Obama London

More Great Protest Signs! Occupy Wall Street People Can Spell and do Math!

2011-10-17T18:52:00.002+01:00

These two are making exactly the case I made in yesterday's blog, but with cardboard instead of pixels. Yay for cardboard.

This one is accurately describing some of the reprehensible behaviour of the financial markets that the rest of us are still paying for:

This one combines a subtle Harry Potter reference with Paul Krugman fandom and a bit of economic theory for the complete nerdly package.

Thanks to Ezra Klein (and to his commenters) for the slideshow and additional links. I totally heart you guys. You are like the Justin Bieber to my 13 year old girl's heart.

Or something.

UPDATE: And don't miss this wonderful post by the man who originally wrote the the words in sign three, then accidentally discovered that someone had made them a sign. Sweet.

Best Protest Sign Ever?

2011-10-15T19:50:00.000+01:00

I have to agree with Matthew Yglesias: This is a huge step forward in protest sign communications...

Basically, this conveys the key point - for the overwhelming majority of Americans, the income growth that was enjoyed by earlier generations has not been a reality in our adult lifetimes. Wages have actually been stagnant for most Americans, which underplays the problem because the cost of essential things like housing and (most notably) health care have gone up drastically.

It's a reality that families have coped with as best they could for decades now - and because many of us now live in 2 income families instead of relying on a sole (male) breadwinner, because we have relied extensively on formerly cheap and easy to access credit, and because we've been willing to work harder and longer hours than ever before, the average American has just about gotten by.

Until the bottom fell out of the economy a few years ago, unemployment levelled off at over 9 percent and government gridlock put us in a position where we couldn't do anything about it.

But there is another story of America, as represented by that sign. A story of wealthy people who became insanely rich. Money that begat money that begat money forever and ever amen.

And a lot of these people - the wealthy 1% who spiralled into stratospheric income growth - are decent people who did good things. Many of them are people like the late lamented Steve Jobs or the affable Warren Buffet who got rich because they were smart and visionary and knew how to turn their smarts and vision into something useful or interesting (another bunch of them got rich by legally but unethically cheating the financial system - but for the sake of this argument, let's leave those out of this discussion as they are not relevant to the point I am making here).

The problem is not that some people are wealthy. The rising tide has not lifted all boats - the ratio between the workers who labor in companies and the CEOs who lead them is not only higher than it's ever been in America - it's higher than it is anywhere else in the world.

Look hard at that chart above. Now think about the people in question.

Let's take a specific example: the CEO of a major Japanese car company. Let's say Toyota.

The Toyota corporation has over 317K employees. Last year it produced 7.3Million cars and generated $236Billion in revenue.

The President of Toyota is Akio Toyoda. He earns the equivalent of $1.7Million per year, not including stock options.

Now let's compare him to the CEO of a major US car maker. Let's steer clear of all companies that were recently rescued by government dollars and choose Ford, the only one that was profitable without federal intervention.*

Ford has 164K employees, about half what Toyota has. Last year it generated about $129Billion in revenue - again, roughly half of Toyota's.

The President of Ford is called Alan Mulally. Last year he made $17.9Million dollars.

That's astonishing. (I had to research these numbers, by the way - they are worse than I thought...

Let's put that into a table, actually:

The American CEO earned ten times the salary for running a company about half as big. How does that make any sense at all?

Now, Ford would probably argue that they need to pay top dollar to get the best people. And there's some truth in that. (Mind you, sometimes companies also pay top dollar to get mediocre-at-best people...) The economic arms race at the very top levels has led to a kind of ever increasing mine-is-bigger-than yours cycle of insanity.

But I find it hard to image that there isn't someone out there who could run Ford Motor Company very well indeed for the knock down price of a mere $1.7M per year. For $1.7 million a year you can send your children to the best schools, you can live in the most lavish home(s), you can eat out ever night if you want at the finest restaurants - you are rich.

And I can't help but think that if they DIDN'T need to spend that extra $10Million per year on making their already-very-rich CEO opulant-to-the-point-of-insanity rich instead, maybe they could have used that money in some other way that would be useful.

They could raise their workers wages, of course.

But they could also take that cash and pay a dividend to shareholders if they wanted - many of whom are just a different set of insanely wealthy folks, but many more of whom are smaller investors or 401K holders who could take that money and invest it in their own businesses (putting people to work), or upgrade their home (putting consturciton workers to work) or buy consumer goods (putting people who make them to work).

Or, they could take that $10M and invest it in more equipment, putting the manufacturers of that equipment to work.

Or, they could use it to hire more people directly. Or design a new car that will finally be better, cheaper and more fuel efficient than the ones Toyota produces, so that maybe someday it will be Ford that is twice the size of Toyota - putting some Japanese workers out of work. (Oops, sorry.)

Basically, they could do almost anything with that money other than let it sit in the bank account of Alan Mulally, where it sits there earning interest and turning into even more money (all of which is taxed at a very low rate as capital gains).

But they can't. Because they think if they don't pay Alan Mulally $17.9M per year, they won't be able to find anyone good enough to do the job. They have their backs up against a wall - this is what CEOs expect to earn in America and they want to be company that hires the best CEOs available.

What can be done? Well, the government can take that decision out of their hands. If we increased the upper rate of taxation, one of two things would happen. Either:

CEO's would stop expecting or demanding insanely high salaries, freeing the companies to spend that money on something else. Or:
They would actually pay that money in taxes, leaving the government free to spend that money on something else. Like educating future workers for Ford. Or funding scientific research that can later be used to benefit Ford. Or building a highway on which the cars that Ford produces can drive. Or, if God forbid it should ever become necessary, bailing out the car industry yet again to keep Ford in business.*

The people who have taken to the streets in the Occupy Wall Street Protests in America are making a fair, important and too often ignored point: Income inequality in America is terribly out of control and it is hurting us all.

* By the way, the bailout of GM and Chrysler that took place 2 years ago almost certainly also wound up saving Ford as well. Not to mention the $5.9M government loan they took at that time to help shore up the industry. If you don't believe me, believe Forbes.

Will Elizabeth Warren be the Next Senator...

2011-09-21T20:54:00.001+01:00

for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? After seeing this video, I'm REALLY hoping she will.

Superb. I've got chills.

Be afraid, Scott Brown. Be very afraid.

DADT ends today...

2011-09-20T14:56:00.000+01:00

The US Military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy - under which gay men and women were allowed to serve, as long as they were duplicitous and secretive about their personal lives, has finally come to an official end today.

I blogged on the Huffington Post and article in which I interviewed a gay former US Airman (and friend) who was discharged a decade ago under the policy.

"We walked down to the Colonel's office. I knocked. I had to salute, and then he read me my discharge orders. I didn't say anything at all."

Woltkamp's Colonel told him that he had the right to an attorney, and that they would help him find one. But he was informed that he had to sign away all other rights to representation. He was presented then and there with a paper to sign.

"I don't know why, I just signed the waiver. I thought I had to..."

Read the full article here.

Not a Hypothetical Question

2011-09-17T16:52:00.002+01:00

During the last GOP debate, there was a chilling moment when Wolf Blitzer asked candidate Rob Paul whether a hypothetical man without health insurance should be allowed to die. Someone from the audience shouted "yeah" and the audience applauded. Paul stumbled and was unable to answer.

But when we talk about whether people without health insurance should live or die, whether we should let them die, that's not a hypothetical question. It's very real, and very painful and actually applies to people here and now. People like Steve:

Our current law says that if someone shows up at an emergency room in need of urgent care, it is illegal to turn them away - whether they can pay or not. But what if they need chomotherapy for cancer? Or what if their diabetic? What if they're HIV positive - and there are expensive but effective drugs that could keep them alive.

The GOP answer is that the person should take personal responsibility for their health. But that's precisely what the Affordable Care Act calls for - it insists that if you can afford health care, you must purchase it so that your medical casts won't be an undue burden on your fellow taxpayers if (when) you need it. It says to insurance companies that they must offer insurance policies to everyone - whether they have a pre-existing condition or not. And it says to those who can't otherwise afford coverage, that the rest of us will chip in a little bit in the form of health subsidies to give you the insurance you need so that you can get preventative care and early treatment that you need to stop your health from deterioriating so that the cost to us, the taxpayers, of saving your life is as low as possible.

But in the end it says: No. You should not be allowed to die. It says, America is a country where easily preventable deaths should not take place because we simply turned our back on the suffering. It says we're all better off if we know that health care is not a luxury for the wealthy. It says that because every single one of us is at risk of losing our job, our savings and our health, we want to take some measure to protect ourselves from the consequences if that happens.

That's reasonable, it compassionate, it's economically sound. That's the Democratic policy. It's my policy.

What's yours? Ask yourself "Would you let him die?"

Jobs Growth Since Obama Inauguration

2011-09-13T10:45:00.000+01:00

Blog stats data tells me that a number of people are finding this site through a search for "Jobs Growth Since Obama Inauguration". That's a good thing to be searching for (both Google-wise and, you know, as a thing to want...)! Let me make that just a little bit easier for you - here's a chart that shows US jobs gained or lost through July this year:

A few points to note:

This chart is missing a month of data - in August, the Economy gained zero jobs as a whole. To be more exact: Number of private sector jobs gained in August, 17,000. Number of public sector jobs lost in August: 17,00.
Even if the public sector had not shed those jobs - the private job growth would not be enough to keep up with the increase in population, let alone recover from the jobs lost during the recession.
It is in this background that President Obama has called on Congress to urgently pass the American Jobs Act. Sitting around and waiting isn't going to create those jobs. Here's a few things that will:

Cutting the payroll tax cut in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50 million in payroll increases).
A “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
Preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs, while keeping cops and firefighters on the job.
Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country, supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.
A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
Expanding job opportunities for low-income youth and adults through a fund for successful approaches for subsidized employment, innovative training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.
Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.
Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.Moody's Chief Economist Mark Zandy says that the American Jobs Act will create about 1.9 Million jobs and 2% growth for the economy.

Source: White House Fact Sheet

The White House has published loads of helpful information about how the American Jobs Act will work. For instance:

Here you can find out what impact it would have in each state, if passed.
Here you can find a list of Twitter office hours, when administration officials will take your questions about the proposals. (Today, David Plouffe! Tomorrow, Stephanie Cutter!)
Here are responses to the Jobs Act from state and local officials.

The American Jobs Act uses a mix of ideas that have been supported by both parties over the years, and which economists think would be effective. Congress should pass it now.

And the President told them so.

A 9/11 Reader

2011-09-11T14:45:00.000+01:00

There has been a flood of remembrances, reflections, and reporting on this 10 year anniversary of The Events. I've been pretty selective about the things I chose to read or watch - there's only so much mourning a person can do. But a few things stood out as unmissable - I pass them along to you:

The Washington Post reports on the 2 F-16 pilots who were scrambled to take down United Flight 93. The only problem was, they had no artillery or missiles. The plan, therefore, was to ram that plane with their own.
The Boston Globe reports on the workers at Logan airport in Boston who, on that morning just like every morning before, checked in their passengers with a smile. A decade later they're still reeling from the shock and guilt. How would you feel to know you'd helpfully checked in four hijackers? That because you called in sick someone died in your place? That because you handed over Mohammed Atta's luggage to the FBI you might be on an Al Qaeda target list. Riveting and disturbing.
The edition of The Onion that was published 2 weeks after the attack (one week after they published nothing. Nothing was funny for the first week, so that's what they published) remains the most cathartic funny-because-it's-true laugh-out-loud-to-release-the-tension thing I've ever read. I remember the photograph of a woman with a cake labelled, "unsure what else to do, woman bakes American flag cake." But the article, "God Angrily Clarifies Do Not Kill Rule" bears ample rereading. Make sure you read through the final two words.

If you want my thoughts on the anniversary, have a look at either:

Yesterday's post: Everything I Need to Know About 9/11 I Learned at the Last Night of the Proms
My 2009 anniversary post: 9/11/09

Stay safe. Be well.

Everything I Need to Know About 9/11 I Learned at the Last Night of the Proms

2011-09-10T23:59:00.002+01:00

I am sitting here tonight watching the Last Night of the Proms - a great, if bizarre British tradition, and I am relishing the absurd costumes of the punters, the buzz in the hall. I remember that 10 years ago this event, formerly as imperterbable as the seasons, was overcome with a mood of sobriety. Instead of noisemakers, St. Andrews flags and the Fantasia on Sea Chanties, they gave us a program of slow and sombre reflection. Beautiful, stirring, mournful and utterly, utterly heartbreaking.

It couldn't have been further from the "posh people go wild" nonsense of the usual Last Night tradition, but we were only a week out from the watching the twin towers fall, and even here - even in London - we didn't know if we would ever laugh again.

I'm glad to report that we are. The singer currently performing "And This is My Beloved" is wearing more mascara than Dolly Parton gets through in an entire world tour. One man at the front of the Royal Albert Hall is wearing a lei composed of orange carnations, and someone has just blown a kazoo.

The fact that rich people in the West can shout along to classical music doesn't mean we have defeated international terrorism. Or that we will forget the lives lost - over three thousand on September 11th. Thousands more since then in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But at this moment, hours from the exact 10 year anniverary of the attack, as I watch Britons bouncing up and down in tune, wearing absurd waistcoats... with Osama Bin Laden unceremoniously slain and dumped into the sea after a decade hiding out with his pathetically predictable porn collection, I watch the prommers and I tell his ghost this:

We win. You lose.

And now the Chinese virtuoso pianist Lang Lang is playing Chopin's Grand Polonaise. His fingers are flying faster than the eye can see. The woman in the audience holding the yellow balloon animal is suddenly still and intently listening. Lang Lang's bright pink carnation is slightly askew on his chest. His final, solitary note rings out and the audience holds its breath for three long seconds before they applaud. Rapturously.

Because a young man can travel from his home in Communist China and exercise his talent with dignity in the midst of chaos. That's why we've won. That's why you've lost.

Later on, a soloist appears wearing an illuminated Viking costume bedecked with a rose on her shield, daffodil on her chest, and giant thistles and shamrocks on her headgear.

Because we can combine the ridiculous and the sublime. Because we allow for joy and sorrow and silliness and solemnity and patriotism with a healthy dose of scepticism, and because all of this can happen in the same evening.

That's why we've won. That's why you've lost.

Somewhere in London right now, a blogger is no doubt writing that the Proms are a decadent display of upper class privilege. But an event where millions sing Climb Every Mountain in swaying unison (a display which made me actually physically cringe) isn't upper class anything, it's as close to mass popular culture as we get these days.

I'm a believer in pop culture. Trash has redeeming social value. I remember as a pre-teen watching Labyrinth - as cheesy a fantasy film as you'll ever see - as raven haired Jennifer Connolly tells flame haired David Bowie in her moment of realisation that, "You have no power over me." And with those words she is free.

Pop culture tells truths.

This weekend I am supposed to be reflecting upon where I was 10 years ago. I'm supposed to be feeling the pain again that I felt as I huddled with colleagues around the grainy television to watch the towers come down. I'm supposed to relive the fear as I waited, one by one for my loved ones to check in, counted my friends in DC and New York, wondered if we were at war.

Instead, I choose to watch as a man in a sparkly purple bowler hat bounces along to Auld Lang Syne, arms linked.

On September 11, 2001 a pathetic group of misfits inflicted damage beyond their wildest dreams. And in the years that followed, we chased them down the rabbit hole, doing ourselves even more damage than they could do on that terrible day.

But the worst they could do didn't damage our economy even a fraction as much as the actions of a handful of our own bankers and financiers. The President they attacked served out 2 hapless terms and was replaced by the son of an African ex-Muslim immigrant, who took down Bin Laden in a meeting sandwiched somewhere between solving the debt crisis and having dinner with a gay Congressman. The jihadist fantasy that they could by violence do anything that would wipe the grins off our absurd faces turned out to be just that. Absurd. Fantastical.

Which is not to say that the Arab world might not someday supplant the West. Life is long, and the world turns, and America will not always be a global superpower. It may be that an Arab nation will someday threaten the USA for economic and political supremacy - but if so it will not be because of any plan hatched in a secluded complex in Pakistan, but in the streets of Cairo, and Tripoli, and Damascus.

Because 10 years on from the greatest so-called triumph of the cult-of-death fanaticism that falsely claimed to represent the people of the Arab world - the actual people of the Arab world have stood up to their long-serving masters and demanded, in their own names, the right to be heard.

We don't know what the final outcome of the Arab Spring will be, but we do know that the people of these nations now have an opportunity - an opportunity that violent jihadism never gave them - to make their own fate.

I hope that someday they too will be able to gather together in a September night and sing patriotic songs, badly. I hope that they will be able to wear silly hats, and laugh and bounce, and take their freedoms for granted.

And I turn to the ghost of Osama Bin Laden and laugh in his face.

And I say, "You have no power over me." And with those words we are free.

Does Michele Bachmann Think Slavery Was A Good, Christian Thing?

2011-08-16T16:17:00.000+01:00

Now that Michele Bachman has won the Iowa Straw Poll and is officially a credible candidate for the nomination of the Republican party, I sincerely hope that someone will follow up on on the outstanding reporting done in the New Yorker digging into her intellectual background. For instance, in view of this:

While looking over Bachmann’s State Senate campaign Web site, I stumbled upon a list of book recommendations. The third book on the list, which appeared just before the Declaration of Independence and George Washington’s Farewell Address, is a 1997 biography of Robert E. Lee by J. Steven Wilkins.

Wilkins is the leading proponent of the theory that the South was an orthodox Christian nation unjustly attacked by the godless North. This revisionist take on the Civil War, known as the “theological war” thesis, had little resonance outside a small group of Southern historians until the mid-twentieth century, when Rushdoony and others began to popularize it in evangelical circles. In the book, Wilkins condemns “the radical abolitionists of New England” and writes that “most southerners strove to treat their slaves with respect and provide them with a sufficiency of goods for a comfortable, though—by modern standards—spare existence.”

African slaves brought to America, he argues, were essentially lucky: “Africa, like any other pagan country, was permeated by the cruelty and barbarism typical of unbelieving cultures.” Echoing Eidsmoe, Wilkins also approvingly cites Lee’s insistence that abolition could not come until “the sanctifying effects of Christianity” had time “to work in the black race and fit its people for freedom.”

In his chapter on race relations in the antebellum South, Wilkins writes:
"Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith.
For several years, the book, which Bachmann’s campaign declined to discuss with me, was listed on her Web site, under the heading “Michele’s Must Read List.”

This is clearly appalling. But the point here is not to just read that and say, I'm shocked, SHOCKED. The point is that this is so outside of the mainstream, so beyond what most people think is a reasonable interpretation of slavery and the Civil War era, that it requires an explanation before Bachmann should be heard on any other issues. So here are the questions I would like someone in the media to ask Michele before they give her a platform to expound on any of her other vaguely deranged talking points.

1) Does she agree with Wilkins that slavery was a largely benign, Christian institution? If not, what about his historical theories does she find so appealing?

2) Does she think that africans sold into slavery were fortunate to find themselves in this situation, as it afforded them a chance to convert to Christianity?

3) Does she agree that abolition could not have been brought to the deep south sooner because the slaves themselves had not yet been prepared by Christianity for the demands of freedom?

4) If no to all of the above, how WOULD she describe the institution of slavery? Can she understand what in Wilkins views would be considered offensive by African Americans?

5) How influential was this person, and the other extremist philosophers cited in the article, to her own intellectual development? She has hinted that they were very important to her, can she explain in detail how?

Obama answered similar questions about his own religious influences. If Michele Bachmann wants to be a mainstream candidate, she needs to explain, defend, or refute her extreme influences. And the media needs to ask her.

(PS: On a side note, can I say how much it pleases me that some of the most informative research done for the New Yorker Article was simple old fashioned desk based research? The reporter read her website, then he looked up the references - how about that? We used to call that reporting.)

Anti-Social Behaviour...

2011-08-13T19:53:00.001+01:00

Greetings from London, my blog friends. While I've been on an extended blog holiday I realise that many of you will have been following the news and will be as shocked as I am by the mindless destruction that has risen it's ugly head in our society.

I have heard many say that this behaviour should be put into context, that it reflects a sincere, if misguided, objection to the societal status quo in which they feel that their voice has not been heard.

I say bollocks to all that. The destruction that these people have sown has caused immeasurable harm to the people within their own communities - hard working people who deserve better. Can we excuse this by saying that there were cultural factors at work here? Well, certainly these men and women have been influenced by a pernicious and dangerous culture, one that has quietly insinuated itself into our world over the past decades, but which seems to have found it's culmination in this terrible summer.

I am referring, of course, to Congressional Republicans and their appalling willingness to take America and the global economy to the very brink of economic calamity. The damage they've done, which resulted directly in the Standard and Poors downgrading America's credit, will take years to recover from.

As the President said in his weekly address, "while there's nothing wrong with out country, there IS something wrong with our politics."

Oh, did you think I was talking about the London rioters? Well, their behaviour is equally repellant and inexcusable. Fortunately, London - this amazing city in which I am so proud to live - has immediately come together to put this problem right. We've seen spontaneous community cleanups organised within hours - we've seen floods of people coming together to help. And we've seen the entire community state its determination not to allow these thugs to pretend that the represent us.

We should take the same approach with the thugs who came so close to tearing down our global economy once and for all.

Not in my name.

Scenes From My Saturday - Guitar and Government

2011-06-11T17:41:00.001+01:00

Every Saturday morning, a nice Swedish man comes to my house and tries to teach me to play the guitar. I say "tries" because I'm a bit old to learn, and my fingers are clumsy and I don't have a great natural sense of rhythm. But he's patient and we do the best we can.

Today, as he was getting his guitar out of the case and while I was making him a cup of tea, he asked me out of the blue, "So how's Barack Obama doing?"

Me: Oh... Pretty well I think. I mean, the economy isn't as good as we'd like. So he's got a lot of work to do there. But then, the Republicans are doing worse.

