Buffalo, NY- Today, Adam Bink, a political activist and Buffalo native, announced his position on marriage equality. Bink is not a candidate for any public office, but did so out of concern that he would be seen as a panderer if he were to suddenly change positions upon speculation that he were running for office.
"I learned from the mistakes of former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., who changed positions on marriage equality upon speculation that he may one day become U.S. Senator. If Ford were sincerely in favor of marriage equality, he would have announced his newfound position in 2007, 2008, 2009 or even before the New York Times reported his potential entrance into the race. I have never been a panderer and want to avoid that appearance. And so, even though I am not a candidate for the U.S. Senate today, I would like to take this opportunity to show Mr. Ford what true political guts looks like. Therefore I would like to say that I am in favor of marriage equality."
Bink's uncanny move brought widespread praise from political observers, who noted that voters are often suspicious of candidates who suddenly announce they are changing positions so close to speculation that they may run for office.
"It's a simple thing to do, you have to wonder why Harold Ford didn't do it," said noted blogger and Syracuse native Chris Bowers. "I think Bink will gain an advantage among LGBT voters because he's being straightforward and honest with them."
We at Open Left are taking the New Year's weekend off. Golden Oldies will run in their place. Regularly Scheduled programming will resume on January 4th--Chris Bowers
A Chris Bowers Golden Oldie
August 18, 2009. Original HERE.
This is a message for all you Chicken Littles, you handwringers, you wannabe strategists, you people who have suggestions or doubts: I am vaguely calling you out.
Who you are is not really important. Why I am vaguely calling you out is also not important. In fact, it is better that both "you," and what you are doing, are never really defined. This has three advantages:
First, it's easy. As long as both you and your actions stay open-ended and amorphous, you can potentially be as many people I don't like as possible without actually being anyone at all. This way, I win a huge argument with a lot of people, without actually engaging in an argument with anyone at all.
Second, it allows as many people as possible to identify with me calling you out. Everyone is angry at something someone wrote on the Internets, so the emotional need to call someone out on the Internets is widespread. When someone reads and recommends this diary, they can also join in the please of vaguely calling someone out for doing something. Now, I have a following.
Third, it prevents me from ever having to justify my calling you out. If I was specific in who I was calling out, it is possible that their written record would contradict my vague reasons for doing so. That would suck, so I am not taking any chances. This way, I can never lose.
So yeah, I am calling you out. Whatever it is that you are doing is worse than being a Republican. Because of it, you need to be separated and quarantined from the rest of us. You words are a knife in the back of the progressive movement.
If we do lose anything, you will be entirely to blame. However, we won't lose anything, because progressives have won every single fight from the Iowa caucuses forward. We keep winning despite the dangerous, destructive, backstabbing stuff that you did. And you did it every single time.
You and your kind are everywhere. Fortunately, by vaguely calling you out, I have now stopped you from doing it again. So, I am pretty awesome. If others join me, they will have participated in that glorious triumph themselves. And if they follow me, neither I, nor they, can ever lose.
Update: I am not talking about them. How could you ever think I was talking about them? What they are doing is great. No--I am talking about you.
Update 2: Oh, for crying out loud, I am not talking about you. I was talking about them. You are the one projecting that I am criticizing you in this diary, not me. But hey, if the shoe fits...
Update 3: Thank you everyone for this productive discussion. Stay tuned for when I vaguely call more people out in my next diary. Onward to victory!
This afternoon, I am unconceeding defeat in the 1991 Onondaga County High School chess championships.
Eighteen years ago, after "losing" the semifinals to a freshman from Manlius Pebble Hill, I was pressured into conceding by a shadowy coalition of MPH chess team members (who hosted the competition, and probably sent messages to my opponent during the match), my employer at the time, Wegman's (who wanted me to work that night), and my teammate Julian Marshall, who went on to "win" the championship. Julian was afraid I would defeat him if I advanced to the final (I mean, I like totally beat Julian about 45% of the time in high school).
Further, I am unconceding defeat in my campaign to make Bel Biv DeVoe's "Do Me" our class song in high school. There is no way that "Everything I do, I it do for you" by Bryan Adams represented our class that year.
