several days ago, i started a regular "feature" on twitter called WTF of the Day (#WTFOTD). it's not limited to one a day, and i initially planned to post news items or bits of info found around the blogosphere at large that makes me laugh out loud and groan at the same time. over the course of this very short time, having spent some time on the newest entry into social media Google+, i started posting these WTFOTDs with a bit more than the twitter-limited 140 characters. and that simple expansion from 140 characters to free-form comments has led me back to musings.


[quick note: our current president has embarked on a re-election campaign, seeking to serve another 4 years as a nominal Democrat. this is noteworthy in this context because his campaign has come up with the most unfortunate campaign slogan i've seen in more than 40 years of political awareness: Win The Future. notice anything? yep, that's right. most of us see the initials WTF and we go immediately to "what the fuck" -- that's certainly what it means in my series title. has the once-vaunted Obama campaign showed a big out-of-touch cultural weakness in the 2012 campaign already? could be an interesting 15 months ahead.]


Not all the WTFOTDs have been laughable, despite my original intent. I just couldn't find anything funny, ironic or even groan-worthy about the Norway bombing/shootings, but I did find myself saying over and over again: what the fuck? What the fuck. What The Fuck! But I'll try to stick with where I started.

[note #2: random thought. if my "original intent" was morphing so quickly, and i did give the idea of the series more than a passing thought before i started, given a new platform--g+ and creative release leading back to this blog, i wonder what the Founding Fathers would say about those conservatives who insist on "original intent" interpretations of the Constitution?]

so, without further ado, here's the latest addition to the WTF of the Day series, in the g+ version (here's the shorter twitter version) :

WTF of the Day: As Congress plays around with their latest dysfunctional exercise in the manufactured "debt ceiling crisis," the FAA is experiencing a partial shutdown that is costing the U.S. government about $200 million a week in uncollected federal airline taxes. http://huff.to/WTFOTD11 

As Amanda Terkel reports at Huffington Post, the House TeaPartiers/Republicans want to make it harder for air and rail employees to elect to be represented by a union (a measure pushed by Delta Airlines btw, in case you're planning your next ticket purchase). John Mica (R-FL) also inserted language to eliminate subsidies to a small number of rural airports, coincidentally (?) these airports are all in states of prominent Senators like Nevada/Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. these provisions have already been declared dead in the Senate and the White House has already announced a veto intent. 

nonetheless, the brave men and women of the House Republican Caucus are standing firm on their latest extortion message: 

pass and sign our version or we'll furlough more FAA employees, force those not on furlough to work through illness even at the risk of aviation safety, hold up more safety-related projects costing private sector jobs, and hold our breath until we turn blue like the temper-tantrum-throwing arrogant jerks we've proven to be.  (wait, what? they'll turn Democratic?).

some thoughts posted at google+

25 July 2011 4:16pm (http://bit.ly/q9rlxQ)

WTF of the Day, round 2: Who could have imagined the closure of DMV offices in predominantly Democratic areas after the passage of a GOP/TeaParty voter id law? Really, who?

Wisconsin: Walker Shuts Down DMV Offices in Democratic Areas After Passing Voter ID Law | FDL News Desk

Here’s a slick little two-step from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

25 July 2011 1:02 am (http://bit.ly/opVFZc):

WTF of the Day: "Lawyers Blast Public Comments from DSK's Accuser" [http://nyti.ms/WTFOTD8] because obviously DSK's lawyers should have the media all to themselves!

The New York Times should be ashamed of itself for this headline, much less the story's angle that leads, not with this brave woman exposing herself to more intense public scrutiny and harrassment, but with whiny defense lawyers complaining about her taking some measure of control back over her life.

Anyone who has ever been raped or who has ever trained in assault counseling knows that taking back control is paramount to begin any healing. I say "Brava" to this woman standing up for herself.

Lawyers Decry Public Comments From DSK's Accuser

Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn are blasting back after the first public comments from the hotel maid accusing him of sexual assault.