Him: Oh really?

Me: Yes, well you see they don't really have a plan to make the economy any better. All the things they want to do would just make it worse.

Him: Yes, it's always very easy for the opposition to say "it should be this way" because they don't have to do anything."

Me: Well, that's the interesting thing. You see, in the last congressional election REpublicans actually took control of the House of Representatives. So they have started actually passing all these really unpopular bills. But they don't become law. Because they don't control the Senate of the Presidency.

Him: [Confused look.]

Me: Ok, basically, Republicans control the House of Representatives. But not the Senate. And Democrats control the presidency. But not the Supreme Court. So Republicans have been using their majority in the House to pass lots of really unpopular bills. Like eliminating Medicare - that's the government programme for health care aimed at the elderly.

Him: But didn't Barack Obama recently pass a bill that does the opposite?

Me: Yes, Obama's health care bill last year offered health care for all through a combination of private and public sector providers. Republicans want to do the opposite, and that's becoming more and more clear to the voters.

Him: It sounds like the people who created the US Government were very clever. It's not good to have the same Party in control of everything.

Me: Yes, it's called the Separation of Powers. The President has to have his nominees confirmed by Congress. Congress can't pass laws without the President's signature. The Courts can rule Congresses laws unconstitutional, but the judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Him: It must make things very stable.

Me: Well, yes. But it's better if you are happy about the status quo. If you want change, it makes that really hard to achieve.

Him: Yes, I suppose things could easily get... constipated.

Me: Yes. Constipated is a good word for it.

Being the Media: A Cautionary Tale

2011-06-06T23:40:00.002+01:00

As the 2012 Presidential election very slowly starts to ramp up, with the shape of the Republican field now starting to chrystalise (Pawlenty, Romney, Santorum - IN. Donald Trump - OUT.) the media is starting to make judgements about who they will choose to cover. Early media attention to a fledgling primary campaign is like gold, and a lot of the candidates have relatively low name recognition. So the decision the media takes about who to focus mainstream television coverage on in these early races can be very influential in setting the stage for the race.

So it's worth pointing out that while former Republican Governor Mitt Romney was announcing his candidacy for office, to respectable and appropriately fact-checked coverage, much of the media was spending their time doing this:

As they left the clambake she attended Thursday in New Hampshire, Palin’s two-SUV caravan traveled at 52 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone as it peeled away from the hosts’ neighborhood. Both cars blew through a stop sign about a mile later. They did 70 mph in a 55 mph zone on I-95 — and then, after they got off, without signaling, flew right past a flashing sign informing them they were going 45 mph in a 35 mph zone...

On Tuesday, the bus nearly hit a biker turning off of Pine Street in Philadelphia.
On Wednesday, after a police escort led the bus through a closed section of the Lincoln Tunnel, the bus ran at least two red lights racing up Sixth Avenue and through Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan. Before long, a cop pulled up, pointing out to the first reporter trailing the bus how many lights they were running. The reporter apologized — but begged to stick with the bus. The perplexed cop let him go.

On Thursday, the story was much the same. Palin’s two SUVs — used for minor events and tight spaces — braved the tiny, winding streets of Boston’s North End. And when the bus joined them, the trailing car in the entourage ran two red lights after the bus barely made it through the yellow, as did the media caravan, leaving behind a traffic jam for the locals.

The reporters who are speeding, tailgating, cutting off other cars, blasting through roundabouts and passing on the right in an effort to keep up, say they have no other choice since they never know what Palin’s up to or where she’s headed — and aides typically won’t tell them anything. Once they’re on the road, they’re filing urgent updates by phone and figuring out unorthodox bathroom breaks, like the reporter who pulled over to relieve himself on the side of the highway going from Gettysburg, Pa., to Philadelphia — drawing notice from both Palin aides and the rest of the trailing press.

The reporters say they, "have no other choice". I can think of at least one other choice they could make. Hypothetically, they could not cover Sarah Palin's family holiday.

Bear in mind, unlike Romney, Sarah Palin is not a Presidential candidate at this point. She's a reality TV star, former half term governor and Fox News commentator. And she refuses to release details of her bus tour to reporters - that's fine. She's not making speeches to define policy on important issues, she's not meeting with party leaders, she's not even spending time talking to voters and constituents about the issues. She's just driving around, visiting tourist attractions and occassionally mangling American history.

But the media just eats this stuff up like candy.

And you know, I think I understand why. Time for an embarrassing personal revelation.

Here are this blogs most visited posts of all time and the respective number of hits:

I've written 51 posts about Health Care reform policy, an issue very near and dear to my heart and the single most important legislative debate of the past 2 years. I've written about the Supreme Court, Gay rights, women's issues, and a lot about politics and polling in general. None of them could break into the top 10 by popularity.

In total, I've written 554 blog posts since my first post three years ago. And if you took everything ever written on this blog that ISN'T about Sarah Palin - that's 545 out of 554 posts that didn't even mention her name - and added them together, they equal collectively about a tenth of the total readership of my famous Sarah Palin Facebook page investigation. I'm not sorry I wrote that post, nor am I sorry it got a lot of attention - let me be clear about that.

But every day since then, literally hundreds of new visitors come to the blog to read that one post. It's probably the most read thing I have ever written, maybe the most read thing I will ever write. And I like being read - it's why I write. So even though I'd rather not be writing about the former Governor of Alaska, I'm dealing with this niggling temptation - I could draw people to my page with just a few disparaging references to her. It's comparatively easy. Then, I tell myself, I could weave in the things I really want to talk about - enthusiasm for the President and his policies, the case for voting Democrat. The case for voting AT ALL, especially as an American Abroad (don't forget, US citizens living overseas can vote from abroad in all federal elections - that means any election for Congress OR President).

The clicks could be mine. And I want them. I REALLY want them.

But at the end of the day, I'm just me. I don't have employees to pay, or investors to satisfy. I don't accept advertising on the blog, and I am lucky enough to be able to make a good living outside of my blogging-and-politics hobby. So the only pressures on my are internal - wanting to build a readership - and not instituational or financial.

Imagine what it's like for MSNBC. Or CNN. If they know that they can get viewers or clicks with an easy to acquire cutaway shot to Sarah Palin mangling a Paul Revere reference, and they equally know that they will have to work hard to build an audience for any coverage that investigates the reasons why, for example, the May unemployment figures took a discouraging downward turn, of course they're going to go with the Palin footage every time.

She knows this. The media knows this. And it doesn't matter what they think of each other - Palin can throw out all the "lamestream media" quips she wants, but she needs them and she knows it. Fortunately for her, though, she also knows that she'll always have them with her. Careening down the road, blowing through stop signs, and panting to stay in site of her magical mystery tour.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama's administration has been orchestrating an almost miraculous recovery of the US Auto Industry - which after federal support at the crisis hour has now fully repaid the government investment, and is profitable for the first time since 2004.

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T18:38:00.003+01:00

"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." Joseph Stalin

On this memorial day, it doesn't really feel appropriate for me to say much of anything at all - this day is about remembering the men and women who have been sent into battle in our name. Thousands of US soldiers have died overseas in the past, terrible decade. With the numbers so large, it would be easy for these men and women to be just nameless statistics. I think the very least that we can do for them is to learn some of their names and listen to some of their stories.

So here are a few first person accounts from the widows of the fallen.

My daughter never met her father, Spc. Hoby F. Bradfield Jr. I was seven months pregnant when he was killed on July 9th 2005. I have never lied to my daughter. When she asked where he was for the first time I told her that he died and that he was in Heaven. Later when she asked what Heaven was I told her it was a place in the sky where the angels are. To this she looked up and goes I don’t see him. When I finally convinced her that she couldn’t see angels she asked where she could go to see her daddy. He is buried in Arlington and she is terrified to go there because everytime we do she hears ‘boom sounds’. So instead we look at pictures of her ‘Daddy’s stone’. The other day we were driving in the car with my niece. I overhear them talking about daddy’s (This is normally a weekly conversation). Emma looks at Kloe and says, “No Kloe, your daddy is just in Heaven with my doggie”. Kloe turns and looks at her, a light-bulb goes off and she goes “OH I KNOW, we can just go to my daddy’s stone, dig him up really really fast, I’m a good digger, and pump him back up with air. That could work!”. It was at that moment that I had to stifle a laugh and explain to her why that could not happen. Of course she doesn’t believe me, so today we will be thankful for ‘boom sounds’ so I don’t have to worry about any after school digging projects. Only from the mind of a four year old!

Let's take a moment to remember Spc Hoby Bradfield, Junior.

My husband, Tim, shot himself on July 26th, 2008. We knew each other since high school; we were married for 11 months and 1 day on the day he died. He was my whole world. He is a Veteran of the Iraq War. He was a 1/5 Marine. He was very active in the Veteran Community in town. I miss him tremendously and I struggle every day.
...
The death certificate says he suffered from clinical depression, and that he died from an apparent suicide, gunshot wound to the head. His Vet Center therapists have told me that they didn’t see any red flag signs that he was suicidal, I didn’t either. I was with him when he died. We were having a normal afternoon on the day that he died. On July 26th we went to a wedding reception up the street from our townhouse and left early, around 9:30 PM he took a generic Ambien, which I didn’t know about until we were walking the dog and he started to stagger. Instead of going to sleep he insisted upon walking the dog again and walking to the store to buy cigarettes, we argued about this. He started acting unlike himself; his eyes were “funny”. His therapists say he was probably sleep walking and sleep talking. We think Tim was sleep walking, dreaming, not in his right mind b/c of the medication when the gun went off around 11:00 PM, he didn’t know what he was doing, or thought it wasn’t real. Suicide or accidental self-inflicted fatal gunshot wound to the head doesn’t make me feel any more or less better about Tim being gone from my life, his family’s life his friends’ lives.

We didn't do right by you, Cpl Timothy R Nelson, USMC. I'm so sorry.

My husband, Daniel James Johnson, was 23 years old when he was killed when an IED detonated in his vicinity. He was and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician for the United States Air Force.
...
I am not sure that I will ever be the same person I was before Dan’s death. I am not sure that I will love again with all of my heart, or that I can begin to think of a future without him in it. But I do know that I have to try. Dan would be so upset with me if he knew that I was letting this beat me. I have to survive, for him. I have to move on, for him. So I will continue on this rollercoaster ride that is my new life. I will return to work in a few short weeks and I will attempt to get my life back. Key word: attempt.

Thank you for your service, SrA Daniel James Johnson.

I was married at 19 and widowed at age 20….not even old enough to go to the bar to get a drink. Life has been so incredibly difficult yet also rewarding, learning about my grief and cherishing the time I had with Ricky. Almost three years later I’m just now feeling like my head is above water and I can breath a little deeper.

A widow by 20. Just too much, too young. Anyway, you are not forgotten, CPL Richard Nelson.

You can read more stories from the widows of fallen soldiers here: http://www.americanwidowproject.org/

And here, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden talk about Joining Forces, a new program that they have just launched to call upon people to give service members and their families support within their communities.

Blog Housekeeping: Installing Disqus Commenting Tool

2011-05-29T17:08:00.001+01:00

Hi all, just a quick heads up that I am making an effort to install Disqus commenting on the blog - I'm hoping this will make things a little easier for you guys and might encourage more of you to register before commenting. I know that a lot of you post anonymously just because it's easier than registering with Blogger's tool. Please let me know if this works better. Or if it works at all! Entirely possible I may permanently break my blog at this point.

Fingers crossed...

UPDATE: So the Disqus installation seems to have worked, but I now need to wait for the import of old comments to take effect. Nervously waiting to see if when the hundreds and hundreds of previously posted comments will come back. Come back comments! I miss you already...

A "Serious Debate on Medicare"? Don't make me laugh...

2011-05-29T13:26:00.002+01:00

Joe Nocera of the New York Times has written an interesting Op Ed about Paul Ryan, author what Nocera accurately describes as "radical vision for turning Medicare into, essentially, a do-it-yourself voucher program." Otherwise known as the budget bill recently passed by House Republicans.

Nocera is unimpressed by Ryan's plan. But he also says:

Yet I found myself disheartened as I read about the Democrats’ gleeful reaction to the victory in New York. They had a strategy now: bash the Republicans into submission over the Ryan plan. In the Senate, the Democratic leadership forced a vote over Ryan’s budget purely to force Republicans to cast a vote “against” Medicare. Clearly, the Democrats are going to make hay over the very idea that Republicans were trying to mess with Medicare, the most sacrosanct federal program of them all.

Nocera thinks that Democrats should treat the Ryan plan as a launching pad for a serious debate about how to reduce health care spending and secure the future of medicare.

It just seems so reasonable! And Democrats have been arguing for years that we'll need to bring down overall health spending as a matter of priority.

Now I'm all confused. If we agree about so much about the proposed end goal, despite our differences in approach, why exactly is it that we can't have a serious debate about medicare reform?

Oh, that's right. NOW I remember. Do you?

Do you remember when Obama talked about the importance of bending the cost curve on medicare expendiature? Remember how one of the ideas he included within the Affordable Care Act was that the government would pay for end of life counseling in which a patient would sit down with their doctor and tell their doctor how THEY wish to be cared for in the case of serious medical breakdown? Remember how this optional but compassionate option was designed so that those people who do want extraordinary measures to save their lives could make this wish clear, with the benefit of expert medical opinion, and those for whom the idea of living indefinitely as a vegetable, or dying in hospital away from their loved ones was abhorent could work with their physician to understand what level of care was right for them - would they want a focus on pain reduction and being comfortable? Who would they want to make decisions about their care if they were unable to do so themselves? Remember that this policy, a modest change to medicare's coverage options, was seen by geriatric specialists and end of life counselors as a way of eliminating UNWANTED medical spending and preventing people from being forced into heroic measures that they themselves would have seen as tortuous and undignified?

Do you remember? Would it jog your memory if I said:

DEATH PANELS!(TM)

Democrats put forward a reasonable compromise solution aimed at comprehensively reforming the existing health care system to both reduce costs and expend access to care. We pointed out that America spends more per capita on public health care alone than any other country in the world without even covering our entire population. We pointed out that medicare costs alone were skyrocketing beyond what the federal budget could sustain in the long term, and that if we made a serious effort to reform the system now, which might include modest additional tax revenue on a targetted basis, we could bend that cost curve and expand care. But that it would involve some people having to modestly trim the benefits they could expect and some others having to pay a bit more.

The Republicans acted as if we wanted to kill their grandmothers. Indeed, they outright SAID that we wanted to kill their grandmothers.

We can't have a serious debate about medicare because Republicans don't want one. They want a debate about how to reduce government spending. That's why they tried to privatise Social Security during the Bush administration. That's why Paul Ryan's plan isn't about improving the delivery of Medicare but scrapping it and replacing it with private vouchers. But when Democrats suggest that maybe there could be modest revisions to the way that Medicare operates to direct more of its expenditure towards care and less towards, for example, the profits of the private sector suppliers who have benefited from George W. Bush's medicare reform boondoggle, Democrats are demonised by Republicans for supposedly wanting cut to the program! Even though Republicans want to scrap the program entirely! Even thought Medicare itself is a Democratic policy, and one of the party's proudest achievements! It's enough to make your head explode. We're supposed to reach out to Republicans in the hope of creating a serious debate? We're supposed to use Ryan's utterly unserious proposals as the launch pad for such a discussion? It's not possible for Paul Ryan to start a debate about these issues when Democrats have been shouting into the wilderness for years.

But if you want a serious set of policies aimed at improving Medicare, Democrats have many such policies. One form of said serious policies, which, while imperfect, does in fact reduce the deficit and expand care is called the Affordable Care Act. Perhaps Paul Ryan may have heard of it?

Another Pretty Picture...

2011-05-28T16:13:00.000+01:00

Of a totally different type:

Pretty Pictures

2011-05-26T22:38:00.001+01:00

To use a British expression, I'm pretty knackered from all the hullabaloo surrounding the President's visit, so tonight I'm just going to chill out and post some of my favourite pictures from Barack and Michelle's time in London. All of these are pulled from this amazing Daily Beast slideshow.

Barbecuing with the Prime Minister...

With Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg...

Toasting the Queen.

Looking fierce (the dress! Those smiles!)...

Ping pong with the PM...

And, of course, the shoes.

Today in the UK: Parliament and Press Conferences. And Michelle.

2011-05-25T23:16:00.001+01:00

"I have known few greater honours than the opportunity to address the mother of Parliaments in Westminster Hall. I am told that the last three speakers here have been the Pope, her Majesty the Queen, and Nelson Mandela - which is either a very high bar, or the beginning of a very funny joke."

President Obama became the first US President ever to address a joint session of the UK Parliament in Westminster Hall.

I've been spending the last couple of days traipsing to and from various different media outlets, assuring them all - in response to the identical, inevitable questions, that yes: Britain is indeed very special to us. It gets tedious to repeat, because to me it's so blindingly obvious - of COURSE the relationship between Britain and America is close, important, cordial and thriving. How could it be otherwise? In a multilateral world where the adversarial conflict of superpowers from the Cold War is being by a world led by America but anchered with new vital powers across Europe, Asia and South America - where the Arab Apring has created a moment of opportunity for democracies in North Africa - our relationship with our most trusted ally are bound to be more important than ever. The fact is that, yes, America has other European allies such as France and German. And, yes, the Obama administration is reevaluating its foreign policy to reflect the strategic importance of Asia and the Pacific - which may mean that Europe itself becomes less strategically important.

But America is no longer (if we ever were) in a position to impose its will on the world as a medapower - we need our allies more than ever before, and Britain is first among equals. It is tightly bound to America by culture, history, economic investment, trade, immigration, and shared values and interests.

Frankly, it shouldn't really require the degree of reassurance that the British media seems to demand but for the record, one more time: yes, your friendship is extremely important to us.

Other videos from the day's events, not to be missed -

While Barack was recalibrating the global power dynamic, Michelle was dishing with a group of London schools girls about how she fell for him in the first place (because, she tells us, he loved his mother and he wasn't impressed with himself).

And here she is giving the girls a pep talk and making a hard sell for the importance of an education:

And finally, here's Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron giving a joint press conference earlier today.

Obama and Cameron are About to Give a Joint Press Conference

2011-05-25T12:46:00.004+01:00

You can watch it here, live:

Update - now that the press conference is over, live video stream went dead. Here's a short video from the press conference. I'll look for more later.

The Obamas as Role Models and Inspirations

2011-05-24T23:41:00.001+01:00

You can see me on tonight's edition of BBC London news chatting about how Barack and Michelle can serve as inspiration to young people. I'm there alongside Tim Campbell, an inspirational entrepreneur and former winner if the UK version of The Apprentice (nice guy). My bit starts about 20 minutes and 35 seconds in.

Again, that link is here.

I can't really stand watching myself - and I know if my Mom were watching she'd notice how desperately I am in need of makeup. Sorry Mom!

The Obamas in the UK: Let's go to the video tape...

2011-05-24T20:43:00.002+01:00

Thought you might enjoy seeing the story of the Obama's UK visit so far played out in the various videos.

Here's the moment the President and First Lady arrived on Air Force One from Ireland - a day ahead of schedule, out of concern over the Icelandic volcano eruption.

Sadly, one of the first things he had to do today was to address the terrible suffering caused by the recent storms in Missouri and the Midwest.

After which, they met with the Queen and observed the Queen's guardsmen on parade.

Here he is teaming up with Prime Minister David Cameron to play ping pong against some students from a South London school.

David Cameron seems to be letting the side down here, I have to say... Bless him, he seems a bit nervous whereas the President is cool, calm and collected. I imagine he'll be more relaxed at tomorrow's press conference - no doubt the sporting element of any photo op is stressful.

More videos to follow tomorrow - I'm especially excited to see the President's speech to the joint houses of Parliament. I can't remember a US President being invited to address a joint session of Parliament in the time I've been here. Although, speech guru Max Atkinson has pointed me to Ronald Reagan's 1982 speech to Parliament as a great moment in Presidential speechmaking.

Let's see what Barack makes of the opportunity.

Me on the telly today...

2011-05-24T11:24:00.001+01:00

Just to shamelessly self-promote, slightly – I’m doing lots of media appearances this week for Democrats Abroad while the President is in town.

Here's an outline of my schedule:

Tuesday, May 24

14:00PM - BBC World TV: a stand up interview near Buckingham Palace

14:15PM SKY news: (another) stand up interview near Buckingham Palace

6:30PM - BBC London News (TV) - Portland Place

Wednesday, May 25

7:00 - BBC World Service - radio interview outside Buckingham Palace

17:30 - BBC Five Live - interview from Millbank studios

Feel free to invent creative drinking games or suggest obscure words for me to insert into comments.

And, by the way - to all my newish blog readers: if you live in the UK and support the President, you should definitely join Democrats Abroad. We do great stuff here.

Why is the President in Europe, anyway?

2011-05-23T22:49:00.000+01:00

Obama spoke today to a seething crowd of over 25,000 enthusiastic Irish people in Dublin. You can watch the full, fiesty and funny speech here. It's a lovely speech, but I don't think I'm doing it a terrible disservice if I summarise it thus: "The history of America has been the history of our Irish immigrants. We totally heart the Irish."

And we do!

Now, as Barack and Michelle's 2011 European tour gets under way, you may be asking (as Danish and French TV have already asked me on camera) why are they coming?

Fortunately, senior members of the White House foreign policy team have done a helpful on the record briefing a few days ago to set the scene - having reviewed the transcript on the tube today, I can now tell you that the trip comprises visits to 4 countries: Ireland, the United Kingdom, France (where the President will participate in the G8 meeting in the town of Deauville) and finally Poland.

Touching on the underpinning meaning of the trip, one official described it by returning to the President's campaign promises:

He as a candidate made a strong commitment to revitalizing our alliances, as Ben said, and to repairing America’s leadership and moral standing in the world. And this trip very much underscores the extent to which he has achieved that with our closest allies and partners in Europe.

