the paradigm. The state won?t be along the ?67 lines. No way. It will be different, with some compensation. But if we build all over the place, we lose. Even if we don?t have an agreement [with the Palestinians], we need to have a rational policy.

Meridor criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for not accepting the proposal offered by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert four years ago but acknowledged that global public opinion had turned against the Israeli government because of its continued approval of settlement constructions.

While some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, such as Deputy PM Moshe Ya’alon, and right-wing pro-Israel advocates in Washington have suggested that Israel should not allow a Palestinian state, Meridor countered that such a policy could spell the end of Israeli democracy:

The whole land is Jewish historically? I am fully attached to this. There?s no rhetoric. It?s really what I think. But the reality now is that we can?t get all of it and stay a democratic state or a Jewish state, in terms of numbers and in terms of regime. And this is why we need to cut, and I?m ready to cut?

Despite admonitions from the State Department, Netanyahu’s government has continued to approve and/or legalize settlement constructions in Jerusalem and the West Bank following the expiration of a freeze on settlement construction in September, 2010.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/05/10/481952/meridor-halt-settlement-const
ruction/

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