10,000

The stock market hit "10,000" today and closed above it for the first time in a awhile. The pundits said it was a pychological barrier. 

It's all about the interest rates. As long as people can't make much in interest bearing accounts, they will look for other ways. The stock market seemed pretty safe, considering that it had fallen to really low lows. 

Combine that with all the cost cutting, i.e. layoffs, that many of the big companies did to be able to show positive earnings, and it creates a sort of surreal haze in which people start to believe that the stock market magic is back.

So people invest, the prices go up, and more people invest. Geez, if you can make 10% on your money when everyone else is making 2, then why not? Just have to remember not to get caught with the pants falling, and falling fast, like last time, not that long ago.

But you can't put a number on that. It's as soon as China and Japan say they are getting less interested in buying our Treasuries. The hope, I'm sure, is that they have already bought so many that their investment is too big to fail. That way, we can do what we want and they'll always bail us out. 

Not so sure that is a smart attitude. And are companies that show earnings because they laid off a bunch of their workforce to reduce costs really healthy? 

The minute Bernacke, or whomever may be in the Federal Reserve chair position, makes any noise about interest rates going up, the stock market is going to take a hit. For now, it's good to pump up people's confidence. But the minute interest rates start going up, which they will have to eventually, the economy is going to rock for awhile. This little uptick is not a full recovery.

Blagojevich saga more than meets the eye

* This is an early draft of one of my potential pieces for the Washington Post contest, but I didn't choose it to submit, so I thought I'd post it on rural thoughts.
_____________________________________

Illinois, my home state, is a good learning lab for politics. Just think, the current Democratic President of the U.S., the Senate Democratic Whip, and the impeached Democratic governor, are all from here. 

I met Rod Blagojevich once. It was at the union hall in Metropolis. He was friendly and at ease with the crowd. He was surprised when I indicated that I knew where he lived and that Kristi’s parents were in his immediate neighborhood. But he was pretty perky the whole time. 

I always wondered how he did it. Blagojevich was a U.S. representative in a district in the N.W. Chicago. No one knew anything about him in Southern Illinois. Some say that you can carry Illinois in Chicago, but others say that you need some downstate. Probably some truth in both.

Former Illinois State Senator Larry Woolard, (who easily defeated me and Ned Mitchell in the primary for that seat), who later quit the state senate to become Blagojevich’s appointed “assistant governor” for all of southern Illinois, was the first major southern Illinois politician to endorse Blagojevich. It was a surprise to me. I had no idea they even knew each other, but I guess that they worked together in the Illinois General Assembly. A couple of good horse traders. 

There was a full primary for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, including now embattled U.S. senator Roland Burris. Blagojevich had the most support of the party of establishment. With Woolard’s support in southern Illinois, and no southern Illinois candidate, Blagojevich won the primary carrying a lot of southern Illinois. 

That ended over 24 consecutive years of Republican governorships in Illinois. It’s hard to believe that in one of the bluest states in the country but. I guess that shows what 24 straight years of Republican administration will do to the collective judgment. 

But of all the people to end that reign, Blagojevich seems such an unlikely candidate. Knowing Illinois politics, Blagojevich’s governorship had to be the result of a lot of dealmaking. And that dealmaking was being made at the highest levels of Illinois and ultimately national politics.

That’s where I have to roll my eyes a bit over the whole drama of the impeachment proceedings. Illinois is a wheelin’ and dealin’ political state. Sure, what Blagojevich was doing was unseemly, and sure, prosecute him for his corruption. But also, prosecute all the other wheeler dealers in the Illinois state government that make outrageous political deals.

Blagojevich is a colorful character. He’s historic. He wasn’t really governor material, but how many have been? But when Blagevich became a national story, all perspective vanished. And not that he should be defended. Let his lawyers do that. But the stories about him were pretty shallow. They didn’t delve very deep into Illinois politics. Even in the aftermath of his book, the rest of the Dems have escaped much connection at all with Rod. 

That has to be frustrating to Blagojevich, but it’s a cold, cruel world. Nevertheless, I think that there is more here than the public has been lead to believe. The backroom political horsetrading has to be brought out into the light of democracy. Those that don’t want to do it need to be exposed. If the Blagojevich saga can help ultimately to advance a more open government, then it served a purpose. If the end result is just to make a political pinata out of Blagojevich, the mainstream media has missed a chance.

Sunday News Shows

I watched a number of news shows today. I still can’t believe that WPSD, the NBC affiliate out of Paducah, KY, has cut the Chris Matthews show from it’s Sunday morning menu in favor of infomercials. 

The topics of the day were Iran, Health Care, the Economy, Afghanistan, and the Olympics. I also saw, which was brought up today in more than one news show, the opening skit on Saturday Night Live last night which was a monologue by an Obama impersonator who was pontificating why the right wingers didn’t like him because he hadn’t done anything since he got in the White House. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the script or the performance, but the subject is one that is on the table, no doubt.

So the topic de jour was whether or not Obama is truly up to the task of being president . Can he handle all these problems in an effective way? Is he too much of a compromiser? Is he all promise and no deliver? Ultimately, is he all show and no go? Can he really get anything done? These are the questions that are being raised about Obama. 

Is it fair? Not really. No single person or administration could turn around the momentum of the effects of the bad decisions made by our nation in the past in a matter of months. And, he is taking on more than one big problem. But, no doubt it’s like when you have a bunch of different programs running on your computer and you ask it to do something. It takes longer. And if he didn’t address all of these problems, he’d be criticized for not trying. But, national politics isn’t known for its fairness and compassion. 

It is amazing to me how the republicans are getting away in the media with doing nothing. It isn’t that they have to rubber stamp Obama, I don’t do that. But, there is no doubt that they are playing a political game of not supporting any of Obama’s efforts to try and address the serious problems we face. The result is that nothing is getting done. Well, that isn’t exactly accurate. What it means is that things are moving really slowly at a time when we need faster action. 