She went on to say that there are essentially 3 key themes or purposes underpinning the trip. In summary, these are:

Highlight America's ongoing commitment to Europe. Ireland, the UK, and continental Europe remain American's most lasting, reliable and important allies. Amongst other things, some of the ceremonial aspects of the trip - like today's public address in Dublin and the pomp and circumstance associated with the UK state visit - serve to reaffirm that friendship. In short, sometimes you just have to come and spend time with your friends.
The second theme is to work on the European institutions which form the more formal aspects of the American-European alliance. Most notable in this is NATO, and the effort to bring the NATO project up to date with the modern world. Similarly, continuing to build the relationship with the European Union as it too continues to change and grow. This will be most important, perhaps in the Polish leg of the trip.
And finally, our joint activity in working together WITH Europe to advocate for western values on the world stage. This will be especially critical in light of the ongoing joint actions in Libya and Afghanistan, and as we strategise together about the an appropriate response to other international crisis as the Arab Spring and Israeli-Palestinian situations continue to await resolution.

So there will be some stuff to talk about. I'm just glad Barack managed to get in a pint right at the start.

The Scene in London today...

2011-05-23T19:25:00.001+01:00

Preparations are under way for the President's visit - thanks to the US Embassy for their excellent info page.

I'm hearing reports that the President will arrive in Britain tonight, instead of tomorrow AM as planned - due to concerns about the Iceland volcanic eruption and the possibility that it might disrupt flights. Either way - tomorrow the First Couple will be here for sure.

The Obamas have arrived in Ireland...

2011-05-23T12:03:00.001+01:00

... to kick off their 6 day European trip. They'll arrive in Britain tomorrow, for what BBC North America correspondent Mark Mardell refers to as:

"A melange of pageantry and policy, and the political equivalent of both poetry and prose”

Mmm... tasty.

Here's what I know or have heard reported about the President's trip, so far (all subject to change, or just to discovering that I heard wrong):

Monday - Ireland
Tuesday - arrives in U.K. Meetings with Cameron and Miliband (and maybe Clegg? Not sure). State dinner in the evening
Wednesday: Barbecue being hosted at 10 Downing Street. Guests will be British and American service personnel and their families. 15:40 Speech to Parliment in Westminster Hall

Michelle Obama's Shoes

2011-05-22T13:50:00.003+01:00

A few weeks ago, I blogged an update on the plans for Barack and Michelle's UK visit (which starts tomorrow!), and a commenter took the time to provide some political analysis in the comments, writing:

This time I hope the Obamas do not embarass Americans again with a tackey gift and inappropriate social manners. Michelle will, no doubt, wear outfits that are hidious, inappropriate for a royal visitation. No doubt, her shoes will be a color that absolutely do not match or fight the shade of her outfit. There is no hope for this woman!

Now, I've defended the President and First Lady on a number of occasions - but I have to admit to defeat here. If I'm truthful, I would probably have to confess that my own shoes frequently fight with the shade of my outfit. It's a shame I have had to live with. As for Michelle's, in fairness I think I should fully disclose the horror and embarrassment that the First Lady's shoes have wrought upon this nation.

Shining a silverly light upon this scandal. Shoegate.

What I didn't realise was that there I have been unwittingly overlooking a major undercurrent of the American debate. It turns out that there is a raging national dialogue taking place on the important topic of how very ugly some commentators believe Michelle to be.

You see, startled by the intensity of my commenter's shoe-related disgust, I tried to remember what terrible shoe faux pas Michelle might have made, so did a quick Google search looking for some pictures.

You know that feeling when you turn inoccently overturn a rock and find scurrying, repellent creatures beneath? Well, that's what it's like when you click through on some of these sites - to which I will not link. Because... ew.

But I did find one commentator, referring to Michelle, saying: "She is the ugliest woman in the world bar none!"

Really?

The ugliest women in the world, bar none? Someone, somewhere actually thinks that?

I don't know. Personally, I take the view that the physical appearance of people in general and women in particular is made too important - outside of fashion modelling there's no profession where being beautiful should be a mandatory part of the job. I think Michelle herself would be the first to agree that loving your family, caring for your community, working hard at your job are all more important than just looking amazing in a pair of Jimmy Choos.

On display in the Smithsonian: Our national shame?

But on the plus side, my brief ugly foray into the hate-filled world of Michelle-Is-Ugly-ism (a theory that I find about as implausible as the theory that Barack was secretly born in Kenya) did give me the opportunity to read what I now regard as possible the Stupidest Thing Ever Written On the Internet. And this is not an accolade that I bestow lightly.

Objecting to Michelle's observation that Barack understand the issues that women face in their lives, this blogger writes:

What kind of women is Michelle talking about? Her black sisters? Certainly what she says does not apply to Scandinavian-American women. We have no “issues to face”, we live our lives and try not to create any issues for our community.

OK then! "Scandinavian-American" woman have NO issues to face. They earn equal pay for work, don't have any difficulty in balancing work and child-rearing, never need to fear rape and sexual violence, and always have easy access to quality and affordable health care. Oh, to be a Scandinavian-American woman, but I guess as an Anglo Saxon woman, I'll just have to struggle on.

Michelle beside Carla Bruni. Are we surrendering to France?

On the bright side, not everyone thinks that Michelle is a physically repellent fashion disaster. Googling the phrase "Michelle Obama style icon" returns over 2 million hits - most of them pages gushing about the First Lady's elegant but relatable style.

Personally, I'm just glad she works so hard to encourage kids to eat healthy and live active lifestyles, that she tries to give something back to the families of wounded serviceman and woman, and that she tries to be a role model to young women. I'm not really going to make a judgement on the shoes.

Casually destroying our global reputation with her sneakers?

Obama's exclusive interview with Andrew Marr is airing on BBC 1...

2011-05-22T09:37:00.001+01:00

right now. If you're near a TV on this sunny Sunday morning - do switch it on.

Or - you can watch the whole thing online here.

Michelle Is Coming to Oxford...

2011-05-22T00:20:00.001+01:00

As the state visit by Barack and Michelle to Britain creeps closer, some of the details of their trip are starting to become clear. One thing that was announced yesterday is that Michelle will be visiting Oxford University on May 25th, in company with a group of London school children.

When the First Couple visited Britain in 2009 for the G20 meeting, Michelle made quite an impression in the British media - if anything, she generated more press coverage than her husband. Certainly, there was at the time an almost freakishly obsessive fixation on Michelle's clothes and hair. But what I remember the most from that last visit was a really lovely moment that she shared with a group of Islington schoolgirls. Here's the video of that encounter:

Don't read this blog. Read this article.

2011-05-20T10:34:00.002+01:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging yesterday. True fact - I was unexpectedly late and excessively wine sloshed from attending the book launch dinner for my husband's former colleague's new book on Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yes, I live exactly the life that the populist right imagine I do.

But you shouldn't be reading my blog anyway - instead, if you haven't already, you should be reading Ryan Lizza's fascinating article taking a close look at the Obama administration's foreign policy.

Go on. Read it.

The piece isn't hagiographic towards the President, nor is it pointlessly critical - just an honest attempt to understand the different forces within the administration and how Obama himself is evolving as a foreign policy thinker.

I do think the piece is interesting and well written - the empty place at the heart of it, to me, is that so much of it seems based on the perceptions of people who witnessed the key events in the decision-making, but weren't themselves the main players. These "sources close to the White House" type articles always seem to me to overplay the degree to which the interpersonal politics is responsible for decision-making. Understandably, since people at that level spend a lot of time frustrated by the interpersonal politics. But I suspect that more often than not these relationship issues are caused by the policy positions, not the other way around. For instance, Lizza writes:

But the Afghanistan decision, like all government work, was driven by politics and ideology. Obama’s eagerness to keep his campaign promise, the military’s view that reducing troops meant a loss of face, Clinton’s decision to align with Gates, and Holbrooke’s inability to influence the White House staff all ultimately conspired to push Obama toward the surge.

OK. But wouldn't another way of putting it be to say that Obama had been persuaded by the need for a surge during the campaign (presumably that's why he made that promise, yes?) and the onus was now on the advisors who disagreed to prove their case. Hillary Clinton seems to have aligned herself with Gates because she agreed with him about a lot of policies, not just to bolster her position - although it may have had that effect. And the article then goes on to show that she had no compuction about strongly disagreeing with Gates later on in calling for Libyan intervention. And as for Holbrooke - another way of saying "inability to influence White House staff" would be "failure to persuade."

Anyway, the article sketches a fascinating fresh portrait of the age-old cross-party dispute between foreign policy realists and interventionists, and makes the case that Obama doesn't align with either party but focusses more on a situation-specific analysis of the plausible outcomes in each case. Lizza calls him "The Consequentialist".

O-mentum?

2011-05-18T23:53:00.003+01:00

This graph tracks the President's approval rating over the past 6 months. Whenever the black is over the red line, that means more people approve than disapprove of Barack's job performance.

That first little peak in January shows the nation clearly rallying behind him as consoler in chief after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. The most recent spike began just after the death of Osama Bin Laden.

In both cases, I find it interesting that the President's displayed great sensitiviy and excellence at a key aspect of his job more or less exactly corresponding with the Republicans putting on a freak show of unseriousness. In January, Sarah Palin responded to the Giffords shooting as if she herself were the real victom, and of course Donald Trump walked right into Obama's carefully laid trap just in time for him to spring it on him at the White House Correspondence Dinner mere days before the death of Bin Laden.

Will this improvement in the polls last? I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction that it will - that at least the black line will stay over the red for the next couple of months.

It's probably foolish for me to actually put that in writing, though. After all, as the great Yogi Berra used to say, "It's tough to make predictions. Especially about the future."

RIP Tim Hetherington. A brave man in every meaningful sense.

2011-05-17T22:10:00.002+01:00

I feel a bit haunted today. They say all things are connected - certainly all things in the Internet are. The trivial and the profound mushed together into a sometimes nutritious, sometimes nauseating stew. I was reminded of this today by the apparently innocuous act of reviewing my blog stats.

You see, this blog received a big-for-me spike of visits on April 20th - with just over 4,000 people visiting on a day when I hadn't actually posted anything and wasn't really paying attention. It was only today that, out of interest, I dug in a litttle bit deeper and managed to find the source of most of my visits on that particular day. It was this.

The Twitter stream of photographer, journalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington. Renowned for his work in dangerous parts of Africa, Tim had been nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for a documentary he had made about his time in Afghanistan. Tim hadn't been using Twitter much recently, which is why just three tweets down on his page you can see him retweeting my infamous Sarah Palin blog back in January. Then on February 28, he talks about attending the Oscars and links to a snapshot from the night.

On April 19th, he wrote: "In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO."

On April 20th, he was killed by enemy fire in Libya while travelling with anti-Quaddafi forces.

Soldiers, and other men and women who serve on the front lines of conflicts are routinely described as "brave" when going into battle or, more poignantly, when they don't make it home from battle. Personally, I always think of "bravery" as two separate things. The first is physical courage - the willingness to put yourself in danger irrespective of cost. Soldiers, firefighters and police certainly demonstrate such bravery on many occassions but so can terrorists, murderers and criminals. A frequently useful but not inherently noble attribute.

The second type of bravery doesn't necessarily require physical courage - and that's the strength to do things the hard way because it's the right way. To consider not just your own point of view but what you might learn from those unlike you. To shut up and listen instead of claiming glory to yourself. To turn something painful, complicated and emotionally draining into art.

Tim Hetherington seems to have combined beautifully these two different types of bravery in the person of a man I would have liked to have know. Please take a moment to appreciate his work.

Tim's parent's have posted a message on his website saying that:

The following organisations meant a great deal to Tim. Donations in his memory should be directed to:
Milton Margai School for the Blind, Sierra Leonehttp://www.miltonmargaischool.org/
Human Rights Watchhttp://www.hrw.org/
Committee to Protect Journalistshttp://www.cpj.org/

Bye Bye Donald.

2011-05-17T00:01:00.000+01:00

So I couldn't be bothered to write about Donald Trump's ridiculous "Presidential Campaign", and now I don't have to! Hurray! If only the other chores that I dread could be dealt with so efficiently. My laundry doesn't seem to get done if I ignore it, the dishes keep sitting in the sink until I wash them, and as for the floors - well, our hoover stubbornly refuses to be self sufficient.

But it turns out, if I ignore Donald Trump, he will in fact go away. Good to know.

Just about three months to the day since he jumped into the presidential fray with his surprise appearance at CPAC, Donald Trump put an end to his crash course through the presidential field by pulling out of the race before he ever officially got in.

Bye bye Donald. Thanks for stopping by. It's been.. interesting. Here's your hat, what's your hurry? Ok, buh bye now. Bye. Off you got. I'm shutting the door. Goodnight.

The President Could Lose. But Can Any of these Republicans Win?

2011-05-15T18:46:00.004+01:00

In 2012 it's not just Barack Obama who will be up for election, but the very notion that hard work, discipline, careful management and a refusal to condescend to the easy or superficial path can beat cynicism, glibness, unseriousness in matters of policy and the notion that politics is just reality TV for the elites.

These are serious times and our President is a serious man. Don't let his big smile, his deft way with a joke, and his willingness to go on Oprah fool you - Barack Obama is an unusual determined, evidence-based and serious minded President.

And since January 2009 he's been faced with the most spectacular barrage of misery inducing news - an economic crisis that he faced by pushing through a massive stimulus package and an innovative, forward-looking budget. (But more was needed, cry the critics.) The economy has begun a process of recovery, but it is far - so tragically far from where we need it to be. Especially in terms of job creation - which has seen record growth lately. (But not enough, I concede. Not enough.)

I'm not going to rehearse today the many institutional constraints and structural problems President Obama personally and the Democratic Party generally faced over the past two years. I'm not going to try and excuse any perceived or real failures of the administration.

Today, I want you to think about the alternatives.

I'm under no illusions about this - President Obama faces a tough reelection fight in 2012. He will - rightly - be asked to defend his record and to make the case for why, where progress has been slow, he should be given the chance to keep trying.

His overall approval rating, while improved somewhat in the wake of the death of Osama Bin Laden, is not in the territory that most Presidents would hope for. And his signature achievement - comprehensive healthcare reform - is in a precarious position, having been passed but in a stage where the key provisions have not yet taken effect. Many Americans will be seeing their premiums continue to go up and may be wondering when they'll start to see the meaningful improvement that was promised. (Answer, starting from 2014. Two years into his second term... or someone else's first.)

So the President could lose. And, if he can't make a clear and compelling case for his record, he'll deserve to.

(One possible starting point for such a case to be made is this:

But... for the President to lose, a Republican would have to win.

And the Republican party has been startlingly slow to kick start their Presidential race. You may recal that at this time in 2007, there was already a hot election underway in the respective primary cycles for both parties, with Republican candidates including AZ Senator John McCain, former WI Governor and Cabinet Secretary Tommy Thompson, former VA Governor Jim Gilmore, KS Senator Sam Brownback, former MA Governor Mitt Romney, TX Representative Ron Paul, Former AS Governor Mike Huckabee, former NY Mayor Rudy Guiliani, CO Representative Tom Tancredo and CA Represenative Duncan Hunter. There were also a range of joke or outsider candidates, but let's leave them aside for now.

All of these people, by this point, had declared their candidacy. At the same point in 2011, here is the list of people who have formally declared that they will seek the Republican nomination in 2012:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson
Political Consultant Fred Karger
Activist Andy Martin
Rent is Too Damn High Party founder Jimmy McMillan
Representative Ron Paul

The following people have formed an exploratory committee to consider running:

Georgia Businessman Herman Cain
Former AL Chief Justice Roy Moore (of "10 Commandments" fame)
Former MN Governor Tim Pawlenty
Former LA Governor Buddy Roemer
Former MA Governor Mitt Romney
Former Senator Rick Santorum

Sorting out the single-issue candidates, perennial candidates, and simply absurd candidates, the list of serious prospects on the Republican side of the aisle looks like this:

Tim Pawlenty
Mitt Romney
Newt Gingrich
Gary Johnson
Ron Paul
Rick Santorum

Until yesterday, it looked like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee would be among this list, but he has since announced that he will not be seeking election this year. I feel I would be remiss as a blogger, though, if I didn't nevertheless give you the chance to enjoy his latest commercial project - aimed at teaching American History to kids who have been indoctrinated cruelly with the dangerous liberal curriculum.

Seriously - watch this.

"Some of their morals are just GONE!" "Oh no, it's bad. Really bad."

OK, we're back.

So the invaluable Nate Silver has done a detailed analysis of the primary election prospects of a very wide range of prospective Republican candidates. In almost all of his analyses, the candidate who comes out as most likely to win the nomination is the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Now, Mitt's a pretty decent guy as Republicans go. His signature achievement in Massachusetts was to pass a bipartisan health care law that mandates that all citizens in the Bay State should have converage. This program has proved so successuful that Massachusetts now has the lowest rates of uninsured citizens in the country - and it has maintained its position as the state that delivers some of the best health care in the country. And, frankly, as I have said before, it's a great place to live in a lot of other ways too.

But... well.. how shall I put this? If you want to vote for a candidate who believes in a pragmatic solution to our health care crisis, there's ANOTHER CANDIDATE on the ballot who has a lot of experience with the Presidency. I'm personally kind of loving how the President's team have been spending their energy conspicuously congratulating Mitt on his health care reform right left and center. And this ad produced by the Massachusetts DNC just cracks me up with it's not-so-secret evil plan.

Mitt is, ironically, going to have a hard time still convincing his party that they should enthusiastically support a candidate who himself enthusiastically supported the Heritage-Foundation-drafted, compromise health care proposal that later came to look dangerously like the one that the President and Congressional Democrats passed.

Or, as the Onion puts it, Mitt will have to say:

"My hope is that Republican voters will one day forgive me for making it easier for sick people—especially low-income sick people—to go to the hospital and see a doctor," Romney added. "It was wrong, and I'm sorry."

So who else is there?

I'm still mulling this, trying to work out which of these people makes for the most credible opponent. I'm struggling. What do you think, my blog amigos?

Celebrate July 4th With Democrats Abroad! On July 3rd

2011-05-15T17:07:00.000+01:00

(Note: This is the post that I had written for posting on Thursday before the specactular Blogger FAIL. Thus, the meeting described took place last Thursday. For the historical record.)

Here in Britain, you can always spot the Americans living abroad in the days around major US holidays. We'll be the ones asking for turkeys in November long before the stores put their Christmas food on display. Or we'll be caught traipsing around forlornly asking everyone where we might be able to get pumpkin pie mix. (Hint - Ocado sells it for delivery.)

In summer, you'll spot us looking for red, white and blue bunting, or illegal fireworks, or inventing desperately patriotic desserts. One year I made an American flag out of raisins and blueberries in creme anglais. The point is, some of us - even some who don't normally associate with our fellow expats the rest of the year - get a little homesick.

The reason I bring thus up is that tonight I sat in on an organising meeting for our Democrats Abroad July 4th celebration. And I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

We've got musicians. Barbershop quartets, folk singers, bands...

We've got food. Barbecue, creole, Tex Mex, cupcakes...

We've got kids games, decorations, speeches, voter registration, balloons and - if we get the same turnout as last year - about 1200 fellow Americans to party with.

And the whole thing happens in a beautiful central London park square that is normally off limits to the public.

So if you live in the UK, mark the date of July 3 in you diary and make sure to join Democrats Abroad so you'll get all the info by email.

www.democratsabroad.org/join

Blogger Outage

2011-05-13T19:07:00.000+01:00

Sorry all, but Blogger - the system I use to write this blog - has been experiencing some major problems, which meant that I have been unable to post any content to the blog for the past 36 hours or so. Also, they appear to have removed the most recent content posted by all their users, although they say that they are going to work to restore content ASAP. In my case, this means that they have taken down my blog about the prettiness of my commute, with pictures, and the associated comments.

As the British like to say, "I am not best pleased."

Personal Priviledge

2011-05-11T20:26:00.002+01:00

Today, on a whim, while I was looking out the window of my morning commuter train, I snapped a picture of Hackney Downs - an urban oasis of greenery in the middle of East London. The place is kind of a miracle, and I had this moment of gratitude that my daily commute just so... beautiful.

So then, I thought - "Heck. Why not try to document the total coolness of my daily commute as it goes along?" So here's Liverpool Street station, where my train arrived...

From there, I exited the station and crossed the street to a bus stop - this picture shows the building my bus stop is in front of. Yes, it's been converted into a supermarket. Gorgeous AND convenient!

I grabbed this shot from the bus as we whizzed through the City (City with a capital C is the term for London's financial district, for you non-locals. Kind of like lower Manhattan.)

This is the Monument to the Great Fire of London - it's 1666 feet high, and that's a clue to the date of said fire, if you're paying attention.

In an effort to pack more walking into my day, and to enjoy the sunshine, I got off a stop early so that I could walk across London Bridge, from which this shot was taken.

Then I walked along the river for a little bit before cutting through Hay's Galleria and passing the world's MOST bizarre and amazing sculpture - the fish shaped boat here is just like something out of Terry Gilliam, and the oars actually row through the water. It's wonderfully odd.

And finally, I stopped at this coffee shop for my utterly-essential morning latte.

So yes, consider this a true confession - I am a foreign dwelling, urban living, train taking, latte sipping LIBERAL.

It's a pretty darn great thing to be, actually.

(Click on any of these pictures to see them larger.)

Yes, Americans pay too much for healthcare.

2011-05-11T09:37:00.002+01:00

And here's the source.

Oh Dear. Republican wrongness still threatening economic calamity...

2011-05-10T19:41:00.002+01:00

So a few days ago, in my round up of the many vital things about which Republicans are wrong, I wrote, referring to their then-apparent decision to avoid threatening the US with debt default:

The one Republican achievement this week is their (apparent) willingness to reluctantly agree that they will NOT cause a financial calamity for no apparent reason.