SEATTLE (FNS)--Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.
The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish's 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle's tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the "Seattle Times" and a frequent target of Parrish's acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.
A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named "I Am The State!", is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.
There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.
The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats' concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House's version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.
The goal is to limit women's access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn't have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.
At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself...but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I'm starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this...and I'm also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak's logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.
It's Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we're done here it's entirely possible that you'll see Stupak's logic in a whole new light.
John, sweetie, did you not get the memo about how all of this Boomer-era identity politics stuff is completely outdated and irrelevant?
Our new post-feminist, post-bigotry, post-partisan era will put a pony in every yard if we would but wait for the completion of the latest 11th dimensional chess move, wherein it will be revealed that the lack of support for reproductive rights and marriage equality has just been a secret ploy to massively increase their popularity.
So we shouldn't feel insulted or look for meaning in behavioral ticks, because none of that means anything anymore. After all, we know the president thinks we're likeable enough. We shouldn't nitpick or be paranoid. We need to support the administration, even if it's just with an ambiguously silent presence, so they can deal with important things, like the war.
Those among us who are familiar with the Bible will recall that Jesus Christ himself was an active member of the health care community as he traveled about the Holy Land.
It is reported that he practiced within multiple medical specialties, and his works as both an ophthalmologist and a neurologist are recounted within the verses of the Gospels.
But what if Jesus had been practicing medicine in the therapeutic environment we're familiar with today?
In today's conversation we'll be tagging along with Jesus as he takes a few calls at his HMO's Customer Care Center-and by the time we get done you should be able to bring a whole new take to those discussions you've been having about why reform matters.
Today, President Olympia Snowe declared her opposition to a public option:
"The point is I don't support a public option. And none of my Republican colleagues do and some Democrats in the Senate and even in the House. I think the point is how do we bridge the divide?" That is why, she said, she suggested the so-called trigger mechanism months ago.
In response to this statement, Open Left's rudimentary deductive logic analyst, Chris Bowers, says that if President Snowe opposes a public option, but she supports a trigger, then she only supports a trigger that well never result in a public option. Otherwise, she is contradicting herself, and actually supporting a public option.
"If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market ... the public option will have significant price advantages," she said.
Some people, including national speech-giver Barack Obama, argue that the entire point of the public option is to offer lower-priced health insurance than private companies. However, their concerns have been noted, and placed in a filing cabinet no one will ever open again.
Elsewhere in Washington, D.C., it has been reported that a group of House Progressives are threatening to defeat any health care reform bill that lacks a robust public option that is available on day one (of 2013) and tied to Medicare rates (for a few years). However, even though Progressives tend to get their way on everything, there was no indication that either President Snowe, or anyone in her administration, believed a word the Progressives said.
On Thursday, Rachel did what I think was one of the most effective presentations I've seen on cable tv, using the height of a basketball hoop to represent the various ways in which Republicans have been fiddling with Senate rules, beginning with the requirement that every vote, in effect, has to pass the 60-vote cloture test. If you missed it, enjoy. If not, enjoy again, before I add my two cents. What the heck, it's Saturday morning, why not?
Still, I couldn't escape the feeling that (1) Rachel cut out just at the point that the absurdity was about to kick into high gear, and (2) Chuck Grassley is just being a wuss. Why just 80 votes? Why not 100?
In fact, why stop with votes? Why not require every Senator to write a sonnet in praise of the legislation?
And then we can have it be sent to all the state legislatures, for them to vote on, just like a Constitutional amendment. Only this is so special, that we should require all their votes to be unanimous too. Plus the sonnets. Without sonnets, it's really not the same.
In fact, why stop there? If we want it to be truly bipartisan, we should require that every single person in America vote on it-and vote in the affirmative.
Anything less would be tyranny.
Worse yet, it wouldn't be truly bipartisan.
Then, perhaps, we could require Obama to sign the final bill on the Moon.
In a move that caught the entire Democratic Party by surprise, the House and Senate Republican leadership unveiled what they called "the ultimate free market solution to health care reform."
