a different standard

“Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history,” wrote Steven Stark in the Boston Phoenix. “When Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she’s constantly attacked as an obsessed and crazed egomaniac, bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of her party.”

Indeed, even after Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary convincingly last week, she awoke the next morning to read an angry New York Times editorial, “beseeching her to get the hell out of the race,” as Howard Kurtz put it at washingtonpost.com. On the Times opinion page that day same, Maureen Dowd actually turned to Dr. Seuss rhymes to make her point: “The time is now. Just go. … I don’t care how. And across town at the New York Daily News, a bitter Mike Lupica was steamed over the fact that Clinton “won’t quit” the race.

Weeks earlier, New York magazine fretted about which senior Democrats would be able to “step in” and “usher Clinton from the race.” Or if Clinton, obsessed with her own “long-range self-aggrandizement,” would finally figure it out herself. Meanwhile, Slate.com’s snarky Hillary Deathwatch was created to document, day-by-day, the demise of her campaign, complete with a damsel-in-distress cartoon drawing of Clinton atop a sinking ship. That represented just a fraction of the often offensive get-out-now proclamations that have become a staple of this campaign.

No longer content to be observers of the campaign, journalists now see themselves as active players in the unfolding drama, and they show no hesitation trying to dictate the basics of the contest, like who should run and who should quit. It’s as if journalists are auditioning for the role of the old party bosses. It’s a new brand of political commentary that leaves some veteran journalists perplexed.

“The idea that it’s your job to tell candidates when to get out, and really trying to control the whole process — putting it in the hands of the journalists or the reporters or the columnists — I find that to be new and different,” Haynes Johnson told me last week. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Johnson has covered more than a dozen presidential campaigns and is currently working on a book about the unfolding 2008 contest. Johnson says he was astonished to read some early calls in March from the media for Clinton to get out of the race. He was stunned by “the pomposity and the arrogance of it.”

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200804300001

working for Walmart

The issue in Hickory, like elsewhere in North Carolina, is not lack of access to higher education but the quality of jobs that should ensue from such an education. As Kenneth and Gwenn (“be sure to mention our chihuahua Petey”) told me, “people are finding that the college educations they gave their kids aren’t worth much, and both generations here in Hickory are working at Wal-Mart.” Realistically, that’s the problem with a degree from a third-tier school in a part of the country where good jobs are scarce. Likely there aren’t too many graduates of Duke and UNC Chapel Hill finding only Wal-Mart work.

Getting the nuances and particularities of a community just right is a problem, perhaps an inevitable one, for a candidate whose necessary life is in the campaign bubble. Not only do Senator Obama and his press entourage never really see towns like Hickory but they don’t see the opposition first-hand, as well.

Therefore, Senator Obama has no idea that, despite whatever her campaign may be up to, Senator Clinton hardly ever mentions him anymore. Despite his remark to Hickory that he’s told his staff the campaign needs to get away from going negative, Senator Obama laid into Senator Clinton, usually in conjunction with Senator McCain, several times during the afternoon. At one point he said, “Lately the other candidates aren’t talking about their ideas–they’re talking about me.” As far as Senator Clinton is concerned, nothing could be further from the truth. She presents more ideas on the stump than she has time for. This misrepresentation incensed a group of women friends in Hickory. They had seen Hillary Clinton several times in North Carolina and had come to hear Barack Obama before finally making up their minds. Scratch twelve votes for him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/a-recharged-obama-alights_b_99347.html

Nuestra Sra de la Providencia, Puerta de Tierra

En el hogar de ancianos La Providencia, en San Juan, Chelsea Clinton ofreció un mensaje de cinco minutos para elogiar la propuesta de salud de su madre.

the trajectory

What got Iceland in trouble was something more subtle: its banks got their money primarily from international investors, making the Icelandic miracle heavily dependent on foreign capital. …

In order to prop up the króna, and keep foreign capital from fleeing, Iceland’s central bank has had to raise interest rates to an astounding fifteen per cent, a move that will slow the economy to a crawl.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/04/21/080421ta_talk_surowiecki

GUANGZHOU, China — Facing the double-barreled threat of a falling dollar and weakening American demand, some Chinese exporters are starting to ask European customers to pay in euros.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/business/worldbusiness/30yuan.html

April 28 (Bloomberg) — Add another ailment to the U.S. misery index of soaring gasoline and wheat costs and falling home values: a federal deficit that is burgeoning as foreign investors led by the Japanese recoil from the slumping dollar. The Japanese, who own $586.6 billion, or 12 percent of U.S. government debt, had their worst quarter in Treasuries this decade, losing 7 percent in the first three months of the year as the dollar fell to the lowest since 1995 versus the yen, Merrill Lynch & Co. indexes show. Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co., Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. and Sumitomo Life Insurance Co., three of the nation’s four-biggest insurers, would rather accept the world’s lowest bond yields in Japan than buy U.S. debt.

