So Inviting — So Enticing to Play the Part ... I Could Play the Wild Mutation as a Rock & Roll Star...

Listened to Album Sides Wednesday during this morning's drive time.

Side B of Ziggy Stardust went live at about 7:15am, just as I pulled into the college driveway. I listened to the first four tracks before heading over to my classroom. It's been a long time. I'd forgotten how much I used to love "Star":

Tony went to fight in Belfast
Rudi stayed at home to starve
I could make it all worthwhile as a rock & roll star
Bevan tried to change the nation
Sonny wants to turn the world, well he can tell you that he tried

I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star
So inviting - so enticing to play the part
I could play the wild mutation as a rock & roll star
Get it all yeah!
Oh yeah

I could do with the money
I'm so wiped out with things as they are
I'd send my photograph to my honey - and I'd c'mon like a regular superstar

I could fall asleep at night as a rock & roll star
I could fall in love all right as a rock & roll star

I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star
So inviting - so enticing to play the part
I could play the wild mutation as a rock & roll star ...

Statement by Governor Jan Brewer on SB 1070

From Governor Brewer's homepage:

“This fight is far from over. In fact, it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens. I am deeply grateful for the overwhelmingly support we have received from across our nation in our efforts to defend against the failures of the federal government.

“I have consulted with my legal counsel about our next steps. We will take a close look at every single element Judge Bolton removed from the law, and we will soon file an expedited appeal at the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

“For anyone willing to see it -- the crisis is as clear as is the federal government’s failure to address it.

“The judge herself noted that the stash houses where smugglers hide immigrants from Mexico before bringing them into the country's interior have become a fixture on the news in Arizona and that, ‘You can barely go a day without a location being found in Phoenix where there are numerous people being harbored.’”

“When I signed the bill on April 23rd, I said, SB 1070 – represents another tool for our state to use as we work to address a crisis we did not create and the federal government has actively refused to fix. The law protects all of us, every Arizona citizen and everyone here in our state lawfully. And, it does so while ensuring that the constitutional rights of ALL in Arizona are undiminished – holding fast to the diversity that has made Arizona so great.

“I will battle all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, for the right to protect the citizens of Arizona. Meanwhile, I also know we still have work to do in confronting the fear-mongers, those dealing in hate and lies and economic boycotts that seek to do Arizona harm.

“We have already made some progress in waking up Washington. But the question still remains: will Washington do its job, and put an end to the daily operations of smugglers in our nation, or will the delays and sidesteps continue? I believe that the defenders of the rule of law will ultimately succeed with us in our demand for action.”

The main story's at NYT (FWIW), "Judge Blocks Key Parts of Immigration Law in Arizona" (via Memeorandum).

Professor William Jacobson comments: "The decision has to be viewed as a near complete victory for opponents of the law, as it restricts the state from routine and compulsory checks of immigration status as a matter of legislative mandate."

I'll have updates ...

PHOTO CREDIT: "South O.C. Patriots Rally for Arizona!"

David Horowitz Runs Pro-Israel Ad on Olbermann Show; Kos Kids Freak Out

Interesting post, from Robert Stacy McCain:

Beautiful People

At The Hill, "50 Most Beautiful People Slideshow 2010."

Also here: "50 Most Beautiful People 2010 HTML Top 10" (via Memeorandum).

And from Lynn Sweet, "Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. comeback? Number 9 on 'The Hill' beautiful people list." I thought that was a surprise as well. (And a hot Kirsten Gillibrand beats out the hip Scott Brown at Number 3, so maybe the methods are weighted a bit for "diversity".)

Our Divisive President

From Democrats Patrick Caddell and Doug Schoen, at WSJ:

During the election campaign, Barack Obama sought to appeal to the best instincts of the electorate, to a post-partisan sentiment that he said would reinvigorate our democracy. He ran on a platform of reconciliation—of getting beyond "old labels" of right and left, red and blue states, and forging compromises based on shared values.

President Obama's Inaugural was a hopeful day, with an estimated 1.8 million people on the National Mall celebrating the election of America's first African-American president. The level of enthusiasm, the anticipation and the promise of something better could not have been more palpable.

And yet, it has not been realized. Not at all.