"People who can't afford health care will simply sell themselves to people who can afford to buy it for them," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained.
"Of course, the purchasers will get a substantial tax break to encourage their public spiritedness," added House Minority Leader John Boehner.
Calling the proposal "brilliant," former Speaker Newt Gingrich said it was the sort of "outside the box thinking that the ultra-liberal Democratic Party leadership was utter incapable of grasping, much less providing for the nation." He went on to call for President Obama and the entire Democratic congressional leadership to resign "for the good of the country."
The punditalkcrazy was immediately impressed. "The Democrats had already clearly lost the momentum," wrote David Broder, "Now the Republicans are not just defining the debate, they're showing once again that they alone really know what it means to act like the party of governance."
"It's a no-brainer," said Chris Matthews. "I don't think the Democrats have an answer to this."
"This is what we've been waiting for," said Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus, in a prepared statement. "Many of my Democratic colleagues have been unfairly critical of my efforts to find common ground with Republicans, to forge a bipartisan bill. They didn't think Republicans were serious about health care reform. Now we see how wrong they all were."
Senator Kent Conrad, another Democrats who's been critical of his own party's approach, renewed his call for health care cooperatives. "There's no reason why cooperatives should be forbidden from purchasing those who would choose to sell themselves to a faceless, unaccountable bureaucracy," Conrad said. "As long as it's not run by the government."
The White House has not responded. Sources say they are afraid that a quick rejection would play into perceptions that Obama is "the President of minorities, not the President of all Americans."
Meanwhile, in a virtually unheard-of move, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts told World Net Daily, "I really don't see a problem with this."
"Clearly, the authors of the 14th Amendment did not intend to deny people health care," Roberts explained. "So respecting their original intent, the 14th Amendment is not a problem for the Republican proposal."
"Well, of course it's insane," said a top Democratic strategist who refused to be named. "But that's why it's so brilliant. Going to war against Obama bin Laden's worst enemy after 9/11 was insane, too. But look how much that helped the Republicans in 2002 and '04. This makes that sort of insanity look like Little League. Put all those losers into slavery, and they lose the right to vote, right? How are the Democrats ever going to win an election again?"
"Thank God this proposal frees us from the specter of government tyranny," talk show host Rush Limbaugh told his audience. "Fascism will be defeated. Freedom will triumph. America is back!"
This is a message for all you Chicken Littles, you handwringers, you wannabe strategists, you people who have suggestions or doubts: I am vaguely calling you out.
Who you are is not really important. Why I am vaguely calling you out is also not important. In fact, it is better that both "you," and what you are doing, are never really defined. This has three advantages:
First, it's easy. As long as both you and your actions stay open-ended and amorphous, you can potentially be as many people I don't like as possible without actually being anyone at all. This way, I win a huge argument with a lot of people, without actually engaging in an argument with anyone at all.
Second, it allows as many people as possible to identify with me calling you out. Everyone is angry at something someone wrote on the Internets, so the emotional need to call someone out on the Internets is widespread. When someone reads and recommends this diary, they can also join in the pleasure of vaguely calling someone out for doing something. Now, I have a following.
Third, it prevents me from ever having to justify my calling you out. If I was specific in who I was calling out, it is possible that their written record would contradict my vague reasons for doing so. That would suck, so I am not taking any chances. This way, I can never lose.
So yeah, I am calling you out. Whatever it is that you are doing is worse than being a Republican. Because of it, you need to be separated and quarantined from the rest of us. You words are a knife in the back of the progressive movement.
If we do lose anything, you will be entirely to blame. However, we won't lose anything, because progressives have won every single fight from the Iowa caucuses forward. We keep winning despite the dangerous, destructive, backstabbing stuff that you did. And you did it every single time.
You and your kind are everywhere. Fortunately, by vaguely calling you out, I have now stopped you from doing it again. So, I am pretty awesome. If others join me, they will have participated in that glorious triumph themselves. And if they follow me, neither I, nor they, can ever lose.
Update: I am not talking about them. How could you ever think I was talking about them? What they are doing is great. No--I am talking about you.