“It’s too early to say the dollar will stop falling,” said Masataka Horii, head of the investment team in Tokyo for the $53.1 billion Kokusai Global Sovereign Open, Asia’s biggest bond fund. “The U.S. economy will be slow for a while.”

Japan owns more Treasuries than any other nation. After raising their holdings by $9.2 billion to $620.6 billion between March and July 2007, Japanese investors trimmed that stake by $34 billion through February, the Treasury said April 15. America relies on foreign investors, who own more than half the U.S. government debt outstanding, to finance a deficit that New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts will expand to a record $500 billion for the year ending Sept. 30, after a $163 billion gap last year. Without their support, long-term interest rates would be 0.9 percentage point higher, a 2006 Federal Reserve study found.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aYn0pNknEXOk&refer=exclusive

the compulsive need

Whoever on Team Obama keeps feeding into Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s seeming compulsive need to speak out on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright should get the swift boot. When Wright went on his latest public and media tear, Obama should have simply issued a statement saying this: Wright is no longer my pastor. And as I have said repeatedly, his views do not reflect mine, and then move on. But no, Obama’s Wright compulsion drove him to deliver a defensive and apologetic so-called race speech in which Wright was the centerpiece. Next, he denounced Wright’s views in an interview. Now he holds a halting, stumbling, anguished voice press conference to denounce Wright again.

Here’s the effect of all this. He’s given a slew of gossipy, media talking heads more salacious grist for the gossip and rumor mill about Wright, the church and Obama’s long term relationship with both. He’s elevated Wright from a relatively obscure, local preacher to a nationally known polarizing figure. He’s deepened the suspicions of those who all along felt that he was a closet radical and race panderer. This hurt him with white voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and almost certainly it will hurt him in Indiana. It has pecked away at the razor thin lead he had over Clinton among Democrats, and dropped him behind McCain in the general election. (Hillary beats McCain by ten points).
He created clouds of doubt among some of his non-rabid, and non-true believer supporters that maybe it’s time to take a second look at him and his candidacy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/obama-not-wright-is-obama_b_99294.html

recession

“It hasn’t gotten to human food mixed with pet food yet,” he said, “but it is certainly headed in that direction.” ….

Retail sales figures and consumer surveys confirm that Americans are strategically cutting corners, whether it is at the coffee house or the airport. (In: brewing coffee at home and flying coach. Out: Starbucks and first class.) In March, Americans spent less on women’s clothing (down 4.9 percent), furniture (3.1 percent), luxury goods (1.3 percent) and airline tickets (1.1 percent) compared with a year ago, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, a service of the credit card company that measures spending on 300 million of its cards and estimates purchases with other cards, cash and checks.

Wal-Mart Stores reports stronger-than-usual sales of peanut butter and spaghetti, while restaurants like Domino’s Pizza and Ruby Tuesday have suffered a falloff in orders, suggesting that many Americans are sticking to low-cost home-cooked meals. Over the last year, purchases of brand name cookies and crackers have fallen, according to Information Resources, which tracks retail sales. Sales of Nabisco graham crackers have dropped 7.5 percent, and Keebler Fudge Shoppe cookies have slipped by 12.3 percent. Not even beer is immune. Sales of inexpensive domestic beers, like Keystone Light, are up; sales of higher-price imports, like Corona Extra, are down, the firm said. Some are skipping drinks altogether. The number of people ordering an alcoholic drink fell to 31 percent last month from 42 percent last summer, according to a survey of 2,500 people conducted by Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.

“People have started to shift spending as if we were in a recession,” said Michael McNamara, vice president for research and analysis at MasterCard. ……

By no means has the economic downturn been bad for all product categories. For instance, sales of big-ticket electronics, like $1,000 flat-panel televisions and $300 video game systems, are on the rise, according to retailers and research firms. Falling prices for such devices and a looming government deadline to convert to digital television have helped. So has the view, sensible or not, that the technology is a good investment. At a Best Buy in Southfield, Mich., James Szekely, 28, a mechanical engineer, was shopping for a big high-definition TV that he expected would cost at least $2,000, an expense he rationalized because “at least we can watch movies at home.” (In a survey conducted this month by the NPD Group, a research firm, consumers suggested that they would sooner cut spending on clothing, furniture and eating out than on video games.)