It’s a high stakes political game that the republicans are playing. A number of pundits today, including some that probably lean Democrat, although I wouldn’t them progressives, are predicting substantial losses in the House and Senate, although not enough to shift majorities, in Obama’s mid-term election. I’m still in the “too soon to tell camp.” 

For one thing, people aren’t as stupid as the media seems to think. We all know how difficult our own jobs can be sometimes, and how a new person who may truly be trying to do somethings different might encounter resistance. Obama has more time with the general public to start showing more concrete results than the media is suggesting. But he doesn’t have forever.

I guess the safe punditry is that Obama’s fate in the mid term elections in 2010 is tied to the unemployment rate. I’m not sure that is a straight line connection. What people want to see is someone who is trying to do the right thing. I think Obama strikes people that he more sincere about trying to do that than anyone we have had for awhile. And he gets some leeway for that. I give him until Spring to be able to show more progress on the economy. If some sincere progress is being shown, and more could have been done except for the stalling republicans, they may find their strategy to be backfiring. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Obama bucked the trend and actually increased his majorities? I don’t think it is impossible. 

Gosh, I could write as much yet on Afghanistan and Iran. Most all of the pundits, “liberal” and “conservative” thought that it was good that Obama was having diplomatic contact with Iran. But there was a lot of Iran trashing today. I think it’s a bad idea. Obviously, they, like North Korea, are not a derelict people, but one with intelligence, courage, and brutality. You add those up and it isn’t something you want to tangle with if you don’t have to. 

Bush was so wrong to put them in the “axis of evil.” Now we are paying for it. But with Israel having, as some credible sources report, at least 150 nuclear weapons, can you blame them for wanting to get one? But this whole issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons program has simply got to be addressed. If they do have nuclear weapons, are they enriching high enriched, or do they have plutonium reactors? Or are we giving them everything, which I guess means we would be giving them the fabricated bombs? 

Until we deal with that, there will be no peace with Iran. And calling them a “terrorist” state, and taking a hostile attitude toward them, Herzb Allah, and Hamas, will accomplish little in terms of stabilization of the situation. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in favor of nukes - not for us, not for them, not for anyone. I don’t want Iran to build a bunch of nuclear power plants because it means that parts of the earth are going to get really contaminated. It all adds up. And not only that, but I don’t want us or anyone to have a bunch of new nuke plants. I don’t like the old ones. If we think health care costs are high now, just keep increasing the use of fission to create steam for electrical power. So if Iran thinks I think it is ok for them to get nukes of any sort - wrong. But I do understand why they are doing what they are doing. And, if we are serious about dealing with them, then we better start talking about the nuke bombs in Israel. 

Afghanistan is a horrible situation. Obama did get criticized because he hadn’t given enough time to the problem, and for his on-the-fly meeting with Gen. McChrystal (or however you spell it.) But most people think that Obama is between a rock and a hard place with Afghanistan. His choice is between putting more troops into Afghanistan, which could mean more deaths, and may or may not mean improved political conditions, and for a large part, pulling our troops out and having an anti-AlQuaeda strike force only to go after Obama and his ilk. Either choice is going to have it’s ramifications. But one wise pundit said that Obama seems to look for the compromise, but that this may not be a situation where a compromise situation will work. But, as I wrote in a previous entry, it would ultimately one of the most ironic things of his presidency if he got tagged as the president that got us in the Afghanistan quagmire. 

There’s a lot to discuss in the country at the moment. Is Obama biting off too much? Hell no. Are the rest of us biting off not enough? Yeah. But if the Supreme Court turns the corporations loose with unlimited spending on political campaigns, forget things getting better. But I do think that is what the court is going to do. If you think Obama’s job is hard now, wait until them.

FDIC out of money?

Another very interesting tidbit reported by the news today is that FDIC is about out of money because so many banks have gone belly up that bailing them all out has become a drain on their funds. Oh yeah? And what about my money which is supposedly "insured" by FDIC? 

"They" say "don't worry, your money is still safe." Uh huh. They can just print some up. But, if anyone thinks that money is going to remain cheap in regards to interest rates, you are living on another planet. If you want to borrow money, better borrow it now. Oh yeah, I forgot, credit is tight. And what about when money is at 8% or higher interest? I'm sure there will be plenty of money to borrow, and no one who can afford it. 

So should we go take our money out of the bank out of fear that it isn't really as safe as it seems? I don't know. Maybe we should.

The Senate and the "Public Option"

It was reported tonight on the mainstream media that the Senate had voted down the so-called "public option" in the health care reform. Yawn.

Of course we knew that the big ol' powerful senators, that are totally corporate and in the pockets of big money, would side with the corporations and not the people. Time to vote some of these folks out, regardless of party. It's pathetic enough that "single payer" is "off the table" completely. If the Supreme Court lifts limits on corporate spending for political candidates, we can kiss all kinds of things to aid the "little guy" goodbye.

Al Cross on Comment on Kentucky this last week

Al Cross is a faculty member at UK, a long time TV commentator on KET and elsewhere, and a leader of an organization called the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. So he should be in tune with rural issues. But his comments on former president's Carter's statement about racism being a significant part of the intense opposition, well, hatred of president Obama, showed me that he may not be in tune with the rural midwest. 

I think Carter was pretty close to the bulls-eye. Maybe not dead on the center, but close. I do think that many people in the U.S. are not ready for a "black" man, even one who is half-white, to be president. There is just too many innate fears, and it is coming out strongly in finding any little thing to oppose him on. 

I think Cross is out of touch with his own rural constituency if he doesn't recognize it. For him to go on KET and diss Carter out of hand was a disservice to the commonwealth and the nation. He needs to reconsider his comments. He took the easy, TV way out.

Sunday News Shows

First, I have to give a hearty thumbs down to WPSD, the NBC affiliate out of Paducah, for pre-empting Chris Matthews this morning in order to make some quick bucks with a half hour infomercial for a modern electric skillet thingy. That really shows civic mindedness, doesn't it.