Update 2: Oh, for crying out loud, I am not talking about you. I was talking about them. You are the one projecting that I am criticizing you in this diary, not me. But hey, if the shoe fits...
Update 3: Thank you everyone for this productive discussion. Stay tuned for when I vaguely call more people out in my next diary. Onward to victory!
WASHINGTON (FNS) - In a startling development related to the recent disruptions of town hall meetings, FNS is now able to confirm that the Obama Administration, with the assistance of Unilever Group and Queen Beatrix, both of the Netherlands, PepsiCo, Skull And Bones, and the Bilderberg Group, is unleashing a secret plot to dispatch fleets of unmarked aircraft and helicopters to prevent teabag protesters from having access to teabags.
The goal of the plot: to disrupt protesters' plans to save America from the destruction of our health care system.
FNS reporters have been following a trail of information that includes airport noise abatement records, classified documents, and the testimony of insiders, some of whom are now willing to be publicly identified.
We'll begin our story by reporting on three events that occurred the evening of Friday, August 8th.
It has been quite some time, Gentle Reader, since we addressed the issue of political robot design, but recent events have forced us to return to the subject once again.
As you undoubtedly are aware, three high profile 'bots from Robotican™ Labs have recently experienced major failures.
It was originally thought that the problems were isolated to the Robotican™.1 Congressional Series of Devices...but it is now known that the failures also extend to the.2 Gubernatorial Series as well.
In today's story we will examine what is known about these failures, how they may impact other devices in Political Service, and what solutions might be available to address these issues.
It has been quite some time, Gentle Reader, since we addressed the issue of political robot design, but recent events have forced us to return to the subject once again.
As you undoubtedly are aware, three high profile 'bots from Robotican™ Labs have recently experienced major failures.
It was originally thought that the problems were isolated to the Robotican™.1 Congressional Series of Devices...but it is now known that the failures also extend to the.2 Gubernatorial Series as well.
In today's story we will examine what is known about these failures, how they may impact other devices in Political Service, and what solutions might be available to address these issues.
Washington, D.C. (FNN)-In a move some are describing as a "news dump" timed to coincide with the attention being paid to President Obama's foreign trip, the Justice Department announced the Administration's plans to introduce legislation to legalize and regulate the manufacture, sales, possession, and use of what are today legally known as Schedule I drugs.
Additionally, Schedule II through Schedule V drugs will be made available to adult members of the public at their request, with a doctor's prescription no longer being required before such drugs can be dispensed.
The drugs being "legalized" through this legislation would include marijuana, LSD, heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy; also included will be all pharmaceutical drugs currently under restricted distribution: among those are Xanax, OxyContin, and Viagra.
So many times when we get together you have to put up with me complaining about something...and there are lots of other times when it's me warning about events that are looming in our future.
Even though they're conversations we need to have, they're often not very emotionally satisfying.
Today we depart from that pattern, in a very good way.
It's "follow-up day"; and the conversation takes us to three "happy places": two "problem" stories that have recent positive progress to report-and, just because I care about you, Gentle Reader, an exclusive preview of the George W. Bush autobiography, obtained with considerable effort from an unnamed and particularly well-placed source.
There's a lot to cover, so let's jump right in and tell you what you need to know.
Lately there's been a lot of talk about how Barack Obama is responsible for the Dow Jones average and the generally bearish market we're in. This is an oversimplification of the situation because it doesn't explain how he does it. Conservative critics just assume because the market is generally going down that it must be doing that just because Obama is President.
The evidence for how Obama does it is right before your eyes. The picture above is from an event yesterday. Notice that the President is wearing a red tie. That is the key to Obama's control of the markets. Yesterday the Dow went up about 280 points.
Now, this photo is from the stem cell order signing on Monday. Obama, as he often does, is wearing a blue tie. On Monday the markets went down. Obama's preference for blue ties is having an unfortunate effect on our economy. Still, he sometimes he goes for the red:
Here's Obama addressing Congress last month. Red tie, huge market rally that day!
So there you have it. It's not Obama's Presidency causing the bear market but his general preference for blue ties. I hope this clears things up.
Have you heard? Judd Gregg's withdrawal is a "blow" to the Obama administration! That's what Judy Woodruff told me tonight on the News Hour, anyway.