May I take this opportunity to strike this unfounded praise?

Turns out the giant game of chicken Republicans were playing with their economy is back on:

In a speech before a Wall Street crowd on Monday, John Boehner laid out the three legs of the GOP's opening bid on the debt ceiling. They are:

1) "Without significant spending cuts and reforms to reduce our debt, there will be no debt limit increase. And the cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority the president is given. We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions."

2) "They should be actual cuts and program reforms, not broad deficit or debt targets that punt the tough questions to the future."

3) "With the exception of tax hikes -- which will destroy jobs -- everything is on the table. That includes honest conversations about how best to preserve Medicare."

With the exception of tax hikes. Which will destroy jobs. Everything is on the table.

Forgive me a moment, as my head is currently on fire.

OK. Have dowsed head in bucket of water.

I feel that this line of argument cries out for an analogy and I'm struggling to find one sufficiently vapid.

How about:

1) For curing a fatal disease: "With the exception of taking medication, which will kill unicorns, all options are on the table."
2) For making a baby: "With the exception of heterosexual sex, which will threaten kittens, all options are on the table."
3) For losing weight: "With the exception of eating less food, which will help terorists, all options are on the table."
4) For doing a web search: "With the exception of Google, which bitch-slaps infants, all options are on the table."

I'm not sure any of these fully convey the stupicity of the Boehnerism, though. Further suggestions welcome. Other than that, I just want to say what he said:

As a substantive matter, Boehner has no idea what he’s talking about. His entire schpiel is gibberish. Even a rudimentary understanding of recent events should make clear, even to someone with Boehner’s limited abilities, that his model doesn’t make sense. Reagan raised taxes and the economy grew. Clinton raised taxes and the economy grew. Bush slashed taxes and produced the worst job-creation record of any president in generations.

How does the Speaker even think this is possible?

Cheer for Your Rapist: The case for empathy on the courts

2011-05-09T19:40:00.000+01:00

In one of the most horrific stories of the justice system that I have ever encountered, a Texas teeneage who was kicked of the cheerleading team after refusing to chant the name of her rapist was ordered to pay $45,000 in legal fees to the school as punishment for the "frivolity" of her suit to have this decision overturned.

This week, the Supreme Court announced that they would not hear the case, so the judgement will stand.

Let's all pause a moment to say: WTF?!

Here are the fuller details:

According to court documents, H.S. was 16 when she was raped at a house party by one of her school’s star athletes, Rakheem Bolton. Bolton was arrested, but by pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault, he received a reduced sentence of probation and community service. Bolton was allowed to return to school and resume his place on the basketball team. Four months later, H.S. was cheering with her squad at a game when Bolton lined up to take a free throw. The squad wanted to do a cheer that included his name, but H.S. refused, choosing instead to stand silently with her arms folded.

“I didn’t want to have to say his name and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” she later told reporters. “I just didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”

Several school officials of the “sports obsessed” small town took issue with H.S.’s silence, and ordered her to cheer for Bolton. When H.S. refused again, she was expelled from the cheerleading squad. Her family decided to sue school officials and the district. Their lawyer argued that H.S.’s right to exercise free expression had been violated and that students shouldn’t be punished for not complying with “insensitive and unreasonable directions.”

Now there a bunch of things that I want to say about this - including why on earth the school district chose to pursue this throught he courts rather than just letting her back on the team. My preferred solution would have been that the rapist himself be expelled or at least forced to transfer schools or at VERY least kicked off the basketball team. Because, um, hello, he RAPED A CHEERLEADER. Maybe he doesn't so much deserved to get cheered for by... anyone at all?

But I'd actually like to take a step back and use this incident to revisit the conversation about the role of empahty in the Court system. If you remember way back in August of 2009, when the Senate was preparing to vote on the nomination of now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, there was something of a mini-kerfuffle in which the right stirred up a storm of protest over President Obama's declared preference for a Justice who would have empathy and life experience to round out the Court. Commentators chose to huff and puff about this as if it were somehow a bizarre notion that judges are influenced by their experience. In point of fact, I anyone who pauses for a moment to reflect should realise that there is always a role for discreition in the application of the law - and even more so in the application of justice.

And this case is a classic example of what this means. Any application of the law has to take into account what is reasonable, proportional and fair. The freedom of speech that this student is asking for is so incredibly small - remember, she doesn't want the right to refuse to cheer for the team, or to boo her assailant as he struts up to the free throw line, just to stand silently and not chant his name while he shoots.

And her reasons for wanting that are so manifestly fair and reasonable, so big in relation to the smallness of her personal response - just to not cheer for a few seconds - that the application of the law in this way seems to most of us gratuitiously cruel.
But is the Appeals court wrong, on a hard reading of the law. Well, probably not in fact. If you extrapolate from this case - imagine a student landing the lead in the school play but refusing to speak any of her lines because she's offended by the play. Well, the school would have the right to replace her. It is true that sometimes when a student speaks in a school setting, as when an employee speaks in a work setting she is representing the school not herself.

But the law shouldn't be applied like a blunt instrument. Judges should have some ability to understand that there are many sides to every case that comes before them, and unless they can put themselves in the shoes of both parties to a dispute their judgements, however technically accurate will always be wrong in any meaningful sense. There will always be a disappointed party in any dispute, and often the disappointed party will have good reasoning on their side and will have been hard done by themselves. Only through leavening our justice with some sensitivity do we stand any hope of being fair to everyone concerned. My personal belief is that in free speech cases, we should err on the side of upholding the rights of the individual to speak wherever reasonable as preferred over the right of an institution (such as a school) to... ummm... force students to publicly celebrate violent sexual criminals. (Sorry, still having trouble getting my head around this one... Failure of empathy on my part for the rapist duly noted - I'll work on that. Well, not much, really. But I'm not a judge to it's OK.)

In this case, I think the Court's decision to uphold the school's decision was wrong on it's face - though arguable under the law. But calling her suite frivolous and demanding her family pay $45,000 in legal costs is a spectacular failure of judgement.

When I first started writing this post, I didn't know the gender breakdown of the 5th circuit court, which made this ruling. Having looked it up now, the 3 judges in question were Emilio Garza, Edith Clement and Priscilla Owen. Two women and one man. The first two were shortlisted by George W. Bush for Supreme Court seats.

Appalling from start to finish.

And finally, can I just say that I would never allow a daughter of mine to attend that Texas High School. Shouldn't other parents express some outrage here?

A Blog can be a lonely place...

2011-05-08T17:05:00.001+01:00

Apologies for the metablogging (now I'm blogging about blogging about blogging... This could go on forever) but I wanted to take a moment to ask for your help with this blog.

You see, despite what some of my critics believe, I actually have a lot of other stuff going on in my life besides this blog. And making the time to do it is a bit of a labour of love that sometimes means I ignore my poor and patient husband, or get less than my requisite amount of sleep. I enjoy it. But, compared with my other online interactions on Twitter and Facebook it requires a lot more of my time and intellectual energy in exchange for less actual interaction with other humans. I watch my stats really closely, so I know that I do have some readers. But for the most part I don't know who you are or what you think about the stuff I put out there. Quite frankly, if you do like the stuff on the blog and if you would like more of it, I could do with a bit of positive reinforcement to help me keep it coming.

Here's what you can do to help:

Comment. Please let me know what you think - I always keep my eye on comments and make an effort to reply. I really like it when you guys actually talk to each other or challenge me on something I said or ask a question.

Tweet. If you're on Twitter, please use the green Retweet button at the top of each post to share stuff you like with your friends.
Follow me on Twitter. I'm @karinjr - and I almost always tweet a link to the latest post shortly after posting, so if you follow me you can stay on top of what's new.

Like the post on Facebook. There's a button to do this at the bottom of each post. Remember, if you read the blog on my Facebook feed and like the post there, it doesn't count in the overall "Like" rate for the post as recorded on the blog. So please click Like on the blog itself.
If you read the blog on Facebook... It would also be great if you could click through to the main blog every once and a while just so your interest is recorded in my blog stats.
Write a guest post. I never meant for the blog to be so entirely my own voice, and I'd love to hear from anyone who has something relevant to say. Contact me on Twitter if you are interested, or let me know in comments and we can speak offline. Be aware, the blog is for Obama supporters and written from an expat perspective, so content relevant to that is most welcome. And I can't promise to publish anything you write, for a number of reasons. But would love to hear from you.
Send me leads! Read or heard something interesting lately? Send me links and suggestions.

Copious Republican Wrongness: I Try to Keep Track of it All

2011-05-07T13:39:00.001+01:00

The Republican Party is so fundamentally wrong so often about so much stuff that is so important that's it's ironically easy to lose track of it all. And in recent days we've been bombarded with evidence of Republican wrongness at such a fast and furious clip that I realise I personally haven't been able to full absorb the depth and breadth of the wrong.
So let's make a quick list - based just on news stories from the past week:

Republicans - including John McCain back in 2008 - were wrong to insist that we should not pursue Osama Bin Laden into Pakistan if we had credible intelligence that he was there. Or rather, since one could argue that the policy might be right even if the outcome would be bad, let's say that whether this is right or wrong, Osama Bin Laden would still be threatening America today if the Republicans had won the last election.
Republicans - including, most notably, Dick Cheney - were wrong to suggest that Americans are less safe from terrorism under Obama than they were under Bush.
Republicans leaders were wrong to keep calling everything that Democrats proposed a "job killing" measure, when in fact the last three months has been the best 3 month period for job growth in 5 years. On the other hand, independent experts at Moody's have reproted that the GOP's proposed budget would result in the LOSS of over 700,000 American jobs. That's just wrong on so many levels.
Republicans - in particular Rep Paul Ryan - were wrong to suggest that they had a plan to cut the deficit. Ryan's so-called deficit reduction plan was based on heavy tax cuts for the wealthy plus heavy cuts to needed services for the poor (that's balanced! See! He's cutting taxes AND spending! Everything gets cut!). But even with these deep spending cuts, Ryan wasn't able to project any ability to balance the budget without his piece de resistance - a plan to eliminate Medicare and replace it with vouchers to allow the elderly to buy private health care. This proposal has been strikingly unpopular with the public, and has now been abandoned by Republican leaders - though not before House Republicans voted for it. Without the elimination of Medicare, Ryan's plan does not balance the budget.
Republicans in Congress were wrong to make posturing noises to suggest that they would be willing - nay! eager! - to let America default on its debt. For bizarre procedural reasons, every time US borrowing goes above a certain point, Congress must vote to allow this debt ceiling to rise. Republicans, however, had been ranting about their unwillingness to do this unless Democrats were willing to ~~let old people die~~ accept the phase out of Medicare. Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed and Republicans are willing to settle for deep cuts to non-entitlement spending programs instead. Gee, thanks. The implications, if the debt ceiling were not raised, would be that the US would default on its borrowing, doing severe damage to our position within the markets, which experts believe could trigger another financial crisis. White House Economic Advisor Austen Goolsbee put it this way, "If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”

So to sum up:

If Republicans were in charge this week, they would have left the world's most dangerous terrorist happy in his Pakistan mansion, lost 700,000 jobs instead of adding 250,000, eliminated Medicare, and cut taxes for the rich.

The one Republican achievement this week is their (apparent) willingness to reluctantly agree that they will NOT cause a financial calamity for no apparent reason.

Why does anyone vote for these guys?

Barack and Michelle Do London - the story so far

2011-05-06T22:46:00.000+01:00

As mentioned before, Barack and Michelle are due in London for a visit the end of this month. I've done a bit of digging around to find out what we know so far about that visit, and thought I should give you a quick update.

Bear in mind, though that:

1) For obvious reasons of security, the President's schedule - especially for a foreign visit - is typically not released much ahead of time. And...
2) Although Democrats Abroad (which you should all join, if you are US citizens living abroad) is the official party organisation of the US Democratic Party, when the President travels abroad on official business he is - rightly - severely restricted in the his ability to any Party political activity. Which means is surpassingly unlikely that he will be able to do anything "with us". I'm sure he cries himself to sleep every night over that.

So... President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will be visiting the UK on May 24-26. The visit will be an official state visit, and they will be staying in... what for it... Buckinham Palace, as a guest of the Queen.

I KNOW! I'd love to get that invite, if only so I could sneak around after the Secret Service goes to bed and poke through the linen cupboards.

Anyway, the US Embassy of London has a helpful page giving the details announced so far (not many), details of the Obama's last visit here in 2009 and some interesting videos on life in the travelling press corps. It looks like they have set up this page to be updated as more info is released, so it's worth bookmarking it now:

http://london.usembassy.gov/obamavisit.html

Prince Charles, the Heir to the throne here and - of more interest of late - father to the world's most famous bridegroom - met recently with the President in the White House where the appear to have exchanged pleasantries in the longstanding tradition of content free Head of State (or heir to Head of State) interactions over the years.

The President also congratulated the Prince on the wedding of his son, Prince William, to Catherine Middleton and extended his best wishes to the newlywed couple. The President looks forward to visiting the United Kingdom at the invitation of Her Majesty the Queen during his State visit later this month.

Slightly more interesting, perhaps is to speculate what Her Majesty the Queen's feelings might be about the impending Presidential visit - she and Michelle Obama appear to have forged something unusually like a real bond of affection on the First Lady's last visit here. Bearing in mind that Queen Elizabeth's remarkable longevity is often attributed to her extreme skill at projecting neutrality - she was unusually non-neutral in her team's comment on the supposed breach of protocol when there was physical contact (gasp!) between the two women.

"This was a mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation between the queen and Michelle Obama," a palace spokeswoman said.

Oo er! Ahem.

Undoubtedly, President Obama will meet during his visit with the UK Prime Minster - Conservative Leader David Cameron.

When they do, I wonder if Barack will raise the obvious point that the British economy is actually on the point of shrinking, with GDP in decline, at a time with the US economy appears haltingly to be carry on down the road to recovery.

Of course, the British Government has embarked on a program of strenuous cuts to government spending, whereas the US government has attempted to avoid such draconian measures. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation... Hmmm...

Whatever happens, I am already steeling myself for the inevitable British press hand wringing about whether the US President REALLY REALLY likes us or just SORT OF KIND OF likes us. Is our special relationship REALLY, truly special, or just kinda sort of special?

There will undoutedly be extensive media coverage of any gift that the President might chose to bring for the PM and the Royal Family, and it will be digested endlessly for a significance that it almost certainly does not have.

I therefore would like to take this opportunitiy to go out on a limb and make a flagrant prediction - the UK and the USA will remain strong and vital allies after this trip, no matter what else happens on it.

"Accedes to their absurd requests one week, and slays their demons the next"

2011-05-06T00:39:00.000+01:00

I thought there was some really valuable perspective in this Ta Nehisi Coates post ruminating about how the attempt to question Barack's "American-ness" is really an insult to the millions of families across the country to whom the Obama's don't look especially exotic. He writes:

for those of us who are waging the fight against a crippling cynicism, who are urging our children on, who visit schools and begin our addresses with, "I remember when I just like you," the First Family is perhaps the greatest weapon in our arsenal.

From the perspective of race, we don't object to people trying to defeat Obama. We don't object to Hillary claiming he's soft. We don't object to McCain claiming he's a celebrity. We don't object to the GOP calling him a tax and spend liberal. We don't even object to Mitt Romney aspiring to hang him. (We know what you meant, Mitt.)

But when broad sections of this country foolishly follow a carnival barker in the ugly tradition of attacking black citizenship rights, when pundits shriek that Obama's successes are simply the result of the misguided largess of white people, they undermine our most intimate war. They undermine the notion that someone familiar to that kid on the corner could legitimately reach the highest levels of the country, that someone like that kid's Aunt could be the First Lady. They undermine this country's social contract, and the "hard work pays" message of my parents. And to that we object.

For if they will not take as legitimate a magna cum laude from their highest institutions, if they will not accept a man who tells black kids to cut off the video games and study, who accedes to their absurd requests one week, and slays their demons the next, who will they accept? Who among us would they ever believe?

What fascinates me about this whole phenomenon - in which the right wing attack on Barack and Michelle Obama is the suggestion, subtle and not-so-subtle that they are Not Like Us - has always struck me as incredibly weak. I don't think it's just African American families who look at the Obamas and think that they look like the family down the block - I grew up in a waspy suburb in which there were literally only 2 black kids in my entire high school graduating class of 250 kids.

But the Obama's would have fit in great at our neighborhood barbecue. My mom would totally have bonded with Michelle if they ran into each other at one of my school plays. Barack and my dad would absolutely have backslapped and networked and talked sports if they bumped into each other.

Until not that long ago, in fact, any of those things could have happened! The Obama's lived a pretty middle class life, they got involved in their kids schools. Heck Barack even marched in a goofy St Patrick's day parade, brandishing a toilet plunger. Less than a decade ago.

But the best, most effective attack they can think of to levy against him is that this almost stereotypicallly normal, happy, healthy American family is somehow "not one of us".

By contrast, I recall that the equally deranged lunatic fringe that attacked Bill Clinton during his moment as the Liberal whipping boy for the right wing lynch mob accused him not just of (plausible) sexual misconduct but actual mass murder.

Perversely, I think of this as some sort of progress.

Here's your birth certificate, you freaks. Choke on it.

Sometimes I forget... I have fans!

2011-05-05T00:28:00.001+01:00

So, apologies for the silence on this blog - I assure you that I have been very far from silent in real life over the past month and a bit. Just differently loud.

But at tonight's Democrats Abroad Speakeasy (first Wednesday of every month here in London - all are welcome!) I had to face down multiple complaints about the lack of posting on this blog.

Flattered that you care - thanks guys! I'm back on the blogging beat - and to make it up to you, I'll promise to post at least once a day for the rest of the month.

That's right! Obama London is giving a special offer - Every Day in May! For the bargain price of... nothing! Enjoy.

I'm never sure how much personal information to include on this blog, as it was never intended to be about me or my life, but you should know that in the past month I have:

Been re-elected Vice Chair of Democrats Abroad UK (thank you all - I'm truly honoured to serve, and I really love this organisation)
Gone with my husband on a much needed 2 week vacation - hiking in the Peak District and Snowdonia.
Continued to learn the guitar (if you're really good someday I'll post video of my efforts at "The Times They Are A Changin").
Planned some big and interesting digital campaigns for clients.
AND - appeared yesterday on the BBC World Service to discuss the death of Osama Bin Laden and Obama's political situation.

On that last point, you can listen to me here - it was the Tuesday morning program (03/05/11), and my segment was about 46 minutes in.

I thought the first question that I was asked by the interviewer was laugh out loud ridiculous, basically: "So is Obama just going to change the subject to national security throughout the campaign?"

Ummm... so we should have NOT taken out Osama Bin Laden because... we don't want to change the subject from the economy?

As Obama said way back in the 2008 campaign, when John McCain wanted both candidates to SUSPEND THEIR CAMPAIGNS to DEAL WITH the economic CRISIS (scare caps sarcastic, please note)- "You know, Presidents have to be able to do more than one thing at a time."

Keep doin what you're doing, Barack. Proud of you.

Newt Gingrich explains it all for you

2011-03-19T18:20:00.002Z

I'm one of the biggest news junkies I know - but lately I can't seem to bring myself to watch or read much news. It feels like the End of Days with the devastation in Japan especially unbearable to watch. And Libya - goodness gracious, Libya! Yesterday my husband wanted to engage me in conversation about the new UN sanctioned no-fly zones there: "what was the military strategy? Didn't it seem like this was too late to be effective? What is the long term strategy?"

I found myself staring at him, and thinking: "I'm lack the strength to form an intelligent opinion about this." (Fortunately, Matthew Yglesias has some good ones to keep you going.)

But it's all become a bit too much. When I have these moments, I give myself leave to cocoon into "comfort thinking" for a little while - I re-read Jane Austen novels, have a bath. With lavendar bath gel. Play my guitar. Slowly, and badly.

And in these moments, it's sometimes nice to revisit a trashy old classic from your youth - you know, the kind of thing that you didn't really like at the time, and you still think is pretty crappy, but you have a certain fondness for it that is born of remembering that when you first heard it you were young, and that you survived the things that worried you then (and they didn't turn out to be such a big deal) and isn't it nice that you're older and wiser now?

So it's in that spirit, that somehow Newt Gingrich's comments yesterday really made me smile. Asked about the situation in Libya, the conversation went as follows:

QUESTION: What would have been the steps you would have taken early on?
GINGRICH: I would have studied Eisenhower and Reagan and studied the things they did. I mean there are lots of -- there are lots of ways to not necessarily use American troops and have an enormous impact on a country the size of Libya.
STAFFER: We have to go.
QUESTION: Can you list one or two?
GINGRICH: Take -- take a look at Eisenhower and Reagan.

Aww.... bless. Newt Gingrich randomly shouting out Reagan's name as if he has Tourettes. Republicans threatening to shut down the government. It's like 1995 all over again!

Confidential to Michele Bachmann:

2011-03-14T17:49:00.003Z

Dear Michele Bachmann,

Recently, you mistakenly declared that the opening shots of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord... in New Hampshire.

Um. Michelle? Lexington and Concord are in Massachusetts. I'm from Massachusetts. We're a fine state. We're famous for outstanding higher education, unbeatable clam chowder, cranberry bogs, baked beans, and much more.

But mostly - we're proud of our role in the American revolution. Tediously proud of it. Nobody gets through primary school in the US without a mandatory trek through Boston's "freedom trail" - the battle of Bunker Hill, the Boston Tea party, and yes... the Shot Heard Round the World in Lexington and Concord. Take away Lexington and Concord and you lose half our school curriculum.

So, Michelle, I give you fair warning. Don't mess with Massachusetts.

