Whip It

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As you read Ross today, it's appropriate to play the world's tiniest violin between your index finger and thumb.

Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith.

What Sarah Palin has been through is simply unprecedented in American politics.

Only Sarah Palin has had her religious beliefs smeared or completely misrepresented. No other politican's background, personal life, or political record has ever been distorted to the degree that Sarah Palin's has. Only Sarah Palin and her family have been subjected to vicious tabloid attacks, the nastiest kind of rumors and speculation and cruel jokes. 

Why? Because she's a middle class Christian woman.

All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin’s gender and her social class.

For the record, Poor Little Palin is a millionaire.

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As reported in the Washington Post, the White House is pressuring such public advocacy campaigns to dial it back:

Obama believes "we shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," and that he "hinted that efforts are under way to discourage allies from future attacks on Democrat."

Will SEIU scale back their efforts? Not according to New Media Director Tim Tagaris:

SEIU continues to run an aggressive field operation in key states asking Congress to support a comprehensive health care plan that includes affordability, employer responsibility, and a public health insurance option.

SEIU did not respond to an inquiry as to whether they had been pressured by the White House to stop.

DFA and the PCCC have also indicated that they will continue their campaign to push Landrieu to support a public option. MoveOn has not yet responded to a request for a public statement.

You can ask MoveOn to continue the Landrieu campaign here.

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Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

The PCCC , who cosponsored the ads attacking Mary Landrieu on health care reform with DFA and MoveOn, say that they will continue their efforts on the heels of a Washington Post article indicating that President Obama wanted such ads to stop.

Stephanie Taylor, PCCC co-founder says: "Just for the record, PCCC will not stop running ads. In fact, we will be increasing our media buy for the PCCC "We WantThePublicOption" ad this coming week."

Adam Green, Change Congress CEO, a group that also has ads running against Landrieu in DC., says: "Change Congress will continue running ads targeting senators who oppose the public option while taking millions in campaign contributions from the health and insurance industries."

Earlier today Charles Chamberlain of DFA said that they will not stop their efforts, either.

I have asked MoveOn for an official response but have not heard back.

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In response to the Washington Post article this weekend indicating that Obama had "expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats," Democracy for America's ad atttacking Mary Landrieu was singled out.

I asked Charles Chamberlain of DFA for a response:

For the record, Democracy for America, will not be pulling back our ads.

If we do anything because of it, DFA will expand the campaign now we know they're running scared enough to demand we stop. Of course if these Senate Democrats would really like us to stop, then they could just publicly support the choice of a public health insurance option and stand with the President, Dr Dean and 76% of America. When they do that, then they won't even need to ask.

People familiar with what transpired on the call have told me that Obama did not call out any specific group or campaign. But the article said that Obama believes "we shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," and that he "hinted that efforts are under way to discourage allies from future attacks on Democrat."

Charles says that DFA has not received any pressure from the White House to scale back their efforts.

MoveOn cosponsored the Landrieu ads with DFA. I wrote about the story this weekend, and a post by slinkerwink on Kos urging MoveOn not to pull the ads got 832 comments. There is a petition asking MoveOn to continue the Landrieu campaign here.

I have asked MoveOn for an official comment on whether they will continue the campaign and have not heard back.

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The extra police deployment will be paid for out of an LAPD fund reserved for overtime costs of special events such as "1st Amendment marches, protests and funerals and other special events large in scope and that have a potential to impact public safety."

Because the fiscal year started July 1, the fund for all police overtime -- which according to one source covers 1.6 million hours, or nearly $90 million -- is flush. But some city officials questioned the wisdom of spending possibly more than $1 million in overtime funds so early in the fiscal year, noting that the city could find itself cash-strapped later in the event of a fire, earthquake or other major disaster.

And we are pretty damn likely to have fires, earthquakes or other major disasters. It's Los Angeles.

Los Angeles city councilman Dennis Zine thinks  Jackson's family and AEG Live--the promoter of Jackson's now-canceled London concerts  which owns the Staples Center where the service will be held and Nokia Center where it will be simulcast--should cover the costs, especially because LA is facing $530m budget deficit.

 Zine, who once tried to pass legislation against paparazzi chasing celebs, said:

If the Jackson family's gonna spend $25,000 on a gold casket, I would think that AEG and the Jackson family could help defray the costs so it's a safe and secure environment for mourners that want to come.

He's got that right. It's estimated that the cost to the city in police overtime, street services, sanitation, and related services will be about $2 million, which is what the Lakers' championship parade would have cost the financially beleaguered city. Only the Lakers' picked up half the tab, and private donations covered almost all the rest.

The Jacksons and AEG have not been so forthcoming.

According to Radar Online, the Jackson family had wanted to charge $25 per ticket for the memorial.  And reports on CNN and elsewhere have them taking 900o tickets for seating inside Staples Center to distribute among their own friends and family. There are nine surviving Jackson siblings, plus the parents Joe and Katherine. Staples Center seating capacity is 20,000 for concerts and boxing matches. 11,000 tickets were available for Staples. Math is hard, but not that hard...

WTF? The City of Los Angeles is

 a half-billion dollars in the hole. Layoffs. Furloughs. Potholes unfilled, trees untrimmed. Animal services, the ethics commission, whack whack whack.

