"'Genocide,' one eulogist called it, lamenting that guns had 'become part of our wardrobe.'"

"Another exhorted the politicians in the pews, 'Don’t give us lip service.'"

In the pews were Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Arne Duncan, Rahm Emanuel, Pat Quinn, and  Jesse Jackson. In the casket was Hadiya Pendleton, who lived to the age of 15.

The Pope with a clown, Susan Rice caught between 2 power-heads, and a heavily tattoo'd quarterback.

I don't know what Matt Drudge is trying to slip into our subconscious today, but it's phantasmagoric. Felliniesque.


Click to enlarge.

The quarterback is Colin Kaepernick, who, not having murdered anybody, seems to be doing comparatively well, NFL-wise. His mother is "annoyed." The body scribblings are Bible verses (we're told). Across the chest it says "Against All Odds." Is that in the Bible? I don't know. Ask the Pope (if he's through clowning around). I've heard of the book of Philipians, so maybe there's a Philcollinsians.

Hillary and Rahm are swirling around Susan Rice. The story is Hillary prefers Kerry as her successor. Fine, but I can't see the Pope+Clown → Tattoo'd Quarterback transition. I hate to think there's no connection, that these are simply the stories that belonged at the top of their respective columns. Drudge means so much more. Tell me what the meaning is.

Here's the story about the Pope meeting 1000s of circus performers at the Vatican:

Benedict, a known cat lover, paid particular attention to a pair of lion cubs that were brought up to him, stroking them and chatting with their trainers. At one point Benedict even bent down to caress one — not an easy feat given the 85-year-old pope has trouble with his knees and occasionally uses a cane.

A gentle scene. Not the first thing that leaps to mind when you think about Christians and lions. 

"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union."

Said Rahm Emanuel, after the Chicago Teachers Union decided to extended its strike.

"This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children. Every day our kids are kept out of school is one more day we fail in our mission: to ensure that every child in every community has an education that matches their potential.”

"Emanuel is a bully, stop Rahmunism!"

There's you teacher, kiddies. The one with the sign...

"Hey hey. Ho ho. Rahm Emanuel has got to go"

"Hey Rahmald Reagan, don't privatize public ed"

"Rahm Walker, go back to Wisconsin"

Etc. etc. The headline at the link — to the Chicago Tribune — is "Teachers get creative with signs targeting mayor." Do they actually mean to compliment the teachers creativity? I'd prefer to think they're mocking moronic teacherspeak: That's very creative.

Just tell me if it's good or bad, lady. I don't need you boosting my self esteem over nothing.

And teachers, you look awful with your crappy signs. Why, when I was in school, and we didn't even have foam board for signs, and we had to use oak tag, we knew how to measure the space, count the letters, use a ruler to pencil in straight lines properly spaced, pencil in the letters, go over the letters in marker, and then erase the pencil with ArtGum. You wouldn't think of doing a project without following the basic requirements of lettering. You people are supposed to be teachers. Letter your damned signs properly... and then we can talk about whether you're creative.

And could you comb your hair before you go out in public? You need to set an example for the younger children. What's the right way to ask for more more more? Not with a sloppy sign, messy hair, and your angry face. Let's see your please may I face.

"Rahm Emanuel Should Go All Ronald Reagan On Chicago's Teachers Union."

The most famous Rahm Emanuel quote is: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” 

In this case, Emanuel has a unique opportunity to reform the entire Chicago public school system, ensuring that children get a quality education in a district where only 56 percent of students even graduate. If he is nimble, he can easily leverage this situation.

The students themselves provide a ready-made prop for Emanuel to announce that if the teachers do not return to work immediately, they will be replaced. Simply call together a press conference with out-of-school students standing in the background in solidarity, and the politics will take care of itself.

"We stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel."

Says Paul Ryan.

Could somebody please compose parody lyrics for the great political classic that we here at Meadhouse have never been able to get out of our head?

Live-blogging Day 1 of the Democratic Convention.

4:58 CT: Just setting up a post, to be added to over the course of the evening. Please join the conversation.

6:53 (I'm beginning with recorded material from about 2 hours ago. I'll be catching up.): "Being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare. It's patriotism," says Newark Mayer Cory Booker. He gets a huge ovation that turns into a "U.S.A." chant. They're "U.S.A."ing at the idea of patriotism, presumably. Not taxes. Oh, but paying taxes = patriotism. Or, specifically, being asked to pay is patriotism. Who is the patriot in that grammatical construction? I think it's the folks who are asking other people to pay.