Of course, the big discussion point of the day was Iran, and their nuke program. Personally, I don't believe a word of any of what is being reported by the mainstream news. It is eerily like the run up to the invasion of Iraq. I do think that Pat Buchanan had the most poignant question of the day on the subject, which was, why did the national intelligence estimate a year or so ago say that Iran wasn't pursuing nuclear weapons if we have known about this facility for years? The whole thing reeks of political oneupmanship, and I am worried about where this is going.

There was discussion about Obama's performance at the UN and the G20. But there wasn't a lot of discussion about the protests, and how force was used to break them up. How can we be preaching to other countries about supressing dissent when we are controlling how people can assemble, march, and speak out? I think Obama should have addressed that, but he hasn't, and the media is pretty much covering up.

Iran's nuclear program and Obama

I, and I'm not alone, remember way back more than 10 years I would guess, when a hearing was held on some kind of permit for the production end (USEC) of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant at Heath school cafeteria. 

There was a young dude in a suit that was at the hearing. Afterward, and I know that several people were standing around at the time, I approached the guy and asked him who he represented. He said, USEC, and I asked him if they were shipping enriched uranium around the world, to countries such as Iran, and he said yes. 

And now, today, Obama interupts what was a very compelling piece on the Today Show about previously unknown tapes of interviews that Michael Jackson had done with a Jewish rabbi several years ago in which Jackson bared his soul about how he was really feeling, so that he can tell us that Iran might be more of a nuclear threat than we thought in a couple of years. Yawn.

I am not in favor of Iran getting nuclear weapons. But I'm not in favor of them getting nuclear power either. I think the notion that somehow nuclear power is "environmentally sound" is ridiculous. We need to be getting rid of our association with everything nuclear, and so should the rest of the world. 

But there are many credible reports that Israel has nuclear weapons, none of which have been disclosed if in fact they have them. So why aren't we and the other world powers making the same stink over that? I don't understand that.

But as long as the U.S. has exponentially more nuclear weapons than any other country, and spends an disproportionate amount of its budget on military spending, we have little credibility telling other countries to stand down. 

Obama shouldn't worry so much about appearing tough. When he does, he often makes his rare miscalculations.

Obama and the news

It seems like forever since I wrote anything on politics. A lot has happened in my life in the last couple weeks, which I will write about when I get a chance. 

Ironically, since I write regularly about the Sunday news shows, I missed all of Obama's interviews on the Sunday news shows Sunday. I played this weekend at a music festival in southern Indiana, and Kristi and I didn't have a TV available all morning. I thought that the non-Sunday morning news organizations did not give a lot of coverage to those interviews. There were a few things that came out in the news. One that got repeated a lot was in his interview to an hispanic network, where he said that he was in favor of the "public option" in health care reform. That was about the big news. 

Obama must feel like he has to keep an incredibly high profile to keep a couple steps ahead of the machine that it out to bring him down. I think in the wake of the unacceptably aggressively anti-Obama tone of some the "Tea Party" protests that took place in August and the Jimmy Carter remarks about racism impacting a certain segment of the U.S. populations' view of Obama, it is not an unwise strategy.

The republicans are making a big deal of all of the spending that Obama has undertaken, and, as pretty much a fiscal conservative myself, I agree the concern. But the blame is misguided. And while it is impossible to lay the blame for the total US government debt on one president, it certainly isn't primarily Obama to blame, when he hasn't been in office for a year, and inherited all of these problems, including a sea of red ink that came from the 8 year republican president, who had a republican congress for a good bit of that.

And what is needed to change the deficits is not just changing health care, social security, and medicare and medicaid, but also reducing our military spending. Our military spending is way out of proportion with the rest of the world, and do we feel real safe? We need a total rethinking of how we have a safe and peaceful world. We just cannot afford wars anymore, and we have to make them obsolete.

On that subject, I am glad that the media seems to be picking up on a growing frustration about the war in Afghanistan. So much money has been tossed at the middle east, and what is "victory?" No one knows. Obama is "reviewing" the policy, but wouldn't it be ironic as can be if Obama was to escalate Afghanistan, have it not turn out as hoped, and end up having it stuck to him like the Vietnam war is to LBJ? Wasn't Obama the "anti-war" candidate? Oh, what a strange world we live in.

Back at the Blog

It was a stormy, rainy night...wait...wrong piece....it's been so long since I've written anything, or so it seems. I went for over three weeks without a personal computer because I had to send my new notebook back to HP because it was getting lines across the screen after just a couple weeks and they thought it might be the monitor. Eventually I had to get a new computer. It took 3 weeks, and I got behind in things. But at least they made good on their warranty, and I'm back to having a computer at home. 

That's one reason why there are 3 Berry Craig pieces, a couple of which are late in getting posted, were just posted pretty much all at once. But, soon, I will be caught up and back in the swing of things.

John C. Calhoun would love Joe Wilson

by Berry Craig

Paul Begala, the CNN pundit and Democratic political guru, wonders "if at
long last there is no decency on the far right."

He cited a professionally-printed sign from the recent Washington tea party.
"BURY OBAMACARE WITH KENNEDY," it said.

"Oh, I get it," Begala jabbed on the Huffington Post Internet site. "Sen.
Kennedy is dead, and these slugs want health care reform to be dead too.
That is so clever."

Kennedy called universal health care "the cause of my life." I suspect the
sign-toter's disdain for Kennedy has a deeper source, and ditto for many
other tea baggers.

It's race.

"Of the white Americans who did the most to help the advancement of civil
rights, Ted Kennedy would be on the short list. He may even be at the top of
it," an Associated Press story quoted Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University
historian and author.

A lot of white folks - especially in my part of the country and farther
South - despised Ted Kennedy precisely because he championed equality for
all Americans. (A lot of them also loathed the senator's two brothers,
President John F. Kennedy and Attorney Gen. Robert Kennedy, for the same
reason.)

It's hard not to conclude that many of the tea baggers hate Obama mainly
because he's our first African American president. Some of the Washington
protesters, packed signs that caricatured Obama as an African witch doctor.

Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who shouted "You
lie!" at the president, has become a folk hero to the tea baggers (The House
voted to rebuke him for his remark.). Maureen Dowd suspects Wilson also has
problems with Obama's skin color. I'm sure Wilson would disagree. But for
the record:

-- Wilson belongs, or has belonged, to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, "a
Southern heritage group that has been largely dominated by racial extremists
since 2002," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

-- Wilson was an aide to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who
ran for president in 1948 as a segregationist "Dixiecrat" and helped lead
much of the white South into the Republican fold in the 1960s when LBJ made
the Democrats the party of civil rights.

-- Wilson voted to keep the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina
capitol when he was in the state legislature.

".Fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"
Dowd wrote. "..Wilson's shocking disrespect for the office of the president
- no Democrat ever shouted 'liar' at W. when he was hawking a fake case for
war in Iraq - convinced me: Some people just can't believe a black man is
president and will never accept it."

Anyway, by attacking the president on health care or on government spending
- or claiming he was born in Africa or is a closet Muslim - the racists
think they can hide their number one reason for slamming him: he's not their
favorite hue.

Of course, throughout our history, bigots have tried to lay down smoke
screens over race.

John C. Calhoun - probably one of Wilson's heroes -- and the other rich,
white slave owners who ran pre-Civil War South Carolina declared the tariffs
of 1828 and 1832 null and void. A larger issue motivated the "nullies'"
opposition to the levies. Calhoun and company feared that if the federal
government could enforce tariff laws, it could, some day, enforce measures
to abolish slavery.

In 1860-1861, 11 slave states - led by South Carolina -- broke away from
the Union in the name of "states' rights." They meant the right of states to
have slaves and seceded because they were scared that President Abraham
Lincoln and the Republicans would use federal might to end the South's
peculiar institution.

For many years after the Civil War, "states' rights" was the Southern cover
word for segregation and race discrimination. Thurmond often invoked it.

Thurmond would have been among kindred spirits in the tea party crowd in
Washington, which was almost all white. So are the tea parties everywhere
else. Nearly every one of the rowdies who showed up to shout down Democratic
congressmen and senators at the town hall style forums were white folks,
too.

For the umpteenth time, I am not saying everybody who opposes Obama on
health care or on government spending, or on anything else, or who didn't
vote for him, is a racist. The president doesn't think so either.

But the hatred for him among tea party crazies and the town hall thugs is
visceral.

It's way beyond differences of political perspectives.

Would the uber-right-wing detest Obama as deeply if he were white? I doubt
it. Would Wilson have shouted, "You lie!" at a white Democratic president?
Don't think so.

Anyway, Calhoun would be proud of the neo-Confederate Wilson, the tea
baggers and the town hall rowdies. They're his kind of white folks.

The new Texas 'Fire Eaters' are Republicans

by Berry Craig

Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, wasn't a big fan of
secession.

After 11 Southern slave states exited the Union and started the Confederate
States of America in 1860-1861, the Great Emancipator led the country to
victory in the Civil War, which returned the wayward states to what Lincoln
called their "proper relation" with the rest of our federal republic.

Secession talk is back, just as our nation prepares to observe the
sesquicentennial of the Civil War starting next year, the 150th anniversary
of Lincoln's election. This time the "secesh" are some Republicans from
Texas, an ex-Confederate state.

Gov. Rick Perry fired up the disunionists. At a tax day tea party rally last
April, he wouldn't dismiss the possibility of his fellow Texans getting so
mad at the federal government that they might secede.

"We've got a great union," he said. "There's absolutely no reason to
dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American
people, you know, who knows what might come out of that."

By "Washington," Perry meant President Barack Obama and the Democrats.

Larry Kilgore, who wants the governor's job, flat out says the Lone Star
State should leave the Union. He also says he hates the American flag and
the U.S. government.

Kilgore, who is running against Perry in the 2010 Texas GOP primary, is a
darling of the pro-secession Texas Nationalist Movement. So is Debra Medina,
another secessionist and Republican gubernatorial hopeful.

I teach history. Kilgore, Medina and the "nationalists" sound like the
secessionist "Fire Eaters" of 1860-1861, who included Sen. Louis T. Wigfall
and his fellow Texan, John A. Wharton, a future Rebel general. (Medina is
chair of the Republican Party in Wharton County, which is named for the
Confederate commander.)

Wigfall, Wharton and like-minded white supremacists wanted a new government
of the white folks, by the white folks and for the white folks, complete
with slavery and the Good Lord's blessing. Kilgore, Medina and their
nationalist fans claim they're not racist. But, not coincidentally, all the
secessionists seem to be white people.

In Lincoln's day, a majority of white Southerners were pro-secession. Obama
faces only secessionist talk - bluster is more like it - from a tiny
minority in just one state. More than a few Texans - including Republicans -
think Kilgore, Medina and the nationalists are nut jobs.

Still, there are parallels between white Southerners' reactions to Lincoln's
election and how many of their descendants feel about our first African
American president.

The Confederate states forsook the Union because the white guys who ran them
feared Lincoln and his "Black Republican" party aimed to free the slaves.

Of course, not every white Southerner who voted against Obama is a racist.
But Obama, by far, received his lowest vote percentage from whites who live
in the ex-Confederate states (26 percent - including 26 percent in Texas --
to 43 percent nationally).

Also, I didn't hear Perry hint at Texas secession while President George W.
Bush - a Republican and former governor of Texas - lived in the White House.
The Texas Nationalist Movement seems to have gotten noisier since Obama was
sworn in as president last January.

No president was more despised in the white South than Lincoln, who did put
slavery on the road to extinction. Obama seems to be edging out Lyndon
Johnson as second most hated. A lot of white folks in Dixie still loathe LBJ
- a Texan - claiming he betrayed his race and his region for supporting
landmark civil rights bills in Congress in the 1960s.

Anyway, I have no doubt that Perry and his party's national bigwigs would be
in high dudgeon against a Democrat who dissed Old Glory and the government
like Kilgore did. But mum seems to be the word from the GOP brass about
Kilgore. (Perry is trying to keep him at arm's length but would love to peel
off some nationalist votes.)

