Listen to The Body

Guatemala

Do you know what's happening in Guatemala? It all started five days ago when a scandalous video surfaced. In the video a prominent lawyer accuses the president and his personal secretary of plotting to have him killed. The tape, which was discovered two days after the lawyer's brutal murder, has sent the country into turmoil.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this crisis has been the MSM blackout and role of new media and social network sites in spreading the word and coordinating protests. boingboing has an excellent rundown of the sequence of events.

Remarkably, I can't find anything but relatively superficial snippets from Western news networks. Here's a sampling from NPR, the AP and the BBC.

Change I Can Believe In

"Those of us who work in health care may have to look past our fear of change to accept needed reform for the entire country's good. We can be among those who promote positive changes, not those who resist them. If we do so, health care can avoid going the way of Detroit. We can be part of the solution to our nation's broken economy. And we can help the many people who are left out of the health-care system."

(link)

Man of Steele

Michael Steele is becoming my favorite Republican.

First, he was forced to publicly apologize to Rush Limbaugh for calling him an "incendiary entertainer." Next, he defended a women's right to choose.

He also claimed that what others mistook for political missteps were actually a series of litmus tests, saying "it helps me understand my position on the chessboard."

Pawn, perhaps?

He also turned in a prize-winning performance at this weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner:



Update: Putting this video in context, I want to point out that by the time Steele stands up, Obama has already moved on in his speech. You can see Steele racking his brain trying to decide what to do. It's very awkward.

Pirates: Beyond Somalia

Reich=Summers?

Interesting tidbits here. Is Larry Summers this administration's Bob Reich? Obama makes the case:

"[T]he fact is that Larry Summers right now is very comfortable making arguments, often quite passionately, that Bob Reich used to be making when he was in the Clinton White House."

I've always regarded Summers as someone likely to have Gordon Gecko on speed dial, and I find it hard to believe he has reexamined his laisez-faire mindset. Also, his track record at Harvard was more than controversial. If if were Bob Reich, I'd be a little peeved.

More on Summers. More on Reich.

Even Secessionism Is Bigger in Texas

Back in late 2008, Russian scholar Igor Panarin made waves when he predicted the United States would collapse by 2010. From the WSJ:

"California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia."

A recent DailyKos poll lends some credibility to Panarin's hypothesis. From MSNBC's First Read:

"A healthy minority of Texans -- as well as a majority of Texas Republicans -- say they want to secede from the union. According to a new DailyKos/Research 2000 poll, 37% of Texans and 51% of Lone Star Republicans agree with Gov. Rick Perry’s recent suggestion that Texas may need to leave the United States."

What's in store for California?

Question of the Day

What's more popular than Cuba but less popular than Venezuela?

Yglesias has the answer.

(Or just look at the tag.)

Fighting the Norm

Assuming it actually happens, I sometimes wonder how I will fee when Norm Coleman finally retreats into obscurity. If you are as eager to find out as I am, click through to normdollar.com, a site aimed at eroding Republican support for Coleman's endless court challenges.

"[I]f thousands of us donate $1 to help progressives defeat Republicans in 2010 for each day Norm Coleman refuses to concede, we'll reverse the incentives for DC Republicans. They'll tell Norm, "Go away!"

What's Next?

I don't think I've ever been so intrigued by the conservative movement as I am now, mostly because it's in shambles. I think its fairly obvious that the pendulum is swinging left, and I'm mostly happy about it. However, what goes up must come down, and the right is in the process of crowning its next heir. Schmidt might officially be in the running. Me likey:

"If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party," he said. "And in a free country a political party cannot be viable in the long-term if it is seen as a sectarian party."

(thanks Mike)

The War on Sanity

I could go on and on about the so-called "War on Drugs." It's left a trail of ruin in its wake, impacting US foreign policy, domestic incarceration rates and the federal deficit. Something that particularly irks me is how proponents of the "War on Drugs" demonize alternatives, warning that the country will go to hell in a hand basket if we shift toward decriminalization. Fortunately, other developed nations are forging ahead. The data coming out of Portugal are encouraging.

Obamaism

"This is not the rigid mentality of an engineer of human souls; it’s the attitude of a community organizer."

Full article here.

(thanks Nick)

The Bigger Picture

Since this economic crisis began, I have argued that we need to look beyond the exorbitant bonuses and outrage. Rather, we should be focusing on deregulation and the pro-Wall Street culture that has reigned supreme in Washington since Reagan entered office in 1981. Even the trillions of dollars that American taxpayers have funneled into the nation's banking system are small potatoes compared to the political power that financiers have amassed over the course of the last half century or so.

It's as simple as this: Instead of being blinded by dollar signs, look at who's in the driver's seat. By electing not to nationalize banks, the federal government has empowered the people who got us into this mess. Granted, this is an extremely complex situation, and I see many drawbacks to nationalization. Matt Taibbi has a fantastic article detailing this aspect of the current crisis. I particularly like how he addresses the role of financial language in the crisis and our economy as a whole. Money quote:

In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

Baracketology

In the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia, Florida and Ohio. In 2008, Obama won all five states, coasting to a 365 to 173 electoral victory over John McCain.

As multiple media sources have noted, Obama has spent some time in these states since entering office. In fact, the president has visited eight states that went red in 2004 and blue in 2008 since late January. This should come as no surprise. After all, paraphrasing Dick Cheney, the primary goal of every first term administration is winning a second term. Is it therefore surprising that Obama's recently released NCAA bracket seems to reflect the political status quo?

Taking a closer look, Obama's upset picks are notable. For example, he is opting for Indiana's Butler over LSU in the first round. Not a huge shocker there, as that game could go either way. More suspiciously, Barack's bracket has #11 Temple over the Sun Devils, who are a six seed. Similarly, Barack is favoring Richmond's VCU over UCLA, who made it to the Final Four each of the last three seasons. In a swing state showdown, the President also has Florida St. ahead of Xavier; granted, Florida's 27 electoral votes compare favorably vs. Ohio's 20.

Most suspicious of all, at least in my mind, is that the President has #2 Duke (overrated) going far into the tourney and the #1 seed Tar Heels winning it all. Granted, these are solid teams and storied organizations. Still, Obama is likely sitting pretty with basketball fans in North Carolina, a state he won by about one percentage point in 2008. Conversely, he is likely not making any friends in the Pac-10. Not that that's a problem. Dems already own the West Coast.