And she's not the only one. The New York Times also thinks that "Mr. Gregg's withdrawal was the latest blow for the White House." The Washington Post writes that this is "a major blow" and the Wall Street Journal claims that Gregg's withdrawal is "another embarrassing blow to the Obama administration."
You know, I have never seen so many Democratic activists so happy about what is apparently a major defeat for Democrats. Every blog post, and virtually every comment I read, is ecstatic. It kind of reminds me about how, after the 2006 elections, we were told that conservatives had actually won, so liberals should be upset.
Yes, it is truly awful that one less Republican will be in President Obama's cabinet. It is also "a blow" to President Obama and Democrats that Judd Gregg is so humiliated by this episode that he won't even seek re-election in 2010. And it is a terrible blow to progressives that the specific policy concerns of the three Congressional minority caucuses have more influence over White House policy than does the press corps' fascination with bipartisanship.
I'm devastated. What a huge blow. How will we ever recover from this terrible setback?
I'm still seeing blog posts and comments complaining about progressives who complain about some of President Obama's decisions so far. You have probably seen these, too: "give Obama a chance," "would you have preferred President McCain," "President Obama is smarter than you," etc.
Now, whenever the posts and comments complaining about the complainers appear, inevitably counter-posts and comments appear complaining about the progressives who complain about the progressives who complain about some of President Obama's decisions so far. You have probably seen these, too: "stop telling us what to write," "we are helping Obama by pushing him," "Obama isn't God," etc. Hell, I've written some of these diaries myself.
My question is: are either the diaries complaining about the complainers, or the diaries complaining about those who complain about the complainers, going to actually stop either those who complain about President Obama or those who complain about those who complain about President Obama from writing more comments and blog posts in their current idiom? I think it is fairly obvious that they will not. As such, since they won't accomplish anything, why do we keep writing these diaries?
Let's take this a step further. What do we do about blogs posts, such as this one, that complain about those who complain about those who complain about President Obama, and that also complain about those who complain about those who complain about those who complain about President Obama? Surely, such posts won't stop anyone from writing comments and blog posts either that complain about the complainers or those who complain about the complainers about the complainers. Even worse, blog posts such as this one are self-reflexive ad infinitum, as they are actually complaining about themselves, and thus must continuing to complain about themselves. Further, they are internally contradictory to the point of making Ayn Rand cry: rather than A equaling A, in this post, A most definitely equals not A.
Perhaps this one needs to be referred to Meta Jesus. If God is able to microwave a buritto so hot that even he himself cannot eat it, then surely Meta Jesus will solve this problem.
A plane crashed into the Hudson river and somehow everyone escaped alive and with no life-threatening injuries. Miracle to some but just another example of the resiliency and get-er-done attitudes of big city folk to others.
The crash was apparently caused by....nature, that bane of urban-dwelling Americans. A bird strike, to be specific. Then, the pilot drew upon his fancy education and safety expertise and decided to try a water landing.
Sullenberger graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology from the U.S. Air Force Academy and earned a master's degree in industrial psychology from Purdue University. He also has a master's in public administration from the University of Northern Colorado.
He is a member of the Air Line Pilots Association, for which he previously served as a safety chairman. Sullenberger was recently named a visiting scholar at the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at the University of California, Berkeley. The research center looks at natural and man-made disasters from floods to airplane crashes.
Karlene Roberts, a friend of Sullenberger's and UC. Berkeley professor who co-directs the center, said he was the right person to help passengers survive a crisis...
Sullenberger executed the landing to perfection, leaving the plane fully intact and floating. Because of the dense population of New York even a freezing cold river in the middle of winter is crawling with human activity:
very soon the water was churned by an ad hoc flotilla of boats and ferries flying the flags of almost every city, state and federal agency that works the waters around New York City.
By all accounts the passengers, most of them New Yorkers used to being in tight quarters and surrounded by chaos, were very orderly and, given the situation, fairly calm as they exited the plane into life rafts or onto the wings.
Congratulations to the pilot, crew, passengers and rescue workers for a job well done.
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