Apologies for promises un-kept. While it was my intention to start back to List-ing on Tuesday, I failed to factor in the time required to search for apartments in two different cities. Decisions need to be made by Friday, so it is my sincerest hope that I can begin writing again on Monday. No promises this time.
As I believe I’ve viewed every apartment in the St. Louis area now, I think I may have time to attend a “TEA bag” demonstration (?) tonight in downtown St. Louis. Why? Because crazy people are interesting. Hope to have a full report, potentially with pictures up sometime Friday/Saturday. Then again, I’m sure there are at least three apartments in the area I have yet to view, so to reiterate my new creed: no promises..
Perhaps it would have been appropriate to specify which Tuesday I meant in the last post. The List will return tomorrow barring any unforeseen impediments. As Congress was in recess, I felt it appropriate that I too took a week away to listen to the concerns of the average American; and by that I mean I went to baseball games, concerts and one birthday party.
Excuses aside, the List shall return bright and mid-afternoony tomorrow, as today shall be dedicated to catching up on the 1240 items qued and wating for me in my google reader.
As President Obama continues his European work-vacation, the most surprising news of the day may have broken about 4,850 miles away in Des Moines, IA. Handing down their decision in Varnum v. Brien, the Iowa Supreme Court “held that the Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.” (via the Summary; full text of of the Supreme Court ruling, in .pdf form can be found here).
The decision is a “sweeping, total win for the gay-rights side,” writes Ben Smith at POLITICO, “rejecting any claim that objections to same-sex marriage can be seen as “rational,” rejecting a parallel civil union remedy, and pronouncing same-sex marriages and gay and lesbian couples essentially normal.” The extremely “Midwestern” Iowa now joins Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only three states that currently permit gay marriage.
Today’s List arrives late and unfortunately un-caffeinated after a late night discussing the viability of Soundgarden had they broke in the late 70’s.
With 100% of precincts reporting in the special election to fill the Congressional seat in New York’s 20th district, Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 5965 25 votes (updated at 1:22), a number that could have been even closer had Tedisco been able to vote for himself. The race will now turn to the counting of absentee ballots, 5,097 of which had been received by Monday according to TheAlbany Times Union. The Times Union also reports that the deadline for absentee ballots to be received is April 7th for “regular” ballots and April 13th for military or overseas ballots.
Attempting to divine how these absentee ballots will turn out seems, to me, at best guess work. While Republicans hold a significant registration advantage in the district, President Obama carried it in the 2008 election. Chris Cillizza, writing on his blog The Fix, lays out the Democratic model for these ballots, one that yields an extra 144 votes for Murphy. While Republican leaders such as John Boehner and Michael Steele have projected Tedisco the eventual winner, I have yet to find their numbers.
The List is brought you today by sleep deprivation and a number of tasks I must complete before leaving for work. In other words, this should be really short. Nothing better than beginning a week with excuses.
News broke early yesterday evening that General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was stepping down under White House pressure to do so. Discussing Wagoner’s resignation during remarks concerning the administration rejection of restructuring plans proposed by GM and Chrysler, President Obama said “This is not meant as a condemnation of Mr. Wagoner, who has devoted his life to this company; rather, it’s a recognition that it will take a new vision and new direction to create the GM of the future,” according to Sam Youngman at The Hill. The President went to to lay out new components of his auto plan, including providing 60 days of “working capitol” to GM and the administration’s conclusion that Chrysler can no longer stand on its own. Mr. Obama is giving Chrysler 30 days to either work out a merger with Italian automaker Fiat or declare bankruptcy.
The resignation of Mr. Wagoner was met with skepticism and anger by some on Capitol Hill. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) described the firing as “unprecedented window dressing” via twitter this morning, while Thaddeus McCotter, representative from Michigan’s 11th district, tweeted that “Wagoner’s resignation is forced and disheartening”. POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush is reporting that Michigan’s two Senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow have yet to comment, “with Stabenow planning to release a statement and Levin holding a conference call with reporters [around 1 EST].” Michigan Governor (and former classmate of Greg Proops) Jennifer Granholm, seemed at best non-plussed about Wagoner’s forced resignation, calling the former CEO as a “sacrificial lamb” on NBC’s Today.
Calling for 4,000 new troops to be sent as trainers, President Obama announced his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, a strategy described by David S. Cloud at POLITICO as “The middle ground in inconclusive war.” Obama’s plan, writes Cloud, “doesn’t promise fast results or sweeping achievements, like defeating the Taliban insurgency or quickly bringing security to the Afghan people.” Rather, the new direction in Afghanistan will “draw allies into the effort but doesn’t greatly expand the U.S. footprint.”
Part of the plan to “draw allies into the effort” involves dispensing $1.5 billion a year for five years to Pakistan for “economic assistance,” according to Karen DeYoung at The Washington Post, which sounds as if we’re paying Pakistan to do our fighting for us. In other words, Pakistan is becoming the George Benninsky to our Grover Cleveland.
