Observations from the Coffee Shop 6.10

I've missed my Sunday Observations lately and have a mess of notes that I either have to throw together or shred and I hate an unused note. Anyway some odds and ends, some old, some new.

First I need to apologize for a typo in a previous post. In the post about Miya Ando I called her Maya even though I know her name is Miya and looked over it a few times before I posted. I shall blame auto-correct as my only other excuse is that sometimes I'm just terrible at this writing thing.

Hillary Clinton joined twitter today, joining Bill, Chelsea, the Clinton Foundation, and the Clinton Global Initiative. Its exciting for a number of reasons including her black and white profile pic, you just have to like that. Of all the twitter profiles I have read over the years this may be the best; "Wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD..."

During the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma I saw a video that showed a perfect funnel cloud. A local reporter on the scene described it as "the finger of god" and I thought I had never heard a more apt description of a tornado. It also struck me that this tornadoes and other extreme weather events have something in common with guns. Don't talk about guns after a massacre and don't talk about climate change after severe weather.

My current favorite journalist, other than Rachel, is Chris Hayes because I feel like he wants to understand both sides. Even if he doesn't agree with a position he wants to understand it and that's how I like to think I am. I only mention that because I wanted to bring up my current least favorite journalist, at least my least favorite non-wingnut journalist. I can say I have never been thrilled with The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald and his handling of his current NSA stories have just solidified that opinion. His arrogant, holier than thou, there is no other side to the story approach is something I expect from wingnuts and is the polar opposite of Chris Hayes.

I was told that I need to clarify something. A while back I mentioned that I did not like Woody Allen or his movies but technically that's untrue. Midnight In Paris is the exception to that rule. It's Paris, Ernest Hemingway, and Woody Allen isn't in it. Also I may be the only person who can watch both V for Vendetta and The Devil Wears Prada at the same time. I got yelled at for that one.

Finally a fashion sign of the apocalypse, CK's summer scented nail polish. The closest I've ever been to scented nail polish was using paints while painting but if I remember correctly they didn't smell like watermelon. Enough said.

Observations from the Window 5.6

This is out of nowhere but I opened the paper yesterday morning and there was a full page ad for a new Woody Allen movie. I do not like Woody Allen or his movies, enough said.

A bit of trivia I didn't know until recently. Malala Yousafzai's father Ziauddin named her after Malalai, the Afghan Joan of Arc, who died during the 1880 Battle of Maiwand carrying ammunition to the Pashtun fighters at war with the British in 1880. If you somehow don't know anything at all about Malala this article from the Vanity Fair is a good place to start.

Deloitte’s 2013 Art and Finance report was released last month and 83% of the collectors said emotion was the most important reason for their buying art. Nothing surprising there but 59% rated investment as one of the primary reasons for buying art, up 20 points in just two years, and 29% think art is a good place to keep their money in troubled economic times. This is something I have never quite understood because if the economic times are troubled who has the money to buy the art that you invested too much of your own money in? Worldwide auction prices have actually declined in each of the last two years. Art investment funds are growing in popularity too with 7% seeing them as their primary investment. So as their primary investment they invest in the volatile art market and the volatile stock market at the same time. Good luck with that.

Anthony Weiner, even the name seems to bother me now. It's not so much what he did that bothers me but that he was stupid enough to do it at all. Now he may run in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York pitting him against Christine Quinn which which means his name is everywhere lately and that doesn't help at all. But worst of all he did what he did while married to Huma Abedin, former and future top aide to Hillary Clinton, and her I just adore. Just another reason I think Hillary should run for President. Here is a link to an old Vogue article about Abedin, pre-Weiner, which suits me just fine.

I was reading a review of a new fragrance, yes such things exist and yes I wrote that, but you are going to have to wait until later for that story.

It was a full weekend and I hope you had a happy Cinco de Mayo and a winning Derby Day. I also hope you didn't drink too much tequila and bourbon, it's not a good combination. Not that I would know.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 3.28

While I was reading some articles last night I found one on Gawker called "Cowardice As A Political Philosophy" that is very good and worth reading. It's about both the Iraq War and same sex marriage but includes a few paragraphs about Bill and Hillary Clinton that struck a nerve. Now I love the Clintons and I always will but what Nolan says is all too true and is also the politics of same sex marriage in a nutshell. In the end it doesn't always mean somebody needs to evolve on the issue.

"People like the Clintons - cosmopolitan, well traveled, well educated, well connected, and liberal - do not really believe that gay marriage is some great threat to America. They would no doubt laugh at the simple-minded odiousness of such a position, in private. But in public, they were all too happy to embrace it for their own political gain.

Bill Clinton signed into law an act which banned gay marriage, because he feared the political consequences of vetoing it. That is a fact. And it is disgusting. Hillary Clinton, like many of her peers, supported that act, and continued to oppose the right of gay people to marry up until just this year. That she supported "domestic partnerships," the most intellectually laughable attempt at a middle ground since the the Three-Fifths Compromise, only serves to expose her own hypocrisy more easily.

Let us be clear about what this is: this is an example of some of the most powerful people in America spitting upon the basic civil rights of a minority group in order to further their own political power. This is the opposite of courage. This is cowardice in all of its repulsive glory."

Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.28

Next week is Armory Week but the kids who play at politics in Washington just wont to get out of the way. I say play at politics because at the moment they seem more like spoiled brats on the playground than leaders of anything important. Tomorrow the sequester will take effect, yes will take effect, and the current debate centers more on whose idea it was than on how to deal with it. Even Wall Street may have finally said the hell with them as the stock market nears an all time record high. Of course eventually the cuts will be felt and we can all watch as it crashes back down. The only idea Republicans have is to give President Obama the authority to move the cuts around, in effect making all the cuts the President's, something he refuses to accept.