7:11 (Still catching up.): Gov. Bev Perdue sounded hoarse and a bit sick as she vowed to deliver North Carolina to the Democrats. A film about health care. A young man whose parents died in a way that supposedly might have been avoided if we'd had Obamacare. They were both scientists, he says, so I'm not clear why they did not have health insurance.

7:19: The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Congress, Charles Gonzales, uses the motto "e pluribus unum" — out of many, one — to mean that all the people become one, instead of the idea that the states were brought together into one nation. The idea that the people merged into a single entity — that sounds like fascism to me. Oddly, as it repurposes the old motto, it expresses the old fashioned idea of the melting pot.

7:30: White males of the gubernatorial kind — Quinn & Kaine.

7:32: A black speaker wedged in — the mayor of Charlotte — before the next pale male. But it's a big one, so I'll go light on the fast-forwarding I'm using to try to catch up to live. It's Harry Reid.

7:36: Reid wants us to fear the Tea Party. They are "extremists and ideologues who leave no room for reason," and they're taking over the Republican Party.

7:42: Nancy Pelosi is introduced along with all the Democratic women of the House. There's disco music playing. The hell? Then I detect that it's "I'm Every Woman." Again with this creepy merging of individuals into the whole.

I'm every woman, it's all in me
Anything you want done, baby
I'll do it naturally
I'm every woman, it's all in me
I can read your thoughts right now
Every one from A to Z

See what I mean? That's creepy when it's the government. When it's some lady you're having sex with, I guess it's sexy.

I can cast a spell
With secrets you can't tell
Mix a special brew
Put fire inside of you
But anytime you feel
Danger or fear
Instantly I will appear, 'cause
I'm every woman

Now, that's just scary when it's a whole horde of government women coming at you. What is this "special brew"? Soma? But anytime you feel/Danger or fear/Instantly I will appear... Nancy Pelosi will appear?! I can sense your needs/Like rain on to the seeds/I can make a rhyme/Of confusion in your mind... no, no, no, no that's not what I want to hear from the government!

8:03: Speaking of scary... it's Jimmy Carter (on film). He's well made-up, well preserved, and well modulated. But he seems like a nice man, there, doesn't he? And he tells us Barack Obama and Joe Biden will lead us to a better future.

8:18: Huge storm here! We just lost power for a few minutes. I lost a whole paragraph of snark about Teddy Kennedy. A young Kennedy — Joseph P. Kennedy III, running for Congress — said the spirit of Teddy was with us here today. I had some prime snark! Did Teddy bring this terrible storm that drowned all my Mary Jo Kopechne material?

8:25: NARAL! It's Nancy Keenan, for "safe, legal" abortions, with "dignity and privacy." A woman should not be forced to have an ultrasound "against her will." And "rape is rape." President Obama had "the courage to stand with Sandra Flook" (is that how we're pronouncing it now?). "Women in America cannot trust Mitt Romney."

8:33: I've caught up to Rahm Emanuel. "The American auto industry is not just surviving..." Hmm. He professes to know with "absolute certainty" that something will happen in the future and "land with a thud on the Oval Office desk." Who do you want there? He's saying that like it's obvious.

8:38: It's Obama's little sister Maya and Michelle's older brother Michael. Nice. Lovely. But let's skip the details.

8:45: I'm finally completely caught up. Lily Ledbetter is speaking. This is the question of "equal pay for equal work," but the Supreme Court case she lost was a matter of interpreting statutory language about how soon you need to bring a lawsuit. I feel sorry for her, but I'm also uneasy about her as an icon representing things that are not what the court case was about.

8:48: Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, is able to compare himself to Romney, who was, a while back, the governor of Massachusetts. He's yelling and screaming about the economy. Obama has been wonderful!!!

8:53: "I will not stand by and let him be bullied out of office!" Patrick propaganda.

8:55: Wow, everyone looks really sweaty. Did the AC break down?

9:03: Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. I have no idea why this man has been given this prominence. Here's his question for Republicans: "How much less do you really think would be good for this country?"

9:07: Time for the keynote address at last. It's Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio.

9:17: Castro seems like he could have been a speaker at last week's GOP convention. He keeps talking about "hard work" and even "rugged individualism." But then he says "Like many of you, I watched last week's Republican convention, and they told a few stories of individual success. We all celebrate individual success, but the question is: How do we multiply that success? The answer is President Barack Obama."