Maybe the Republican honchos don't feel the need to "mess with Texas"
because the secessionists are just a few wackos. But my guess is the GOP big
shots are keeping quiet about the secessionists because they don't want to
rile other uber-right-wing Southern whites who have been a big chunk of the
GOP base since LBJ made the Democrats the party of civil rights activism.

In Texas and elsewhere in the former Confederate states, the Republicans are
largely what the Democrats used to be: the white people's party. Lincoln
must be spinning in his tomb.

Of course, Kilgore has no chance to beat Perry, whose real competition is
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Medina is also a long shot. Texas is among the
reddest of the Republican Red States. So either Perry or Hutchison would be
the favorites to win the general election, too.

On the other hand, primary voters often are more gung-ho than general
election voters. True believers like Texas nationalists - and their
"birther," "deather" and "Obama's-a-Muslim-socialist-Nazi" kin -- turn out
big for primaries. So Kilgore and Medina may do better than expected against
Perry and Hutchison.

Meanwhile, based on what they're saying, Perry and Kilgore might have slept
through history class in school. More likely, they're fudging history to
suit themselves, a common practice among extremists, right-wing or
left-wing.

Perry says Texas joined the Union in 1845 with the understanding it could
leave whenever it pleased. Baloney. No state got an opt-out clause when it
got a star on Old Glory.

"You go ask Sam Houston what he thought about secession," Kilgore
challenged, metaphorically speaking, at a recent rally. It was the one
outside the Texas capitol where he pointed to Old Glory flying over the
building and yelled, "I hate that flag up there." He added, "I hate the
United States government."

Houston was a staunch Southern Unionist like his friend, President Andrew
Jackson. Houston loved the U.S. flag and the U.S. government. He opposed
secession when he was governor of Texas in 1861. He warned that the North
would win the Civil War and destroy the South, according to the Handbook of
Texas Online.

Houston reluctantly went along with disunion "rather than bring civil strife
and bloodshed to his beloved state," the handbook explains. "But when he
refused to take the oath of loyalty to the newly formed Confederate States
of America, the Texas [secession] convention removed him from office."

While Kilgore and Medina preach secession, Perry probably thinks that
blathering about "state sovereignty" and "states' rights" is enough red meat
for the GOP faithful to get himself renominated. "States' rights" was the
old white Southern code word for the right of a state to have slavery and to
keep black folks separate and unequal from white folks.

Of course, no state is sovereign. The federal government is. The Civil War
settled that.

Kilgore's rant for secession and against the American flag and government
can be viewed on The Texas Observer's blogsite --
http://www.texasobserver.org/blog/#post-1369. Medina raves on camera, too.

I'm proud to say that between 90,000 and 100,000 sons of my native Kentucky
- white and African American - donned Yankee blue and fought to help Father
Abraham preserve our Union in 1861-1865. Many lost their lives under the
flag that Larry Kilgore hates.

"Under the auspices of Heaven, and the precepts of Washington, Kentucky will
be the last to give up the Union," is chiseled on the marble block the
Bluegrass State donated for the Washington Monument in 1850. We
Presbyterians - the "Frozen Chosen" - don't usually do "amens." But I'll
"amen" the sentiments on that historic stone.

Where does reporting end and advocacy begin?

by Berry Craig

"What's happened to objective journalism?" an old newspaper buddy of mine lamented the other day.

My former sidekick - a news reporter turned editor who's now in marketing - was complaining about what was billed as a non-partisan "informational" health care forum in our Kentucky hometown. A local Fox Radio affiliate was the sponsor.

This ex-news reporter turned feature writer and opinion columnist is now a history teacher. So I suggested Republican friendly Fox 2009 looks a lot like the Fourth Estate of 1809.

Two centuries ago, the press was almost completely partisan. Jeffersonians read Jeffersonian papers that slanted the news their way. Likewise, Federalist partisans read Federalist papers that pushed their party's agenda.

There was no wall of separation between news reporting and editorializing at Jeffersonian and Federalist - and Whig, Democratic and Republican - organs of the 19th century.

Of course, the folks at Fox News claim their reporting is "fair and
balanced," unlike the "biased liberal media."

But bias can be in the eye of the beholder. I'm old enough to remember the Cold War and Vietnam when conservatives lambasted the U.S. media as irredeemably tilted to the liberal side. At the same time, the Soviets slammed the "liberal media" as a big-time flunkey for capitalism.

Critics charged the Fox station stacked the deck against Obama and the Democrats. The forum panel consisted of a reporter for the station's online newspaper, the station's morning show host-program director, the station news director and a physician.

Before the forum, the reporter posted a "review" of House Bill 3200 - one of the health care reform proposals. She panned it. But her "review" read like it was lifted from stock right-wing email and Internet screeds.

The morning show host was the forum's moderator. He had played cheerleader at a "tax-day tea party" his station sponsored on April 15. The reporter also helped fire up the crowd. "Hello my fellow extremists!" she greeted the gathering. 

The doctor is a conservative who gives liberally to Republicans. He had written a guest column in a local paper criticizing the Democrats' health care plans.

The news director had a reputation for objectivity. But a local TV
journalist reported that she and the other "panelists freely admitted their positions against the bill." The reporter caught her on camera saying, "I don't think anybody disagrees that we need changes. It's just that these changes make the costs skyrocket, and that's the problem."

"Where does reporting end and advocacy begin?" an admittedly
liberal-leaning, Bluegrass State political website asked before the forum.

I believe in truth in labeling. My politics, and the politics of my
ex-reporter-editor friend, are unapologetically Democratic and
left-of-center.

But aware of our own biases, we bent over backwards to make sure they didn't creep into the news stories we wrote. There were conservative reporters in our newsroom who did the same thing.

Is absolute objectivity possible? No. But we and our conservative colleagues strove to play stories straight up the middle. We presented both sides of a story. If we hadn't, our executive editor would have let us have it with both barrels, and rightly so.

