International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteer Bianca Zammit shot up by the Israeli military during a nonviolent protest in Gaza. In addition, 22-year old Hind Al Akra was shot in the stomach and 18-year old Nidal Al Naji was shot in the leg. All three are now in stable condition.
All along, AIPAC's gripe with the Obama administration has been that it made its criticisms of Israel public rather than keeping them quiet, among friends. Biden's newsworthy "condemnation" of Israel's untimely announcement of plans for new settlement building in East Jerusalem, the release of the substance of Clinton's chastisement of Netanyahu by phone shortly afterward, then again just prior to Netanyahu's meeting with Obama, but also the reaction to Netanyahu's vow to continue building in East Jerusalem in his AIPAC speech, all of which displeased AIPAC. Too public!
Unless you live under a rock or in Antarctica, you will by now know this week, President Obama signed the healthcare reform bill into law.
As a fellow liberal, I am very happy to hear this news. But, in the past week, the news has been jumping on every opportunity to downplay the accomplishment, or play up the Republican rhetoric that the majority of Americans don't agree with the bill.
A recent Washington Post article has the spread at 46 to 50, the majority opposing the bill. But upon further reading, you can see that the margin of error is at 3 points, meaning the poll isn't conclusive. (The percentage for people in support of the bill could be from 43-49%, and the percentage against is anywhere from 47-53. These numbers overlap.)
But beyond petty arguments of numbers, it is hard to deny that this is, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, a big, fucking deal (see below video). This is the first real upheaval of the system... ever. It's the culmination of years of work spanning back to Hillary Clinton's crusade during her husband's presidency.
At the end of the day, 32 million more Americans will have health insurance, and the bill will reduce our national deficit by $143 billion in the first 10 years.
What's not to love? Those facts are what is important.
Despite the possibility that a slim and debatable majority of Americans don't agree with the bill, this IS A GOOD THING.
Although we were provided no information on what transpired between Netanyahu and Obama in their White House meeting earlier this week to defuse the crisis that erupted when Israel announced the approval of building projects in East Jerusalem, one just a day after Biden's arrival in Israel earlier this month, and another just hours before the White House meeting (described in one headline as a "poke in the eye"), this morning we learn that the building projects will go ahead as planned.
JERUSALEM - Israel says it will continue building in east Jerusalem despite pressure from the U.S. to end construction in areas the Palestinians claim for their future state.
A statement from Benjamin Netanyahu's office Friday said "the prime minister's position is that there is no change in Israeli policy on Jerusalem."
In his address at the AIPAC conference this week, Netanyahu provided the historical precedence for Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem, east and west, in spite of centuries long Palestinian presence in Jerusalem.
The first insult was Joe Biden's in Jerusalem last week; the second insult was directed at Obama himself, while Netanyahu was visiting the White House yesterday. And the timing was perfect.
As Netanyahu was talking to Obama in the White House, an announcement was made in Israel informing that another East Jerusalem housing project had been approved. Can there be any excuse that Netanyahu was taken unawares, especially after the timing apology for the Biden faux pas? Don't think so.
The Haaretz report of this new incident (New east Jerusalem homes approved hours before Netanyahu-Obama meet) makes that clear: "The local planning council initially approved the plan in July, a move which angered Britain and the United States and prompted them to call on Israel to cancel the plans." The plan was approved last Thursday and announced the day of Netanyahu's White House visit.
"The U.S.'s dysfunctional patron-client relationship with Israel yields a predictable result: Once again, Israel disses Washington and does what it wants." wrote Daniel Larison at The Week. AIPAC of course immediately skewered the president in defense of Israel and all is slowly returning back to the normal status quo, America loves Israel, Iran sanctions, no need to look further.
Stories about Israel's embarrassment of Joe Biden during his current Israel trip, which began on Monday, March 9, 2010, were best told by Monodweiss, Phil Weiss' site, because they get to the point of how the story was covered here in the US.
The government-sponsored Car Allowance Rebate System, commonly known as "Cash for Clunkers," burned through $1 billion of funding within a week. Last night, the Senate joined the House in a decision to inject an additional $2 billion into the program before leaving for August recess. But is the overwhelmingly popular program a success or a failure? That's open to interpretation.