9:22: Castro gets a refrain going: "Mitt Romney says no."

10:00: Michelle Obama is wearing an orange dress that in the close-up looks like a bathing suit. Lots of shoulder and arm display. Her speech goes on and on, filled with stuff that has no relationship to the question of whether Barack Obama should be reelected. He thinks his little girls are important and he's proud of them and eats dinner with them and counsels them about their middle-school friendships. Okay. I phase out. What's the point of all this? Then — this seems near the end — she starts doing this fake stuttering (as if she's talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-g-generation): "A-a-and he reminds me, he reminds me that we are playing a long game here..." (Meade says: "Not 9 holes, it's 18 holes.") "A-a-a-and that change is hard. A-a-a-and change is slow and it never happens all at once but that eventually we get there. We always do. W-w-w-w-we get there, because of folks like my dad." (Earlier in the speech she described her father.) "Folks like Barack's grandmother. Men and women who-who said to themselves, I-I may not have a chance to fulfill my dreams, but maybe my children will, maybe my grandchildren will. See-see-see, so many of us stand here tonight because of their sacrifice...." Arghhhh! This is the same thing we heard last week. It's so earnest. Stage-y earnest. But what does it say? Who should be President?!

10:16: Michelle's speech goes on a long time. I don't really see the point of it. There's a theme of waiting patiently with the expectation that our children or their children will have a better life, but what does that mean for the election? It seems to say that we should reelect Obama despite the lack of economic progress. She speaks of "unwavering hope grounded in unyielding struggle." Now there's this choked-up quality in her voice as she says she's "Mom-in-Chief," doing what's "best for our girls." It's getting very hammy. Vote for my husband. That's the end. And then the music comes up: "Move your body... move your little hips...." What?!

10:26: An unusually young woman comes out to do the closing prayer, and it goes on for almost 4 minutes. "As a young woman of faith and a leader...." Who is she? The executive director of Blood: Water Mission. I don't really understand what that is — and I did Google it — so I'm left assuming that the Democrats are simply hot to reach out to young women. 

"What I think is funny is that if you have the same view on gay marriage that Obama had when he was elected, now you’re an enemy of humanity or something."

"It’s some sort of, I don’t know, Liberal Fascism or something...." — says Instapundit, aptly, re Chick-Fil-A and Chicago.

And here's Eugene Volokh on the obviousness of the First Amendment violation.

"Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values," said Rahm Emanuel, ironically demonstrating that Chicago values are not American values.

ADDED: Right now, at Drudge:



(Click image to enlarge. The small text in the upper left says: "Rahm Rejects CHICK-FIL-A: 'Not Chicago Values.'"

"By pushing through the higher requirement for strike authorization — and adding some combative rhetoric," Rahm Emanuel "energized the Chicago Teachers Union and strengthened them."

"We’ve all wondered how you would pay for a longer school day. But a surprise to me was the fact finder coming out for huge raises."

Although Emanuel fashions himself as a master strategist who out-foxes opponents, [publisher Linda] Lenz noted that working with schools is “new to the mayor” and he’s “made some miscalculations, perhaps out of not knowing the lay of the land” at Chicago Public Schools.

“Everybody had complained we had too short a day. Pushing for a longer day certainly made sense. But, there seems to have been a failure to calculate what it would take to get that done — both in terms of resources and grass-roots support from the community and from teachers,” Lenz said.

Rahm doesn't know that lay of the land in Chicago? Chicago is tough. The Teachers Union showing its muscle? How's that going to work out? Sorry, I'm over here in Wisconsin.

Drudge goes black-and-white with Rahm, Brad Pitt, Uncle Sam, and Obama.

Look. Only Pitt and Rahm are photographs. Obama — like Uncle Sam — is done with artwork. Pretty bad artwork. It looks like a bad drawing, and I'm guessing it was done by computer-processing of a photo. It's funny the way the photographiness of a photo shows through when a drawing is made. Something more timeless and grand is found when the artist draws from life. Of course, there's the usual risk that it won't look like the person. But that's why you need a good artist. Or stick with a regular photo-photo.

Unless you're looking for an odd effect. Perhaps Drudge is trying to say that Obama is drained of life. It might have something to do with the big drained-of-color idea, which does unify the 4 images. There's another processed photo further down on the page: Hugo Chavez. His image has been subjected to posterization — where all shades of gray have been eliminated.