Rather than being a unifier, Mr. Obama has divided America on the basis of race, class and partisanship. Moreover, his cynical approach to governance has encouraged his allies to pursue a similar strategy of racially divisive politics on his behalf.

We have seen the divisive approach under Republican presidents as well—particularly the administrations of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. By dividing America, Mr. Obama has brought our government to the brink of a crisis of legitimacy, compromising our ability to address our most important policy issues.

We say this with a heavy heart. Both of us share the president's stated vision of what America can and should be. The struggle for equal rights has animated both of our lives. Both of us were forged politically during the crucible of the civil rights movement. Having worked in the South during the civil rights movement, and on behalf of the ground-breaking elections of African-American mayors such as David Dinkins, Harold Washington and Emanuel Cleaver, we were deeply moved by Mr. Obama's election.

More at the link.

I'm still not going with the hypothesis of an intraparty challenge to Obama, especially from an antiwar candidate. Hillary Clinton, for example, is far from the Howard Dean type. She could pose a threat to Obama running as a "unifier" in opposition to this administration. Either way, if the Dems gear up for a primary feud challenging an incumbent president, my sense is that the GOP will reap most of the benefits. That's good for me, although the Republicans need to get their own house in order as well. It's amazing to think that 2012 could be MORE of a crucial election than 2008, but the country got suckered into electing "The One," and now we're paying for it with an ever-deepening national crisis.

See also Jennifer Rubin and Andy McCarthy. (Via Memeorandum.)

Cartoon Credit: Bosch Fawstin.

Olivia Bell

From Facebook and Flickr (by permission):

More here.

Elton John Slams Musicans' Boycott of Arizona!

At Cold Fury,"I am having to completely rethink my prior opinion of Elton John":

Which wasn’t necessarily negative, by the way. I was never a huge fan, I admit — didn’t really dislike him either, just never cared much one way or another — but damned if he ain’t proving to be very much worthy of respect ...

More at the link.

Public Prefers Obama's Policies, But Not by 'Large Majorities'

If you check the new poll out from National Journal, Americans by a 46 percent plurality support the continuation of Barack Obama's economic policies. Yet, despite the misinformation at Daily Kos, the public is deeply divided over the extension of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003:

Regarding the tax cuts, 30 percent of Americans believe all of Bush's 2001 and 2003 cuts should stay in place. That compared to 31 percent who believed that all of them should be repealed. Twenty-seven percent take the route Obama campaigned on: Tax cuts for the wealthy should be repealed, while the others should stay in place.

That sentiment was consistent across income lines. Among those making more than $75,000, 26 percent said only the tax cuts for the wealthy should be repealed. For those making $30,000 to $74,999, 31 percent concurred. And among those making less than $30,000, 28 percent said the tax cuts for the wealthy should be overturned.

Independents hewed closest to the overall sample. Twenty-seven percent said all the tax cuts should be kept in place. Thirty-two percent said they all should be repealed. Twenty-seven percent said the tax cuts for the wealthy should be repealed, but the middle class cuts should be kept in place.

This debate has intensified recently as the legislative calendar winds down and an agreement on how to proceed on the issue, particularly in the Senate, has remained elusive.

Unfortunately for Joan McCarter, one can't combine all the subgroupings into "large majorities" supposedly opposed to extending the cuts. This table might help her out:

Democrats and independents remain wary of a return to more market-oriented approaches to economic recovery. But time is running out. The 46 percent plurality is not a huge bulwark against anti-incumbent sentiment on the economy this year (Congress is down to 11 percent approval rating, and the majority party always bears the brunt of such throw-the-bums-out sentiment). And the 2012 primaries will commence a little more than 15 months from now. Basically, it's on.

November Starts Now — Obama's 3:00 AM Fail

The new ad from the RNC:

Barack Obama's presidency has been a disaster. He is either unwilling to or incapable of doing his job. The economy is in shambles, the government is failing, and Americans are losing hope. Barack Obama was not ready to be President. He's not the solution. You are.

You have the opportunity to turn our economy, our government, and our country around by electing Republicans and restoring your voice in Washington. But to win this fall, we must start today. It's up to you to save your country. Are you ready? Because November starts now.

