Look, folks over at the Associated Press… I know things are bad. Real bad. Still, when you’re penning the End Times journalism pick of the week, write a decent headline.

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

Twist, damn you!

In other sad news, and a subtle reminder of how ridiculous this headline is, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is dropping out five days before the the presidential runoff election there.

At a news conference, Mr. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., said he was unwilling to ask the party’s supporters to go to the polls on Friday “when that vote will cost them their lives.”

Mr. Tsvangirai’s decision came on a day when governing party youth militia armed with iron bars, sticks and other weapons beat his supporters as they sought to attend a rally for him in Harare.

Alright, alright, Rhode Island State Legislature, I get it.

I used to treat my finances the same way you are treating the budget. I liken it to the way I used to use my credit card. I’d charge and spend without really recognizing that eventually, I’d have to pay it all of. And I’d have to pay it with interest.

I remember the attitude I carried around with that credit card. And I get the sneaking suspicion that our elected officials have adopted the same ideas - Why pay now when you can pay later?

See, the framing of the budget issue makes it seem like the legislature is doing us a favor, like they are being fiscally responsible, like they are “cutting back” on unnecessary programs. In truth, they are screwing over, like, everyone in Rhode Island. Farmers, college students, any student, state employees, immigrants, and children, etc., etc., etc. (more…)

Just when you thought there was nothing else that Hillary’s minions could say or do to make you dry heave in terror (like, for example, claim that perennially pampered Florida voters are facing Zimbabwe-esque levels of political oppression), Harold Ickes has gone and done it.

Yes, it’s true that today’s DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting was an overall win for Obama, in that, shitshow* notwithstanding, the Committee decided to seat the FL and Michigan delegations with half-votes each, and to give Obama the uncommitted delegates from Michigan. Yes, Obama is still going to be the nominee, as he now has 2050 delegates, needs 2118 to clinch, and will pick up at least 40 between now and the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, meaning that he needs only 20 of the remaining 200 superdelegates to finish the job. And yes, Hillary did indeed have every right to fight for her desired outcome, which her surrogates did in a losing effort to seat the Florida delegation with full votes before unanimously backing the half-vote compromise.

But Harold Ickes needs to get a grip. When it came time to talk Michigan, a state where Obama (and Edwards) had taken his name off of the ballot, where “Uncommitted” had garnered 45% of the vote, where turnout was absolutely anemic because there was only one candidate running (in Soviet Russia, election wins you!), Ickes had the gall to say that Hillary should get her delegates and Obama should get none, and then got so huffy about it that he threatened to take that dispute to the convention.

Huh? For a campaign that has been playing fast and loose with the word “disenfranchisement” it’s pretty befuddling to think that counting the results of an election with only one candidate on the ballot, where more people stayed home than voted, without any consideration of those factors is not basically the worst solution. Wouldn’t such a solution disenfranchise those non-voters? And what about all of the African American voters who went with uncommitted, you know, the ones who will be absolutely crucial to winning Michigan?

“Fannie Lou” Ickes cannot be bothered with such trifling matters. Here he is debasing himself in a duke-it-out with Sen. Carl Levin:

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And he looks good doing it, flag pin and all. Nice catch HuffPo. (more…)

Awesomely enough, this dude may actually beat out the front runner in today’s Oregon Senate primary. If he wins, and beats sitting GOP Senator Gordon Smith in November, Novick is automatically Captain Hook in the Senate’s annual production of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

In other news about politicians’ hands, RI Congressman Patrick Kennedy broke his doing karate a month ago. F’real.

Does it count as shameless self-promotion to promote my promotion of a friend’s event? Hopefully not. Scope my piece in this week’s Phoenix on the upcoming criminal justice reform festival, Justice or Just Us?, taking place at AS220 real soon.

Welcome Sandra Day O’Connor!

With her familiar bob of white hair, O’Connor yesterday joined Selya and Chief Circuit Judge Michael Boudin in peppering lawyers with questions in a half-dozen cases, including the Rhode Island case of James H. Reyelt v. William B. Danzell and Louisa F. Beenker Danzell.

So how did it feel to appear before the woman who is arguably the world’s best-known judge?

“It was a very cool thing,” said Dana Curhan, a Boston lawyer who represented Reyelt.

“I am honored,” said Marc DeSisto, the Providence lawyer representing the Danzells. “I think it’s great when a senior Supreme Court judge lends a hand to circuit courts. It’s a great benefit to the court. It’s a great benefit to the bar. And it generates a lot of interest.”

While I *Heart* Sandra Day, I don’t think you could generate “a lot of interest” in a case involving promissory notes, zoning variances and a Barrington beach house even if Jean-Luc Picard was presiding. Or… could you?

Ari’s new boss, of sorts, is Krist Novoselic — the former bassist for Nirvana, who’s spent the last decade or so as a democracy activist:

Krist Novoselic is best known as the bassist in the groundbreaking rock band Nirvana. But he recently added another title: chairman.

Novoselic has replaced former congressman John B. Anderson (R-Ill.) as chairman of FairVote, a group that advocates ways to encourage voting. Anderson comes from a different realm entirely; he was an independent candidate for president in 1980.