Ah! I said it: shades of grey. Is Drudge hinting that these men have some kind of Christian Grey sadistic power over us? Speaking of photoprocessing, there was this article in the Daily Mail yesterday, imagining Christian Grey as a composite — depicted in shades of gray — of various famous guys, including Brad Pitt (but not Rahm, Uncle Sam, Obama, and Chavez).



Also on the Drudge page, in column 1, under Brad Pitt, is Vladimir Putin. Putin and Pitt are both wearing sunglasses. The Pitt image pushes "Brad Pitt's mom in fear after slamming Obama..." and the Putin image goes to "West is on decline." Chavez is positioned under Uncle Sam, and both of those images include hands — Sam pointing at us (over a warning about taxes and Obama) and Chavez with his hand to his forehead in the position Drudge showed Obama 3 days ago. Obama had his hand like that along with the headline "Barack and Bones: I've Been Eating," and today's Chavez image goes along with an assertion that Chavez is "totally free" of cancer (a likely lie).

The main story, about Rahm ("the Godfather") is about the murder rate spiking in Chicago.  Rahm's picture is centered over Uncle Sam and Hugo Chavez, and Rahm's hand is holding his chin in a manner that implies thinking and judgment especially given the intensity of his eyes, looking off to his right. Uncle Sam's eyes are also intense, staring right at us in that accusatory way. As noted above, Pitt and Putin have their eyes covered with sunglasses — shades (Shades of Grey?!). So what might we say about Obama's eyes? I'd say they look up slightly, conveying vague confusion or dreaminess.

Obama tops the third column, which has no other faces, but 2 other images: of solar flares ("getting stronger") and of NYC ("Bloomberg asks developers to test tiny apartments...").  The Obama image has "$0$" under it, which links to a story about how Romney raised much more money than Obama in June ($106 million, compared to $71 million).

What does it all mean?  The easy explanation is that black-and-white imposes unity over the diverse images, and the similarities and differences are mostly by chance, aided by a bit of conscious design (putting the sunglasses pictures in one column and the hands pictures in another). Black-and-white was a big move by Drudge, but it too is likely meaningless. Just another way to get attention. Maybe he thought going black-and-white with the Rahm picture made him look more like a gangster (even though the "Godfather" movies are in color), and that led to the idea of making the whole page black-and-white, just to get the webfolk thinking, making stuff up.

But the only interesting lead I thought of is "50 Shades of Grey." Maybe Drudge is trying to say that government and crime are whipping us into submission. Government and crime... and solar flares. Wear sunglasses!

My post-recall question: What did Rahm Emanuel say to Tom Barrett to get him to run against Scott Walker?

Here's what things looked like on March 28th, before Barrett declared his candidacy for governor in the recall election:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel helped raise money for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett during a luncheon at the Italian Community Center Wednesday – a strong sign that Barrett will enter a likely recall race against Gov. Scott Walker.

Tickets for Wednesday’s luncheon ranged from $400 each to $2,500 for a table. The luncheon was closed to the media, and outside, there were about 75 demonstrators.

Barrett is running for re-election as mayor. He has said he’ll announce whether he’s jumping into the governor’s race sometime between Friday and Tuesday. Earlier this month, Barrett said: “I’m seriously considering that office, but again, I love being the mayor of the city of Milwaukee, so that’s what I’m focusing on right now.”

On March 30 — 2 days later — Barrett announced his candidacy. His message at that point was that he would support collective bargaining, but he wanted to get to a compromise, bringing in all sides. "I'm going to try to heal the state. I'm going to try to restore the trust." This contrasted to what was being said by his rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Kathleen Falk — who'd announced her candidacy back in January. Falk had captured the unions' endorsement by pledging to veto any budget that did not restore public unions' collective bargaining powers.

Now, I think the polling numbers showed all along that Scott Walker was going to win the recall election, so something else was at stake that drove Emanuel to Milwaukee to propel Tom Barrett into the race. The real interests had to do with the national Democratic Party and the fall elections.

Here's something David Blaska wrote back on March 19 —  before Emanuel came to Milwaukee, but with the fundraiser planned. Blaska noted that Emanuel had unsettled the unions in Chicago:

Rahm... criticized his predecessors’ deal with the teachers union. Bill Daley and schools chancellor Arne Duncan (now U.S. Secretary of Education) gave the union “hefty” pay increases and a shorter school day in return for some union love. Says the new mayor, “I know what the teachers got and I know what the politicians got. But I don’t know what the kids got.”

