The New Metro Bus Colors Are In
Is it just me, or do the new Metro buses look like Bank of America ATMs? Of course, it’s not like there’s an over-abundance of BoA ATMs, so maybe this isn’t a bad idea.
(from this WaPo story.)
progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital
Prof Turley is without doubt one of the most admired legal eagles in our fair city, the People’s Republic of DC. In this case, though, I’m hoping he has mischaracterized the relationship between Obama and Cass Sunstein, aka Mr. Samantha Powers. As far as I can tell, Sunstein is a creepy dude.
This quote from Sunstein has been going around lately. You may have seen it:
Prosecuting government officials risks a “cycle” of criminalizing public service, [Sunstein] argued, and Democrats should avoid replicating retributive efforts like the impeachment of President Clinton — or even the “slight appearance” of it.
It’s kind of ironic that Sunstein wrote a book called Republic.com 2.0. If he had read the slightly older Republic.com 1.0, he would have recognized that Justice is a fundamental attribute of the ideal city. Ideal, of course, in the Platonic sense. The idea that the Executive branch should not be accountable for crimes, high or low is so offensive to our notion of justice that I find it hard to believe that a Harvard Law professor would broach the subject. Well, Harvard, maybe. They can be kind of weird.
As one of Turley’s commenters asks:
Sunstein is a lawyer? Where’d he get his degree? Costco?
Look, Sunstein: there is public service, and there is crime. They are not the same thing. It’s apples and oranges. Public service simply cannot be “criminalized.” A person holding public office who uses that office to commit crimes is not in public service but in self service.
I’ll note that Sunstein doesn’t refer to himself as a “close advisor” to Obama, as Glenn Greenwald had put it: (Salon)
You’re sounding a bit like Barack Obama. He was your colleague for a while, right?
Yes, 10 years. And I’m an informal, occasional advisor to him.I’ll tell you what I like about Obama, which is connected with the book. He really doesn’t like to surround himself only with like-minded others. He really is someone who has never lived and wouldn’t live in an echo chamber.
While I’d prefer “he thinks I’m an idiot” to “informal, occasional advisor” at least it’s something.
Is it just me, or do the new Metro buses look like Bank of America ATMs? Of course, it’s not like there’s an over-abundance of BoA ATMs, so maybe this isn’t a bad idea.
(from this WaPo story.)
As I was looking through the list of 600 Starbucks closings, I was expecting to at least see one of the 3 in Dupont Circle closed. Nope. Perhaps the one next to the Silver Spring Metro with the crappy hours? Nope. Maybe the one on Wisconsin Ave in Bethesda that always looks kinda lonely? No, sir.
It looks like exactly 1 DC Starbucks is closing: L St. and 21st. I didn’t even know there was a Starbucks on L and 21st.
On one hand, DC made the top 10 list of most walkable cities:
The top 10 neighborhoods in Washington D.C. are Walkers’ Paradises. 53% of Washington D.C. residents have a Walk Score of 70 or above. 79% have a Walk Score of at least 50—and 21% live in Car-Dependent neighborhoods.
On the other the chances are good that you’re being spied on:
Undercover Maryland State Police officers repeatedly spied on peace activists and anti-death penalty groups in recent years and entered the names of some in a law-enforcement database of people thought to be terrorists or drug traffickers, newly released documents show.
The files, made public yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, depict a pattern of infiltration of the activists’ organizations in 2005 and 2006. The activists contend that the authorities were trying to determine whether they posed a security threat to the United States. But none of the 43 pages of summaries and computer logs - some with agents’ names and whole paragraphs blacked out - mention criminal or even potentially criminal acts, the legal standard for initiating such surveillance.
State police officials said they did not curtail the protesters’ freedoms.
Sometimes we respond to the death of one person in a more emotionally concise way than we do to the deaths of thousands. In this case, I believe the impact comes from the fact that she was young, and smart, and had a great future ahead of her: (WaPo)
Alice Swanson was uneasy about riding her bike through city streets to work every morning, so a colleague told her to always wear a helmet for the trip, which was just over two miles.
The helmet was not enough yesterday morning. Swanson, 22, was hit by a trash truck during rush hour near Dupont Circle and killed.
That’s on the same block where we meet every Thursday for DL. It’s too close to home for me.
I’ll note that a common refrain in the comments to the story is that she was riding in the truck’s blind spot. Really? How do they know that? Isn’t more likely that the truck was playing chicken with the biker? Hell, the freaking Metro buses coming out of Silver Spring station play chicken with me every day. The facts as given are that she was riding in the bike lane, wearing a helmet, and the truck turned into her.
