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25 May 2011 23:25

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Politics: Yes, MSNBC was right to suspend Ed Schultz

  • Un-ED-cceptable: MSNBC is giving Ed Schultz a one-week, unpaid timeout for calling Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” And good for them. Obviously, Laura Ingraham’s sex life is completely irrelevant to her political views, but more importantly, the use of the word “slut” as an insult implies that having many sexual partners is something bad, something to be ashamed of. This is exactly the kind of antiquated, 1950’s-era thinking that progressives have been trying to move past for the last fifty years, and for Schultz to resort to that kind of base rhetoric is not only offensive and inappropriate, it’s counterproductive to the cause he claims to champion. If anything, we say he got off easy. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 23:24

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U.S.: Study: Whites feel left behind by shifting racial dynamics

  • These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality — at their expense.
  • Tufts University psychologist Samuel Sommers • Describing his study, published in the peer-reviewed Perspectives on Psychological Science, which shows that some white people feel that, as blacks gain ground in society, they’re falling behind. Which is to say that, due to societal changes, many whites feel they receive detrimental treatment compared to blacks. It’s a perception which, while felt by some whites, isn’t necessarily true, according to Sommers. On top of flying in the face of ample evidence to the contrary, he notes that it’s felt worst in the job market. “Economists have documented over and over again that it takes twice as many resumes to get a call back from an employer if you have a black-sounding name,” he says. This is a study we wish didn’t exist. We still have a way to go. (thanks reallyfoxnews) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 17:37

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World: Obama and Cameron stay firm on NATO in Libya

  • Obama wants patience on Libya: In a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron. President Obama sought to erase any doubt that the NATO action against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi would let up while Gaddafi clings to power through his military. “Gaddafi and his regime need to understand that there will not be a let-up in the pressure that we are applying.” Obama refused to give a timetable for the military action, saying it would be resolved “in a timely fashion,” and stressed the need for “patience.” source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 16:54

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Politics: Sen. Max Baucus calls for quicker Afghanistan withdrawal

  • The President has announced that this July will mark the beginning of a transition of security responsibility to Afghan forces. However, in my view the transition plan is too slow. We need to begin handing responsibility of security to Afghan forces immediately and aim to have most US combat troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next year. We should leave behind only a small force to hunt down and kill terrorists in Afghanistan, and to help the Afghan military perform their duties.
  • Senator Max Baucus • Calling for both a quicker withdrawal of troops, and a quicker transfer of responsibility from the U.S. military to Afghan security forces. That these conversations are starting to crop up is unsurprising; the death of Osama bin Laden, the ostensible reason the U.S. entered Afghanistan to begin with, makes this the most politically opportune time to voice such sentiments. And while the concerns in leaving quicker are by no means negligible, with a government as steeped in corruption as the Afghanistan’s is, and under a leader like Hamid Karzai (famously volatile, takes bags of money from Iran, once threatened that he might join the Taliban), what is the ultimate definition of success for the U.S. involvement there? source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 16:12

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Politics: Kathy Hochul’s NY-26 win a big deal for Democrats?

  • Harbinger or happenstance? It’ll be curious to see how last night’s upset win by Kathy Hochul is received and interpreted by political media, and by the parties themselves. (We’ve already seen a bit of it from man of the hour Paul Ryan.) You may remember back when Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley to become a Senator from Massachusetts, for example — his win in a traditionally Democratic stronghold was seen as an early signal the Democrats were in trouble in the 2010 mid-terms, a special election turned bellweather. With evidence now that Ryan’s Medicare plan is a huge political liability, will it cost the GOP in 2012? And should they be verbally flogging their only candidate who came out against it? source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 15:19

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World: In Soviet Russia, CNN competes with … uh, itself. Kinda.

  • A Russian fan went above and beyond, it seems. It seems like someone has taken the liberty to set up a CNN site for Russia — but the site is not officially associated with CNN in any way. In fact, the stories are just run through an online translator, so they often translate horribly. One story referenced the head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the head of a penis, not an organization. No one knows who’s running this thing, but a note on the website says that it only republishes parts of stories from CNN.com and links back to them. To do this, the site uses Joomla, a CMS system like similar to WordPress. A spokeswoman from CNN said that they’re “evaluating the next steps.” Hopefully they can get to the, er…head of the problem. (thanks to Mediaite for pointing us in the right direction with this one) source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 14:10

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Biz, U.S.: Bubble watch: Is the student loan market about to crash?

  • $24k average amount of debt a graduating college student has
  • $800B amount in outstanding student debt — with 30% of it securitized
  • 40% number of student loans that are in default after 15 years; not good source
  • » This is huge. To put it in perspective: Student loans are the nation’s largest source of debt – even more than credit cards. Tuition has risen faster than inflation, and lenders are quick to help students. That’s because until 2009 the government had a program in place that purchased loans that weren’t paid back. That sounds a lot like the housing market, right? Couple all of that with the fact that college graduates are having harder times finding jobs, and you don’t get a very good picture over the long-term.
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

25 May 2011 11:19

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U.S.: Woman dies after finding out about her dad’s death in Joplin tornado

  • Another crushingly sad tale from the Joplin storm: After a 54-year-old woman found out on Tuesday that her father died in Sunday’s incredibly tragic tornado in the Missouri town, she had a heart attack and later died. The woman, a schoolteacher, lived in a nearby town and attended church in the city of 50,000. Despite the fact that she wasn’t killed in the storm itself, the coroner says that they will consider her death a storm-related casualty. Such a gut punch. Officials in the city plan to continue searching for those missing, combing over areas they’ve covered as many as three times already — all in the hopes of finding a survivor in the rubble. Hold out hope. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 10:39

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Biz: clearXchange: The banking system’s years-late answer to PayPal?

  • what Three of the nation’s largest consumer banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — have created a system for simple money transfers via phone or e-mail.
  • why The new service, clearXchange, gets around a banking system that takes a really long time, requires a routing number, and has to go though the Federal Reserve’s tubes.
  • threat This model threatens PayPal, the  solution du jour for this problem — which will likely someday make more money than its corporate parent, eBay. Unless this new thing takes off. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 10:19

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Politics: Paul Ryan: This special election not a referendum on my plan

  • I saw the ads. I saw burning people’s Medicare cards. If you can scare seniors into thinking that their current benefits are being affected, that’s going to have an effect. And that is exactly what took place here. So yes, yes, it’s demagoguery, it’s scaring seniors.
  • Rep. Paul Ryan • Blaming Democrat Kathy Hochul’s win in New York’s 26th House District on scare tactics, rather than the New York Times’ line (“a referendum on the Paul Ryan Medicare plan”). Ryan also blamed Jack Davis, a third-party guy that siphoned votes from the GOP’s Jane Corwin: “When a Democrat runs as a third party, tea party candidate and spends a couple million dollars, it’s going to have an effect,” he says. A few things here:  Remember how the guy in this district — a Republican, mind you — resigned, leading to the special election? You don’t think that could’ve had an effect on things? That’s a question for both Ryan and the NYT. Also, to Ryan’s point about Davis: There were four candidates in this election, and we’re sure Ian Murphy (while a minor candidate) siphoned some votes from Hochul as well. (Also, we’re sure this stunt of Murphy’s hurt Corwin’s election chances too.) Either way, Paul kind of has a personal stake — Jack Kemp, who gave Ryan his first job, long represented this district. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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