Mayor Emanuel got legislation giving districts greater authority to fire teachers, reform tenure, pay for performance, and lengthen the school day and school year. He’s also a big fan of charter schools. His new school chancellor, Haitian-born Jean-Claude Brizard, worked with school reformer Joel Klein in New York City.

Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, Barrett was no big friend of the unions:

The major downside to a Tom Barrett candidacy is the same as his strength: public sector labor bosses hate him. Barrett tried to take over Milwaukee public schools; despite a Democratic governor and both houses of the Legislature, they could not beat the teachers union. Barrett has also used Walker’s “tools” to balance his budget. He actually wanted greater pension and health insurance leverage vis-a-vis his police and firefighters, although those unions are specifically exempted from Act 10 reforms.

“With Emanuel set to appear in Milwaukee for Tom Barrett on March 28, it is clear that Barrett is poised to become Obama’s pick to unseat Walker,” claims The Badger Democracy blog.

In “Why would Tom Barrett run for governor ... again?” Badger Democracy says it “examined the role Rahm Emanuel played in Free Trade policies (NAFTA), union busting, and privatization from his years with Bill Clinton to Barack Obama to the Chicago Mayor’s Office. Does Tom Barrett represent the energy and power of this recall movement? How many times has Barrett marched with teachers and firefighters? How many times has Barack Obama actually stood with Labor in Wisconsin ...?”

Blaska’s Bottom Line: next time someone asks why can’t Republicans elect a moderate, turn the question around on them. Why can’t Democrats elect a moderate?

But Barrett got the Democrats' support in the primary, knocking out Kathleen Falk who would have wedded the Democratic Party's image in Wisconsin to the unions. And Barrett proceeded to avoid talking about collective bargaining, making his issue some vague blather about healing and trust. That is, he ended up with a generic non-message of the sort that has worked for Barack "Hope and Change" Obama.

So what did Rahm Emanuel say to Tom Barrett? Was he conveying the message that you are Obama's pick, and we need to do this for the sake of the party's future? And this includes losing, because we know from the polls that you are going to lose. And, after today, we are not going to help you. In fact, although you are Obama's pick, you are picked for the purpose of keeping this pro-union message off of the President. He will not appear by your side in Wisconsin. He might do fundraisers just over the border in Minneapolis, making a show of shunning you. We'll throw you a tweet of support — in less than 140 characters — on the eve of the election. This is all understood.

In that light, Barrett stoically did what he was supposed to do. He lost, and he did it in a way that allowed much of the media — which is substantially pro-Obama — to interpret the June 5th election as a crushing loss to the public sector unions but somehow nevertheless good news for Obama.

Now, let's look back to that Badger Democracy ("Progressive Truth in Journalism for Wisconsin") item that Blaska linked to (above). That was written on March 15th:

For over 14 months, this struggle has begun and continued without the support of Barack Obama and his Administration. He was not on the ground with us marching against Act 10 – in fact, many of us have pleaded  for his support since this struggle began. Now, facing an election, Obama needs Wisconsin as a critical battleground state. His obvious intention – to link his campaign with the energy and power of the Wisconsin grassroots movement with Tom Barrett as the capital “D” Democratic candidate.

The "energy and power" maybe, but not also the lefty politics.

Does Tom Barrett represent the energy and power of this recall movement? 

No, but that was the point. To capture the energy, but launder out the left-wing issues and ideology. Barrett was to be exploited by the Party as a firewall, allowing Party insiders to use the energy of the Wisconsin protests without getting burned by issues and attitudes that scare off mainstream American voters. (The Party was struggling with a similar problem with respect to the Occupy Wall Street movement.)

How many times has Barrett marched with teachers and firefighters? How many times has Barack Obama actually stood with Labor in Wisconsin or against job-killing free trade bills? When has Rahm Emanuel honored the negotiating process of collective bargaining? The political actions of these candidates speaks volumes about who they are, and what they represent.

Exactly.

If Tom Barrett were to decide to drop out of the Milwaukee Mayor’s race to run for Governor because people are overwhelming in their demanding that action, so be it. If he were to win a competitive primary, so be it. But – if Barrett intends on running as a pawn to the Obama Administration and beholden to that corporate money; and using the grassroots momentum for that political end – it will serve no good for the people at the heart of this movement or Wisconsin itself, and we all lose the potential to change the politic in Wisconsin for the benefit of the people.