As much as I like it, I'm not sending these folks any money. It's going to take a lot more of Michael Steele sucking up to the base before that happens (or, memories of Dede Scozzafava are still quite strong):

Obama Could Be 'Primaried' by Antiwar Democrat in 2012

At PuffHo, "Rendell: Obama Could Face Primary Challenge Over Afghanistan (VIDEO)" (via Memeorandum).

Lyndon Baines Johnson was not "The One" Democratic Party presidential candidate in the 1960s. John F. Kennedy was ("Camelot" and all that...). Nowadays we have "The Lightworker" Obama-Wan Kenobi in office, and I can't image any credible intra-party challenge to his (re)nomination in 2012. And Afghanistan is no Vietnam, in terms of lives lost and treasure expended, so I don't know if the analogy's going to work all that well going forward in any case. Interesting too that arch-paleocon Pat Buchanan's the one posing the question, more so as there's a left-(quasi)right alliance for cut-and-run from the deployment. That said, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell makes the possibility sound realistic, depending on how the ground situation looks in 2011. Fun the play armchair presidential strategist, in any case:

PAT BUCHANAN: [Anti-Vietnam sentiment] drew an anti-war candidate, Eugene McCarthy, first into the New Hampshire primary, and after he did fairly well with 42%, it drew Robert Kennedy in against their own president, tore the Democratic Party apart, and led, of course, to a Republican era. If the president is still hanging in to Afghanistan in 2011, 2012, do you see an anti-war candidate coming out of the Democratic Party?

ED RENDELL: It's possible, Pat. It really depends on how far it deteriorates [emphasis mine]. But on the other hand, if troop withdrawal begins in 2011, if there's some signs that we're trying to get out of there, and I heard, I think you were talking about, if there are only 3,000 American troops, we still have a presence. But if we start to begin to reduce our presence, I think that's probably enough to keep an anti-war candidate out of the race."

Also Blogging: Dan Riehl.

Al Franken's Keynote Speech at Netroots Nation

Here's more key evidence of how deeply top Democratic officials are tied to the neo-communist anti-Semitic hate-blog Daily Kos (and the rest of the progressive blogosphere, CAP, Media Mutters, etc.). Take your time and really listen to chief election thief Al Franken. This is today's progressive movement, looking to crush "evil" corporations and "restore" free speech. It's kinda chilling listening to Al Franken, but also funny in a macabre kinda way. If you check Google you can see all the left-wing blogs posting this video: "Sen. Franken to the Netroots: Only You Can Stop the Corporate Takeover of Free Speech." But notice that it's Fox News that broadcast Franken's speech, in its entirety! So the "evil" right-wing corporate media made it possible for the deranged leftist hacks to spread this message of censorship all across the web. Al Franken's probably not the brightest bulb, in any case. I can see a comedien like him emerging in a similar fashion historically in post-Wiemar Germany. A jolly sort, more than ready to exterminate political enemies in order to "make the world a better place." Unreal. (More background here: "Al Franken: Without Net Neutrality Fox News Will Load Faster Than Daily Kos"):

Michelle Rhee and Teacher Accountability

At Betsy's Page:

Kudos to Michelle Rhee who just used the power granted her by the new contract negotiated with the Washington Teachers Union to fire 241 low-performing teachers and put 737 other teachers and school staff on notice that they had been rated "minimally effective." If I were a teacher who can't find a job in a state like mine, North Carolina, which has slowed down hiring teachers, I'd send an application to Washington, D.C. It sounds like they're going to have some openings for dedicated teachers.

Betsy teaches AP American History and has a phenomenal record of success. Yet I'm sometimes leery of straight performance evaluations, at least to the extent that much of student success is completely out of the hands of teachers themselves. That said, I like Rhee and I know she's fighting an entrenched bureaucracy that hasn't put kids' interests ahead of unions. Still, readers may remember Joel Parkes' essay from a while back (previously posted here). It bears recalling. Gotta include this side of the debate in discussions of teacher accountability, "Something Wrong in Our Schools? Let's Blame Teachers":

Much has been written lately about merit pay for teachers, an idea with which I agree in principle. But merit pay would be unfair to teachers for many reasons.