David Sirota had an excellent post last night on Open Left on an L A Times' report that President Obama is planning to appoint Mark Gitenstein as head of the Office of Legal Policy, a position that vets all potential federal judges. To appoint Gitenstein to any post in the Justice Department requires a waiver, since he was a registered lobbyist from 2000 to 2008 for the US Chamber of Commerce. During that time he was the primary operator in pushing through legislation to gut consumer class actions in the federal courts. Public Citizen has prepared an extensive story about Gitenstein's career of horrors.
A little research turned up personal connections to Sen. Kaufman, Biden's stand-in. Gitenstein was apparently a Senate staffer with ties to Biden before he went over to the Dark Side. He's been a member of the Obama Presidential transition team. They ought to have super-strict independent review of potential appointments of transition team members to key positions.
This guy's career after he left the Senate staff is so bleak he's a prime target for push-back. His appointment would likely be disastrous.
John McCain is all excited today, because, in his mind, Joe Biden has really Screwed It Up This Time by claiming that Obama will be tested by a foreign policy challenge, that Obama will act in a way we might not immediately trust, and that we should stand by him if it happens.
Oh My God You Have To Vote For Me, is the McCain response, because we can't afford someone who will be tested in office.
As it turns out, Joe Biden is the smarter guy in this argument, a few calm words are in order...and I'm here today to offer a response that will set McCain's foolishness right back on its heels.
Last night was crazy in New York City. Drinking Liberally ended up hosting three events in Manhattan just to make sure we had enough space, and our venues still were packed.
Laughing Liberally comedian Elon James White captured the spirit of the night and repackaged it fast into today's episode of This Week in Blackness. Elon interviewed two groups of debate-watchers for their views: people of color, and white women.
Of course, white or black, man or woman, everyone shared one thing: they were drinking...liberally...
McCain strategy: win election by exploiting Democratic primary divisions and crass gender politics
My take: This will fail. McCain is ignorantly falling for the same conventional wisdom as so many in the media - but his assumptions are false, false, false.
The CW narrative goes like this: "Obama and Clinton had a nasty primary fight, and lots of white Democratic women ('PUMAs' and their sympathizers) are skittish of Obama as a result. Even if Clinton's speech this week began to reassure these women, they can still be peeled off, by appealing to McCain's incredible Maverickosity so that they ignore their Democratic Party instincts, and by appealing to their desire to elect a woman to executive federal office, an opportunity they were denied by Obama's defeat of Clinton." Sounds scary, right?
Too bad my good friend Mr. Actual Polling Results tells me a different story.
(full analysis, reader poll, and additional McCain strategies and rebuttals below the fold!)
Barack Obama made an excellent choice with his selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate. On Saturday I spent the day working at the Democratic booth at the Centre County Grange Fair and throughout the day people were asking if the announcement had been made. Everyone I spoke with expressed positive opinions about the choice. If this is any indication of the type of qualified people Barack Obama will surround himself with as President, we can all rest assured that our country will be headed in a better direction come January of 2009.
The daily trivia question at the Democratic booth was "What Pennsylvania town was Joe Biden's hometown?" I'm usually pretty good at trivia but Kim Bierly had to tell me the answer was Scranton PA.
That the press scooped the VP announcement is irrelevant to the real story, which is that Obama managed to take what would otherwise be an important but only moderately exciting news item and turn it into the media event of the weekend.
Everyone is talking about how the text message scheme went awry - some cretin in the campaign spilled the beans to CNN's John King - making the media, not the people the first to know that Joe Biden was Obama's VP pick.
OK - but - wasn't it fun? This had almost as much drama as election night. All of us were glued to our computers, our cell phones, our smart phones, etc - waiting for news of the vice presidential pick. Honestly - I don't know if I would have been this excited about the decision if I hadn't signed up to BE excited about it. I was unsure if anyone would care about being the "first to know" - and only circulated the news because I thought it would be worthwhile to get others on the broadcast list. But just the fact of signing up, meant that I was anticipating this news, and increased my interest.
In short - even the news interest was heightened because we were all waiting on the notice - and the official notice was not anti-climactic - it was "official."
One thing the Obama campaign has succeeded in - has been garnering enthusiasm. In this - the texting campaign was a smashing success.
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