Ask yourself the question – what does this movement represent, and do the actions of Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and Tom Barrett embrace those beliefs?  

Responses are welcome. Solidarity.

Here's my response: They owned you.

"Once upon a time there was a little red hen named Kathleen."

Writes Meade:

She lived in a party of Democrats with a cat named Tom and others and they all lived in a pretty little state which the little red hen Kathleen liked to keep clean and tidy and unionized. The little red hen Kathleen worked hard. The cat Tom liked to sleep in the sun in Milwaukee.

One day the little red hen Kathleen was working in the garden when she found a grain of discontent.

"Who will help me nurture this grain of discontent?" she asked.

"Not I," purred the cat Tom from his sunny patch in Milwaukee.



So the little red hen Kathleen hoed and watered and fed the grain of discontent all by herself.

During the summer the grain of discontent grew. First it grew into a tall stalk, then it ripened in the sun until it had turned a lovely golden color. Soon the little red hen Kathleen saw that the discontent was ready for reaping.

"Who will help me reap this discontent?" asked the little red hen Kathleen.

"Not I," purred the cat Tom from his sunny patch in Milwaukee.

"Very well then, I will reap it myself," said the little red hen Kathleen. Carefully she counted signatures, made pledges to union bosses, and collected all the petitions of discontent.

"Who will take this bushel of discontent to the unionized mill so that it can be ground into recall election flour?" asked the little red hen Kathleen.

"Not I," purred the cat Tom from his sunny patch in Milwaukee.

So the little red hen Kathleen took the discontent to the unionized mill herself, and asked the union bosses there if they would be so kind as to grind it into political power flour.  Deals were discussed, quids were proed for quo's, pledges and promises were made.

In time the union bosses sent a little bag of political power flour down to the party where the little red hen Kathleen lived with the cat Tom and others.

"Who will help me to make this political power flour into governor bread?" asked the little red hen Kathleen.

"Not I," purred the cat Tom from his sunny patch in Milwaukee.

"Very well," said the little red hen Kathleen. "I shall make the governor bread myself." She went into her neat little unionized kitchen. She mixed a yeasty dough, kneaded it, set it to uprise, and put it in the hot oven.

Soon there was a lovely smell of hot fresh governor bread. It filled all the corners of the house and wafted out into the garden. The cat Tom came into the kitchen from his sunny patch in Milwaukee.  When the little red hen Kathleen opened the oven door the dough had risen up and had turned into the nicest, most delicious looking loaf of governor bread either of them had ever seen.

"Who is going to eat this governor bread?" asked the little red hen Kathleen.

"I will," purred the cat Tom.

"Oh no, you won't," said the little red hen Kathleen. "I nurtured the seed of discontent, I reaped it and took it to the unionized mill to be made into political flour, and I made the governor bread all by myself (after deals were discussed, quids were proed for quos, and pledges and promises were made). I shall now enjoy the governor bread all by myself."

"Not so fast," said three big old Democratic party race horses, standing at stud — horse Kohl, horse Obey, and horse Erpenbach. "WE are the wise male noble steeds of the party. Behold our reservoirs of testosterone and wisdom.  WE shall decide who gets to enjoy the governor bread."

And with that the little red hen Kathleen was told to go back to her unionized kitchen and the cat Tom shared the bread with his friend, the snake Rahm from Illinois.

The Democrats' War on Women in Wisconsin.

I know Wisconsin is so last Tuesday for a lot of you, but seriously, the effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker is a lot more significant than the next step in the Romney nomination process, so please don't stop thinking about Wisconsin. The recall primary is one month away and suddenly, Scott Walker is not the enemy, and there's a Democrat-on-Democrat fight between former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk — who declared her candidacy back in January — and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett — who just announced:

"You had your chance," [Madison attorney Linda Balisle] wrote Barrett Friday, just about 30 minutes after the Milwaukee mayor and 2010 gubernatorial candidate ended months of speculation by announcing he would run for governor. "We all gave you money. You lost. Now after Kathleen [Falk] has done all the work, a Chicago boss steps in and another Wisconsin woman is dissed."

Balisle, a longtime supporter who first met Falk when the two were students at UW Law School, says in a phone interview that she is disappointed that "after 35 years of [Falk's] boots-on-the-ground-work that has had a real effect on people's lives in Wisconsin, that [Barrett] would feel she's not good enough."

