Techcordance

Talk Radio

The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America has quietly launched an initiative aimed at making Obama supporters’ voices heard on the largely conservative airwaves.
“The fate of health reform has been a focus of debate in living rooms and offices, on TV and online — and on talk radio. And since millions of folks turn to talk radio as a trusted source of news and opinions, we need to make sure OFA supporters are calling in with a pro-reform message,” says the introduction to the online tool.
The online tool presents users with a radio show discussing political topics, to which supporters can listen live, and the phone number for that station, for when health care comes up. It also offers tips for callers and talking points on the issue.
My quick sampling produced Christian radio, a local talk station in Buffalo, and the syndicated talk shows of Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Sean Hannity — who will no doubt be thrilled with their new, liberal callers.
Supporters are then encouraged to report back on their encounters.
TechPresident’s Nancy Scola writes that the program is a product of a new push inside the organization to develop new software tools to give supporters “achievable, tangible tasks to do that fit into the nooks and crannies of their day to day lives.

Stimulus

A year after it became law, the stimulus package costs more than promised, has failed to keep down the unemployment rate and has faced charges of waste and abuse.But the federal spending – all of it borrowed – has helped many states avoid painful budget cuts to their education and public safety budgets, and according to official estimates has helped the gross domestic product grow faster than it would have otherwise.With health care stalled, his plans to address climate change on hold and spending ballooning, President Obama on Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of what’s formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act by inviting to the White House people who have benefited from the money. And he’s deploying his top aides to crisscross the country and highlight projects that have helped people and produced jobs.

Nominee

In a vivid display of President Obama’s diminished clout, the Senate’s newest Republican and two veteran Democrats Tuesday helped block Mr. Obama’s bid to fill a key labor post with a nominee they considered too cozy with unions.
With newly seated Sen. Scott Brown, Massachusetts Republican, voting to sustain the filibuster, Senate Democratic leaders failed to muster the 60 votes needed to force a vote on the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, which resolves disputes between unions and management.

Disarray

Scott Brown’s shot heard ’round the political world left congressional Democrats stunned and befuddled about what to do next in the yearlong push to overhaul the country’s health care system.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his top lieutenants emerged from a Wednesday morning strategy session with no clear path to proceed in the health care fight, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could only repeat her well-worn promise that Congress “will move forward.”
“People just have different feelings about this,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). “This was obviously not a good day for us. To be honest, you have to sit back and reassess and move forward.”

Banned

An eye-opening book titled The Language Police lists about 500 words that are banned from school textbooks. Some are amusing, some stupid (probably a banned word), and some are chilling. Here is a very partial list of banned words:

• Founding Fathers—Banned as sexist. Replace with Founders or Framers. (Because we would not want to note that the men who wrote the documents were men)
• Caveman—Banned as sexist, replace with cave dweller. (Wonder if that makes the Geico Cave . . . uhhh . . . dweller feel a little better?)
• Disadvantaged—Banned, replace with reference to the resources or rights that are absent in an individual’s life circumstances. (Example: Dave cannot sing because of resources that are absent in his individual life circumstance. Like talent.)
• Courageous—Banned as patronizing when referring to persons with disabilities. (Some of the most courageous people I know are those who are disabled. I really don’t get this one.)
• God—Banned for being . . . steady yourself . . . too religious. (I can’t even muster the strength to respond.)
• Lunatic—Banned as offensive, replace with person with a psychiatric illness. (C.S. Lewis would have to change his famous argument about Jesus being Lord, liar, or lunatic. His PC argument would be something like this: Is the revered moral teacher a higher power, untrustworthy source, or person with a psychiatric illness? Kind of loses its pizzazz doesn’t it?
• Soda—Banned for regional bias, replace with Coke, Pepsi. (Seriously? Regional bias? I grew up drinking “pop” and moved to “Coke” territory. That has not been my biggest life issue so far.)
• Teenager—Banned, replace with adolescent. (I was all for banning teenagers at various times in my household. Especially when they acted like lunatics.)

NC Terrorists

RALEIGH, N.C. – A father, his two sons and four other North Carolina men are accused of military-style training at home and plotting “violent jihad” through a series of terror attacks abroad, federal authorities said Monday.
Officials said the group was led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business. But two decades ago, Boyd, who is a U.S. citizen, trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and fought against the Soviets for three years before returning to the United States.
An indictment released Monday does not detail any specific terrorist plans or targets overseas, although it claims some of the defendants traveled to Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging “violent jihad” and returned home without success.
“These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right here at home,” U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said. He would not give details of the alleged plots beyond what was in a news release and indictment.

Legislation

A Georgia congressman and doctor says there is a healthcare financing crisis in America that must be addressed, but the government takeover being proposed by congressional Democrats and President Obama is not the answer.
Legislation introduced yesterday by House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel (D-New York) would impose higher taxes on Americans earning more than $350,000 to help pay for a new government-run healthcare plan. According to Rangel, the 852-page bill [PDF]would raise $540 billion over the next decade by imposing a one-percent “surtax” on Americans with $350,000 annual income. Higher rates would take effect for people earning $500,000 and $1 million.
Congressman Dr. Paul Broun (R-Georgia) warns that 120 million Americans could lose their current coverage because of the government-run plan. He says there are some “frightening figures” that need to be made public.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)”One-point-seven-million — that’s the number of jobs that could be lost as the result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide healthcare insurance coverage. Trillions of dollars,” he notes. “We’re breaking the bank in new federal spending. Ten-billion dollars — this will be the minimum loss sustained by you, the taxpayer, each year due to Medicare fraud.”

DOMA

The federal Defense of Marriage Act which protects the traditional definition of marriage may be facing its biggest challenge yet. Massachusetts filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the federal law.We’re taking this action today because, first, we believe that [DOMA] directly interferes with Massachusetts’ long-standing sovereign authority to define and regulate the marital status of its residents,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Massachusetts was the first state in the country in 2003 to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. It is now also the first state to challenge DOMA, the 1996 law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman for purposes of all federal laws, and provides that states need not recognize same-sex marriages from another state.
The lawsuit argues that despite same-sex marriage being legal in Massachusetts, the more than 16,000 gay and lesbian married couples in the state are still denied access to “critically important rights and benefits” because of DOMA.

Pay for Access

The Washington Post is nixing a reported plan to sell access to its newsroom staff and Obama administration officials to lobbyists and corporate interests, a spokeswoman for the paper said Thursday.The Politico newspaper reported Thursday morning the venerable Washington paper had invited lobbyists to participate in “off-the-record,” non-confrontational meetings with Post reporters and editors, as well as with administration officials and others, by paying between $25,000 and $250,000.The meetings would have been held at the private home of Post CEO and President Katharine Weymouth, according to the flyer obtained by Politico. The paper said it received the document from a health care lobbyist who was struck by the apparent conflict of interest.”An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” the document promised, according to the Politico report, by former Washington Post reporter Mike Allen. In his report, Allen called the meetings “astonishing.”

U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said today in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.
The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against minorities.
“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters “understandably attract this court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them.”
Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg’s dissent, which she read aloud in court today.