I just received an email from the Washington Area Bicyclists Association, echoing my concern:
As many of you may have heard, Alice Swanson, a 22-year old cyclist from Washington, DC, was struck and killed yesterday morning by a trash truck at the intersection of 20th and R Streets, NW in Washington, DC. This tragedy has hit the cycling community in the DC area hard, and serves as a reminder that much more work remains to be done to make the Washington area a place where anyone who wants to ride can do so safely.
My general observation is that drivers in the city, particularly around Dupont Circle, are dicks. The deadly game of chicken goes on every single day, with the only guarantee being that he with the larger vehicle wins.
From TPM:
Well Known Liberal Blogger Shot In Washington, D.C.
By Greg Sargent - July 2, 2008, 3:33PMBrian Beutler, a well-known progressive blogger, was shot and seriously injured during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C.
One bullet damaged Beutler’s spleen, and he had it removed during surgery this morning at Washington General Hospital. He’s expected to make a “pre-trauma” recovery, which is to say, a completely full recovery.
The shooting was confirmed to us by Tracy Van Slyke, the project director of the Media Consortium, a network of leading progressive news organizations (TPM is a member) for which Beutler was the Washington correspondent.
Some of the details of the incident are still sketchy. According to Van Slyke, Beutler was walking with a friend after leaving a bar in Washington’s Adams Morgan section when the two were confronted by a man demanding their cell phones near 17th Street and Euclid Avenue.
While I don’t know Brian, I know of his work, and am fairly sure we’ve run into each other here and there. What the progressive blogosphere likes to call “The Village” is a small place, and we tend to rub elbows pretty often. So, all this is pretty shocking.
While some of the bickering in the Democratic party is still going on, I wanted to take five, and talk about aspects of the area that make DC a great place to live. Like skateboarding. As I spend time investigating, I’ve learned a great deal about where to go to skateboard. Or, whatever it is that I do, which is more correctly called “urban longboarding.”
While I’d like to talk about that, I can’t help but observe that the city is becoming more violent. I’ve noticed more car break-ins of late, as well as confrontations on the street that are on the cusp of turning into death matches. The last event like this was the lethal mugging of NYT writer David Rosenbaum (WaPo). Both events were in nice neighborhoods that I’m in pretty often. Friendship Heights is an upscale part of upper NW reminiscent of Fifth Avenue in NYC; Adams Morgan is our equivalent of Greenwich Village.
I think it may be that as times get tougher, and they are, the violence escalates. The current climate is such that having more guns on the street, which is what the Supreme Court’s decision calls for, will only make things worse.
From looking at the various blogs I see the most cited reason for Clinton supporters to back Obama in the GE is potential McBush Supreme Court nominees. And, despite Sidney Blumenthal’s argument that people don’t look at McCain and see Bush, as far as Supreme Court nominees go, he’s beholden to the same coalitions that Bush is. You can predictably expect another Scalia, Alito, or god forbid, another Thomas.
My personal bete noire is everything else. Those right-wing freak show-vaudevillians that tap dance their way through the Bush administration. For instance, I was just reading about Dr. Susan Orr who recently resigned as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs: (Think Progress)
It could just be that my elitist latte-sipping lifestyle here in the heart of The Village has lead me to the mistaken impression that birth control is part of most people’s life. How distopian do you have to be to associate birth control with a culture of death? How bleak is your general impression of your fellow human beings? I mean, the glass isn’t half empty for Dr. Orr. It’s half zombie.
I’ve mentioned the condition of the Mall before. Sadly, parts of the Mall have not been maintained, and the result is predictable. The Post-It-Note puts it in fairly stark terms, probably stronger than I would have put it, but I can’t say I see anything I genuinely disagree with:
The Mall is a national “disgrace,” an overused, neglected and decrepit urban park in need of a total makeover that could cost $500 million, according to testimony at a congressional hearing yesterday.
The legendary venue, which serves as civic stage and America’s front yard, lacks proper restrooms, shade and places to eat, witnesses said.
Its lakes and pools are dirty. Its grass is often trampled to dirt. And its walkways are cracked, patched, uneven and sometimes flooded when the nearby Potomac River is at high tide.
The area around the Lincoln Memorial is the real issue, IMO. I’ll try to get a few pictures over the weekend to show what I mean.
One of the few perks in my small role in the vast left-wing conspiracy in Our Fair City, that of co-hosting DCDL, is that I get to meet the various authors, bloggers, etc., that I read, list to, or surf at.
