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POPSPalo Alto Police Chief Resigns Amid Accusations of Racial Profiling "Chief Johnson has been the target of other criticism in recent years, including what many feel was an over-reaction to a small anarchist rally in downtown Palo Alto in June 2005. To bolster the Palo Alto police force, Chief Johnson had all other police agencies in Santa Clara County plus the California Highway Patrol send a combined 233 officers to Palo Alto for about seven hours on the afternoon and evening of June 25. In addition Palo Alto was charged for the use of a police helicopter from the city of San Jose. The total cost to the city of Palo Alto is estimated to have been around $200,000 for police protection for a pre-announced anarchist rally, apparently organized by local teenagers, that began around 7 p.m. and ended about 10 p.m. "
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POPSDo You Find This Ad Offensive? There's a big story on the intersection of social media and health today. Unlike some of its competitors, Johnson & Johnson has been experimenting with advertising directly to consumers with Facebook applications and YouTube videos. But a video ad promoting Motrin for moms who carry their babies in slings sparked an uproar from connected consumers. I'm curious to know what you think --- is this video really offensive? It's clipped above.
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POPSMandate? Stop it. There is no "mandate" Moreover.... if a white democrat candidate had run with Obama's qualifications and experience, there was no way he would have been elected. Racisim put Dear Leader in the White House.
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POPSChanging Back Obama wants to "restore funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program." He will spend $200 million a year on state and local matching grants. He will also "launch a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over 10 years" plus "stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq and start investing that money in Phoenix, Nashville, Seattle" and "re-commit federal dollars to strengthen mass transit . . . ports, roads, and high-speed rails." CDBG actually gave "aid" to millionaire enclaves such as Greenwich, Conn. And as urban policy scholar Kimberly Hendrickson pointed out in an American Enterprise Institute study: "Mainstream urban scholars and practitioners — on both the left and right — have become dismissive of, and even hostile towards, programs once heralded as bold and visionary . . . now widely seen as harmful to cities and their residents."
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POPSRacial Profiling Ruckus in Palo Alto "Victims of the recent crime wave in Palo Alto have variously described their assailants as being black, Latino, white, or Pacific Islander males, so many residents of Palo Alto and neighboring cities are wondering why the police chief is apparently targeting African Americans. Community leaders including Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Palo Alto Mayor Larry Klein expressed deep concern about Chief Johnson's ability to continue to act as head of the city's police department. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, issued a statement condemning the chief's original remarks. Eshoo said that Chief Johnson had "demonstrated a profound lack of judgment and leadership." In an official statement the Congresswoman said that the Police Chief should rescind her comments and orders or resign. Palo Alto Mayor Larry Klein said the chief's remarks were "unacceptable, unconstitutional and un-American."
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POPSThe "New-Deal" Mistake It Failed Before and It Will Fail Again Five years into the New Deal, in the winter of 1937-1938, two in 10 were again unemployed. President-elect Obama has said that "the one thing I can say with certainty is that we are going to need a stimulus package passed either before or after my inauguration." The idea, presumably, is that handing consumers a check - pre-Christmas bonus, perhaps - will encourage them to spend. Businesses will in turn benefit and then spend themselves. THE historical model that the Democrats are choosing to hold up as they ponder our financial crisis isn't Harry Truman's Fair Deal or Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It is Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. At least three economic reforms under discussion now were also central in the New Deal package. Trouble is, these reforms didn't necessarily work well when they were first tried - and some failed outright.
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POPSDemocratic Administration And A Cushy Media Job
Senior Obama adviser Susan Rice (a former Clinton administration official) is married to Ian Cameron, the Canadian-born executive producer of ABC News’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” • NBC's David Gregory is married to Beth Wilkinson, a partner at Latham & Watkins in Washington and a former official in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration. • ABC's George Stephanopoulos hosts a show bearing his name and earlier served as a senior advisor to the Clinton administration. • Chris Matthews hosts MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and served as a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter. • David Gergen is a political analyst for CNN and served as a special adviser to President Clinton. • Paul Begala is a CNN commentator (" a high-functioning moron") and a former senior adviser to President Clinton. • Bill Moyers is a journalist employed by PBS and was a press secretary for President Lyndon Baines Johnson. His son is a producer for CNN.
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POPSA Butler Well Served by This Election I think it's probably a fair criticism that there's been a little too much talk about the historic nature of this election. It's no doubt historic -- it's just gotten a little bit too breathless at times. Lots of journalists have been grasping at a story that captures the history, but a lot of the stories have just relied on repeating "historic". Now, if you agree with my premise, that it is historic but it's been a bit overblown, then you probably wish there was one, really great story, that captured it all, right? Here it is -- the story that everyone else wishes they'd written.
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POPSObama’s CHANGE.GOV Site Has, uh, Changed Quite A Bit $4,000 in value for 100 hours is $40 an hour, tax-free. For most students, because they pay no federal income tax, this will amount to an annual handout of $4,000 less the value of the service they provide (bravely assuming that it’s productive), which would be at most the private-sector equivalent of about $12 an hour with benefits, or $1,200. Space doesn’t permit me to go into all of the mind-boggling distortions this would lead to, but here’s a start (some information was obtained from the tables listed at this page at collegeboard.com): How do you manage a program with the equivalent of almost 4 million 400,000 full-time employees efficiently and effectively? Wal-Mart, which is I believe the nation’s largest employer, has 2.1 million employees. (Ironic/never happen suggestion of the day: Maybe Uncle Sam should outsource program administration to Wal-mart. At least they might keep it under control).
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POPS Pre-POTUS More press conferences like yesterday’s, please, in which, a couple months in advance to taking office, he began establishing the nation’s economic policy but dodged any responsibility for foreign policy, delved deeply into traditional Oval Office canine policy … charmingly and disarmingly if surprisingly refering to himself as a “mutt,” almost a Lyndon Johnson scar kind of moment … and in an excess of clever over-thinking himself, insulted a dignified old woman. Meanwhile, he has already achieved pre-sainthood of the sort that one prominent presidential historian notes is usually reserved for the dead ones. Ouch, that’s awkward.
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POPSThe Test The next Presidency has within its reach at least two generation-spanning causes: the need to jump-start a new energy economy, and, in so doing, help to contain climate change; and the need to enact a plan to provide quality health care to all Americans, and, in so doing, complete the project of social insurance that Roosevelt described in 1935. Each of these projects is urgent, but it is health-care reform that speaks more directly to the economic and human dimensions of the present downturn. The accumulating failures in the country’s health-care system are a cause of profound weakness in the American economy ; unaddressed, this weakness will exacerbate the coming recession and crimp its aftermath. Add to this the system’s moral failings: about twenty-two thousand people die in this country annually because they lack health insurance.
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POPSPresidential First Dogs The last dog is of course, little Barney. I personally liked the First Cat Socks best, but I'm a cat person. I wonder what the new First Dog will be named? "Bark Obama", I heard. .:) Harry S. Truman & Feller The 33rd President once famously said, "You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog." Evidently he didn't care much for friends, as he regifted a cocker spaniel, given to him as an unsolicited Christmas present in 1947, to the White House physician. Dog lovers around the country assailed the President for surrendering Feller, who came to be known as The Unwanted Dog.
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