24 July 2011 (http://bit.ly/pFwXhC):

Sheila Barr is out at FDIC, Brooksley Born left the CFTC, Elizabeth Warren is on her way out at CFPB. Each of these strong intelligent women not only predicted the economic collapse but proposed ways to deal with it that would have shifted responsibility and liability on to those who caused it. Barr and Warren fought after it happened for rules that would prevent it from happening again.

But in the Old Boys' Club of American finance and government, who wound up in charge? Who wound up protected from the consequences of bad behavior?

Just the musings of an old economics-trained feminist...

22 July 2011 (http://bit.ly/mWnYhd):

Remember back in grade school when the bully tried to take your lunch money? Remember what you learned the hard way - giving in doesn't make it stop, it makes it worse.

There's a growing realization around the country that the TeaPartiers and most Republicans are nothing more than bullies - or what I call economic terrorists, using fear to make people believe they have to keep giving to the rich and taking from the poor.

In the Wisconsin recall campaigns, a new ad has come out that shows others how to stand up to a bully and tell it like it is. Rachel Maddow called this ad "the best of the year." As Angie said at MoveOn.org (http://bit.ly/n26bdZ), we're inclined to agree.

dueling speeches - or how i learned to loath the Village

Lots of folks will have lots of analysis about tonight's Dueling Speeches by President Obama and Speaker Boehner. Mine is short and sweet.

America's middle class, poor, unemployed, etc. have already sacrificed! We shouldn't have to "share" any more. It's time for the top One-Percenters to pay up.

The past decade has seen stagnant or falling wages for workers coupled with dramatically increased income for wealthiest and record corporate profits. [Actually, this stagnation has been going on for more like 30 years, but who's counting.]

In the past 3 years, we have experienced crisis level unemployment, a jobless "recovery" -- again while the wealthiest and corporations amass and hoard greater piles of profits and income. Those who caused this economic crisis have been held blameless by Congress and the Justice Department. Their shareholders and bondholders, who theoretically assumed some level of risk when they invested in the banks and financial houses, have been protected from any cost or consequence.

The United States faces an increasingly regressive effective-tax system, while continuing a 100+ year law giving oil and mining companies virtually limitless access to the country's resource with little or no royalty costs.

Waste, fraud and abuse continue to run rampant in DOD spending (see Army's worthless cloud computing system that cost over $2.7 billion), while both Democrats and Republicans think nothing of reducing critical Social Security benefits through the use of a "chained" CPI.

The list of social and economic injustices is long and completely ignored by those elected to represent We the People (as opposed to We the Really Rich and Corporations).

We who work for a living and make less than $250,000 a year have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice every day.

We aren't upset that the Village Idiots can't compromise; we're upset that they think we should continue paying the price so some One-Percenter's kids can travel to summer camp by private jet instead of limousine.

sell out or sail up?

the progressive blogosphere (and a good portion of the business media) is still buzzing from the news that Arianna Huffington is selling Huffington Post to AOL for a hefty $315 million plus signing on as head of AOL political news, essentially monetizing a site that some considered the biggest progressive media site around. navel gazing aside, they're wrong, imo and here's why.

the eponymous site was never intended to be "progressive"; at least, not in the "what is the fundamental basis here" kind of way. it was all about pushing Arianna's star and making money - there was a niche out there that wasn't filled, not even by the real proggy kind of sites like MyDD or DailyKos.

HuffPo wasn't about original reporting to start with, it was about aggregating from other sites and using Arianna's rolodex to get her Hollywood friends to break through the infotainment clutter. she built up from there, using free original content from obscure and not-so-obscure bloggers looking for eyeballs to build the site's content. with the addition of some stellar paid talent, she did build a place that provided the type of "breaking" news or investigative reporting on major issues most of us used to get from formerly solid journalism founts like the Washington Post (remember Watergate? now look at what's left).