But while we're on the subject, a lot of people get a lot wrong about my home state, so it's probably worth reminding you as well that, while conservatives have for some reason long enjoyed insulting my state, in fact Massachusetts proudly boasts:

The lowest divorce rate in the country
The highest college graduation rate in the country (68%!)
Two of the top ten universities in the WORLD by global ranking (Harvard and MIT)
The 3rd highest per capita income in the country
The most doctors per 100K residents of any state in the country
The fewest firearm related deaths of any state in the US (!)
The inventors of basketball, volleyball AND candlepin bowling (we ROCK!)

Lord, save me from this distopian nightmare!

Yes, we also have legal gay marriage, universal healthcare for all, a relatively high investment in public education. And, yes, it is one of the most politically liberal states in the country. My point is that it WORKS for us. Applying liberal policies has made Massachusetts a pretty nice place to live. Everyone is better off because we care about education, and butt out of other strangers' marriages (while supporting those of our friends and family), and try to ensure that no one who gets sick has to do without care - it helps make us healthier, wealthier, and happier.

You should try it, Michele.

Yours,

Karin

I am woman. Hear me scream.

2011-03-09T00:06:00.003Z

Today is International Women's Day, and in honor of the more than half the population who still don't earn equal pay, who often don't feel safe in the simple act of walking down the street at night, who face stigma and blame for every sexual decision they make from saying no to saying yes, from wanting a child when their boss wishes they wouldn't to not wanting one when politicians think they should: This post is just about outright feminist anger.

Because most of the time, I'm not really motivated by anger. Mostly, I feel lucky. As recently as my mother's generation, my choices would have either been much more constrained or I would have had to fight for them tooth and nail. Sexism is real, and present, but I don't experience it as a constraining factor in my day to day life in meaningful ways.

But that sense - that perceived experience - is wrong. We still live in a world where our leaders can think it might be a smart political strategy at the earliest opportunity to:

Redefine rape to exclude the kind that isn't, ya know, REALLY rape. (charming)
Strip all funding from Planned Parenthood, to ensure women don't get access to frivolous luxuries like cancer screaning, birth control, STD treatment and pregnancy tests
Listen to the "testimony" of foetuses, but NOT of women on the issue of abortion rights
And, of course, ensure that women who have been systematically discriminated against don't get any uppity notions about acheiving justice.

Equality is still something we have to fight for, and even us raging feminists are sometimes guilty of unwittingly perpetuating the assumptions that make us unequal.

So, today I'd like to raise a glass to the heroic women of the past and of the here and now who have been willing to face being laughed at, yelled at, abused, insulted and injured just because they aren't willing to lie back and take it.

And speaking of not taking things lying down - here's a video, shared widely and mentioned with approval by lots of folks who work with me in the world of social media. They think it's fabulous.

I hated it. Why? Simple:

I like beer. I like hugs. I like Facebook. Indeed, most Facebook users and huggers are female, and I suspect a pretty hefty constituency of the beer drinkers are too. But we are not being thanked here. Are all of Heineken's 1 million Facebook fans male?

I realise this is petty. But I decided to grant myself permission to be petty today. Don't worry, tomorrow will be one of the 363 International Days of Men, so we can go back to complacently accepting that physical contact with attractive women is the currency with which brands bribe men to drink beer, but for today, let me be the humourless shrew who points out that sexism is so ingrained that on most days, in most circumstance... most people don't see it.

Obama Administration Decides DOMA is Unconstitutional

2011-02-24T10:28:00.000Z

Attorney General Holder yesterday announced that the Obama administration would no longer defend the so-called Defence of Marriage act in Federal Court.

This is great news. But it's a little complicated - so I've been reading up on the matter trying to figure out exactly what the Justice Department's new policy now means, and what the implications will be. Lawyers who read this blog (I know you're out there!) please feel free to chime in with further info as I'm just figuring this out as I go along.

The big news here is that the Obama administration believes gays and lesbians DO meet the standard of requiring heightened scrutiny under the equal protection clause of the constitution. Previous court cases have been raised in jurisdications where the courts had previously ruled that this standard should not be applied to sexual minorities - but no such precedent exists in the 2nd Circuit Court, where two new cases are to be tried. Nor has the Supreme Court ever ruled on this specific question.

The Obama administration therefore had no precendent to be bound or guided by in this instance, and the Justice Department therefore had to fashion its legal reasoning from scratch.

Under those circumstances, the position that they take is that section 3 of the Defence of Marriage act - the portion that specifically prevents the Federal government from recognising same sex marriage that are legal within a particular state - is unconstitutional. They will not defend it. But that doesn't mean that it is no longer law.

Until either 1) Congress repeals the law or 2) a Federal court rules the law unconstitutional, the provision will stay on the books.

So there's no immediate effect to this decision. But the government's position does make it far more likely that the law will be struck down by the courts, because it is difficult for anyone other than the federal government to claim that they have legal standing to defend the law.

This is a narrow, legalistic decision on the part of the Obama Justice Department, but the thinking that underlies it is boldly clear:

“It’s a lawyer’s decision based on a careful consideration of the law,” said Paul Smith, head of the Supreme Court and appellate practice at Jenner & Block, and counsel with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in a DOMA challenge now pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit.

“There was only one right answer,” he said. “When you examine the law and which groups need heightened protection under the equal protection clause, you realize that sexual orientation is one of those kinds of discrimination that is suspect. There really was no way for them to defend Section 3 of DOMA because the law doesn’t serve any purpose other than to stigmatize persons.”

If a court eventually does decide that Section 3 is unconstitutional, as the Obama administration believes, that would greatly complicate the work of the US Government because suddenly we would have a patchwork system in place for federal benefits. Gay couples would have immigration rights in Massachusetts, but not in Ohio. They could have social security survivor benefits in Iowa, but not in Kansas.

But I say - bring on the mess. Because the more people are forced to confront the reality of gay men and woman and their "unreasonable demands" to be treated just like everybody else, the more hollow and pointless the arguments of the opponents seem.

Did Sarah Palin violate Facebook's terms of service?

2011-02-23T10:16:00.005Z

UPDATE: I was right - Facebook (a client of my employer) have now removed the Lou Sarah Facebook account stating that it did in fact violate their terms of service: “The account was found to run afoul of our terms and it was disabled,” wrote Facebook official Andrew Noyes.

I wonder if Wonkette journalist Jack Stueff started pursuing this angle before or after I pointed it out to him by e-mail?

Yesterday I came across this intriguing tidbit from Wonkette, in which they used info from the recently leaked manuscript from a former Palin staffer to identify Sarah Palin's gmail account, and by conducting a simple search they were able to identify that Palin has a Facebook account under a different name, "Lou Sarah" that she has been using to "Like" content on her own and on Bristol's Facebook pages, and to comment positively ("amen!") on both pages. The profile still exists, but has now been scrubbed of its activity record - when I looked at it last night, though, it still looked the way it did in the Wonkette story:

So here's the thing. I do a lot of work on Facebook. I work for an agency that has Facebook as a client. I manage Facebook pages, I advise clients on use of Facebook. I've royally screwed things up on Facebook from time to time as well. Hey - it's how you learn!

So I think it's probably important to clarify a couple of things quickly (don't worry, you may commence your respective "Sarah Palin is the Devil" and "How dare you attack this woman who will SAVE this COUNTRY!" diatribes momentarily).

Firstly, Wonkette says the Lou Sarah account is Palin's "second" Facebook account. If it were true that Palin had two Facebook Profiles, that would be a violation of Facebook's terms of service, which specify:

1.You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.

2.You will not create more than one personal profile.

But it's not immediately clear whether Palin has done this or not.

The famous Sarah Palin page with 2.75 million fans is a page - not a profile. A Facebook page is sort of like a website set up on Facebook. There is no limit to the number of people who can "Like" a page, and pages can be managed by multiple users. Pages that represent a brand or famous person are asked to confirm that they do in fact represent that brand or person.

Facebook profiles, on the other hand, represent individual people, not brands. They have "Friends" rather than being "Liked", and are limited to a maximum of 5,000 "Friends". The important thing to note here is that Facebook pages can only be managed by people with a Facebook profile of their own.

So, if "Sarah Palin" the individual person and politician would like to directly edit and manage "Sarah Palin" the Facebook page, she needs to have a Facebook account of her own. And, as a famous person, she may well want to avoid using her actual name for that, since people that she doesn't know personally shouldn't interact with her via her profile, but rather via her page.

So, in short, it wouldn't be so odd if "Sarah Palin" the person (hmmm... getting tired of the scare quotes, will drop them from now on) had created an account under a disguised version of her real name - Louise is her middle name, so Lou Sarah isn't a million miles from representing her - and that personal profile might well be something she would want to use to interact with people she really knows such as... her daughter. An occassional comment on Bristol's page from this account therefore doesn't strike me as terrible, especially since Bristol will presumably know the secret of "Lou Sarah's" real identity. Moms are allowed to gush over thier kids, so we'll let that go.

BUT - consider for a moment Lou Sarah's comments on the Sarah Palin page. Firstly, liking and commenting positively on your own content is a bit sad and pathetic (and in this case, pretty pointless - it's not like she needs to drive traffic to the page!) but not against the rules. But the fact that she was able to post at all as Lou Sarah on the Sarah Palin page shows that the Lou Sarah account is not an admin on that page.

If Lou Sarah had been one of the profiles permitted to post to the Sarah Palin page, then any comments she made on that page would not appear under her profile. Page admins appear under the identity of the page whenever they post on their page.

Thereby, QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM we arrive at a great big circle. There are only two possibilities here. Either Sarah Palin herself is not an administrator on the Sarah Palin page (which seems unlikely) or she does indeed have two separate Facebook profiles.

Which is in violation of Facebooks Terms.

Right then.

Obama Coming to London

2011-02-23T09:15:00.000Z

I do feel obliged to note that President Obama is coming to London on a State Visit this Spring. He and Michelle be holidaying with the Queen (like you do) May 24-26th, when no doubt the world's press will be looking for a repeat of the "mutual and spontaneous" touching between Michelle and Queen Elizabeth that caused such a tizzy last time around.

Stories from my life: last Thursday when the visit was announced the woman who handles press relations for Democrats Abroad called me in a panic to ask if I was free to go on BBC news to talk about the visit. Which at that point I had not yet heard about. I said I was happy to go on and talk, but really: "what is there to say? Obama's coming! Yay! We like Obama. We like it when he comes here. Go Barack! Go Michelle!"

Not the most insightful reporting the BBC's ever done, you know?

About half an hour later the BBC producer called me back to say that on reflection they decided to cover the Bahrain protests in more detail instead. I said I thought that was good news judgement on their part.

But just between us - Yay!

I Heart Mona Sutphen

2011-02-20T12:56:00.001Z

On Thursday night, Democrats Abroad here in London were given the chance to DNC Political Director Clyde Williams and his wife, Mona Sutphen who until very recently was a Deputy Chief of Staff for President Obama. And their two adorable children.

Clyde and Mona were both impressive, impassioned and positive in speaking about the challenge ahead for Democrats. The kids ran around a lot and were amazingly comfortable and confident while mom and dad did their thing. I liked them all a lot.

Mona in particular, though, is a brilliant, eloquent, appealing, down to earth and inspiring woman.

Having served as a foreign policy advisor to then-Senator Obama during his campaign and as a highly respected Deputy since then, Mona has been very close to the President and a key advisor within the White house. Which, for me is the definition of mixed feelings - because having met her I'm incredibly pleased to see the calibre and quality of advice that the President has clearly been getting over the past couple of years. But I'm now saddened to know that Mona's last day at the White House was last Tuesday.

I asked her if she had considered running for office herself - and she suggested that she wasn't interested in that, but that Clyde was seriously considering it. I wish him all the best - I think he'll be great.

But I'll be very disappointed if I don't see and hear a lot more from Mona herself in the coming years.

Either way, hats off to the definitive Washington "power couple".

How Egypt Protesters are Like Union Members in Wisconsin

2011-02-19T19:30:00.001Z

I recently had a useful dialog with my friend (and Democrats Abroad running mate) Rob Carolina about the Egyptian protesters, and the mystery of how victims of oppressive regimes are able to overcome justifiable fears in order to generate mass support from the populations. My oversimplified summary of this technique was, essentially:

1) Don't be afraid.
2) Show people you are not afraid.
3) Be unafraid in large numbers, consistently.
4) Survive your public display of fearlessness, so that others can see you have avoided the worst case scenario.

Problem is, if you fail to achieve 4, the whole effort can be set back generations.

Thus, under autocratic regimes it is often possible to tip a large number of people over the precipice into openly stating the opposition that they secretly feel if you can get together enough people to enact a visible display of fearlessness at the same time such that any individual member of that crowd feels comparatively safe. But this is also an opportunity for the regime itself, because if they are able to successfully put down the open opposition they send the opposite message to the one the protesters tried for - that there is good reason to be afraid.

So all credit and respect to the organisers in Egypt, and Tunisia, and Bahrain and in many other parts of the Mideast who have shown exceptional bravery and skill. In the dark hours of the night, I sometimes ask myself if I would be brave enough to stand up for the politics I support if I knew the possible result wasn't electoral defeats, but clubbings, torture and execution. I can't honestly be sure that I would. So I'm glad that the collective action effect exists.

It sounds melodramatic to say that this is the same type of thing that's at stake in Wisconsin - where the newly elected Republican Governor is currently working overtime to try and eliminate collective bargaining by public sector unions there. But actually, unions grew out of a very similar set of fears that workers of the past had about their physical and financial security, at the hands of their bosses, when they attempted to improve their working conditions.

Now, Union membership in America has declined significantly in recent years, for a whole host of reasons: decline of the manufacturing sector and the rise of the less-unionised service sectors, perceived corruption by the unions themselves, infighting and disorganisation among and by the unions, a shift away from traditional democratic politics by many blue collar workers, etc. etc. And I would go further and say that personally, I think in recent decades American unions on the while have done a poor job of representing their constituents - in particular, I think that the willingness in negotiations to sacrifice actual wage increases in favour of ever higher levels of health insurance and retirement benefits has been a lose-lose proposition for both workers and business - and has led to almost no increase in the wages of the bottom FOUR FIFTHS of Americans over the past several decades.

So Unions could do better a better job, in my opinion, of standing up for the rights of workers. Here in the UK, we have 25 days minimum vacation allowance, generous maternity and paternity policies, strong policies to prevent firing without cause and much more. Germany's worker protections are even stronger (and by the way, the German economy is currently outperforming ours by some margin, so clearly these policies are not an inevitable death knell for GDP growth).

But that doesn't mean we should allow any threat to the principle of collective negotiation to stand - quite the opposite.

Let's remember what workers had to endure back in the day the Unionisation was illegal:

Women working under sweat shop conditions organized the first union in the early 19th century. According to the book American Labor, in 1834-1836 women worked 16–17 hours a day to earn $1.25 to $2.00 a week. A girl weaver in a non-union mill would receive $4.20 a week versus $12.00 for the same work in a union mill. The workers had to buy their own needles and thread from the proprietor. They were fined for being a few minutes late for work. Women carried their own foot treadle machines or were held in the shops until the entire shop had completed an immediate delivery order. Their pay was often shorted, but a protest might result in immediate dismissal. Sometimes whole families worked from sun up to midnight. Pulmonary ailments were common due to dust accumulation on the floors and tables. Some shops had leaks or openings in the roofs, and workers worked in inclement weather.

To this day, there are employers who explicitly or implicitly threaten their workers with losing their jobs if they demand better wages, benefits or conditions. And if any individual worker refuses to cave in to this bullying, their dismissal can serve as an example to the others.

At a time of high unemployment, workers are especially vulnerable. And the decline in public sector employment has been a significant drain on our economic recovery.

So public sector unions are vital, their collective negotiation rights have historically been an important enabler for some of the most essential and basic protections, and at a time when workers have more cause than ever to be afraid individually, we shouldn't obliterate one of the important forces that makes them brave and strong collectiely.

Join Democrats Abroad. Do It Right Now, I Command You!

2011-01-31T10:59:00.000Z

There's lots happening in the world upon which I will very shortly be commenting (Tunisia! And Egypt! And Sudan! Oh my...) but for today I just want to say this:

If you are a US citizen living in the UK, and if you support the work of President Obama, the Democratic Party, or you just are certain that you are not a Republican - then I urge you to sign up online to Democrats Abroad, the State party organisation for Americans overseas.

https://www.democratsabroad.org/user/register

In March, the UK branch of Democrats Abroad will be having an election to chose its Officers (I am the current Vice Chair). But only voters who are members of Democrats Abroad by midnight tonight are eligible voters. So if you want your say in our local elections, or you want to make sure you get voter alerts and updates about US national elections, join today.

No, seriously. Go do it. Please, and thank you.

Do I write like a boy?

2011-01-28T16:09:00.001Z

Because it's Friday... I just did an automated gender analysis of my most recent long blog post, and the blog codes as being weakly male.

Although it does add the caveat that my, "Weak emphasis could indicate European."

Oh. Right, then.

But then I noted that the site says you should remove any quotes from the sample content, as they will obviously be gendered according to their original author. "Aha," I thought - and stripped out the quoted comments from Obama's Facebook page.

With this, largely male-written, content removed my gender score was adjusted. To be slightly more male. And, apparently, a bit less European.

I am woman. Hear me blog.

Lots of media commentators who wrote about my blog recently assumed that I was male. I ascribed the assumption to cultural bias (anyone whose gender you don't know is assumed to be male). But perhaps they were just subconsciously absorbing the science of gendered language use.

Food for Thought...

2011-01-24T18:17:00.002Z

This was just sent to my by a friend and fellow Democrat Abroad. From an Anti-Tea Party rally...

Discuss...

Totally Straighforward Edits on Barack Obama's Facebook Page

2011-01-22T17:57:00.003Z

Having spent some time a couple weeks ago taking a close look at Sarah Palin's Facebook page, I thought it was only fair, for the record, to go through the same exercise with President Obama's page. After all, I had been working on the assumption that his page was in fact not being edited to remove negative comments based on my impression that I had seen a pretty wide range of comments there from various perspectives. But on reflection I realised that it wasn't sure how the mechanics of his page moderation were operating. So, here's what I found, based on a sample that was taken last week. [Note, I wasn't able to write up this post last week because I was running late for a film - note the Curzon cinemas tab in the background. We saw The King's Speech. Yes, it was great, thanks for asking!]

When I first went to the page I was struck by the much higher ratio of positive to negative comments. Still I didn't have to look hard to find some criticism -

Here's the aptly named Betsy Bitter demanding 4 times in sequence that we "Repeal Obamacare!"

You can see that these comments have been on the page for over an hour by this point.

Next up, we have a couple of posts that seem to be straightforward spam - one selling some sort of weight loss product and one inviting people to click his link so that he can earn money for each click. Please, dear readers, do me a favour and don't do this. Thank you.

Although these are not negative comments or criticism, I'm pointing them out because these are exactly the sort of comments that a reputable page owner might well moderate to remove - after all, the page does not exist to allow others to market commercial products under the President's name. If I were advising a client on the moderation policy for this page, I might have suggested the routine removal of such spam, not least for the protection of page users. But that clearly isn't the policy here.

Here's a post from a user claiming to be Tunisian and making prodigious use of ALL CAPS: "USA... WE DON'T NEED YOUR GREETINGS TO THE TUNISIAN PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU ARE JUST EVIL COUNTRY AND YOU WERE SUPPORTING ALL THE DICTATORIAL IN MIDDLE EAST .. JUST LEAVE US ALONE AND EVERYTHING WILL BE OK."

Hmm... can't help but think that with their shared enthusiasm for being "left alone" by the US Government, perhaps this person might find unlikely common ground with the Tea Party...

But in any case - this comment was posted 7 hours before.

Here's a man in a cowboy hat posting two sequential criticisms saying, respectively:

"SEE YOU STARTED YOUR CAMPAIGN A TRIVIAL EARLY... BUT THAT WAS TO BE EXPECTED...GLAD THE OTHER TWO MORONS KEPT THEIR STINKIN MOUTHS SHUT ..HAD A LOT OF BALLS BRINGING THEM HERE TO MY TOWN."

And:

"YOU SHOULD READ THE DRIBBLE HERE.. YOU ALL DISGUST ME..... ALL HAIL THE KING................."

I'm not completely sure what this gentleman is on about, but I don't think he's a fan.

In any case, it seems clear that there are criticisms of President Obama on the page, but not many. In fact, there aren't many posts at all - when I first looked at the page the most recent post had been published 15 minutes before.

At this point, though, I started to notice how frequently I was seeing multiple identical versions of the same post - both those that were critical of the President, and those that praised him seem frequently to have been posted repeatedly.

Putting these factors together, I started to wonder if possibly the Obama team was pre-moderating comments. Pre-moderation, means reviewing comments before they are posted so that you make an active decision to make them live, as compared to post-moderation, in which you review content after it has been posted to remove objectionable posts. That could explain the duplicate posts, as if people don't see their content go live immediately sometimes they keep trying.

So I decided to post a comment - a relatively neutral one - just to see if it would go live immediately. It did.

So there it is. Far from finding heavy-handed moderation, I couldn't actually discover any evidence that Barack's page was being moderated at all.

This is not necessarily a good thing. There is content that should - even must - be removed in compliance with Facebook's own policies. There is content that contains violent and offensive language that a page owner may well decide goes too far for his or her comfort. And as discussed, it is often a useful service for your readers to remove spam.

But the thing that disturbed me the most about the President's page is its comparative quietness. When I conducted the same exercise for Sarah Palin's page, it was virtually impossible to even keep track of the speed with which new posts were added (and, of course, often removed). But she's responsible to no constituents, holds no elected office, she is the formulator of no policies, achiever of no legislative accomplishments... at the moment, she's a TV star.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is President of the United States, had just given one of the most widely praised speeches of his career, is preparing for his forthcoming State of the Union address, and recently signed a raft of high-impact legislation - from repealling Don't Ask Don't Tell to ratifying the START treaty. But on his Facebook page? Crickets are chirping.