I teach upper-elementary grades at a school that is at the absolute bottom of the Academic Performance Index, ranking one out of 10 in both statewide and "similar schools" APIs. The majority of my school's students are classified as "English language learners"; almost all are Latino. Virtually every student at my school lives in poverty and gets a free breakfast and lunch from the school.

Next year I'll teach fourth grade, and this is what my past experience at this school leads me to expect:

At least two-thirds of my students will have been socially promoted through every grade and, by definition, won't have the skills necessary for the work that the state and district standards requires them to do. Some of them, probably five or 10, won't even know the alphabet, through no fault of mine, but they won't be held accountable. I will be.

Out of frustration over not being able to do the work, a number of my students will chronically disrupt my class, so my learning environment will be adversely affected daily. There is no meaningful consequence for chronic disruptive behavior at my school, so none of those students will be held accountable in any meaningful way. I will be.

Other students will be so discouraged at not being able to do the work that they will make no effort. They will seldom complete homework assignments and will produce virtually no work in class. Our senior assistant vice principal has stated that "we don't retain [hold back] students for not trying," so the students who do no work won't be held accountable. I will be.

I'll give you two historical examples of accountability and leave you with a question.

First, when the Roman legions marched, they built roads and bridges, some of which survive to this day. When the legions had to cross a river, the engineers were called on to design and build a bridge. After the bridge was built, the engineers stood under the bridge while the army crossed. That's accountability, but at least they had what was necessary to build the bridge.

On the other hand, when the Khmer Rouge seized Cambodia, they took the teachers and other educated people to the rice paddies and said, "You're so smart and educated. Make the rice grow faster or we will kill you." So there were a lot of dead teachers in Cambodia. Accountability? The Khmer Rouge certainly thought so.

Consider, please: As a teacher, I have no control over a school system that does not require students to meet standards in order to move on to the next grade. But I am to be held accountable.

As a teacher, I have no control over the system's lack of disciplinary support and inability to make certain students produce work. But I am to be held accountable.

As a teacher, I have no control over uneducated parents, overcrowded and noisy homes or the other very real consequences of poverty. But I am held accountable.

With regard to merit pay, my question is this: Am I being told to build a bridge and given the tools I need for the job, or am I just being taken to the country and told to make the rice grow faster? I know what answer I would give.

With No Direction Home...

Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone." Heard it last week on "Triple Play Thursday," and again yesterday. Enjoy:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you ?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone ? ...

Jewel Sings Karaoke Under Cover

Via TigerHawk, "It'll make you grin":

Undercover Karaoke with Jewel from Jewel

NewsBusted — Confidence of Congress at 11% ...

James Surowiecki on JournoList

I'm not sure I'd be willing confer "hero" status on Ezra Klein, but I'd certainly say James Surowiecki was acting heroically when bucking the left's jihad-abetting memes at the list-serve. From The Daily Caller, " Heroes of Journolist: Dan Froomkin, James Surowiecki, Jeffrey Toobin, Michael Tomasky — and founder Ezra Klein" (via Memeorandum):

When Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire, members of Journolist debated whether the media should report on Hasan’s apparent ties to Islamic extremism.

Luke Mitchell, then of Harper’s magazine, said doing so “points the way to things that are actually alarmingly dangerous, such as the idea that there is a large conspiracy of Islamists at work in the United States, that we need to ‘do something’ about this conspiracy.”

Surowiecki replied to Mitchell and others that the truth was worth pursuing.

“I find it bizarre that anyone would argue that an accurate description of what happened is somehow pointless,” Surowiecki said. “That is, that it’s not useful to offer up an accurate picture of Hasan’s actions because nothing obvious follows from it. We want, as much as possible, to have a clear picture of what’s actually going on in the world. Describing Hasan as a violent Islamist terrorist is much closer to the truth than describing him as a disturbed individual.”

RELATED: A great piece from Mickey Kaus, "'Journolist' Was Not a Progressive Idea."

Photo Credit: Wikipedia, "James Surowiecki."

Frank Rich Whines for Nobama

At New York Review, " ‘Why Has He Fallen Short?’":

Of course Barack Obama was too hot not to cool down. He was the one so many were waiting for—not only the first African-American president but also the nation’s long-awaited liberator after eight years of Bush-Cheney, the golden-tongued evangelist who could at long last revive and sell the old liberal faith, the first American president in memory to speak to voters as if they might be thinking adults, the first national politician in years to electrify the young. He was even, of all implausible oddities, a contemporary politician- author who actually wrote his own books.