At Home Depot, sinks and faucets are selling briskly. Managers at the chain suspect that consumers, loath to spend money on a splashy kitchen renovation or new roof, are settling for a cheaper bathroom “refresh.” Another top seller at home improvement stores: programmable thermostats and insulation, which can cut fuel bills. Many retailers are struggling to adjust to the new needs. Clothing sales have started to sink at department stores like Macy’s, Kohl’s and J. C. Penney. So have furniture sales at companies like Bombay and Domain, both of which have filed for bankruptcy protection.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/business/27spend.html

9 de febrero de 2009

Las partes en el caso contra el Gobernador y otros 12 acusados de delitos relacionados con el financiamiento de campañas electorales afinaban ayer el plan de manejo del caso para que el juez Barbadoro, del distrito de Nuevo Hampshire pero asignado como juez visitante, apruebe o rechace el itinerario.

La fecha del 9 de febrero, sugerida por los abogados de defensa y la fiscal María Domínguez, es para que comience a verse el juicio en su fondo. Esta fecha incluye la selección del jurado, un proceso que se estima tomaría de dos a tres semanas. Tal como lo solicitó el juez Barbadoro, el equipo de trabajo estimó en tres meses la duración del juicio.

El tiempo lo dividirían por partes iguales: mes y medio para que el Ministerio Público presente su prueba y mes y medio para la defensa.

Como parte del plan de manejo del caso, contenido en un documento de 20 páginas, las partes tienen que establecer el término en que se deberán radicar las mociones al Tribunal Federal previo al juicio.

PRIMERA HORA supo que la defensa del Gobernador labora afanosamente en varias mociones, incluida una petición de desestimación de los cargos, que presentará en los próximos dos meses.

“Ellos van a impugnar uno por uno todos los cargos. Pudiera ser por falta de jurisdicción o por vencimiento de los términos prescriptivos”, comentó una fuente. “Es lo que se conoce como un omnibus motion mediante la cual se atacan todas las imputaciones”, agregó. Otras mociones irán dirigidas a que el Gobierno informe sobre la interceptación de llamadas telefónicas y comunicaciones electrónicas.

“A la gente le interceptaron llamadas. En la medida que lo hayan hecho o no, tienen que cumplir con revelarlo”, dijo la fuente. También se someterán mociones de supresión de evidencia.

http://www.primerahora.com/noticia/politica/noticias/para_febrero_del_2009_el_caso_contra_anibal/183845

sleeping with the fishes

I’m beginning to think Hillary Clinton might pull this off and wrestle the nomination away from Barack Obama. If she does, a lot of folks—including a huge chunk of the media—will join Bill Richardson (a.k.a. Judas) in the Deep Freeze. If the Clintons get back into the White House, it will be retribution time, like the Corleone family consolidating power in “The Godfather,” where the watchword is, “It’s business, not personal.”

Not that anyone will be sleeping with the fishes with Hillary in the White House, but with the Clintons it’s business and it’s personal. Just think of all the scores to settle, the grievances to indulge. Bill Clinton provided a preview this week, blaming the Obama campaign for playing the race card against him. Tricky maneuver, but perhaps the only way the former president can come to grips with his loss of standing in the African-American community, once his strongest constituency. (South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, an undeclared superdelegate who is African-American, told the New York Times this week that the black community had supported Clinton during his impeachment and that “I think black folks feel strongly that this is a strange way [for him] to show his appreciation.”)

There’s never been any love lost between the Clintons and official Washington. The Georgetown dinner parties they rarely attended during the Bill years might as well be in Outer Mongolia for all President Hillary will care. Notables who abandoned her for Obama will get the Big Chill. “He’s dead to us,” a Clinton aide was quoted saying of John Kerry, who along with Ted Kennedy was turned off by the perception of race baiting that led up to the South Carolina primary. A major donor, conflicted between the two candidates and apologetic over his backing of Obama, found Hillary less than sympathetic. “Too bad for you, because I’m going to win,” she snapped.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/134012

skin

The New York Times devoted its lead news slot yesterday to puzzling over whether the reason Senator Obama lost Pennsylvania is because he is black. Could it be that word of Mr. Obama’s skin color hadn’t gotten out to the white voters of Kansas, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Iowa, all of which Mr. Obama won? Unlikely. Leave it to the Times to make a racial issue of it. We’re waiting for the story on how Senator Clinton’s skin color is posing a problem for her with black voters.

Truth is, Mr. Obama’s race is the same as it was when he was winning primaries and caucuses. What has changed is that voters have started to focus on his promises to raise taxes, his promise to meet with the president of Iran, his expression of contempt for voters clinging to guns and religion, and his associations with radicals like William Ayers and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The information voters have about Mr. Obama’s race is the same as it was at the beginning, but they have more information than they did before about his policies, associations, and views.

It’s something for Governor Paterson to keep in mind as he looks toward 2010 and nurses his hopes to be the first African American to be elected governor of New York. Voters won’t be paying much attention to his race. They’ll be looking to see whether he manages to cut spending and reduce the state’s crushing tax burden.

http://www2.nysun.com/article/75341