Is it possible we enjoy the sensation of being angry and polarised more than the prospect of unity and accomplishment? And if so, is that the fault of our leaders for not engaging us... or us for being too easily distracted?

Palin Post Follow-Up

2011-01-17T19:23:00.001Z

So the one and only post on this blog to ever focus on former half term governor Sarah Palin has generated orders of magnitude more attention than anything else I've ever written - with extensive mainstream media coverage (now including this think piece from today's Evening Standard), and nearly half a million views of the page. I've written a short follow up that I prepared last week, but put on hold following President Obama's extraordinary and moving speech in Tucson last week. The speech, and the events in Tucson overall, just seem so much bigger and more important than anything the former Governor's Facebook team is or isn't doing. If you haven't yet seen or read the speech, I'd urge you to take a moment and do so now.

I'll be posting my follow up post later tonight, including a matching look at Barack Obama's page and some thoughts on the insight this whole experience has given into the pathology of mainstream media coverage (and even blogger bandwagonism).

But before I do that I wanted to welcome my new readers from The Evening Standard, those who sought us out based on coverage in The Telegraph, and of course those who found me through MSNBC's The Last Word, or the Atlantic, or through Dan Savage, or from one of the many, many bloggers or forums that wrote about the story.

I'm proud of the work that I did in that post, and I worked hard to make it as fact-based and objective as I possibly could.

But for those of you who are new here, you should also know that this is not a Sarah Palin blog.

Happy Martin Luther King Day...

2011-01-17T16:15:00.003Z

I recognise her expression...

2011-01-13T19:02:00.002Z

That's just how I feel.

UPDATE: Michelle has written an open letter to Tucson parents, which I am posting below without comment. Except that, whether in moments of sorrow or in celebration, you've got to love Michelle.

An Open Letter to Parents Following the Tragedy in Tucson

January 13, 2011 at 06:07 PM EST

Dear parents,

Like so many Americans all across the country, Barack and I were shocked and heartbroken by the horrific act of violence committed in Arizona this past weekend. Yesterday, we had the chance to attend a memorial service and meet with some of the families of those who lost their lives, and both of us were deeply moved by their strength and resilience in the face of such unspeakable tragedy.

As parents, an event like this hits home especially hard. It makes our hearts ache for those who lost loved ones. It makes us want to hug our own families a little tighter. And it makes us think about what an event like this says about the world we live in – and the world in which our children will grow up.

In the days and weeks ahead, as we struggle with these issues ourselves, many of us will find that our children are struggling with them as well. The questions my daughters have asked are the same ones that many of your children will have – and they don’t lend themselves to easy answers. But they will provide an opportunity for us as parents to teach some valuable lessons – about the character of our country, about the values we hold dear, and about finding hope at a time when it seems far away.

We can teach our children that here in America, we embrace each other, and support each other, in times of crisis. And we can help them do that in their own small way – whether it’s by sending a letter, or saying a prayer, or just keeping the victims and their families in their thoughts.

We can teach them the value of tolerance – the practice of assuming the best, rather than the worst, about those around us. We can teach them to give others the benefit of the doubt, particularly those with whom they disagree.

We can also teach our children about the tremendous sacrifices made by the men and women who serve our country and by their families. We can explain to them that although we might not always agree with those who represent us, anyone who enters public life does so because they love their country and want to serve it.

Christina Green felt that call. She was just nine years old when she lost her life. But she was at that store that day because she was passionate about serving others. She had just been elected to her school’s student council, and she wanted to meet her Congresswoman and learn more about politics and public life.

And that’s something else we can do for our children – we can tell them about Christina and about how much she wanted to give back. We can tell them about John Roll, a judge with a reputation for fairness; about Dorothy Morris, a devoted wife to her husband, her high school sweetheart, to whom she’d been married for 55 years; about Phyllis Schneck, a great-grandmother who sewed aprons for church fundraisers; about Dorwan Stoddard, a retired construction worker who helped neighbors down on their luck; and about Gabe Zimmerman, who did community outreach for Congresswoman Giffords, working tirelessly to help folks who were struggling, and was engaged to be married next year. We can tell them about the brave men and women who risked their lives that day to save others. And we can work together to honor their legacy by following their example – by embracing our fellow citizens; by standing up for what we believe is right; and by doing our part, however we can, to serve our communities and our country.
Sincerely,

Michelle Obama

Can this really be true?

2011-01-13T16:33:00.001Z

This is the billboard that advertises Rush Limbaugh's radio show. In Tucson.

No. Just, no.

UPDATE: The Ad has been removed.

In the wake of the tragedy, Clear Channel Outdoor management in Tucson quickly elected to take down this ad - believing that discussion of its interpretation would not contribute to the desire for healing in the Tucson community

I commend Clear Channel for taking this clearly sensible action out of sensitivity to the very raw and painful emotions that the people of Tucson must be feeling. But I don't think it's really the "discussion of its interpretation" that is really injuring the desire for healing, but rather the rather ad itself and it's pretty direct correlation between political commentary and actual gunfire.

But anyway.

"It’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.

2011-01-13T11:21:00.002Z

President Obama spoke yesterday at a memorial service for those slain in Arizona. I haven't been able yet to watch video of the speech, but I've just looked up the text to at least quickly read through the gist of what he had to say.

Tears are welling in my eyes. This is awkward, as I am at work. It's a good thing I have a slight cold and thus an excuse for sniffling.

Fully half of the speech seems to just be telling the stories of the victims... one by one...

George and Dorothy Morris -– “Dot” to her friends -– were high school sweethearts who got married and had two daughters. They did everything together -- traveling the open road in their RV, enjoying what their friends called a 50-year honeymoon. Saturday morning, they went by the Safeway to hear what their congresswoman had to say. When gunfire rang out, George, a former Marine, instinctively tried to shield his wife. (Applause.) Both were shot. Dot passed away.

And...

Everything -- everything -- Gabe Zimmerman did, he did with passion. (Applause.) But his true passion was helping people. As Gabby’s outreach director, he made the cares of thousands of her constituents his own, seeing to it that seniors got the Medicare benefits that they had earned, that veterans got the medals and the care that they deserved, that government was working for ordinary folks. He died doing what he loved -– talking with people and seeing how he could help. And Gabe is survived by his parents, Ross and Emily, his brother, Ben, and his fiancée, Kelly, who he planned to marry next year.

And, unbearably, excruciatingly...

And then there is nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green. Christina was an A student; she was a dancer; she was a gymnast; she was a swimmer. She decided that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the Major Leagues, and as the only girl on her Little League team, no one put it past her. (Applause.)

She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age. She’d remind her mother, “We are so blessed. We have the best life.” And she’d pay those blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children who were less fortunate.

Almost impossible to read.

But there is also hope in the world.

Gabby opened her eyes. Gabby opened her eyes, so I can tell you she knows we are here. She knows we love her. And she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey. We are there for her.

And, turning to the broader discussion of how to learn and move on from this tragegy:

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized -– at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do -– it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.

...

And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud.

That seems to me exactly right. We can't govern our every action and word according to how it might be seen by the most disturbed person among us. But we can aspire in all of our actions and words to live up to the example of the best among us.

We can have a politics that is vigorous, lively and full of energy while at the same time recognising that our opponents are human beings, that they have families and loved ones and lives outside of their politics. That they may be as sincere and as thoughtful about their beliefs as we are about ours.

It's too easy to transfer anger ABOUT ISSUES to anger AT PEOPLE. And my experience has been that in politics what is easiest is usually also what is least valuable.

My thoughts are with the families of the victims.

This is not a Sarah Palin blog

2011-01-11T00:18:00.000Z

As you may have noticed, things have gotten a little busy here on the blog in the last day or so! Yesterday's post has generated over 350,00 page views in just a 24 hour period, and the blog has been linked to by a bewildering range of high profile figures, including Andrew Sullivan, Dan Savage, and the Guardian newspaper. The post has been retweeted and shared on Facebook tens of thousands of times.

So hello to all my lovely new readers! And judging by the tone of the comments, I have a few not-so-lovely new readers as well - hello to you too. Have a cookie. Take a deep breath. We'll be hugging and growing before you know it in the finest tradition of the situation comedy.

So I realise that you (new readers) and I (old blogger) are at a slightly awkward moment in our relationship. This is like the morning after a one night stand with: our chance to grab a cup of coffee and get to know each other a little bit after a highly charged and emotional introduction.

Let me start.

Let's answer a few questions:

Why do you care so much about US politics if you're British? I am not British. The blog is called Obama London because I am a US citizen and activist with Democrats Abroad who works to register US voters here and London and throughout the UK so that they can exercise their right to vote from overseas. If you are a US citizen living overseas, no matter what your party affliation or voting intention, you can register and request your absentee ballot here: http://www.votefromabroad.org/
Aren't you kind of obsessed with Sarah Palin? I am not a Sarah Palin obsessive. I am a Barack Obama obsesive. (Check the name of the blog, guys.) Very important that we get that straight, because if you are expecting this blog to feed a Palin fixation, you will be dissappointed. This blog has been in existence for nearly three years, focussing exclusively in US Politics - including detailed coverage of the 2008 campaign. In all that time, yesterday's post - which has taken off to an incredible degree online - was the first time I have written a post specifically about the Former Governor. I mentioned her in passing exactly twice. (For the record, here and here.) If you think about it, I would seem to have been working pretty hard to AVOID writing about Sarah Palin, and for good reason. Any time her name comes up, people tend to get sort of shouty. On both sides. It hurts my head. I would suggest, given the overwhelming response on the one occassion when I did write about her, that I am not the one who is obsessed with Sarah Palin but rather that the obsessed are... well, everyone else.
So what do you write about, then? I'm glad you asked. I like writing about health care reform. About gay rights (btw, I'm a straight married female), about legislative reform. Politics, policy and lots more.
How dare you suggest Sarah Palin is responsible for the AZ shooting!? Did I? Let's go to the tape: I said, "in the wake of the terrible events in Arizona, with many commentators pointing out the obvious fact that Gabrielle Giffords had been targetted by Palin in the November election on a map that used a chilling gun site graphic, I thought it would be worth watching her page for a little while to see if her team were indeed deleting negative comments routinely." That sentance was not followed by, "Because this is all her fault." I think Sarah Palin made some terrible judgements about how to express herself. In particular, "don't retreat, reload" makes me queasy. I think she should, I think most people would, feel terrible if someone that they had directed a comment like that towards is attacked in this manner. I think we should tone back our rhetoric and remember that we have more in common than we disagree over. And I think that people like Glen Beck shouldn't suggest that the desire to provide all Americans with affordable and comprehensive health insurance is exactly the same thing as being a Nazi. I think these things are a bad idea, and I would ask them to stop. Please and thank you.
I can't believe you spent ALL THAT TIME obsessing over Sarah Palin's Facebook page! Don't you just have too much time on your hands? I really don't understand this criticism. I spent about two hours just observing and reporting what I saw on Palin's page on a Sunday afternoon while waiting for my husband to finish up some work. Better I should have spent that time watching Friends reruns? Because I do think I get enough of my Recommended Daily Allowance of Friends reruns. Yesterday's Palin post, which generated hundreds of thousands of readers and hundreds of comments was not a waste of time to write. Although I am starting to wonder about the many hours I have spent crafting long posts about policy and politics lo these many years for far, far fewer readers.

Inexplicable Edits on Sarah Palin's Facebook Page

2011-01-09T20:16:00.005Z

Sarah Palin has a reputation for being an aggressive editor of comments on her Facebook page - a reputation that has always seemed likely accurate to me, given the tedious consistency with which all comments on the page are along the lines of "I love you SARAH!"

But in the wake of the terrible events in Arizona, with many commentators pointing out the obvious fact that Gabrielle Giffords had been targetted by Palin in the November election on a map that used a chilling gun site graphic, I thought it would be worth watching her page for a little while to see if her team were indeed deleting negative comments routinely. But I had no idea how incredibly, almost comically, efficient her people would turn out to be in deleting comments that were even slightly critical of the former Governor. And then I came across... well, what I guess you'd have to politely call an appalling example of editorial misjudgement at best.

Here's what I found, from a brief sample achieved by the simple expedient of hitting the refresh button repeatedly over a short period of time:

A negative comment saying, "YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE, YOU EVIL WITCH" - at 17:19PM. (I'm in London, so that's British Standard Time.)

Removed by 17:21.

Two negative comments, one suggesting that her publicity team must be working overtime to make her not look guilty and one from a British poster saying "Guns and nutters don't mix..."

Removed by 17:26.

Comment saying, "I can't believe you don't have the leadership of intelligence to tell your people that putting crosshairs on people incites violence." 17:27

Was removed by 17:28 (although I failed to capture a screen grab - oops).

A comment that simple says, "hypocrite" - presumably in reference to Palin at 17:28

Gone by 17:29.

Comment alleging "THEIR BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS" at 17:29.

Gone by 17:31.

Comment saying the commenter is glad her show was cancelled and saying, "I'm not blaming her but is it really a smart thing posting a map with gun sights of politicians with opposing views?" At 17:38.

Gone by 17:39.

Comment that refers to the text of Palin's post by saying, "Peace and Justice? That's a new concept for you isn't it?" at 17:48.

Gone by 17:50.

OK. At this point, I am finding this all kind of... well, funny I suppose. I mean, the ruthless efficiency of the deleting and the desperation with which people would try to get their negative comments up there combined with the efficiency of their removal. There were actually a lot more examples than what I've been able to show here.

And in fairness to Sarah Palin, I should say that there were a couple of comments that were removed that weren't directly critical of the Governor but clearly offensive. Most notably, a commenter who repeatedly posted, "To bad it wasn't Pelosi." Yikes.

But then things got a little... well, upsetting.

A commenter posted the following at 18:12:

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly."

I think I literally gasped when I read that. Remember, Christina Taylor Green was the 9 year old girl killed by the shooter. Apparently she had been brought there by her mom, who thought she might get a kick out of meeting Rep. Giffords, having recently been elected to her student council.

I assumed, as a matter of course, that this particular comment would be deleted with greatest possible speed.

So I kept hitting refresh, hoping to use this as an example to say, "You see, Palin's Facebook editing at least has the good judgement to remove clearly offensive content such as this." But it didn't come down.

By this point I thought it was likely that the staff person monitoring the page was simply no longer working - I mean, fair enough it's a Sunday, right? So I thought I would just satisfy myself that the page was no longer being edited by continuing to look for negative comments, assuming that either they would all remain live for the time being, or if the editor came back to work, that they would be removed simultaneously with the Christina post.

So here's a comment posted at 18:16 saying, "I hope you're happy now. It's because of the influence that you do wield, that you should think about things you say and do."

Deleted by 18:18.

But the Christina post was still live.

Huh.

So then I thought, well maybe the page editors just haven't seen it. We all make mistakes, perhaps it just slipped by them.

Then I spotted another commenter, rightly expressing her disgust at the post. "You are so out of touch... Show a little consideration and leave innocent out of your twisted diatribe."

Having been alerted to the post, does the editor NOW remove it? Nope, it's still there.

And I spot several other posts being removed. For instance, here's a post from 18:28 saying, "Your type of sorrow doesn't make up for the blood on your hands."

Gone by 18:29.

I found a few more instances, but I won't belabour the point. The Christina post was still live at 16:39 when I started writing this post.

I don't really know what to make of this. Sarah Palin has the right to edit her Facebook profile - it's not technically a public platform, it's a privately owned space. But the fact someone has a right to do something doesn't mean it is always a good idea, and I think that someone who aspires to public office has an especially strong responsibility to try and engage with the public at large - not just those who agree with them. But still... she's not currently in any form of elected office and she can do what she likes.

But I find her team's editorial judgement to say the least... odd.

UPDATE: Since this blog was posted, there has been a lot of media attention paid to it and a lot of online discussion. If anyone wants to discuss the article with me, the best way to reach me is on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/karinjr

UPDATE II: Here's what happened when I conducted the same exercise to look at Barack Obama's facebook page: Totally Straightforward Edits on Barack Obama's Facebook Page

Gabrielle Giffords and the Tragedy in Arizona

2011-01-09T18:07:00.001Z

I want to send my sincerest condolences to the families of Gabrielle Giffords, who thankfully is recovering at the moment from what was so nearly a fatal bullet to the brain, and of

Federal Judge John Roll
9-year old Christina Taylor Green
Gifford's Director of Community Outreach, 30-year old Gabe Zimmerman

and the other innocent victims of this unspeakable act.

This truly is an attack on the very concept of Democracy itself, and to the extent that any lesons can be learned, or useful advice given in its wake, I would heartily echo the thoughts of Ezra Klein, who wrote:

"Loughner's shooting might've been motivated by mental illness, but the people in that parking lot were motivated by democracy: It was a meeting between a congressional representative and those she represents. They were attacked for being good citizens, and nothing can ever put that right.

But one way that people might pay tribute is to follow their example and attend the next meeting held by their representative. It is so easy and safe to participate in the American political system that we sometimes take doing so for granted. Today was a horrifying look into a world in which that isn't so, and it should leave us with renewed appreciation for, and determination to protect, the world we have."

Ezra follows this comment by pointing to some other very wise words, spoken below by Representative Giffords herself, but written a couple hundred years ago. The basic needs of our democracy have in some ways not changed at all in the ensuing years:

"The right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition their government for redress of grievances."

DADT Repeal Is Now Law

2010-12-22T17:50:00.000Z

Today, President Obama signed the death warrant for the last remaining piece of outright bigotry legally required in America. Not just gays and lesbians, but all Americans are a little better off for this. Because we can now be defended by the best and the brightes no matter who they are, and because our country comes a little closer to living it's own ideals.

START Treaty Now Looks Certain to Pass

2010-12-22T09:45:00.001Z

Despite opposition from leading Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and John Kyl who appears to have negotiated in very bad faith with the White House on this, the START treaty now looks almost certain to get the two thirds majority vote it needs to pass in the Senate.

Republicans couldn't really come up with a good reason to vote no on the treaty - it is designed to control nuclear arms, and will among other things allow American inspectors back into Russian missile silos where for more than a year there has been no oversight. It places pretty much no constraints on US security decisions, and typically these types of arms treaties achieve near unanimous support in the Senate.

As should have been the case this time as well. Instead, Republicans decided that this would be another opportunity to deprive Obama of a victory, so they stalled and dithered and demanded and tried to amend and even at one point insinuated that they would pass it only if DADT was taken off the table.

And the result of this nonsense is that they have turned what was originally a straightforward vote into some big test of Obama's Presidential authority. And then the treaty passes anyway! With broad bipartisan support! Even as Republican leaders continue to have a hissy fit!

Seems to me that they took a great big non-issue and turned it into... yet another big win for the Democrats! Hurray Democrats!

Your Moment of Shallow...

2010-12-21T10:07:00.001Z

You've just gotta love Michelle.

Also... here is a dog.

More festive Obamaness can be found here (including special guest appearance of Mr. Schuster from Glee! Ahem).

OK, this post may have lacked nuance and insight, but give me a break it's Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia and a range of other non-denominational Winter Solstice related celebrations.

Are you a member of the "food eating" demographic?

2010-12-20T14:51:00.001Z

Then this should be good news:

A bill that would overhaul the nation's food-safety laws for the first time since the Great Depression came roaring back to life Sunday as Senate Democrats struck a deal with Republicans that helped overcome a technical mistake made three weeks ago and a filibuster threat that seemed likely to scuttle the legislation.

I love this quote:

"This reaffirmed my faith in democracy," said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union. "We were getting ready for a last-ditch effort . . . and they just went ahead an passed it, like they should have. . . . There's some hope now that the government will do a better job of protecting people" from tainted food.

"Just went ahead an passed it." Imagine that...

I Love US Voters. But I Don't Understand Them...

2010-12-20T10:52:00.002Z

It's the job of political activists and politicians themselves to try and understand the point of view of their constituents to that they can either persuade or represent as needed. But what are you supposed to do with a voting population that, within a few weeks of giving the President's party the biggest Congressional defeat in a hundred years, still tell pollsters that they basically don't trust the guys who they just voted in one little bit, and think the President will stand up a lot better for their values.

Obama's position against the Republicans in Congress is much stronger than that of his predecessors. The following polls were all taken in the December after the president's first major midterm defeat. So for Bill Clinton, the poll results are from December 1994, and for George W. Bush, they're from December 2006. In both cases, the public trusted the congressional opposition more than the president. Not so today

I mean, I agree with the assessment of the people. But I just can't reconcile it with their vote. Hmmmm...

Believing in Change You Can Believe In

2010-12-19T20:42:00.001Z

Yesterday, by an amazing 64-33 majority, the US Senate finally voted to end the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. The President has promised to sign it next week, and will then promptly begin work on a policy to roll out the implementation.

Although that implementation must wait at least 60 days following delivery of the President's plan to begin, I think it is safe to say that last night's vote marked the beginning of the end to the last bastion of legal, open discrimination within the US Military. Let's be clear - this will not be the first time that gay men and women will serve in the US military. It will just be the first time they can do so without dishonoring and torturing themselves by lying to their friends and colleagues.

More than 90% of service members who believe that they are currently serving with gays and lesbians have stated that it had no impact on their morale, unit cohesion or ability to perform. Evidence from other countries which have long allowed gays to serve suggest that the transition towards open service is a gigantic non-event. Just as gays work and live openly alongside straights in every other walk of life, they will now be able to do so as members of the US armed forces.

In the end, the relatively large number of Republicans who voted for the repeal of DADT is a tribute to the integrity of those Senators. I am truly and unequivocally grateful to them. In the current Republican party, the tea party has proven their ability to defeat in primaries even well funded and popular Republicans who make any effort to work with Democrats in support of the country's best interest. Each of them had to be, therefore, very much aware that to some degree they were gambling with their jobs. So, let's take a moment to give them their due.