Useless Presidential trivia analogies aside, it didn’t take long for Republicans to assert, for lack of better terminology “President Obama broke it [Afghanistan], he bought it.” Of course that coloquilism would seem to imply that the item was unblemished in the first place, but minor details seem unable to derail the tweets of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Twittering this morning, Grassley wrote (via text) “Listning Prez on FOX anounce his Afhgan stategy Now it bcomes Obama War Not Bush war any longer.” Grassley’s tweet coincides with an article by the AP’s Ben Feller (reported by POLITICO’s Mike Allen in his Playbook this morning) in which Feller writes that “[t]he Afghanistan war, which Obama calls adrift, is now his.” So Afghanistan is less “broke it and bought it” and more “You were the kid holding the booze when the cops showed up, you take responsibility”.
President Obama approached an important milestone this morning. The point where he can officially be deemed “clingy”.
It’s truly a sad point in any relationship, the moment you realize your partner may need you more than you need them; especially in a relationship that began this well. As a nation, we allowed then Sen. Obama take us home on the first date. A first-term senator? Surely, he needs to put in a bit more time than one go-round at the electoral bar in order to win this nation over. This is America, we do not drop our collective democracy corsets for, to paraphrase Bell Biv DeVoe, a cute Iraq plan and a smile; our founding fathers didn’t raise us that way.
But Obama was willing to work. He was even willing to take the bold step of texting our former beau, Hillary Clinton, to let her know that we were with him tonight, her former status as belle of the ball be dammed. An in the end, perhaps a bit too high on hope bombs and the accidental peek we took at the young man’s abs, we as a country acquiesqued and allowed the strapping young man from Illinois to bed us on the first night. In fact, we thought to ourselves after the man’s brilliant performance that night in Grant Park, this was good, we needed this.
When the cold morning air presented itself, we as a nation steeled ourselves for the inevitable. We had been down this road with our last boyfriend, a charming young man from Texas. “Dub’s” as the Connecticut Texan presented himself to us, was also a charmer. Sure that stuffy Gore could provide us a stable future, he had a 10-year plan, a savings he kept in a lock-box from which we could live together comfortably. But America, much like a Hollywood starlet, cares little for tomorrow. We were wooed by Dub’s everyman charm, and the warm protection his brush clearing arms seemed to offer us. Predictably, as had many the boys before him, Shrubby cast us aside the second we let him pin us. Much like Patrick Dempsey in Can’t Buy Me Love, Bush’s new position as our boyfriend elevated his global social status and with it came new friends, the popular kids he would choose time and time again over a cozy night at home watching Law and Order with us.
Quick List this morning due to an eye exam at 1 and the fact that they felt 6:30 was an appropriate time to work on the fire alarms in my building. I had considered jettisoning the project all together today, but that seemed somehow inappropriate after taking an entire week off, and exactly something I would do. Occasionally it’s worth combating laziness in order to play against type.
In what is perhaps my favorite recap of the President’s press conference so far, John F. Harris and Jonathan Martin at POLITICO write “Obama fluently answered the questions, sometimes at considerable length. But his responses were typically variations on a single-word theme: Whatever.”
“So I went to the Hill with my budget and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) was like uuuuhhhhh, and I was like whatever.”
The List returns after a week’s hiatus. On the off chance that anyone cares, I was encumbered with other writings last week relating to a life shift that I will make public sometime in the next month. Depending on what other tasks present themselves relating to this shift, blog lags may continue to occur. I know somehow you will make survive, and no, no one’s pregnant.
My plans to return yesterday were prevented by Treasury Secretary Geithner’s announcement of the administration’s toxic asset proposal. In total, it took over ten articles- including Geithner’s own op-ed in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal- for me to finally get a grasp on what the plan entails. At that point it was 2 p.m. CST and writing seemed pointless. I know this is a constant complaint (excuse), but I really wish I had a better econ 101 teacher.
Possibly engendered by the market’s reaction his proposal (the dow gained 497 points yesterday), Geithner seems extremely confident, cocky almost, during his testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, which I am watching as I type this on C-Span 3. Almost confrontational, cutting off congressional questioners more than once, Secretary Geithner hardly resembles the man described by The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson this morning as one whom “[g]rand settings… seem to swallow him up.”
The Obama administration will re-activate their campaign machine to garner public support for the President’s budget proposal, according to Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post. Organizing for America, now in control of the thirteen-million-plus e-mail list compiled during the campaign, will work “under the aegis of the Democratic National Committee… to transfer the grass-roots energy built during the presidential campaign into an effort to sway Congress.”
The campaign, writes Cillizza, “begins today with an e-mail asking volunteers to go door to door Saturday to urge their neighbors to sign a pledge in support of Obama’s budget plan.” Please, please, please, somebody figure out the door code at 1010 St. Charles and come up to apartment 401. I can think of no better way to begin my weekend than having someone spew talking points at me as I attempt to make breakfast tacos. Upon reflection, I can’t tell if I mean that in a sarcastic manner or not..
Drilling the phrase “abrogate” into my head, AIG’s plan to pay $165 million in employee bonus money (perThe New York Times) dominated Sunday talk. In an appearance described by U.S. News and World Report’s Kirk Shinkle as “a great public relations move”, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke described the AIG bailout as “the single [event during the current crisis] that makes me the angriest, that gives me the most angst” (full transcript of Bernanke’s appearance here via The NYT). Bernanke also told CBS’s Scott Pelley that he thought “we’ll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We’ll see recovery beginning next year. And it will pick up steam over time.”