WaPost Focuses Attention of PA's "Whites-Only"
Pool Club

post from The Francis L. Holland Blog on 11 July 2009 08:40:00 AM. © The Francis L. Holland Blog

The Washington Post today is focusing attention on a pool in Pennsylvania that told Black children they couldn't swim there because . . . they're Black.

Although lawsuits are certainly an option in this case, I actually think that the protests these children are participating in will prepare them better for the challenges that America has in store for them. Of course, lawsuits and protests are not mutually exclusive; they're often complementary approaches to problem-solving.

Read The Full Article:
http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2009/07/wapost-focuses-attention-of-pas-white
s.html

Digg this

Video: President Obama arrives in Ghana

post from Let's Talk Honestly on 11 July 2009 08:34:57 AM. © Let's Talk Honestly

Click the link below to check out video of the first black president Barack Obama arriving in Ghana. Also get to see and hear the excitement of those awaiting his arrival:http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/blacknewsblackviews.html

Read The Full Article:
http://glciii.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/video-president-obama-arrives-in-ghana/

Digg this

The Week in Blog: Palin Backlash Edition

post from LiberalOasis : The Blog on 11 July 2009 08:34:00 AM. © LiberalOasis : The Blog

The latest edition of The Week in Blog is up at Bloggingheads.tv, featuring Matt Lewis and myself discussing blogger reaction to conservative backlash against Sarah Palin, Obama's poll numbers and the health care debate. Watch it below.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.liberaloasis.com/2009/07/the_week_in_blog_palin_backlas.php

Digg this

Newt Gingrich STILL thinks Palin might be on the
GOP Ticket in 2012.

post from Crooks and Liars on 11 July 2009 08:30:20 AM. © Crooks and Liars

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player! DOWNLOADS: 22
PLAYS: 11

Mike Murphy is right: "Gov. Sarah Palin is the political train wreck that keeps on giving."

How great is it that a week after she aborts her career in politics, Republicans are still debating whether she has a future on the national ticket?

And Newt Gingich votes yes. [This audio, Newt Gingrich interviewed by his former mistress/now wife Calista, was posted to his website on Friday, July 10.]

One has to wonder with guys like Newt Gingrich still not giving up hope for Palin's future, whether NPR analyst Jennifer Pozner is right, that the public treatment, and Newt's tacit endorsement, of Sarah Palin is much more about her looks and sex-appeal than about her painfully obvious lack of qualifications:

Ironically, though Palin has railed against unfair treatment by the mainstream media, she has mostly been referring not to blatant sexism but to reporters who wouldn't show her "respect and deference." The last thing journalists owe any politician is deference.

In other Palin discussion among the GOP, Peggy Noonan created a major stir with this oped, opining that Palin wasn't qualified to run for high office and never will be. One good article out of a hundred, Peggy, but I still haven't forgiven you for your "GOP sex scandals can be traced back to Bill Clinton" wack-a-news bite. I for one am ready to stop talking about the Clenis and let GOP-nees take responsibility for their own wanderings and motivations. [h/t Nicole for the new lingo.]

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/bluegal/newt-gingrich-still-thinks-palin-might-be

Digg this

Obama's pragmatism remains popular, leaving some
in the ideological dust

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 11 July 2009 08:27:49 AM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

Body

Despite inherited wars, a debilitating economic hangover, a disagreeable Congress and the increasingly unpleasant media, President Obama, reports Gallup, has slipped only slightly in his job approval rating: 58 percent for the first week of July, compared to a 61 percent average for June.

What identifiably shifting trouble he does have comes almost entirely from independents; their thumbs-up is now at 53 percent, while last month it hovered near 60. This comes as little surprise, however, given that independents' overall lack of an orienting political philosophy tends to manifest in greater volatility of opinion. If you don't know where you've been, and why, it's much more difficult to know where you wish to go.

Nevertheless, the above was a veritable plunge compared to Republicans. Within the last month their approval of the job Obama is doing has merely inched downward from 25 percent to 23 percent (a gap, by the way, that also represents the margin of sampling error), having already accomplished most of their amplifying disapproval from January through June. So that seems to have leveled out, for the time being, anyway; and any way you cut it, support for Obama from one out of every four Republicans is still counterintuitively sizable.

The mother lode of consistent opinion comes from self-identifying Democrats, who, reports Gallup, "have remained stalwart in their support for Obama all year, with this month's average rating of 90% roughly in line with where it has been all year." In fact, it's ticked up a point in the last few weeks.

And that's rather remarkable when you stop to consider that just a year or two ago many of those self-identifying Democrats weren't Democrats. Their ranks have since been swelled by youthful newcomers to the electoral process, profoundly disaffected Republicans, and, even if temporarily, party-committing independents.

Hence, while Obama's 90 percent approval rating from Democrats is a partisan rating, it also isn't -- not in the sense of hidebound, lifelong partisans who literally can be counted on, no matter what.

Even more remarkable, however, is, after six months, the generally favorable hue of the statistically aforementioned when juxtaposed with this piece's lede: that is, Obama's headaches of inherited wars, a debilitating economy, a disagreeable Congress and the increasingly unpleasant media.

And a little perspective, especially on the economy, which is just about all that most voters care about, indeed spotlights the genuine remarkableness of those favorable numbers.

To wit, yesterday evening I was reading the July/August issue of The Atlantic and had made my way to James Fallows' interview of economist Nouriel Roubini, better known as "Dr. Doom." The article's first paragraph was jolting, because in it, Fallows noted (for reasons I won't go into here) that on March 28, 2007 -- "on that day" -- "the Dow Jones industrial average was above 12,000, the S&P 500 was above 1,400, and the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.4 percent."