Thank you, Senator Collins of Maine - an especially strong advocate, who worked closely with Joe Lieberman to ensure that a standalone bill was put on the floor after DADT was initially defeated.

Thank you, Senator Murkowski of Alaska - who has already been a victim of Tea Party extremism, losing her primary and thus running as a write-in candidate last November. Thank you for not running scared from the bullies who tried to kick you down.

Thank you, Senator Brown of Massachusetts - who I was (you may recall) a little annoyed to see winning Ted Kennedy's old seat in the early part of this year, but who has been among the most moderate Republicans in the Senate from that point. A classic New England Republican, in fact. Like... my whole family. I wasn't sure they were still out there.

Thank you, Senator Snowe (also) of Maine.

Thank you, Senator Voinovich of Ohio.

Thank you, Senator Kirk of Illinois.

Thank you, Senator Ensign of Nevada and Senator Burr of North Carolina, both of whom (bizarrely) voted for the bill after initially voting AGAINST bringing the bill to a vote.

It's worth in particular noting the vote of Senator Burr - an old style Southern Conservative who NOBODY expected to vote for this bill. In fact, Senatory Collins, who was working to reach out to Republicans in this effort, didn't even bother to meet with him as she assumed he would be intractable. So why did he eventually vote for it?

Well, he says he did have concerns about the timing of making this change, but in the end:

“A majority of Americans have grown up at a time that they don’t think exclusion is the right thing for the United States to do,” Burr said, also noting, “It is not accepted practice anywhere else in our society and it only makes sense.”

That's... bizarrely reasonable. There is indeed no other part of American society where it is currently acceptable to discriminate against people solely because of who they are. We allow (in fact, sometimes we require) convicted felons to serve in the military. There is literally nothing that you can do, short of being physically unfit, that is so terrible it makes you ineligible for service. Except loving someone of the same sex.

While we are tipping out hat to erstwhile enemies, I probably need to take this moment to do the painful duty of singling out former Democrat Joe Lieberman for a special Medal of Excellence in pushing this bill relentlessly, determinedly and with unshakeable conviction. It was Lieberman who, when the first version of the bill failed to gain cloture immediately girded up to get a new version expedited through committee. It was Lieberman who made sure the bill had Republican support, liaised with Nancy Pelosi about the timing of passage through the House, worked with Harry Reid to get it on the Senate calendar for a new vote and, in a final moment poignant moment, broke his longstanding and deeply held religious practice not to work on the Sabbath to shepherd the bill through the Senate on a Saturday vote. He decided that the opportunity to live the principles of his faith was more important, in this one case, than the duty to live up to the letter of it. I salute him for it.

I'm not sorry I called him a schmuck - because sometimes he acts like one. But today he was a mensch.
And finally, I want to once again give a round of applause to Harry Reid. The Leader has a lot on his plate lately, and frankly it would have been easy for him to find an excuse to not bring DADT back up for a vote - the packed schedule, the forthcoming Christmas break, the urgency of getting so much other vital legislation through (and here's hoping that we can find the couple more votes we still need to ensure passage of the vital START treaty...). But Reid made it clear he would keep the current Senate working until the voted on this bill - and that pressure undoubtedly move things along.

And President Obama... well, Obama has been the leader I thought he would be. He passed this bill in a stle that will be hard to reverse, easy to support, and will change America for the better and for good. By proceeding with an extensive study of the military's views, by bringing the top leadership of the military into the fold - including Bush appointee Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen - he made clear that this would be done with the suppor of and for the benefit of our services. And finally, by taking the painful decision not to rush this process but to dot every I and cross every T - even if it meant that, heart-breakingly, good men and women still had to suffer under this policy in the meantime....

He created change that wasn't as quick as we would have liked. Or as radical as we might imagine. But that we can absolutely, 100% believe in.

What the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Says: Tax Cuts

2010-12-09T19:14:00.000Z

I'm still reading. Still thinking.

What the White House Says: Tax Cuts Explanation

2010-12-09T19:09:00.000Z

Never post angry. Or uninformed. Or confused.

2010-12-09T10:40:00.000Z

The above are three reasons why I have not yet written anything about the tax cuts deal recently cut between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress.

But I will. I just want to take a little time to think about it and read more first, because I keep changing my mind about it.

I think it's safe to say, though, that the deal has prompted strong emotional responses from both sides - and for us progressives, especially in response to President Obama's press conference. Which I haven't seen yet. Again, need to dig more.

But I am leaning towards the view that this might wind up being a pretty good deal for Progressives (a very good deal under the circumstances - with the new Republican Congress soon to take over) that has been very poorly communicated.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Elizabeth Edwards, 1949-2010

2010-12-08T10:52:00.000Z

The progressive advocate, health policy reformer, author, mother, and (yes) estranged wife of former Presidential candidate John Edwards died yesterday after a long battle with cancer.

I had the pleasure of meeting her once, and found her funny, smart, down to earth and thoughtful. May she rest in peace.

Wikileaks Part 2

2010-12-07T20:24:00.000Z

I didn't want to write any more about the Wikileaks document dump, but I must admit the issue keeps turning over and over in my mind, and I'm not 100% sure I'm right or - if I am - what should be done about it.

I'm unwilling to declare the publishing leaked information should be a crime, because it is so often vital that people feel free to publish information that is in the public interest.

On the other hand, I do believe that you have to strike a balance between the public's interest in knowing what their government is doing (which is real) and the public's interest in having their government negotiate on their behalf to prevent wars, disarm enemies, or even just build allies under tense circumstances.

Where I instinctively tend to come down is on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt to peacemakers and am inherently sceptical of warmongers. Diplomats are often responsible for conducting tricky, private negotiations to try to prevent nations from going to war with each other. And if they are successful, you may never hear about it. So I have an inclination to say there are a lot of useful things that they do that can't be done in secret. A friend and colleague challenged me today whether there really are things that governments need to do that they should be allowed to do in secret in a Democratic society. My answer is a cautious and carefully managed yes - I don't think they should have a blank check to conceal all their actions from the people who put them into power, but if I have to balance the chance of deescalating a conflict with Iran or risking nuclear war (for instance) I'm willing to be kept in the dark for a period of time.

What I struggle with, and what I honestly don't know, is what the ultimate effects of a world of perfect leakability would be. I can imagine a number of scenarios. I suspect the most likely is that government officials simply adapt their working practices, as TSA officials have, to elevate their privacy concerns to the next level. You can easily envision a rule that diplomats are only allowed to brief their superiors in person or by secure telephone and may not put anything in writing.

The end result? No paper trail is created, making it impossible for anyone to leak but also for future historians to ever know what "really" happened. Also, potentially, this would lead to spectacularly biased and wrong-headed foreign policy as the top leaders could never see a horses mouth analysis or summary.

Or, if the world adapted to a situation where it was understood that all communications take place in the open, then we would have to treat every delicate discussion with crazy regimes like North Korea as if they might be listening. This means that either we can't frankly assess their situation (For instance, you couldn't say, "The Dear Leader is very old and may die soon, after which the nation may be plummeted into disaster. Meanwhile, he's desperately trying to aquire nuclear weapons before the End of Days.") or that we can never in fact engage in diplomacy with such regimes.

I may be wrong - I honestly don't know. How do you envision this playing out?

Ha ha ha....

2010-12-07T19:46:00.002Z

Tee hee...

Filibusters Are No Fun These Days - but we can fix em!

2010-12-05T23:58:00.000Z

Long term readers of this blog will know that I blame the evils of the current filibuster ssystem in the Senate for just about everything that goes wrong in America. But perversely, the Republican gains in November's midterm elections have actually made it marginally more likely that Democrats might have the will and ability to actually fix this system. And Josh Marshall points out the perverse incentives that make the current system so terribly unworkable.

In the outgoing Congress it would have meant getting all 60 Senators to stay on the floor indefinitely while the GOP only had to make sure one senator was on the floor at any one time to raise an objection to ending debate. Maybe two at any one time if you figure the need for occasional bathroom breaks. And since each party is going to have somewhere on the order of at least 40 senators, taking shifts indefinitely just isn't a problem. And even though people think you've got to sit there reading the phone book or talking forever or whatever else, you don't. You don't have to do anything except sit there and be ready to stand up for 30 seconds and make an objection. So while the majority needs 60 Senators cooling their heels on the floor, the minority can just have one or two sitting there playing Angry Birds on their iPhones.

Here's another part of the equation. Everyone knows you need 60 votes to break a filibuster. But it's not 3/5 of the votes, it's an absolute 60. That's why you'll note that when a filibuster is a broken it's usually by a vote of 60 to 30-something. In other words, the folks in the minority, the folks filibustering, don't even need to show up. I'd like to say they can just dial it in. But actually they don't even need to do that.

These are, to put it mildly, very perverse incentives.

When Mr. Smith goes to Washington these days, he doesn't make heroic speeches for hours on end until he collapses with exhaustion. No, he just stands up and says, "I object," then proceeds to check his e-mail, while 60 of his colleagues scramble to try and get some work done.

The filibuster was never a part of the Constitutional design of the Senate. It was created by accident in 1805 by America's Worst Vice President Aaron Burr (shortly after he killed Alexander Hamilton in a Duel. No, seriously!), and no one noticeduntil years later that the procedural change led to this possibility.

And for a while it meant dramatic scenes of Senators doing marathon speaking sessions, and literally peeing themselves on the Senate floor because they couldn't afford to leave the chamber lest they break the filibuster. Dramatic stuff. But it's not like that any more.

Senators no longer have to actually speak up about the bills they are trying to block. They can just make sure it never comes to a vote.

Time to put a stop to this nonsense.

Oh, and for the record - let's remember that the so-called glory days of marathon filibustering was not some brave stand in favor of the oppressed minority. Actually, it was used for such noble causes as blocking civil rights reform and preventing the passage of anti-lynching measures. If today's Strom Thurmonds want to block unemployment insurance, or insist on tax cuts for millionaires, let them have the courage to display that shame on the Senate floor at the very least.

Or better yet, let's let the majority actually get on with leading the country.

DADT Repeal and Gay Marriage - For Different Reasons

2010-12-05T17:29:00.001Z

As the Senate has been considering repeal of the appalling Clinton-era Don't Ask Don't tell rule this week, I've been giving a lot of thought to how far the country has come in the last decade and a half on our attitudes towards gay rights. And it caused me to reflect on the fact that, although I personally feel very strongly about both the importance of repealling DADT and also offering access to marriage for gay men and women, I think of the two issues a bit differently.

Don't Ask Don't Tell is, as I see it, the most straightforward and indefensible example of outright legal bigotry still in place in our system. I can't think of any other group of individuals who are straightforwardly banned from participating in any part of our civil society purely on the basis of who they are. Can you? What if we told Jewish soldiers that they could serve with their Christian comrades, but only if they never aknowledged their faith? Of if we told Hispanics that they could serve only if they could "pass" for anglo? What if we told married heterosexuals that they could serve only if they never told anyone of their marriage, or did anything that might allow their fellow soldiers to understand that they were married? That is quite literally exactly what we are asking gay men and women to do - and all for the priviledge of fighting and dying to defend... us. It's appalling, it's morally reprehensible, it unduly traumatises good men and women who want to serve, it harms our national security by preventing highly qualified people signing up, and there is broad agreement from both the top military leaders and the rank and file soldiers themselves that repealling it would do no meaningful harm to our military capacity. In fact, of the 70% of currently serving military who said that they believed they already were serving with gay or lesbian colleagues, 92% of them said that it had had no effect on the performance of their unit.

Everyone who continues to defend this policy should hang their heads in shame, as they no longer have even a fig leaf of a reason to do so.

Yes, I'm talking to you, John McCain.

But gay marriage is something different. Although I fully accept and agree with the contention that it is also bigoted to exclude gays from this institution, I can understand the rationale of the people who say that this to some extent change the nature of the institution. Marriage WOULD change if gays and lebians were allowed to fully participate in it. Just as it changed when it turned from a financial arrangement in which the bride was offered up as collateral for a bargain between two men. Just as it changed when women gained legal rights to property within marriage.

I support the innovation of allowing gay men and women to participate in the institution of secular civil marriage because I believe that this would not only be of great benefit to the couples who would now be allowed to marry, but also because (as with heterosexual marriage) encouraging two people to make a lifelong commitment of mutual responsibility and promise solemnly before the state and their loved ones to honour and care for each other is of enormous benefit to society as a whole.

Very large numbers of gay households are raising children - I believe it's better for children to have two parents than one. Sometimes, in gay couples, one partner will find themself in financial difficulty - I believe it's better for the community if that person is financially supported by their partner than through the welfare system if this is possible. Sometimes, in gay couples, one partner will become sick - I believe it's better for them and everyone if that person is not only loved, cared for and supported by their partner but also, yes, has access to their partner's health insurance so that they avoid having to potentially end up in medical bankrupcy. Sometimes in gay relationships, one partner come from another countries - I think it's better that they are able to stay in America rather than have to flee the country to be somewhere that their relationship can be aknowledged by the immigration authorities. Sometimes in gay relationships, people fight. I think on the whole, if they still love each other, that there be some reasonable expectation that they make an effort to work things out.

I support marriage for gay people, in other words, for the exact same reasons that I support it for straight people. And because I think it would be a change to the institution of marriage that would improve it.

Also, because... weddings. Dontcha just love em?

The Week's Worst: Republicans Block Tax cut for All Americans Because Democrats Won't Let Them Cut Taxes for Millionaires Even More

2010-12-05T15:25:00.002Z

So I took a little pause from the Week's Worst series last week in honour of the Thanksgiving spirit. But this week we're back looking at Terrible Things Republicans Do That Hurt the Country(TM) with a doozy of an example. This week, after the House passed a bill that would keep in place the Bush era tax cuts for every American, but would restore tax on incomes over $250,000 to the level they were under the Clinton Administration, Republicans in the Senate successfully "defeated" the Senate's attempt to do the same. That is, it was defeated with 53 people voting for it and 4X voting against. In other words, most Senators agreed that the this is the approach we should take, but by taking advantage of the filibuster, Republicans were once again able to ensure that they look out for the interests of the richest at the expense of... well, everyone else.

What fascinates me is that this is a wildly unpopular position Republicans have taken. 67% of Americans polled agree that it is time for these tax handouts for the wealthiest to end. Even 52% of REPUBLICANS agree that tax cuts on income over $250,000 should expire. It's just what makes sense - the wealthy have been the group of people least affected by the economic crisis, their incomes have been rising while everyone elses's has been stagnating, they certainly don't suffer from high unemployment, and they won't be deeply harmed by restoring them to Clinton-era tax rates under which, if you recall, they also did pretty darn well.

Billionaire Warren Buffet agrees, pointing out that,

"The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on,"

Indeed.

So why are Republicans so determined to offer this hand out to the people who need it most, at the same time they are trying to deny unemployment insurance to the people who need it a lot?

Well 2 reasons, I guess. 1) They really, really love millionaires. I mean, a lot. Way more than they like the rest of us. They just love them. That's why they're Republicans after all. Duh. But also 2) they calculate that any political failure for the Democrats and the President is good for them. And they may be right.

But I'm really hoping that the American people will see that a bunch of people who would fight tooth and nail to help the few who are least in need and will fight equally hard to avoid helping the many who are in need is not a party that's got the interests of the country at heart.

Wikileaks: All I have to say on the subject...

2010-12-01T09:38:00.000Z

Is that the current set of leaked documents do not unveil any government wrongdoing that requires public exposure to be redressed. What they do, however, is make it much harder for diplomats to actually do the difficult work of preventing wars and easing international tensions. Our diplomatic corps are heroes, in my eyes. And whilst it is certainly very interesting to know that China - for instance - might be open to allowing the reuinification of North and South Korea, it is also deeply saddening to realise that the exposure of these views now makes it far less likely that any deal could be struck to make this happen. The prospect of peacefully defusing some of the threat from one of the world's most deadly nuclear aspirants strikes me as a compelling public interest and a great example of the kind of thing that diplomacy can do as long as it remains in the category of a closely held secret.

So I do not agree with Julian Assanage's simple-minded "More transparency always makes the world better," viewpoint. Some things worth doing can only be done in secret, and he has done no one in the world any favours by making that work impossible. Alas.

That does not mean I'm against transparency - or that all leaks are bad. If there is criminal or unethical activity it shoudl be exposed, and if public servants are wasteful or ineffective that should be known. But these documents seem to show nothing but US diplomats doing effective and difficult work and providing honest, candid advice. A shame that such advice will be virtually impossible to draft in future.

I'm Thankful for the Tea Party. Seriously.

2010-11-28T20:34:00.002Z

I never feel more American than I do on the few days following Thanksgiving - here I sit, stuffed full of turkey sandwiches and leftover pie, I've had two Thanksgiving dinners this weekend, one hosted by arne and I right here at home and one - the traditional deep fried turkey and champagne festival - with some friends in Hampstead Garden Suburb. I've started a little bit of online Christmas shopping, and the cats are huddling close to me for warmth.

All is, more or less, well. And despite the setbacks and disappointments for Democrats in the midterm elections, I remain genuinely hopeful and optimistic about America. So although I have a long list of things to be thankful for personally (good friends and family, an interesting job, a husband who puts up with my quirks, the aforementioned cats...) I wanted to take a moment to mention some of the things I am thankful for as a Democrat - and as an American.

1) I'm Thankful for the Perfectibility of America: Obama in his famous speech on race in Philadelphia spoke thoughtfully of the nation as something that is not yet perfect, but is on a never ending journey to becoming more perfect. Not every step on that journey is a step forward, and sometimes it must feel like we've gone backwards as much as we've gone forward, but I think that view is short sighted. Read the biography of any man or woman of my parents' generation and you can't help but be struck by how far the country has moved in their lifetime. From a place where the simple notion that a black man might be allowed to cast his ballot in a state like North Carolina to a place where a black man can win the state in a Presidential election. From a place where gay men and women could literally be arrested just for existing to a place where federal workers enjoy job benefits for their same sex partners and it is legal for them to marry in 5 states plus the District of Columbia. From a place where the majority of senior citizens lived in poverty to a place where - almost none do.

2) I'm Thankful that the Tea Party is a Non-Violent Political Movement: I believe that most of the so-called Tea Party activists who have been getting so much attention in recent months are catastrophically wrong both on the facts and on the philosophy of politics. But I don't begrudge them their right to organise politically on behalf of their ideas (however wrong they may be) and in fact I am extremely grateful to them for expressing their opposition to the President and to the Democratic Party policy almost entirely through peaceful and non-violent political organisation. This may seem like something unworthy of praise, but it was within my adult lifetime that I can remember extremist right wing fanatics urging citizens to take arms against their own government as part of the so-called "Milita Movement", apparently mobilised by Bill Clinton's ascent to the Presidency. And, of course, for generations before that there was often some version of an extreme political movement that would go beyond political anger, and stir up some of the bloody kind - activists of both the right and the left. Think not only of the Ku Klux Klan, but also of the Weather Underground. Right wing populist rabble rousing has a long and shameful history in the US, going back to the radio rantings of Father Coughlin in the 1930's.

He drew 40 million listeners in the early thirties to his Sunday afternoon program, double the 20 million that Rush Limbaugh has claimed for his audience. But he didn’t just talk; he urged action — illegal and terrifying. By1938, increasingly unhinged and openly anti-Semitic, Coughlin was using his radio pulpit and his 200,000-circulation newspaper, Social Justice, to advocate for the creation of a violent hate group, the Christian Front. The group soon boasted members numbering in the thousands throughout the cities of Northeast. It has largely been forgotten that Coughlin’s “platoons,” as he called them, were responsible for a months-long campaign of low-level mayhem in New York City: They attacked Jews with fists and sometimes knives. They boycotted Jewish-owned businesses (guided by a “Christian index” of shopkeepers) and sometimes smashed their windows in the German fashion. This ugly episode culminated when 17 Coughlinites were arrested by the FBI in January 1940 and charged with planning acts of terrorism against Jewish individuals and institutions (and those deemed their allies).

3) I'm thankful for the It Gets Better Project: Which not only is doing something useful and constructive to help young gay men and women who are do devoid of hope that they might consider suicide, but has also inspired contributions from the highest levels, from President Obama himself, from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and even from the Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron. Some might say that these contributions from leaders are purely symbolic, and it's true that no leader should be exempt from doing the right thing just because they are willing to say the right thing. But symbolism in this case is no small thing - for a young person who is on the point of taking their own life because they believe themselves utterly alone in the world to know that the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Britain is on their side and against the bullies who are attacking them is a very big deal. Sometime symbols actually do make a difference in the world.

4) I'm thankful for the excellence of our federal law enforcement services: They have by undying gratitude today for catching the 19 year old would-be bomber who was, chillingly, determined to blow up the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, OR. I'm trebly grateful in this case because my Mom and her husband live just outside of Portland so this feels very close to home. However, the FBI was constantly in control of the situation, and gave the man a fake phone number that he thought would detonate the bomb. In a win-win scenario, we have not only stopped this man from perpetrating a terrible crime, but we have done so in a way that ensures he can be clearly and quickly prosecuted for his crime. Praise to the calm, decisive and effective work of the FBI in this case and in the many other instances we will probably never hear about in which they are quietly keeping us safe.

5) And finally, I'm Thankful for Health Care Reform: A year ago at this time, I was hopeful about the prospects of passage, but things were still up in the air, and it got scarier. In the end, as much through sheer bloody minded stubbornness as for any other reason, we passed the first ever comprehensive reform of the US Health Care system, guaranteeing a right to coverage for every US citizen. And, in timely fashion, part of the promise is being fulfilled now - as of this week, insurers will be required to spend at least 80 cents of every health care dollar that they take in on delivering actual health care.

And if anyone out there is reading this - I'm thankful for that too! Would love to hear your own "I'm thankful fors" in comments.

The Week's Worst: Republicans block START treaty...