The transition is not as strange as it seems. In 2004, Novoselic did a national tour with FairVote to promote his book “Of Grunge & Government: Let’s Fix This Broken Democracy!” In the book, Novoselic discusses how Nirvana emerged as the biggest band of the early 1990s and how he became involved in politics.

On second thought, it does seem pretty strange. In addition to chairing FairVote, Novoselic now plays with a punk band called Flipper.

On Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, James Carville recently quipped: “If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.”

It was far from the first time that a political pundit used testicles as a metonymy for power, courage, boldness, or guts. In fact, Hillary’s “balls” have been the subject of much praise (and disdain) throughout the course of this exhausted Democratic primary.

Introducing Clinton at a rally in Indiana, Paul Gibson, president of a steelworkers local union, proclaimed that the nation needed a leader like Clinton with “testicular fortitude.” Clinton thanked him for the compliment, though she did note that women, too, can have fortitude.

Reporting on the incident, Salon editor Joan Walsh wrote, “Clinton does indeed have … fortitude. Hell, she has balls.” Walsh says that Clinton handled the situation as best as she could and did not employ a double-standard by accepting this incredibly sexist “compliment.”

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Anyone remember that scene in Hedwig and the Angry Inch in which Yitzhak says, “Fuck you, I’m going to Guam!” and threatens to leave the Angry Inch for a Pacific Island tour of Rent? Yeah, I haven’t heard anything about Guam since then either.

BUT, our Guamian friends pulled through today, awarding Obama a 7-vote victory over H-Bomb in their Democratic primary. Although Guam can send eight pledged delegates to the Democratic Convention in Denver, the U.S. citizens of Guam aren’t actually allowed to vote in November’s general election.

At any rate, thanks Guam!!

UPDATE: Footage, courtesy of the Greenwash Gorillas themselves… even as this was a pretty amazing spectacle, the footage kind of makes me want to give Tom a big hug. While I understand the criticisms of Friedman’s work, I wonder if this was an effective way to get the message across, or whether this merely reflects poorly on the University… thoughts? Could the pie-throwers have raised their dissent during the Q&A with as much flair?

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman had just begun his Earth Day lecture at Brown last night, when Molly Little ‘08.5 and a colleague let him know what they thought of his work. The Brown Daily Herald reports:

A female audience member ran on stage last night and threw a green pie at New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman […]. The woman had been sitting in the south side of the auditorium’s front row when she pulled the pie out of a Brown Bookstore plastic bag that had been tucked in a red backpack and leapt out of her seat.

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Please Join Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts for a Health Care Reform Community Meeting

Monday, April 28, 2008 — 6:30 PM

Temple Beth El — 70 Orchard Avenue, Providence

A discussion with Lt. Governor Roberts, other elected officials, community leaders, and your neighbors about how the problems in our health care system are affecting Rhode Island’s families, businesses, and communities. Lt. Governor Roberts will share the details of her Healthy Rhode Island Reform Act of 2008, which will transform the health care system in our state by putting in place a strong new structure for ensuring that all Rhode Islanders will have access to high quality health care at a price they can afford.

For Information Contact:
Brian Monteiro, Office of Lt. Governor Roberts
(401) 222-2371

In an ugly debate on Tuesday, one particularly ugly point was the ham-handed invocation of the always-relevant American Flag Lapel Pin^TM issue.

Not just because it was done vicariously through a woman who publicly told the New York Times two weeks ago that she would “never vote for Obama.” Not just because said woman, one Nash McCabe, began by stating with a straight face: “I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism.” Not just because this exchange was part and parcel of a good hour of Gibson and Stephanopoulos teeing up vapid, misleading character attacks in what amounted to a screw you to the voters and decent Americans who are struggling in Pennsylvania and across the country.

Obama missed a golden opportunity, on that question, to retake the initiative in the debate, debunk a smear-in-the-making, and buttress his core message of change.

His response last week wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t artful. He was unusually stilted, withering perhaps at the ludicrous barrage of crap being flung at him. But he hit some of the main points- he “reveres” the flag and America, his story is only possible here, he supports the troops and “shows his patriotism” by serving on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and advocating for soldiers and military families.

But it didn’t do anything to address the deeper fears embedded in the (tasteless) question, or to explain why he doesn’t wear the stars and stripes in pin form on his lapel in the first place.

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After passing in the Vermont Senate and the Maine Senate last week, more NPV news out of Illinois, where Gov. Rod Blagojevich just signed the plan to elect the president by national popular vote into law.

A bill signed into law Monday by Gov. Rod Blagojevich made Illinois the third state, after Maryland and New Jersey, ready to bypass the Electoral College in November. The three states, with a combined 46 electoral votes, won’t act unless states totaling 270 electoral votes — enough to elect a president — sign on.

“By signing this law, we in Illinois are making it clear that we believe every voter has an equal voice in electing our nation’s leaders,” Blagojevich said in a statement. As a congressman in 2000, the governor co-sponsored a proposed constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College.

In fact, The bill is moving forward in Vermont and Maine, and in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Looks like all the other New England states are whupping us on this one right now. The RI House and Senate Judiciary Committees have heard the bill, but haven’t passed it. Yet. Why not give them a call?