And we're paying $2 million so the family can have a party, albeit kind of a sad one, for their friends?  The Jackson clan's chosen 9000 closest friends have already begun picking up wristbands and tickets at Dodger Stadium, where the LAPD is on duty to help with the distribution, according the live news reports on local television station KTLA. One of the wristbands is put on by the voucher holder at pick-up to prevent scalping and the other is for a guest. The same method will be used when 8750 lucky winners of the lottery pick up their pairs of tickets today, and the California Highway Patrol has already shutting down off-ramps from the 5 leading to Dodger Stadium to only allow those with ticket vouchers into the area until 11 am today.

Meanwhile the family is holding a private funeral, possibly today or tomorrow right before the Staples/Nokia event downtown--which will reroute busses and close streets for blocks around the entertainment complex--at either the Hollywood Hills or Glendale branch of Forest Lawn, an event which will further snarl traffic along the 5 and 134 freeways and could cause the closure of Griffith Park, the nation's largest urban park, which abuts the Hollywod Hills cemetery.

City Council member Jan Perry told KTLA that though the memorial service is 

a private event, held on private property

the city has a responsibility to provide for public safety.  Though she didn't mention about the profits that will be made by the bereaved family and related entities and how this service is further whipping up a frenzy of sales. However Perry did say

that officials would "deeply appreciate" help to offset incremental costs, such as transportation, sanitation and staging.

 Yes, there are reports of hundreds of thousands of people descending on L.A. from around the world to be here, and those people need hotel rooms, will buy food and pay our 9.75% sales tax, but AEG, Sony Music and the Jackson family are the ones who stand to make huge bank on this,  along with a Dutch pension plan. 

AEG is reportedly already working on booking ABBA and Led Zeppelin in the O2 concert hall in London where Jackson was to appear at $1 million a night, and they had insurance on Jackson covering drug overdoses. So they're sitting pretty.

It may take a while for the Jackson estate to settle, but music royalties are paid quarterly, so the city should start preparing an invoice. It's not our responsibility to foot the bill for this.

I'll be liveblogging the memorial service on Tuesday from the comfort of home. The event will stream live on the internet and be broadcast on various stations. Check your local listings, and join me...

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On Sunday, Joe over at AmericaBlog reported (and Christy picked up the theme earlier today, as did Blue Texan) that Schumer practically guaranteed a public option as a part of health care reform during his appearance on Face the Nation this morning:

The healthcare reform bill that emerges from Congress this year will include a government-run public health insurance option, regardless of the bipartisan negotiations seeking a compromise in the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday.

"Make no mistake about it, the president is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill," Schumer said on CBS News's "Face the Nation."

Strong language eh? Well, that was this morning, apparently by this afternoon Senator Schumer was walking back from his own words. From the AP:

Schumer said that while he supports a public option he also is open to discussing the use of nonprofit insurance cooperatives as competitors to established insurance companies.

"I am not saying that the public option should be the only option. There are some who do say that, particularly in my party.

So, Which Senator Schumer should we believe?

Time to send a message to Schumer and the other fence-sitters. No public option? No deal.

Whip It.

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McNamara was president of Ford Mototrs before becomming John F. Kennedy's Secretary of Defense in 1961. After Leaving the Pentagon in 1968, McNamara spent 13 years as head of the World Bank. But McNamara's most lasting legacy will almost certainly be his role in escalating and shaping US military involvement in Vietnam.

McNamara was secretary of defense during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. In that capacity he directed a U.S. military buildup in Southeast Asia during the critical early years of a Vietnamese conflict that escalated into one of the most divisive and bitter wars in U.S. history. When the war was over, 58,000 Americans were dead and the national social fabric had been torn asunder.

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Today on CBS' Face the Nation, two senior Senators, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, on the  Senate Finance Committee offered widely different assessments on how the final health care reform package would look. Not surprising, the object of their discord was the public option in the US health care reform proposals now working their way through the Senate.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat, was emphatic. "Make no mistake about it, the president is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill." Naturally, Iowa's Republican Senator Chuck Grassley begged to differ. "The federal government is in the process of nationalizing banks, nationalizing General Motors. I'm going to make sure we don't nationalize health insurance and [the] public option is the first step to doing that," countered Senator Grassley.

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Truly, it Never Gets Old

I was in St. Louis over the 4th with a couple of friends about a block west of the arch. The hotel was as congested as could be. But there was one individual I noticed as the various guests took advantage of the free breakfast gruel.

A solitary person wearing a blue t-shirt that said "Tea Party Patriot." I know this will come as a shock, but she was easily in her 60s and white. Try not to fall over in surprise. The next day, the friend I was with noted that the same person was there again showing off her vast wardrobe -- as the "Tea Party Patriot" shirt was red.

This was supposed to be the big "Tea Bagging --the other ball" and she was the one and only person I saw.

And loneliness was de rigueur (ooh, look French) all over the place.

It was more than the heat that had people hot under the collar this Independence Day at Southfork Ranch...Organizers billed the gathering as the largest tea party in the nation, saying crowds could reach 50,000...

As the event kicked off at 3 p.m., only a smattering of people had gathered in the grassy field in front of the stage.

Oh well, there's always flag day (or apparently, April 20th), maybe they can get J.R. Ewing to show up?

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