over time, many in the democratic wing of the Democratic Party came to see HuffPo as "their" site. partly that's because we like to believe that truth has a liberal bias, and partly it's because Arianna is -- if nothing else -- an astute promoter. remember i said it was about pushing Arianna's star? look back on the past six months or so at the home page and the number of self-serving articles run by or about Arianna - here's Arianna announcing the "Divorce" section, here's Arianna being interviewed, here's Arianna on that talk show, here's Arianna expounding on another political or social issue. there's a reason the place is named HUFFINGTON Post, you know.

are you noticing a slight negativity here about Arianna? well, i hope so because quite frankly i had my fill of the lady a long time ago - back when she was married to Michael Huffington before he came out of the closet, she had the Republican talking points down pat  and pretty damn sanctimonious about it, courting the religious conservatives, supporting Gingrich's "Republican Revolution" and other conservative efforts. then came the divorce making her wealthy in her own right, the run for CA Governor in 2003, and the move away from her former conservative Republican bent and toward the new "cool kids."

and if you're still not convinced of her more than well-documented right-wing foundations, look no further than her first effort on the intertubes: Resignation.com, a site dedicated to forcing Clinton to resign - the antithesis of MoveOn.org.

so while i listen to the moaning of many of my progressive colleagues, i wonder if they ever bothered to look at Arianna's background or question her surprising and supposed shift from right to left -- or if they even realized she used to be hard right.

i guess i should be celebrating how Arianna Stassinopolous rose from the young Greek girl who moved to England in her mid-teens, made her way from Cambridge to the US by way of London's media world, and landed as the charming wife of one of the Republican Party's rising star. marrying well (i.e., $$) led to her ability to continue pursuing her desire for attention through minor acting roles and publishing books on non-political figures (note that Wikipedia points out that she has been accused of plagarism on more than one occasion). looking at her history as a whole, there is a singular theme and it has always been "Arianna."

now with $315 million in the bank, in large part because of a business model that rested largely on the unpaid work of hundreds, Arianna moves to the next phase of her life. she lives very well, moves in the well-heeled circles, and lip-synchs the post-partisan mantra. i expect we'll continue to hear more from this woman who has succeeded well in carving out a niche for herself.

but at what point might we hope that she shed the Greek accent after over 40 years of English being her every-day language?

by executive order of the president... wtf?

over the past year, i've been told over and over again by Very. Important. People that the president didn't want to use an executive order to stop military discharges under "don't ask, don't tell" because, good heavens, don't you know, that's not a permanent fix and the next president can just as easily reverse that with the swipe of a pen. these Very.Important.People have been quite condescending about my and others' ignorance of how the Real.World works.

[note to Very. Important. People: stopping military discharges pending permanent repeal through an executive order is not, i repeat not, intended as a permanent fix but rather a measure of decency and a show of commitment to repeal.]

[ps, i am not stupid.]

well, lo and behold, now some Very.Important.People over at the Center for American Progress are all "hey look, Obama can use his executive powers to get some things done."

Through his own executive powers, Obama can work to reduce oil imports, stave off home foreclosures, and delay military discharges to blunt the effects of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gays from serving openly, the report said. A White House official said the report would get a close look. [http://lat.ms/aDEwIq]

 oh.  my.  fucking.  god.

we're two years into a four year term, and folks have just discovered executive powers!? it's almost enough to turn me to prayer...

let's review: has a law degree so i assume took at least one conlaw class, taught conlaw at university of chicago so i again assume has a passing acquaintance with the different powers given to the three branches of government, was a junior senator from a midwest state for almost a whole term while bush was president so i also assume has at least a vague recollection of the use of executive orders, elected to presidency in 2008, inaugurated in january 2009, lives in the white house so i assume someone has mentioned who can issue executive orders by now, has the ability to effect changes in policy and practice if not law without anyone else's say-so through the use of the multiply-aforementioned executive orders, and is now going to take "a close look" at a report about using executive orders....

yep, it's sunday and i'd better start looking around for a church. sheesh

connect the dots - being american

and the stories just keep coming. i hate to use the time-worn statement but "what she said" -