2010-11-20T18:29:00.001Z

I'm having a little trouble keeping up with the unrelenting awfulness of Right Wing activity as, emboldened by their post-midterm strength they begin a full court press with their newly emboldened "everything that is bad for the President is good for us strategy." Obviously, things that are good for the President are quite often the things that are best for the country - economic recovery being one example. Or diplomatic successes overseas. Or improvements in Americans' health and life expectancy.

All of these things must now be halted in their tracks, argue the new Republicn insurgency, for they aid the President and therefore are bad for Republicans and thus, counter-intuitively, ultimately bad for the country. After all, would you really want to have a thriving nation when you could have a Republican majority instead? Well, YOU AND I would, of course. But they wouldn't.

In any case, I have decided to start a little weekly feature just to try and get my head around one terrible Republican action per week. Each week I'll write a Week's Worst post highlighting the thing Republicans have done that seems most obviously worst for the country.

There was a lot to choose from this week, but in my mind a clear winner emerged:

Republican Senator John Kyl, who had been the point man with the White House appointed by Republicans to negotiate ratification of the new START treaty, after months of negotiation, and after the White House believed that they had secured a mutual agreement on all the key points, that he would not support ratification in the upcoming "lame duck" session of the Senate. He offered no rationale for this position.

The treaty has been described by many as President Obama's key foreing policy priority for this year - and that's accurate. But it would also be accurate to describe it as America's key foreign policy priority. Certainly, Republican Senator sees it as such - he recently begged his colleagues to come to their senses and vote for the treaty:

"Please do your duty for your country," Lugar said in a message to his colleagues. "We do not have verification of the Russian nuclear posture right now. We're not going to have it until we sign the START treaty. We're not going to be able to get rid of further missiles and warheads aimed at us.

"I state it candidly to my colleagues, one of those warheads ... could demolish my city of Indianapolis -- obliterate it! Now Americans may have forgotten that. I've not forgotten it and I think that most people who are concentrating on the START treaty want to move ahead to move down the ladder of the number of weapons aimed at us."

That's exactly right. After the previous START treaty expired in December last year, American inspectors have not been able to access Russian nuclear facilities to ensure that the weapons are secured and that they are complying with their commitment to reduce their arsenal.

The Russians think we have gone insane - they see the treaty as transparently in the US national interest, and they are gobsmacked that it might not pass. Frankly, so am I.

For the Record: Liberals Hate the Deficit...

2010-11-17T11:02:00.002Z

There's a commonly accepted conventional wisdom that somehow Republicans are supposed to be the party that is "Fiscally Conservative" whereas Democrats love running up giant debts. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Republican party actually behaves in this manner, and there's equally little evidence that Democrats don't take the deficit very seriously. In fact, welcome to opposite world, the complete opposite of the conventional wisdom has been the actual behaviour of Democratic and Republican Presidents for longer than I've been alive.

I'm not going to comment on the Republican love of deficits, but from a progressive point of view, it's fairly obvious why Democrats might behave this way.

Liberals don't love govenment spending for its own sake - we support it when and because it actually does things that we think are worth doing. So, if it can stimulate the economy, educate children, put out fires, build infrastructure, keep people alive then we want the government to do those things. But we also realise that there is a limited amount of money that can be raised from taxation. If it's necessary to go into debt in the short term to keep the country moving, then that's the right thing to do. But in the long run, every dollar that we spend on interest for loans is a dollar we're not spending on health, education, poverty reduction or innovation. So it's in our interest as progressives to find a stable way of funding our programs that is sustainable. That's why we want to reduce medicare costs. That's why we want to cut waste from the Pentagon. That's why we consistently support Pay as You Go policies.

The 5% of the federal that we spent last year on debt interest was not wasted money, but it wasn't maximally efficient either. In the long run, we want to stabilise this in a way that doesn't cause people too much pain in the short term.

But Republicans... just don't care about this at all. Not even a little bit. So ask them why not...

A Black President, Universal US Health Care and... Peace in the Middle East?

2010-11-15T09:22:00.001Z

I always hesitate to write anything at all about the Israeli-Palestinian situation, because I can rarely think of anything to say other than, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here!"

So it's with some doubt and trepidation, that I am letting my inherent optimism link you to this article, which speculates that the same type of messy, ugly, but ultimately effective process that led to the this government passing the first ever comprehensive universal health care provision - as dreamed of by generations - has the distant hope of, after a similarly gruelling and painful process of compromise and setbacks, to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a path towards lasting peace.

Because what this deal actually does is provide the various parties to the negotiation an opportunity to delineate a border. As New York Times correspondent Mark Langer writes, burying his lead:

The logic behind a 90-day extension is that the two sides would aim for a swift agreement on the borders of a Palestinian state. That would make the long dispute over settlements irrelevant since it would be clear which housing blocks fell into Israel and which fell into a Palestinian state.

As with healthcare, the administration is taking a path that is not easy to watch, but may be the most practical. I have argued here before that the US government must have, and eventually convey to the parties, a view regarding the elements of a final status agreement: more Dr. Kissinger, less Dr. Phil. But the occasion for putting a thumb on the scales should be a negotiation over the border, not a dispute over continued settlements, which has been clouded by past negotiations over the border. Various talks between Israelis and PA officials, from the Geneva group, to the Olmert meetings, portended land swaps. These first efforts to draw lines, all of which assumed the Eztzion bloc would be part of Israel, say, cannot simply be erased from everyone's consciousness.

THE ANALOGY TO healthcare may be pushed further. The administration has been criticized for allowing Senate committees to debate the shape of the healthcare bill before committing itself to a final plan. The process was ugly; and the administration sweetened the outcome for resistant blue-dogs along the way. In the end, however, it got senators who had skin in the game, and it used their disagreements to define the "solution space" in which to intervene. And once (as Jonathan Cohn has shown) Obama saw the shape of the bill he could get, he still had to choose: let it go, for political reasons, or campaign for it, for historical ones. Had he not chosen the latter course, we would not have had a health reform bill at all.

As always, I'll take a humilating victory over a noble defeat any day. There are still a million and one steps between this moment and a lasting peace for the people of Israel and Palestine. But one step in the right direction is not nothing.

Nancy Pelosi, American Hero

2010-11-05T10:43:00.000Z

As we bid farewell to Nancy Pelosi's Speakership, let's pause a moment to realise that the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives - the most powerful woman ever to serve in elected office in the USA - was also the most effective leader the Democrats have had in Congress for many generations.

Progressive, feminist, climate change hawk, child advocate, and proud San Fransican, Nancy was never a politician to win elections or legislative battles by selling out her beliefs. But win them she did.

Her term as Speaker was relatively short, but her accomplishments outrank most of her predecessors by a long way.

By any measure, Pelosi has been one of the most effective House speakers in American history, especially given her relatively short tenure. At Salon, Steve Kornacki offers a helpful recollection of her many accomplishments, from health care to student loan reform to the credit card bill of rights to cap and trade. Pelosi consistently delivered legislation that became law, as well as legislation that the Senate then stalled on and failed to pass. As Kornacki writes, Pelosi is unpopular less because of what the House has done or failed to do — most Americans have little idea of those particulars — but because the economy is bad and voters wanted someone to blame.

But there’s another factor that makes Pelosi that much easier to scapegoat: She is a woman — the highest-ranked woman ever to hold elective office in the United States. In January 2007, Pelosi gaveled in her first legislative session as speaker while cradling her newborn grandson (one of seven grandchildren) and surrounded by other legislators’ offspring, whom she had invited to the dais to celebrate. She spoke about her own journey from “kitchen to Congress” and promised that the Democratic Party would govern on behalf of children, and their mothers, too — a vow she fulfilled by collecting the votes to pass the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which insures 11 million kids, and the Lily Ledbetter Act, which made it easier for victims of gender- and race-based pay discrimination to file civil rights complaints and collect back pay.

Thanks.

2010-11-05T09:59:00.000Z

Get Angrier

2010-11-03T15:58:00.001Z

Last night, the Republicans appear to have won over 60 seats in the US House of Representatives, taking back majority control of that body, while at the same time picking up at least 6 seats in the Senate. Democrats will retain a majority in the Senate and were relieved to hold onto some critical seats there that looked like they would be hard to hold - most notably, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held onto his seat in Nevada against all odds.

So... that was a pretty crappy night for us, really. No two ways about it. The defeat of (sorry Mom) batshit crazy non-Witch Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and baseball bat wielding loon Carl Paladino in New York by substantial double digits won't stop the so called Tea Party from tightening their stranglehold on the Republican party. They now own it. They've proved in this election cycle that they can take down in the primary any Republican who shows any hint of an interest in actually solving the nation's problems. Climate change doesn't exist, immigration should be punished (and screw the law abiding Latinos who get caught up their dragnet), the only acceptable way to even attempt to fix the economy is with more tax breaks for the rich. Welcome to the new rules.

Well I say screw that.

President Obama's going to make a speech pretty soon, and I'm sure that as usual his words will be wise, reasonable and right. But I wanted to post before he speaks to tell you that, from my point of view, election 2012 starts today.

I'm incredibly proud of the Democrats accomplishments of the past two year. Against resistance from every faction of the Republican party we've salvaged the economy, rescued the auto industry (which, amazingly, is now restored to full profitibility), delivered a stimulus package that economists agree is responsible for keeping or creating between 1.5 and 3.3 million jobs, and passed health care reform that will cover 95% of the population and will serve as our lasting legacy for generations to come.

It was the most successful Congress of the past hundred years, and seems to have started to but it wasn't enough - not nearly enough to solve the deep and lasting damage that has been done to the economy by 8 years of Republican mismanagement. And people angry. I don't blame them

The problem is that people have lashed out, in their anger, at the only people they could knowck down - the overwhelming Democratic majorities in Congress. We were in their sites, so they took us down.

I think the voters weren't nearly angry enough. I know I wasn't.

Republicans now say they want to spend the next two years obstructing, blocking, investigating and holding hearings on the Democrats. For instance,

The GOP plans to hold high profile hearings examining the alleged "scientific fraud" behind global warming, a sleeper issue in this election that motivated the base quite a bit.

Now that they have the reigns of power in the House, what are they hoping to accomplish with it? Well, nothing actually,

"If you put too much of the actual official power in the hands of the Republicans, it makes them responsible. Right now, I think they're in perfect position tactically. Control the House, object, propose stuff that Obama may veto and run on that against him in 2012.”

While the country has a 9.6% unemployment rate? Does this sound to you like a party that has any interest in, oh, I don't know, fixing things?

Me neither.

The 2012 election campaign starts RIGHT NOW. And I say, bring it on. This is a fight we have to win.

Obama Appoints Solicitor General Elena Kagan to Supreme Court

2010-05-10T09:31:00.000+01:00

Kagan is a former Dean of Harvard Law School, and has been the Obama Administration's Solicitor General for over a year. She has had a varied career in law, working in the Clinto Administration, as an advisor to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Law Professor. She clerked for Thurgood Marshall, and worked on Michael Dukakis' Presidential campaign.

If approved by the Senate, she will be the first Supreme Court appointee since 1972 not to have prior experience as a Federal judge.

I'll post more information and updates as the process goes on - but in the meantime my generic advice is: Read SCOTUSBlog.

They know more about this stuff than almost anyone, and they do a good job keeping up to date. Here for instance is their detailed summary of Kagan's experience, positives and negatives, and the perception of her by fellow lawyers and jurists.

Kagan is uniformly regarded as extremely smart, having risen to two of the most prestigious positions in all of law: dean of Harvard Law School and Solicitor General.

In government and academia, she has shown a special capacity to bring together people with deeply held, conflicting views. On a closely divided Supreme Court, that is an especially important skill.

Conservatives who she has dealt with respectfully (for example, Charles Fried and former Solicitors General to Republican Presidents) will likely come forward to rebut the claim that she is an extreme liberal.

She would also be only the fourth woman named to the Court in history, and President Obama would have named two. At age 50, she may serve for a quarter century or more, which would likely make her the President’s longest lasting legacy.

As with John Roberts, her service in a previous presidential Administration exposed her to a number of decisionmakers, who have confidence in her approach to legal questions.

The fact that she lacks a significant paper trail means that there is little basis on which to launch attacks against her, and no risk of a bruising Senate fight, much less a filibuster.

And finally, one point is often overlooked: Kagan had some experience on Capitol Hill and significant experience in the Executive Branch, not only as an attorney in the White House counsel’s office, but also as an important official dealing with domestic affairs. She has thus worked in the process of governing and does not merely come from what has recently been criticized (unfairly, in my view) as the “judicial monastery.”

Obama Administration Celebrates UK Labour Day by Protecting US Workers

2010-05-02T19:53:00.002+01:00

Here in the UK, we're enjoying a long weekend in celebration of the international movement to protect workers rights. The Labour movement (as distinct from Labour, the political party) has had a massive impact on working conditions across the industrialised world, from regulating an 8 hour working day to restrictions on child labour to minimum wage and the right to unionise. Workers can no longer be discriminated against, in many places, on the basis of race, age, gender or (more recently) sexuality.

In the USA, Labour day doesn't happy until the first Monday of September. I guess the good people of America felt a little uncomforable celebrating their freedoms on the day appointed by the Second International in protest against the slaughter of pro-Labour protesters in Chicago. But in any case, President Obama has honoured the true spirit of International Workers day by the simple expedient of taking concrete steps to ensure companies comply with existing labor laws.

In a move that will affect most American corporations, the Labor Department plans to require companies to prepare and adopt compliance plans aimed at ensuring they do not violate wage, job safety and equal employment laws.

The effort, aimed in part at reducing the incidence of employers not paying overtime and improperly classifying workers as independent contractors, will require them to document many of their decisions and share that information with their workers and the government.

In announcing the department’s intentions on Thursday, Deputy Labor Secretary Seth Harris said his department wanted to foster a culture of compliance among employers to replace what he described as a “catch me if you can” system in which too many companies violated employment laws.

This is important to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I think that people in general focus too much on imposing new legislation or regulation, and not quite enough on using the existing ones well. The Bush administration managed to do a lot of damage, in particular to environmental protection and worker's rights not by overturning laws protecting them, but by a kind of malign neglect. That kind of think - non-enforcement of longstanding laws - doesn't often make the news, but it can radically transform the landscape in insidious ways.

And secondly because I think that some of the tactics this reform is aimed at, for instance, treating people who are essentially full time, permanent workers as contractors to avoid offering them benefits, are a small part of the reason why the recovery has so far been slow to result in much job creation. If employers genuinely don't feel ready to hire again, and feel nervous of commitment in an unstable economy that's perhaps understandable - but it isn't a license to ignore the law.

Republicans Unify to Ensure Banks are Not Regulated

2010-04-27T09:31:00.000+01:00

I'm so glad the Republican party has operated in lockstep to vote against Financial Reform. In recent years, our struggling banks have been the only salvation of the global economy, with their cautious and morally upright behaviour preventing us from falling into a cataclysmic financial crisis in 2008. Thank heavens the Republicans are unified to ensure that they can keep operating in exactly the same way. Shame on the Democrats for seeking to reign in these paragons of fiscal rectitude.

[Yes, it's OPPOSITE DAY here on the Obama London blog!]

The Liberal Democrat Surge...

2010-04-20T12:40:00.000+01:00

So all of Britain has gone Lib Demtastic following Nick Clegg's good performance in last Thursday's leaders debate here.

Wondering who these upstarts are? Perhaps you'd be interested in the series of articles I wrote last year when I was introducing myself to the party.

Here's a short intro to the party.

Here's some info on the panel discussion I did at their conference.

And here's my "Beer Fuelled Rant" in which I gave the party a good talking to about their relative lack of ambition.

For the record - I can't vote in this election, but if I could I would probably vote for different parties locally and nationally. So I wouldn't classify myself as partisan in a UK context - although I'm sceptical of the Tories.

The Facts Show (and Businessweek Agrees) Obama Plan is Working

2010-04-10T16:36:00.001+01:00

A lot has happened this week, both locally (a great Democrats Abroad health care celebration!) and back home (Justice Stevens is retiring!) but I wanted to take a moment now to write about the economy. Specifically, the improvement in the economy.

Businessweek magazine, hardly a bastion of economic populism, has just published an interesting article about how not only are the markets recovering, but they are doing so because there appears to be a solid grounding of underlying economic improvement. And they attribute this to directly to Obama's efforts:

Little more than a year ago, financial markets were in turmoil, major auto companies were on the verge of collapse and economists such as Paul Krugman were worried about the U.S. slumbering through a Japan-like Lost Decade. While no one would claim that all the pain is past or the danger gone, the economy is growing again, jumping to a 5.6% annualized growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 as businesses finally restocked their inventories. The consensus view now calls for 3% growth this year, significantly higher than the 2.1 % estimate for 2010 that economists surveyed by Bloomberg News saw coming when Obama first moved into the Oval Office. The U.S. manufacturing sector has expanded for eight straight months, the Business Roundtable's measure of CEO optimism reached its highest level since early 2006, and in March the economy added 162,000 jobs—more than it had during any month in the past three years. "There is more business confidence out there," says Boeing (BA) CEO Jim McNerney. "This Administration deserves significant credit."

It is worth stepping back to consider, in cool-headed policy terms, how all of this came to be—and whether the Obama team's approach amounts to a set of successful emergency measures or a new economic philosophy: Obamanomics.

But this doesn't need to be a question of interpretation. The facts on the ground are very clear - on almost every measure, bar unembployment - which is only just starting to recover, with our first month of positive jobs news just reported - the economic situation has grown better under Obama's presidency.

I'm going to just flagrantly steal some charts from Ezra Klein's blog, but as usual you really should read it yourself.

Here's a chart showing job growth:

And yes, the blue bits are the Obama Presidency and the Red bits are Bushville. Spotted a pattern? Hmmm....

Here's a chart showing house prices. (Hint, remember Obama was inaugurated in Jan 2009...)

Here's a chart showing the Dow Jones Industrial average under the Obama Presidency:

This is fun. I could do this all day.

Here's one showing GDP growth under Obama - remember, the first quarter of his Presidency would have been reported in April 2009, so that's the first point of measure the chart uses:

Now, the news is not all unmixed joy. It's true that in order to achieve these results, Obama has allowed the deficit to continue to rise (worth noting that the biggest chunk of the deficit still came under Bush - but also worth noting that Obama CHOSE to let it continue going up).

Ezra, and most professional economists, argue convincingly that it was this counter-cyclical spending and the increased deficits that they caused which made it possible for the other measures to go up. They further argue

that the deficit would also have continued to go up if the economy (e.g., GDP growth) had failed to grow, since tax revenues would have continued to plummet. I find all that convincing.

There's another point as well - it's possible Obama was just plain lucky. Maybe he just happened to be inaugurated at the peak moment of the recession and it would have naturally turned around even if he had done nothing. I don't think that's the case, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the direct job creation and protection (a lot of firefighters and teachers were due to be laid off without the stimulus) led to real growth. But it's theoretically possible.

What I DON'T think you can now argue, even as a hypothetical, is that anything Obama and his team did in any way slowed down of prevented a recovery. So the source of the anger and economic populism that springs from much of the right appears tome (how shall I put this delicately) to spring from factors other than a purely fact-based analysis.

UK Elections Will be on May 6th...

2010-04-05T22:56:00.000+01:00

Gordon Brown meets with the Queen tomorrow to ask for a general election to be called. Yes, that's really how this works, the mad compromise with history that is political life in Britain remains as entertaining as it is, oddly, more or less effective.

As a non voter, with friends in all three British parties (and some Green party-ites as well, now I think of it), I'll largely be watching these elections as a keen and interested observer. Good luck to all of you who will be hitting the campaign trail for one

But in the competition to determine who our next Prime Minister will be, may I only issue a fervent and heartfelt: May the best man win.

In terms of our relationship with America, I feel confident in saying that Obama's relationship with a future PM will be the same as his dealings with the current one; a warm and close association in which we don't always agree but most often find ourselves on the same side. Call it a Special Relationship if you like - and the British Media love to check the pulse and temperature of the Specialness in our relationship, viewing it apparently as a very poorly patient. For me the point is that in the BEST of all possible ways America doesn't usually need to worry about Britain. We rarely worry that they will stockpile nuclear weapons, or crack down in totalitarian oppression against their own people. We don't worry that they'll mass troops against their neighbours, or intentionally destabilize global currencies. If Obama often doesn't spend as much time on the relationship with Britain as the British press would like, it's because there are a lot of countries out there for whom one or more of those descriptions apply.

That the UK is so often proudly unproblematic is something that (fortunately) is unlikely to change no matter which of the candidates becomes our next PM. So I don't expect Barack will be rushing to endorse any of them, whereas I do expect he'll be quick to congratulate whoever should come out ahead.

Which doesn't mean there won't be offices in the White House - including the Oval one - watching the forthcoming show with great interest.

Faces of Change...

2010-03-23T19:19:00.000Z

Today Health Care Reform became the law of the land.

Still work to do. But a lot of good work now complete. Thanks to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, President Obama and the millions of others who worked to make this day happen.

Thinking of Ted Kennedy and wishing he could have lived to see this.

David Axelrod says that Obama was more excited the moment health care reform passed than he was when he became President. I think that's as it should be - winning the election gave him the chance to do this. But he might still have failed. His Presidency might not have been successful

Now, he has something more important than a victory. He has a legacy.

This is what change looks like....

2010-03-22T06:45:00.001Z

Last night, by a 219-212* vote, the House passed historic health care reform that will provide cover to more than 32 Million more Americans and make every single American more secure - noone can now be denied care because they are sick, or because they are too middle class for medicaid but denied coverage by their employer. We are all better off today than we were yesterday, including the people who right now oppose this effort.

I believe that, like Medicare and Social security, this reform will become a proud bedrock of American social protection, and will make us both healthier and more economically competitive.

This is what I and more than 52% of Americans voted for in November 2008.

* Unfortunate typo corrected....