Thousands arrived early in downtown Detroit this morning to see Barack Obama, who is to speak at the end of the annual Labor Day parade.
Obama spent the night in Ann Arbor, following an outdoor rally Sunday night in Battle Creek.
His appearance is causing a much greater turnout than is usual at the annual
McCain’s economic plan looks DOA - Salon:
“In fact, the economic and fiscal implications of McCain’s ‘plan’ are inextricably entwined, since most of his concrete budget savings depend on highly dubious and very ideological assumptions about the impact of tax cuts on growth, of pro-oil-and-nuke policies on energy costs, and most of all, of subsidies for individual health insurance purchases on health care costs. Moreover, even a cursory glance at the fiscal math of McCain’s plan shows a vast number of ‘magic asterisks’ — vague but savings-rich goals trucked up as proposals, ranging from nondefense budget freezes and ‘comprehensive reviews’ of federal programs to some sort of latter-day peace dividend contingent on ‘victory’ in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Jesse Helms, John McCain and the Mark of the White Hands - The Nation:
“Jesse Helms was a segregationist, and a nasty one at that.
Long after his contemporaries abandoned old ‘Jim Crow,’ Helms kept playing the race card when it served him politically. And when he was not picking on African-Americans, he picked on ethnic minorities, immigrants, trade unionists and gays and lesbians.While Helms served thirty years in the Senate, his tenure on Capitol Hill was never so historically significant as his crude pursuit of power and the unsettling lengths to which he went to retain it. ‘He’ll be remembered, in part, for the strong racist streak that articulated his politics and almost all of his political campaigns - ‘they were racialized in the most negative ways,’ recalled Kerry Haynie, a political science professor at Duke University.
Helms’ death Friday, at age 86, brings America a small step closer to the end of the post-antebellum era in our politics that saw the men who had battled to deny the franchise to millions of Americans because of the color of their skin — and who fought even more aggressively to deny adequate education, nutrition and health care to African-American children — make the easy transition to leadership positions in the ‘modern’ Republican Party.
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Jeb Bush keeps a high-impact low profile - St. Petersburg Times: “Bush is becoming quite an expert on that. In the 18 months since leaving the Florida Governor’s Mansion, he has quietly remade himself into a capitalist-entrepreneur extraordinaire. Capitalizing on his eight years as governor and a network of Bush family supporters, he leads a busy, and lucrative, life: global speaking engagements, a new consulting firm and affiliations with three big businesses. He earns hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and stock and has joined the ranks of private equity executives on Wall Street.”
Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis | Environment | The Guardian: “Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
‘It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House,’ said one yesterday.”
TweetDeck: A Different Twitter Client: ” While Twitter might be going through a rather rough time right now, a lot of developers are still banking on its success. There are already a lot of desktop clients available for Twitter, but besides some cosmetic differences, most of them look and act very much the same. TweetDeck, which released a new beta today, takes a refreshingly different approach by not only integrating support for search through Summize, but also by adding groups and by displaying more than one column at a time.”
(Via ReadWriteWeb.)
Highland (Milford Times): “A 28-year-old Highland man was chased by police from West Park Drive in Novi, through Wixom and ending near the Duck Lake Road and M-59 intersection in Highland on Jan. 30 after failing to pull over for an Oakland County Sheriff’s Office deputy.
The driver was halted by stop sticks with metal spikes, which deflated his tires.”
Kalamazoo: “Brittany McCone, 17, said she could ‘guarantee’ that if a young black person is ‘on the north side at night with a hoodie on and sagging pants, they’re (officers) going to jump out at you. The white dude may be the one who has the drugs, but they jump out on the black dude.’
Eighteen-year-old Keith Berry claimed young blacks may turn to the wrong people for protection because they don’t trust officers to provide for their safety.
‘Why do I have to look to the drug dealer to protect me?’ Berry asked. ‘Because the police don’t.’”
Ripoffs cancel patient gift card program - Latest News - The Grand Rapids Press - MLive.com: “The University of Michigan Health System has stopped handing out gift cards to patients after it was discovered an employee had ripped off the program for nearly $19,000.”
Even Mr. Thompson, who is hardly competing in New Hampshire, tangled with Mr. Romney over his health care plan in Massachusetts, charging that he favored mandates in his own state. When Mr. Romney said that he supports only certain kinds of mandates, Mr. Thompson retorted, “The ones you come up with.” - “In A Spirited Republican Debate, Romney Finds Himself a Target,”New York Times