This TSA issue does crystallize for many the encroaching police state in a way that people who care about such things should pay attention to. It’s not abstract and it affects Real Americans rather than some faceless foreigner. It’s one of those proverbial “teachable moments” if anyone cares to connect the dots.

if we can't make this a teachable moment, if this matter which has clearly gripped regular everyday americans without regard to politics can't be used to force a much-needed very public discussion about civil liberties and rights, then the terrorists and Republican'ts have really won.

right now, every statement coming out of tsa is just making it worse. And what Obama said today? oh boy, did he miss that mark by about a mile and a half.  Obama does not do "I feel your pain" well at all.

connect the dots - do you like being publicly exposed, humiliated? did you know you gave up all your rights by buying a plane ticket to gramma's? and don't get me started on warrantless and/or secret searches or wire-tapping, data-mining by the feds, ... how'm I doing so far?  this should be front page outrage by progressives, not the other folks.

do victims of rape or abuse deserve to be aggressively groped in public by strangers? do people with disabilities have less rights to dignity than Congresspeople or blond haired blue eyed 24 year olds (male or female)?

just what are we gaining by taking the most invasive and expensive approach in an intentionally crowded security crushes when others are doing as good or better using well-trained well-paid humans beginning from the minute someone walks in the door?

connect the dots - this "teachable" moment will slip away soon, another shiny object will appear, the crowds will move on, and we will lose another bit of what makes us Americans.

on the day after

it's the day after midterm elections: lots of democrats lost in the house, some democrats lost in the senate, maryland stayed on course with democrats in charge and a few more in the state senate. the president today said he'd be more open to compromise, which seems strange to me since he's been doing that all along.

am i more or less bitter than after other elections? i think a bit more. after gaining majorities in the house and senate in 2006 and 2008, with the white house in 2008, even with a depressed economy, this was really the democrats' election to lose. the media drove the opposite message by giving whackos and nutjobs massive unearned free media coverage, making whack-a-doodle o'donnell almost a household name.

for two years, instead of acting on a clear mandate for transformative change voters gave obama and congress in 2008, we saw moderation and incrementalism. yes, health care reform passed but it was really health insurance company protection dressed up. we did get the abolition of pre-existing conditions bans but i don't trust insurers or employers to do this correctly or well. and my distrust is indicative of the white house's main failing: communication. they failed miserably on health care, financial melt-down, and just about everything else. obama didn't rev up for the midterm elections until about two weeks out, too late to make a significant difference with more vague "yes we can" promises. [warning: i'm not a big fan of our president, folks. deal with it.]

so now what? hell if i know. by the accounts i'm seeing, democrats continue to learn the wrong lessons from these defeats. instead of going with the "let's get back to standing up for and by our fundamental principles and values," they're all "ooo, someone's mad at me. i better be even more milquetoasty." yuk! when i look at the democrats i'd follow--even without agreeing with everything they've said or done, i think of Alan Grayson (D-FL08) and Russ Feingold (D-WI). and both lost. i love Bernie Sanders (D-VT) but as an independent, his chances at leadership are low. Reid will likely continue as senate leader, and with obama's words ringing in his ears, we're bound to have even weaker leadership from him. lovely...

women's rights and especially our right to determine our reproductive future are definitely on the chopping block - what a wasted opportunity the past two years have been on this. chances of eliminating the hyde amendment seem at an all-time low, greater restrictions to access are likely to proliferate, and democrats seem to care not a whit.

and what about issues affecting civil and human rights over the next two years? well, don't bet on dadt passing congress. so will obama finally figure out he has the power to block further discharges? will holder's doj continue defending the unspoken war on "terror" that translates into the war on american civil rights? will the white house continue entrenching and extending the bush/cheney secrecy and "right" to wage an executive war? and will the media ever focus on how this administration has done nothing to undo the worst legacy of the previous one? (hint: not likely)

while i love ted kennedy's words ("the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."), our current leaders are not the ones who will ensure that the dream of an america for all lives on.