So, last night at Drinking Liberally we hosted author Eric Lichtblau, discussing his new book, Bush’s Law. I explained in the introduction to the discussion that I had not yet finished “Bush’s Law.” In fact, I’m still on the first chapter. “But,” I added, “the prologue is excellent, and the table of contents is one of the best ever.”
I got a laugh, which was the whole point.
Prior to the talk, Eric introduced his fellow NYT author, James Risen. I pointed out to him (James Risen) that I had his book “State of War” on my ipod, and that the audiobook was a favorite to listen to on long walks. That should tell you what degree of political geek that I am. The point is that he seemed genuinely surprised to see how immersed that this issue had become in the popular culture. How deeply felt his work was and still is.
Indeed, when I was having dinner with my mother last Sunday, I had mentioned that KCinDC and I had put together this event (along with many others, including Jane Hamsher and The Seminal crew, Josh, Jason, and Alex.) She didn’t recognize Eric’s name at first, but when I mentioned that he had written the NYT articles on warrantless wiretapping along with James Risen, her first reaction was to point out that publication had been delayed until after the 2004 election. This did not sit well with any of us.
I noticed in the discussion of the book last night that Eric Lichtblau was careful to delimit the discussion at the NYT to whether or not publication would harm national security. Of course, it did not as it was typically assumed that Al Queda knew they were being wiretapped, anyway. I just thought it interesting that the issue was framed strictly along those lines.
In just a moment I’m going to put on my DC Drinking Liberally hat and put out the final notice before our primary watch party this evening. While my role in the mechanism of the vast left-wing conspiracy in our fair city is small, it’s still a role I take seriously. I’ll just say this: if you’re reading this, and you’re left-leaning, and you live in DC, you should by all means come to the 17th Street Cafe, starting at 6:30pm tonight. Trust me, like Christmas, New Year’s, the Superbowl, or a Jim Jarmusch marathon, you don’t want to experience these historic events by yourself.
That said, I’d like to put on my pop culture/political hat. As Josh Marshall puts it: (my emphasis)
But I think the real story is a very effective working of the refs on the part of the Clinton campaign. Going back more than a week the Clinton campaign has made a concerted and aggressive push arguing that they’ve been the victim of systematically negative press coverage while Obama has gotten a free ride. Whether or not you agree with that claim there’s little doubt that the effort has paid off big dividends.
On this point I’d like to bring up the Saturday Night Live portrayal of the Clinton/Obama race. The writers there appear to be pushing a similar argument. While it’s tempting to write this off as just good clean fun, I’d like to point out that comedians are people, too. Highly competitive people. That hate to see their candidates lose. SNL is not the cultural force it was when Chevy Chase did his bumbling Ford impression, but I still say: watch out.
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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.
95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
You can try Counter Culture coffees at: - Baked and Wired, 1052 Thomas Jefferson St. NW, 202-333-2500; www.bakedandwired.com [Link]
In sum, we concluded that the evidence showed that Goodling violated both federal law and Department policy, and therefore committed misconduct... [Link]
The best way to make sense of this legal tangle is to mouse over the title of an individual scandal, which will highlight everyone implicated. [Link]
A 22-year-old bicyclist was struck by a garbage truck and killed just north of Dupont Circle today, authorities said. Police and fire vehicles converged on the scene at 20th and R streets NW, snarling Connecticut Avenue traffic during the morning rush. [Link]
We're asking you to put some of the money you plan to give Obama "in escrow" until he demonstrates progressive leadership on the issues we care about, like warrantless wiretapping. [Link]
The report notes that the administration has gone to “unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost” of the wars. [Link]
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It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration. [Link]
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be ans [Link]
It gives me a terrible mental image of the whole country linking arms and goose-stepping in unison, with the politicians out in front doing a straight-armed salute. [Link]
BOULTON: There are those who would say look, lets take Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and rendition and all those things and to them that is the complete opposite of freedom. BUSH: Of course, if you want to slander America. [Link]
In a subsequent e-mail to the employee, Cargol described himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back, pull-your-dick, squeeze-your-hand, cheek-your-face, and pat-your-thigh kind of guy.” [Link]
Democracy Now! Radio and TV News [Link]
Let's take a look at how the Los Angeles Times covered the new Senate Intelligence Committee report on the claims made as part of selling the Iraq war, and compare it to how the editorial page of the Washington Post, by which I mean Fred Hiatt, sees the e [Link]
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" an [Link]
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