The Obama of Hope and Change was too tough an act for Obama, a mere chief executive, to follow. Only Hollywood might have the power to create a superhero who could fulfill the messianic dreams kindled by his presence and rhetoric, maintain the riveting drama of his unlikely ascent, and sustain the national mood of deliverance that greeted his victory. As soon as Inauguration Day turned to night, the real Obama was destined to depreciate like the shiny new luxury car that starts to lose its book value the moment it’s driven off the lot.

But still: How did we get to the nadir so fast? The BP oil spill, for weeks a constant fixture on the country’s television and computer screens, became a presidential quagmire even before Afghanistan could fulfill its manifest destiny to play that role. The 24/7 gushing crude was ready-made to serve as the Beltway’s bipartisan metaphorical indicator for a presidency that was verging on disaster to some of Obama’s natural supporters, let alone his many enemies. “I don’t see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the oil spill,” wrote Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal on Memorial Day weekend without apparent fear of contradiction.

Pressed by critics to push back against BP with visible anger and kick-ass authority, Obama chose to devote the first Oval Office address of his presidency to the crisis in the gulf—on June 15, nearly sixty days after the Deep- water Horizon rig had exploded. His tardy prescriptions were panned even by the liberal Matthews-Olbermann-Maddow bloc at MSNBC. To many progressives, Obama’s too-cool handling of the disaster was a confirmation of a fatal character flaw—a professorial passivity that induced him to prematurely surrender the sacred “public option” in the health care debate and to keep too many of his predecessor’s constitutional abridgements in place at home and at Gitmo. When, a day after his prime-time address, he jawboned BP into setting up a $20 billion escrow fund for the spill’s victims, the Obama-hating tag team of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and its Tea Party auxiliaries attacked him for not being passive enough. To them, the President’s aggressive show of action was merely further confirmation that a rank incompetent and closet socialist (or is it National Socialist?) had illegitimately seized the White House to subvert America and the free-enterprise system.

That's a pretty good sample, eh?

"The Obama-hating tag-team"?

RTWT. Interestingly, Rich places most of the blame on Obama-Wan Kenobi's own team of incompetent, unaccomplished advisors. And that sounds about right:

The administration is still young, and so is the President. If he has any immutable ideological tenet, it’s that he is “a big believer in persistence.” He doesn’t like to lose. Health care had not been an Obama priority in the campaign, but he embraced it during the transition. Though Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod were all skeptical of pursuing it as a Year One goal, he wouldn’t be deterred.

CARTOON CREDIT: No Sheeples Here!

WikiLeaks and U.S.-Pakistani Relations

I'm mostly just fascinated by the left's struggles with honesty regarding the goals of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange spouted that he wasn't about bringing the war to an end. Of course, that was during the same press conference in which he alleged war crimes. So, it bears monitoring how all of this plays out. From a partisan perspective, it's kinda funny, but a precipitous Afghan withdrawal would be reminiscent to the troubles of the Johnson administration. It's Obama's war, and if the radical left has its way, he'll lose it. MSNBC's on the case, that's for sure. And interesting, I don't disagree so much with the analysis here, and British correspondent Declan Walsh is correct to indicate that the pressure's on Pakistan now to fix its ISI corruption and terror-abetting (although we already knew that). Mostly I hope that we don't cut-and-run while we're still needed, and we are. Pakistan is ground zero of global jihad, and leaving Afghanistan now before we're comfortable that country's stable will only make AfPak that much more attractive to the globe's killers. More on this throughout the day...

Julian Assange Press Conference, London, July 26, 2010

At Washington Post, "Wikileaks' release of classified field reports on Afghan war reveals not much." Plus, raw video from Monday's press conference:

The 10 Most Controversial Playboy Covers of All Time

A pretty interesting piece, at BroBible:

Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman obviously took offense.

Have times changed? Maybe we should ask Ms. Olga? She attends college where women are judged by brains over bods. As a college professor, I must say: I'm impressed!

RELATED: "Hottest Student Bodies: The 50 Best Colleges Ranked By Looks: 1-10."