Elsewhere in the nation's capitol Senators for all practical purposes scolded police chiefs who support background checks for gun purchases. During the Senate Judiciary Committee Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told the police chief of Milwaukee that the limited resources of police departments is a reason to bolster gun ownership and not limit it.

Also The Supreme Court, on the same day a statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol, announced it is considering part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and whether there is still a need for an important part of it. The section SCOTUS will look at requires that states with a history of discrimination get approval before making changes to how they hold elections. Rather than try and explain it I'll leave this link to a good article in the Miami Herald.

Turning to the petty side of politics the wingnuts continue to snub New Jersey Governor Chris Christie by not inviting him to speak at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Apparently the conservatives still blame Christie for President Obama's reelection and don't care that he is the only Republican with an approval rating, currently an unreal 74%, to rival Hillary Clinton's. To Christie's credit he said this; "So I didn't know that I hadn't been invited to CPAC until like two days ago when I saw it in the news. It’s not like I’m lacking for invitations to speak, both here or around the country, it’s not like I have a whole lot of openings in my schedule."

The current list of those speaking instead of Christie includes the winners Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Allen West, Rick Santorum, and Sarah Palin. As a bonus Wayne LaPierre will be speaking. Somehow the wingnuts see their losing past as the best hope for their winning future.

I have no words.

update - Barring any totally unforeseen and just as totally unexpected, changes the sequester games officially begin at 11:59 p.m. Friday. Why than? According to both sides, the White House and Republicans actually agree, President Obama can decide at what time to start the cuts. He just has to do it by 11:59 p.m. Friday.

Observations from the Window 1.24

It has been a fun couple of days to be a progressive/liberal/gay/woman or any one of the above. On Monday we had President Obama's Inaugural speech and than yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to Congress on the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya. After seven hours of testimony nobody was talking about what she said but what an awesome job she had done and how bad some of the wingnuts looked. Clinton looked every bit one of the most popular politicians in the country that she currently is. Confident, intelligent, at times emotional, she made a woman proud.

But enough before I get too serious because this is going to be an almost comedic post. I just wanted to share some of the things I have heard coming out of cloud coo coo land because, to quote Rush Limbaugh, "it's a puke fest out there." For the first time, and in all probability the last, I have to agree with him.

In his Inaugural speech President Obama mentioned gays for the first time in an Inaugural and he also mentioned Stonewall. On Fox Pat Buchanan asked "What was he talking about? Stonewall. That's a barroom brawl in Greenwich Village in 1969, when cops were hassling gays and their bar, and the gays fought back and threw them all out. Does that belong in a presidential inaugural?" As Jon Stewart later remarked yes that was Pat Buchanan for the wrong side of history.

During the Clinton testimony wingnut Senator Rand Paul said this; "I think that ultimately, with you leaving, that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president at the time and I had found that you had not read the cables from Benghazi, you had not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it’s inexcusable." I wont get into what dreamworld Paul lives in to think he would ever be president but I do wonder why 4 dead in Libya qualifies as the worst tragedy since 9/11 and not the deaths of over 4,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan. I should also add that in 2011 Paul proposed cutting the State Department's budget by 70%.

There are so many more of these I could post from Wisconsin wingnut Ron Johnson suggesting Clinton should have just called Benghazi on the phone to find out what was going to NRA President Wayne LaPierre quoting one of the more liberal justices in the history of the Supreme Court. In a totally unnecessary rebuttal to the President's speech LaPierre quoted Hugo Black as saying that there were absolutes in the Constitution that couldn't be debated. LaPierre didn't mention that Black had specified the second amendment as one of the exceptions to that rule.

One of the few politicians as popular as Hillary Clinton is New  Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Again I give you Senator Paul this time on the N.J. Governor and again showing why he will never be president. "I think criticizing the Second Amendment movement and the over the top ‘give me my money’ stuff, ’I want all 60 billion now or I’ll throw a tantrum,' I don’t think that’s going to play well in the Republican primary."

Why do I love politics? The thought of a Rand Paul - Chris Christie debate is all the reason I need.

update - My brother reminded me that Senator Johnson was the same Johnson who as a Senate candidate said of global warming, "I absolutely do not believe in the science of man caused climate change. It's not proven by any stretch of the imagination." In the same interview he also described believers in man made causes of climate change as crazy and "it's far more likely that it's just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time."

Hillary

I know what you are thinking already, it's too early for 2016 talk, and you would be correct. Hillary Clinton will be leaving the State Department soon and she says she isn't going to run for President but honestly why should she say otherwise? If she did run she could wait until just before the primaries began to announce and it would be more a coronation than a campaign. Any presidential campaign would be a combination of the Clinton and Obama machines, two of he greatest political machines the country has ever known. There isn't a thing the Republicans could throw at her that hasn't already been in the past twenty years. If she won there would be children who only ever knew a black or a women president and that boggles my mind.

But it's way too early to even talk about it and the only reason I even mention her running is this video. Last Friday night Hillary spoke at the Saban Forum, a sort of Israeli-American Clinton Initiative, where she was introduced by this video. I love the Clinton's so the video is worth watching for what 'officially' is, a retirement video, and it is good. The thing is if it reminds you of one of those campaign kickoff convention videos you wouldn't be alone.

So much can change in the next couple years but as Tony Blair says in the video, "I just have an instinct that the best is yet to come."


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