I can't imagine him - the guy is a flaming middle-of-the-roader - being part of was billed as a non-partisan forum and openly taking sides.

Many of the forum's detractors took a "what did you expect?" attitude toward the program, which was held in a very conservative church. Republican voters are easy to find in the pulpit, choir and pews on Sunday mornings.

"When I saw who was putting the forum on and where it was going to be, I just dismissed it for what it was," said a naysayer who voted for Obama. 

My guess is, most forum goers voted the McCain-Palin ticket and are as skeptical of Democrats and their health care proposals as the panelists. The folks in the folding chairs knew what to expect from the forum's Fox imprimatur and the setting. "Judging from which comments drew the most applause, the crowd was clearly tilted against the controversial House bill on health care reform," the TV journalist reported.

Not surprisingly, the credibility of the station - especially its news
director - is getting clobbered in Kentucky's liberal blogosphere. My guess is our conservative reporter friends would be just as disdainful of the forum, which one liberal blogger called "a dog and pony show."

A critic suggested Fox News and its small-town radio affiliate that
sponsored the forum are motivated as much by profit as by politics.

"Taking a perspective and advocating is how a radio station like that plays to their listener base to increase revenues," she said. "So a lot of this editorializing is about ratings and money.The more people you can whip up into an emotional frenzy with your 'news' the more devoted listeners you get." No doubt, Fox fans were plentiful at the forum.

Nineteenth century papers whipped up their readers by telling half-truths and outright lies about the other party. Their readers didn't get the other side of the story and didn't really want to hear it. Subscriptions and profits soared.

Thank goodness all the media hasn't joined Fox news in the retreat to times when Federalist papers called Thomas Jefferson a Bible-burning atheist who would bring the French Revolution and the Guillotine to America and when Jeffersonian journals claimed John Adams was a snide British-loving aristocrat who wanted to make himself king and his sons, princes.

Meanwhile, my friend and I pine for our salad days when news gatherers and editors - print, radio or TV - worked hard to present the news straight, avoided inserting themselves into stories they were covering and left the editorializing to the editorial writers.

Sunday News Shows

I did watch the news shows last week but I couldn't write about it at home because of my computer absence. I watched again today, and of course, as one might imagine, the majority of the conversation was about the health care issue. There was some discussion about terrorism, Afghanistan, and the investigation into whether or not CIA officials crossed legal lines when they used "enhanced interrogation" methods.

I watched Obama's speech on Wednesday evening, and, like most people, admire his speech making ability. I thought that the republicans looked horrible with their unsupportive scowls. And, of course, the Joe Wilson outburst - "you lie" - has been all over the media. But I have to agree with one commentator I heard about on NPR that when the health care issue is being discussed, the two most important issues are being ignored. Those are, the food people eat and the environment. 

The average U.S. citizens' diets are horrible. And our environment is saturated with toxic substances - from PCBs to plutonium - which cause all kinds of health problems. Why isn't Obama talking about that in terms of cost cutting? That would do more than anything.

But, as I wrote many weeks ago, and it turns out I guess I am right, the republicans will not make political process just being against any health care reform. I guess after the Wilson outburst, they realized that. The tone of the republican statements today, even from the likes of Newt Gingrich, was much more reserved and open minded compared to what they have been saying on the media in the last weeks. Chuck Todd, on Meet the Press, mentioned the change in rhetoric. It seemed obvious to me. But it isn't going to be enough if all republicans vote against reform. 

I do think Obama made a big mistake saying that if there is even a dime over budget from the health care plan that he won't support it. That's crazy. He's usually so careful about making these gradiose political statements, but he fell into it. No one knows how much this is going to cost, but you can bet that it isn't going to contribute to a balanced budget, at least in the short run.

Obama's big trouble spot is Afghanistan. I was glad to hear that he is reviewing his policy. I find it interesting than several high profile media people are now coming out for withdrawing from Afghanistan. The first one that I read was last Friday from Neuhart's weekly column in his creation - USA Today. I was glad to read it. I find it totally ironic that the "anti-war" candidate, who can point to his anti - Iraq war stance from the beginning as the cornerstone of his successful campaign, now may be stuck with the tar baby of an unsuccessful Afghanistan war. I think he needs to find a way out.

The next few weeks are going to be facinating. Mark Shields predicted that the Senate will cave and adopt the House version of health care reform, which will include a "public option." I don't know. But I think there should be such an option. I'm just not confident that enough wimpy democrats will have the guts to support it.

Computerless at home!

I bought a new HP computer the end of June. It was delivered the first week of July. I bought an HP because my last HP had been very reliable and I had used it, travelled with it, and given it a very serious workout but it had performed since 03 with no problems. I thought that deserved keeping my business with the company.

So I bought another HP right from the company. It was working fine, but soon it started getting lines across the screen. I contacted the company, and they sent me new drivers for the graphics card. That didn't fix it. So they told me to send it in. I did...on Aug. 27. Wellllll....it's taken longer for them to deal with it than I had hoped, and I've been without a functioning computer at home since then. It has kept me from keeping up with this blog. I was told finally that it could not be fixed within the warranty period and that I could get a new computer, which I chose to do. However, I'm not expecting to get it until later in the week next week. So I'm going to be doing what I can until then to keep up.

Uranium Hexafluoride truck from Paducah apparently crashed in W. Virginia weeks ago, no coverage in Paducah

Today the CCNS, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, reported that on August 1, 2009, a truck carrying uranium hexafluoride from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant had crashed due to debris on I-64 in West Virginia. Below is their report. Apparently the cylinder didn't leak and was returned to Paducah, according to the report. 

This hasn't been reported in Paducah at all. I contacted the Paducah Sun and they hadn't heard of it, so I forwarded the report. Hopefully they will report the facts of the matter. I'm sure that USEC just forgot to mention it. 