The "boss" she refers to is Chicago mayor and former Obama aide Rahm Emanuel, who recently attended a fundraiser for Barrett in Milwaukee.

Rahm Emanuel teams up with Barrett to push out the woman?! Remember the accusations about Rahm in relation to women working in the White House? (Ron Suskind's book "Confidence Men" said that "women occupied many of the West Wing’s senior positions, but felt outgunned and outmaneuvered by male colleagues such as former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and [Larry] Summers.")

Balisle says Falk has been traveling the state since the time of the Capitol protests against Walker's collective bargaining bill, even interviewing those gathering petitions to recall the governor. "All of this before she decided to run," says Balisle. "She didn't want to go on a fool's errand. She made sure she could do the numbers before she put friends and family through this."

Balisle also posted a "say it isn't so" message on Terese Berceau's Facebook page when she heard the Democratic state lawmaker from Madison might be backing Barrett...

Berceau confirms she is backing Barrett.... Berceau says Barrett has the best chance of appealing to independents.

"Independent women are the gold standard," she says. "We know we need to reach them and know they're critical...."

The woman knows we need the man to appeal to women....

And we need a Chicagoan to tell Wisconsin what to do. We heard it a year ago at the protests: "Chicago is up in the house!"

Either Rahm or Obama himself pushed to spotlight Solyndra...

"... despite numerous internal warnings that the company could be financially unstable, according to newly obtained e-mails," reports the Washington Post.

Then there's this Steve Spinner character, who, oddly, appears in 2 different places in the article:

“Any word from OMB?” Department of Energy stimulus adviser Steve Spinner wrote to a department staffer about final terms of the Solyndra loan to be approved by the Office of Management and Budget. “I have the OVP [Office of the Vice President] and WH [White House] breathing down my neck on this.”...

Steve Spinner, a DOE loan program adviser who had served as an Obama fundraiser in 2008, was married to a partner at the law firm of Wilson Sonsini, which was representing Solyndra in its loan application. He had signed an ethics agreement in which he said he would not engage in negotiations about the loan or loan terms for the company.

Yet throughout Solyndra’s loan process, Spinner worked hard to defend the company from criticisms inside the government, including questions from climate czar Carol Browner’s office. He pushed to get a final decision on approving the loan in August.

“How [expletive] hard is this?” Spinner wrote on Aug. 28 to an another department official. “What is he waiting for? Will we have it by the end of the day?”

I'm seeing other news reports headlined the material about Spinner, which makes me suspect that WaPo deliberately buried it.

ABC News: "Obama Fundraiser Pushed Solyndra Deal From Inside." Politico: "Solyndra loan supported by Obama fundraiser." CBS News: "Obama fundraiser pushed Solyndra loan." Bloomberg: "Energy Official With Solyndra Links Pressed for Loan."

Obama's female trouble.

ADDED: Here, I extract a 2-minute clip in which I question what makes a man a man's man and refer to "Dreams From My Father" as "personal journaling."

The Obama White House "actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women."

Said former White House communications director Anita Dunn, as quoted a new book, "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President" — written by a man, Ron Suskind — the Washington Post reports.

Dunn now rejects the term "hostile workplace,” and adds the typical PR bullshit evidence: “The president is someone who when he goes home at night he goes home to house full of very strong women... He values having strong women around him.”

In my experience, women who are vigilant about workplaces that are hostile to women hate that argument: A man has a strong wife at home, so he must not be opposed to the success of women in the workplace.

And, by the way, specifically, I'd say that Barack Obama has kept his wife in a distinctly subordinate role. Michelle Obama went to Princeton and Harvard Law School, and now she works on encouraging children to eat vegetables and get some exercise.

But... whatever... Anita Dunn... I always thought she was a bit of an idiot. She shouldn't have gotten the job in the first place. If she was initially overpromoted, it was a good thing that she got excluded. She shouldn't have been included.

But Suskind talked to other disincluded women. According to the Washington Post account of the book:

[W]omen occupied many of the West Wing’s senior positions, but felt outgunned and outmaneuvered by male colleagues such as former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Summers.

Obama, according to the book... failed to call on Romer after asking her male colleagues for their opinions. The snub prompted Romer to pass a note to Summers where she threatened to walk out of the dinner, according to the book....

The Obama White House has long been dogged by similar claims of exclusivity — his golf outings have been typically all-male affairs...