While those circumstantial figures of our then-economic welfare now seem almost surreal, they decidedly are not forgotten. They come from only yesterday, whose bright future -- as far too many read it -- seemed boundless. Despite stubborn underlying problems of, for instance, wage stagnation, at least interest rates were low, employment was high, credit was easy, and before long every one of us would be couched in our very own five-bedroom estate.

Yet well within only two years it would all come crashing down, like the ill-constructed Tower of Economic Babel it was. We were systemically, foundationally flawed, and the fault lines were more, much more, than merely subprimed. Said Dr. Doom, "It was subprime, it was near-prime, it was prime mortgages. It was home-equity-loan lines. It was commercial real estate, it was credit cards, it was auto loans" -- and, as Fallows wrote, Roubini's "list was just getting started."

Obama now owns a full six months of the crushing aftermath, well outside the honeymoon bubble. And yet, although there's been some expected slippage in job approval, he still commands, notwithstanding soaring unemployment and careening deficits, the support of six out of ten Americans -- who largely and patiently see recovery as does Dr. Doom, who gave "relatively high grades [to] Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ... [and] overall support ... for the administration's response to the economic crisis."

In short, the average American remains more in sympathetic and comprehending tune with the stubborn realities Obama is facing than do the putatively well informed and hyperopinionated, who, after all, should know better.

And I find that remarkable.

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/carpenter/438

Digg this

America's Aryan Nation is Not Just a Bunch of
Skinheads; It's Self-Appointed "Chosen by God" Senators, Members of "The Family"

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 11 July 2009 08:17:03 AM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Since Senator Ensign's unrelenting affair with a woman on one of his staffs married to a man on another of his staffs became public, much attention has been drawn to the Skull and Bones like secret society of self-appointed "Christian Super Men" who are part of the Ubermensch "Family."

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/8957

Digg this

Pull Up A Chair

post from Firedoglake on 11 July 2009 08:16:25 AM. © Firedoglake

We haven't done a "getting to know you" post for a while. Since that time, we've had a lot of new folks join the FDL commenting and writing community.So I thought this morning, we might start the day with a howdy. And an invitation to folks who don't[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/07/11/pull-up-a-chair-23/

Digg this

Saturday Open Thread

If your actions inspire others to dream more,
learn more, do more and become more,
you are a leader.

John Quincy Adams
Born July 11, 1767
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=25182

Digg this

Lazy Weekend Open Thread

If your actions inspire others to dream more,
learn more, do more and become more,
you are a leader.

John Quincy Adams
Born July 11, 1767
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=25182

Digg this

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Saturday slumming... with the pundits.

Carl Cannon:

In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession.

Carl, the standard is: are you qualified? The rest is detail. Where the media fell down is in not keeping that front and center at all times, and building her up where she never should have been. CNN exit poll:

Gail Collins:

The reason the Republicans lost so many Senate seats last November is now becoming clear. No one had any time to think about the campaign. They were too busy worrying about Senator John Ensign’s sex life.

Daniel Gross:

I am not an economist. Still, I am confident in saying that, just as it was absurd to talk about an Obama bear market in March, it's much too soon to be condemning the stimulus package.

Bob Herbert:

The crisis staring America in its face and threatening to bring it to its knees is unemployment. Joblessness. Why it is taking so long — seemingly forever — for our government officials to recognize the scope of this crisis and confront it directly is beyond me.

Robert Reich:

Unfortunately, V-shapers are looking back at the wrong recessions. Focus on those that started with the bursting of a giant speculative bubble and you see slow recoveries. The reason is asset values at bottom are so low that investor confidence returns only gradually.

That's where the more sober U-shapers come in. They predict a more gradual recovery, as investors slowly tiptoe back into the market.

Personally, I don't buy into either camp. In a recession this deep, recovery doesn't depend on investors. It depends on consumers who, after all, are 70 percent of the U.S. economy. And this time consumers got really whacked. Until consumers start spending again, you can forget any recovery, V or U shaped.

Politico:

Coming after the recent Beltway debate over coordination between Huffington Post’s senior news editor, Nico Pitney, and the White House over a question about Iran at a recent presidential news conference as well as President Obama’s decision to call on another Huffington Post reporter at his first White House press conference, the choice of Froomkin to oversee reporters as Washington bureau chief seemed to solidify the site’s identity as a progressive voice heavily invested in Obama’s success.

But is it really?

The Opinionator (NY Times) on GM's comeback, from Detroit Freep’s Mark Phelan to Barry Ritholtz.

SF Chron: Swine flu money begins to flow to CA. Coming soon to a state near you.

California will receive more than $30 million in federal grants to help prepare for an expected resurgence of the swine flu in the coming influenza season, federal public health authorities announced Friday.

The money will go primarily toward distribution of a vaccine to protect against the swine flu, a form of influenza Type A, subtype H1N1. Federal officials said the vaccine, which could be available in October, probably will go first to schoolchildren, adults with health problems, pregnant women and health care workers.

Vaccine is unlikely to be availalble all at once, and will be in addition to seasonal flu vaccines. One shot, or two, is unclear. It will be voluntary. And it will only be suggested of the virus seems to warrant it (but probably yes.)

The full list of states is here.

Added: One.org is blogging Obama's Ghana trip.

Added: Jennifer Skalka at Hotline On Call challenges Rush to get off his tuchus and help jump start the GOP.