Here's the report:

Truck Carrying Uranium Hexafluoride Crashes in West Virginia
>
>
>On Saturday, August 1, a pickup truck crashed on
>Interstate 64 in West Virginia, covering the
>road with debris that led to the crash of a
>tractor trailer carrying 33,000 pounds of uranium hexafluoride, or UF6.
>
>David Fischer, 48, was driving the load of UF6,
>encased in a steel cylinder, from the United
>States Enrichment Corporation in Paducah,
>Kentucky to Portsmouth, Virginia, where it was
>scheduled to be shipped overseas.
>
>Fischer’s truck lost control and flipped on its
>side around midnight. Fischer escaped with minor
>injuries while the fuel tanks of his truck
>caught on fire. The fire decimated the vehicle,
>turning it into a smoldering pile of metal.
>
>The first volunteer fire departments to arrive
>on the scene did not have the necessary
>radiation detection equipment to determine if
>the cylinder was leaking. When they saw the
>radioactive plates on the truck they retreated
>and ordered the evacuation of nearby Sandstone,
>West Virginia. Shortly after 1 a.m.
>firefighters from Beckley, West Virginia arrived
>with the proper radiation detection equipment
>and took a series of readings, finding no
>elevated levels of radiation. The steel
>cylinder of UF6 was found to be intact and
>unharmed and was lifted onto a relief truck to
>be returned to
>Kentucky.  www.em.doe.gov/pdfs/EM_Update_Newsletter_08-14-09.pdf
>
>The Beckley firefighters were equipped with
>special training from the Department of Energy
>(DOE) Transportation Emergency Preparedness
>Program (TEPP), a program started in
>1990.  www.em.doe.gov/TEPPPages/TEPPHome.aspx
>The training program works with state, local and
>tribal officials to train emergency responders
>in dealing with radiological materials in
>accidents. Last year alone the program trained
>over 2,300 emergency responders around the country.
>
>The two-day training focuses on helping
>emergency responders understand the risks posed
>by radioactive materials and help them learn to
>proficiently use radiation detection
>equipment. The training gives emergency
>responders the information and ability to face
>accidents involving radioactive materials with
>more confidence. Lieutenant Bryan Trump, of the
>Beckley Fire Department, said, “We were a whole
>lot calmer than we would have been because we
>had been through the training, and we made better decisions.”
>
>The firefighters had been trained to look for
>certain hazards in order to better deal with
>accidents. For example, uranium hexafluoride,
>if it comes in contact with water, could create
>a hazardous chemical cloud. Knowing what they
>are dealing with allows emergency responders to
>manage radiological accidents much more
>capably. Ella McNeil, program manager for TEPP,
>said that the fire department’s response to the
>accident, “shows that the TEPP program is making
>a difference to the responder community when
>there is an accident involving radiological materials.”
>
>The TEPP program has done training in New
>Mexico, including a full-scale transportation
>exercise in Laguna in 2008 and through the DOE
>Carlsbad Field Office. CCNS encourages TEPP to
>conduct training for emergency responders,
>including volunteer fire departments, along the
>transportation routes to and from Los Alamos and
>Sandia National Laboratories.
>
>
>This has been the CCNS News Update. For more
>information about this or other nuclear safety
>issues, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.
>

Opening up a can of "Ass - Whup"

by Berry Craig

President Obama, bless his heart, evidently thought the nation would have a
reasoned and respectful debate on health care reform.

Oh, ye of liberal faith.

Anyway, I'd been waiting for some Democrat to turn the tables on the
shrieking, swastika-sign waving yahoos who show up at the town hall-style
forums to demonize the president and the Democrats who want to overhaul our
health care system. 

For weeks, we got grin-and-bear it from hard-pressed House and Senate Dems
at the town hall food fights. 

Finally, we got some Frank Talk.

The Nazi stuff proved too much for Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank,
who is Jewish. His response to a wacko woman holding a picture of Obama with
a Hitler moustache has become an instant You Tube classic. It was at a town
hall shindig in Dartmouth, Mass., part of his district.

Frank, as we say in Kentucky, "opened up a can of ass-whup." 

"On what planet do you spend most of your time?" the feisty Frank replied
when the nut job asked him why he favored Obama's "Nazi" health care plan.

"You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler
and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis," Frank added,
setting her up.

Then he lowered the boom: "Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you
would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest
in doing it."

Maybe Frank's verbal broadside wasn't the Shot Heard 'Round the World - that
was in a Beantown 'burb long ago. But it echoed in my old Kentucky home.

I cheered the first time I saw it on the TV news - almost as loudly as I
whooped it up when my Yankees swept the Sawx a few days ago.

My guess is Congressman Frank is a pretty ecumenical guy. Most liberals are.
So I hope he will welcome this dyed-in-the-pinstripes Bronx Bomber fan to
his booster club in Sawx land. This unapologetic left-leaning, union-card
carrying Bluegrass State born-and-reared history teacher has been a Frank
fan since the voters of the Bay State's 4th CD had the good sense to send
him to Congress in 1980.

Give 'em hell, Barney.

Sunday News Shows

Today was an interesting day for the news shows. I really liked the discussion on the Chris Matthews shows about the future of the newspapers and the print news industry. Actually, the moment of the day came on that show when Chris Matthews played the famous clip from the movie, "All the President's Men," which showed Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman playing Bernstein and Woodward talking to Ben Bradley, editor of the Washington Post during the Watergate investigation late at night. They had a conversation with "Deep Throat" and awoke Bradley and got him out of bed. 

The movie scene showed Bradley talking to the young reporters, telling them that the constitution and our way of life was at stake in all of this, and more than just the presidency. Then, the show switched from the clip to Matthews asking the real Woodward about it. And, in the moment of the day, Woodward explained that Bradley had not made the speech about how the constitution et all was not at stake, but had said something else. In fact, Woodward said that he and Bernstein had recently reviewed their notes that they had made about this meeting, and that their notes found that what Bradley had actually said was , "OK, now what do you we do." Woodward postulated that this was the perfect answer. Maybe so, but that may be a bit of revisionist history. I don't know. But, the several minute segment was historic, and Matthews is to be congratulated on the high quality moment.

Kristi and I were both struck by how all of the contestants, um, I mean, participants on the Matthews show all like to have a cup of coffee first thing in the morning and read the paper. We plead guilty! I don't believe newspapers will "die," and I hope that Woodward is right when he says that more contemporary thinking business leaders from the industry will adapt to a new model that will continue to fund the investigative reporting.

And, I would be amiss if I didn't mention that Tina Brown, someone I don't know a lot about, but apparently head of an online news blog, also was on the panel and had some interesting perspectives on the new news industry. She believes it is pretty much heading on line. And, all of the other contesta...um..participants...said that they respected her, and several had worked for her. Kristi and I both commented to each other that we didn't want to lie in bed with our coffee and some kind of electronic device - we want a newspaper!

McLaughlin Group had an interesting, out of the mainstream DC issue of the moment stream, discussion, about Obama and our relationship with other nations. Poll numbers show that we are a lot more popular now in other countries around the world, well, with the exception of Israel, where Obama is one point less popular than Bush but still over 50%, than we were with Bush. Buchanan condemned it because he said Obama had sold out the U.S. Where Buchanan often has a point, though, Crowley was off the wall. She kept referring to the U.S. as the only superpower, and that somehow that gave us special authority to do what we must to the world. But the fact is that the only thing the U.S. is superpower in is military spending and stockpile of nuclear weapons. On all other measures of importance, we rank down the list. Zuckerman showed himself to be an Israeli apologist. McLaughlin himself noted that improved relations with other countries translated into easier military and economic negotiations. 

I give McLaughlin credit for thinking outside the box and tackling the foreign relations issue. They also discussed whether or not the United Nations should have their own army. As one might expect, there wasn't a lot of strong support for that, and whatever support there was was tempered by a reality check of the problems. But it was something I hadn't even thought of, and I appreciate McLaughlin bringing it up. If he's bringing it up, someone in authority must be talking about it. 

There was some talk about Obama, health care, and his domestic popularity. The Charlie Cook comments of the last few days, where he says that the Dems are poised to lose a bunch of seats in congress in the next election, were discussed. I don't buy it. Cook has been wrong a lot, and he was wrong when I was right early on when I predicted Obama would get the Democratic nomination. Cook is wrong now. It's way too early to make such a prognostication. I agree with those that say it all depends on the economy and the employment situation. And, it's a long time until November, 2010. I think already the stock market has turned around and come a long way from it's lows. What that means is still uncertain. But, the key figure is going to be unemployment. If those figures start inching down, and Obama focuses on keeping the deficit under control, and gets some kind of health care that controls the premiums, the ability of the insurance companies to drop people, and doesn't add terribly to the deficit, then the Dems may very well add to their majority. I've said for many weeks that I don't believe a republican strategy to block the Dems from getting health care is a long term strategy to regain public support. I stand by that. 

All in all, a strong day for the talk shows.

Robert Novak passes on

The Chicago Tribune just put out an email alert that well known Washington D.C. political columnist, Robert Novak, had died. I thought that I would post a few thoughts about it, since he was a well known political pundit. These comments have nothing to do with his personal life. He may have been a good family man. I have no idea.

All I am going to comment about is how his punditry affected me as I watched him repeatedly on news shows as I was growing up. I always felt that he was ultra conservative - almost jingoistic in supporting the status quo. He came off as arrogant to me. I felt he was looking down at me and thought that he knew better than most everyone. 

And while he was known as being very conservative, I never had the feeling that he was what I think of as a "true conservative." That to me is one that believes in keeping agreements, paying your bills, not using resources frivilously, being strong in defense but not belligerent, believing in personal privacy and individual liberties. Those conservatives, such as Andrew Sullivan, I can admire because I share a lot of those values. 

But then there are the conservatives that are opportunistic. They have less of a core in adhering to conservative values and more into gaining an advantage. I always felt that Novak fit more in that category than the above. So, when he "outed" Valerie Plame and her CIA operatives, it seemed so against what should have been his natural, country loving, conservative core. But no - he was using it to try and protect Bush and his people. In that way, his work was exposed for what it had become - a tool of the status quo. 

But he had a successful career to the extent that he had access to the national market, print and broadcast, and was someone who could get access to a high level official. But the fact that Bush's people used him to plant the info about Plame, and that he actually carried it out for them, compromises his overall body of work. 

Rest in peace Mr. Novak - your work is over, but you leave a lot of yourself in words, and that I can appreciate.

Sunday News Shows: Shame on Sen. Coburn

I won't be able to watch all the shows because we are heading to Nashville for me to play at the Bluebird cafe tonight. But, I have been watching Meet the Press and I just have to comment on Republican Sen. Coburn from Oklahoma. Shame on him! Shame on him!

Coburn winked and nodded and absolutely did not condemn the threats of extreme violence, including gun violence as signified by a "protester" outside the president's New Hampshire health care forum with a gun strapped to his leg holding a poster with the "shake the tree of liberty" phrase, an out of context use of the Jefferson quote which is now a code for violence, as demonstrated by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. 

Coburn should have unequivocally condemned violence, but neither he nor Dick Armey did so. It is totally shameful and hypocritical, and unAmerican if you ask me. If there is actually violence brought against any of our elected officials for trying to reform our ailing health care system, then the blood will be on the hands of people like Coburn, who should be standing up against it. Of course, Coburn, and those like him, throw the book at a protester who locks themselves to a log skidder clearcutting a national forest, or climbs a smokestack spewing out pollution to hang a banner saying to clean it up. That's the Coburn/republican hypocricy.

David Gregory allowed Coburn and Armey to have too much time, and while Rachel Maddow held her own, I feel certain that a measure of the time on camera would show that she got the least time of anyone. But all in all, I think it was a pretty good debate. Coburn and Armey showed clearly that they are in the pockets of the health care industry as it currently stands, and are trying to block any reform. Tom Daschle showed a lot of knowledge about the subject, but he used too much lingo which the average person isn't going to understand. He needs to find even simpler ways to explain what is going on.