So... is there something sexist about the Obama administration? Seems like Suskind came up with a great angle for his book, but I'm skeptical. I think Obama may have been overenthusiastic about giving a lot of  positions to women, and perhaps those women really weren't as good as the men he surrounded himself with and really does need to rely on. In that case, he deserves credit for good judgment. But it is funny that he's not more concerned about the optics. Perhaps he assumes that he is especially appealing to women constituents and he doesn't need to do much to maintain that favor. It's the men he's in danger of losing. Time for another round of all-male, manly golf.

The end of the Post Office?

Is it unthinkable?

The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

Why not close it down? Isn't it strange that it's on the brink — or really over the brink... in that Wile E. Coyote way...



... of collapsing entirely... and yet they still haven't eliminated Saturday delivery?

[D]ecades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees....

“The situation is dire,” said Thomas R. Carper, the Delaware Democrat who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the postal service. “If we do nothing, if we don’t react in a smart, appropriate way, the postal service could literally close later this year. That’s not the kind of development we need to inject into a weak, uneven economic recovery.”

My preference is always: do nothing. That's the presumption you need to overcome. It's good for government and it's good for your individual life too. (For decades, my personal motto has been: Better than nothing is a high standard.)

Why not let this propped-up competitor to FedEx and UPS (and the internet) fall? There would be losers but there would also be winners.



Why are we so afraid to find out? Remember what Rahm says:



"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

ADDED: My postman just delivered a 615-page catalog from Restoration Hardware. Why was that a feasible business move for Restoration Hardware? I've never mail-ordered anything from them. Why is the government subsidizing this inefficiency? If I were interested in buying something from RH, I would go to their website. Instead, I have to lug this heavy object to the garbage can/recycle bin? Think of the carbon footprint. I do! But I don't believe the government believes the climate change hype. Because they never act like they do.

IN THE COMMENTS: Paddy O said:

Ann, watch out. Don't mess with the mail. I shouldn't even be talking to you, but I'm telling you as a friend. Here's how it's going to happen: you may be walking. Maybe on a crisp, autumn day just like today. When a mail truck will slow beside you, and a door will open, and a mailman you know, maybe even trust, will offer to give you a lift. And no one will ever see you again!

Mayor Rahm.

Good luck!

"Tweets from @MayorEmanuel — which the candidate reportedly called 'hilarious'..."

"... detail the vulgar and obscene adventures of Emanuel, David Axelrod and host of other big names in the political world."

Might as well say you find it hilarious. Wonder what he's said about it in private. It would be cool if that were on tape.

Teams with stadium names that are just too sacred to sacrifice for the big money that comes from selling naming rights.

It's an issue in the Chicago mayoral race:

‘‘Soldier Field is a sacred Chicago landmark that honors our veterans and, as mayor, Gery would be very careful to protect that,’’ said Brooke Anderson, spokeswoman for candidate Gery Chico. ‘‘He would be open to exploring creative ideas that could attract sponsors while preserving the Soldier Field name and stadium to give soldiers the respect they deserve.’’

But Rahm Emanuel, Carol Moseley Braun and Miguel del Valle are adopting the same hard-line stance as Mayor Daley, who insisted the stadium name remain untouched for his support of a $587  million renovation of Soldier Field in 2003.

Teams with stadiums names like "Giants Stadium" and "Cowboy Stadium" are in a much better position to cash in. But maybe it's better to have a name that can't be swapped for a sponsor's name, like Lambeau Field. Then you're not tempted to scramble for the money and end up with a horrible name like "Mall of America Field at Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome," which really is the name of the place where the Vikings play. You're Vikings. That's your image. Legendary conquerors... traipsing around the mall with Hubert Humphrey. What a picture!

And I love this grandiose term "metrodome." There are metrodomes, stadiums, and fields. Notice the inverse relationship between grandiosity and greatness.

ADDED: I'm just noticing that Minnesota inserted "field" into its ridiculous new name that still contains "metrodome." Make up your mind. Interesting that the big corporation wanted to associate itself with the old-fashioned charm of "field," while the politician's name is stuck with the overinflated term "metrodome." And I do mean overinflated, because remember how it collapsed? And it's a good word to associate with Hubert Humphrey, since he had quite a large dome of a head.

It has nothing to do with football, but on the subject of Hubert H. Humphrey — Hubert Horatio Humphrey — and names, this is always hilarious:



And as long as I'm descending into Humphrey-related YouTube hell, there's this: