alternative hippopotamus

Introducing the New Blog

I've spent the last week putting together a new blog that you can find here. RSS feed is here.

Part of the upgrade has been moving to WordPress, which gives me a number of features that blogger lacks. Not the least of which is that comments are integrated into the blog software, so I'm not dependent on haloscan's server (or blogger's server for publishing).

The last thing I'm wrestling with is: should althippo.com automagically take you to blog.althippo.com, or is a better choice to use althippo.com as a top stories page? If you live in DC and take the Metro, you've probably seen the "Blog Log" section of the Express. (written by DCist editor emeritus, Mike Glass). It's what I borrowed, umh, liberally from for the Hippo Report, and that would be the look-and-feel of the main page if I go that route.

It's one of those details that will take me a bit to figure out, and instead of staying off-line, it's time to get back in action. So, for the forseeable future, the blog will be at blog.althippo.com.

The Alternative Hippopotamus

H0: (Primary Hypothesis) To make informed decisions, I need to read my local paper, or at least that thing they pass out on the subway, and watch teevee.
H1: (Alternative Hippopotamus) The major news sources, PBS and the Washington Post included, have become too dependent on advertiser's dollars to be truly independent. In short, the marriage of politics, their corporate sponsors, and the media has gamed the system.

One of the new habits I've developed over the last few weeks is to listen to the podcasts of the Rachael Madow show, DemocracyNow!, Supreme Court Watch, and On the Media. And, of course, the Ricky Gervais show, because you can never get enough monkey news. Oh, and Meet the Press (which I don't believe I've ever watched), and sometimes I'll do a couple of shots and listen to the Preznit's Rodeo Address (not recommended for those with sensitive digestive systems)

If you've got an iPod, these programs are all free for the taking. I'm even now seriously contemplating cancelling cable television, retrogressing into a Brave New World of infotainment by mp3 player.

The thing is, I like the catchy intro music, the sotto voce exclamations, the frozen-dinner conventionality of the "serious" media machine as much as anyone. It's just that I want to make sure that I get a strong whiff of what's really going on in the world at the same time.

Case in point: I was talking to a delightful couple at Drinking Liberally last Thursday, when the subject of Jack Abramoff came up. I asked if they had heard of what Abromoff's and Delay's project in the Marianas Islands was all about. Like me, they had heard something about the Marianas Islands, but were vague about the whole thing. I had heard a show on DemocracyNow! that went into the kind of detail that you won't get from the Swanson Turkee Media Dinner, a bit of which I'll share: (go here for the transcript)

The Marianas Islands, while a US territory, does not abide by US minimum wage laws. That's probably the least of their problems, actually. What they do is bring in young women from China to work in the very factories that make products bearing the "Made in the USA" label. According to the DemocracyNow! broadcast, these garment workers sign agreements that stipulate that they will not join a labor movement, will not become part of any political cause, and more to the point of this broadcast, will not have children. DemocracyNow! interviewed one young woman from China who had become pregnant, and was fired when she refused to have an abortion.

The Marianas Islands was one of Abramoff's clients. He invited Tom DeLay for a "fact-finding mission" on site, where he received a posh New Year's Eve party. DeLay went back to Congress and killed pending legislation that would have brought labor laws up to current US standards (I'll add as an aside, that labor laws in the US compared to the rest of the Western world are, and I'm trying to find a polite expression, owner-class friendly. On minimum wage, only Spain and Greece rank lower.)

Here's my point: we should know about these kinds of goings on. It would certainly inform our attitudes about who should be in office, who represents the values of our Democratic Republic. Where we are in the trade-offs between being growing business, and taking advantage of those of lesser means in the process.

I take the idea of being an informed citizen seriously, and I see the issues as serious, but at the same time believe they can be presented in a way that appeals to the humor of the human condition.

Which brings me to this site. I've felt for a while that the overall look and feel needs to be updated. And, by that I mean that I want to be able to showcase what you might miss otherwise, give my own take, and do so in a way that's visually appealing, and with a touch of humor.

What that means is that you will not see any new posts here for perhaps the next week. By that time, I think I'll have worked out enough of the details that it'll be not too shabby. And who knows, maybe even infotaining.

Santorum: Advocate for Lobbying Reform?

I wish I had this from a more reliable source, but sometimes you got to go to the blogs with the sources you got, instead of... okay, you know the drill. Byron York notes that Rick Santorum is being put in charge of "lobbying reform":

Republican leaders in the Senate have had a plan in place for the last two months to "get ahead of" the Jack Abramoff scandal by coming up with a new proposal for lobbying reform. The leadership "decided in November that lobby reform for the Senate was a priority for this session," and Majority Leader Bill Frist placed Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum in charge of it, Senate sources tell National Review Online.

Which is kinda weird, since according to Nicholas Confessore's "Welcome to the Machine" Santorum is the GOP enforcer for the K-Street Project in the Senate:

But there's one confirmation hearing you won't hear much about. It's convened every Tuesday morning by Rick Santorum, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, in the privacy of a Capitol Hill conference room, for a handpicked group of two dozen or so Republican lobbyists. Occasionally, one or two other senators or a representative from the White House will attend. Democrats are not invited, and neither is the press.

The chief purpose of these gatherings is to discuss jobs--specifically, the top one or two positions at the biggest and most important industry trade associations and corporate offices centered around Washington's K Street, a canyon of nondescript office buildings a few blocks north of the White House that is to influence-peddling what Wall Street is to finance. In the past, those people were about as likely to be Democrats as Republicans, a practice that ensured K Street firms would have clout no matter which party was in power. But beginning with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, and accelerating in 2001, when George W. Bush became president, the GOP has made a determined effort to undermine the bipartisan complexion of K Street. And Santorum's Tuesday meetings are a crucial part of that effort.

So, what kind of "lobbying reform" are we talking about here? Is this the kind of "reform" where you figure out how you can keep the K-Street Project going, meanwhile distancing yourself from Abramoff for the 2006 elections? Is it the kind of "reform" where you pick a fall guy or two, and tsk-tsk your way through Fox News Sundays? Is the kind of "reform" where you invite Fawn Hall in for a shredder cocktail?

On Abramoff and Sue Schmidt

Art Levine has been covering the Abramoff scandal for a while now, see for example his articles in the American Prospect, and Mother Jones. He's one of a handfull of people that knows the story inside and out, and was the first that alerted me to Bob Ney.

Art recently pointed me to this post at the New Republic blog, plank:

I'm so pleased that the Abramoff story is now breaking, but I wish that the press would jump on its broader implication. Abramoff's rise is amazing. But it says less about the man than the conservative movement. How did this obvious thief become one of the most powerful men in Republican Washington? What made the G.O.P. so vulnerable to his tricks and charms? That's the story that I want to read in the paper.

One last point. Back in the '90s Sue Schmidt took a lot of shit for her reporting on Clinton. Many liberals accused her of being a right wing shill. But she has written some of the best and most important Abramoff stories, pushing a scandal that could exact enormous damage on the Republican party. Now, I think her critics owe her an apology.

I wasn't one of those who jumped on Sue Schmidt's coverage back in the Clinton years. At the time, I was doing a show called "Greetings From the Apocalypse," a production that was not particularly friendly to the Clinton administration. Ah, those were the days. When Clinton's policies were the ones that bothered us.

I got into the habit in those primitive pre-blog years, of reading the Boston Globe and Washington Post closely. I don't remember singling out Sue Schmidt in particular, but thought that the big dailies were doing what I'd expect of them, to act as a check on the Federal Government.

More recently, I've been tracking particular reporters more closely. For instance, this bit from a recent Sue Schmidt piece didn't sound right to me(Washington Post):

"DeLay, a Christian conservative, did not quite know what to make of Abramoff, who wore a beard and a yarmulke. They forged political ties, but the two men never became personally close, according to associates of both men."

It's a strange graph. Abramoff was just too Jewish for DeLay? Or was DeLay too Christian for Abramoff? It read as an attempt to distance one from the other, and I had to guess it was probably the one who didn't plead guilty today.

So, to go back to Art's concern. I don't think that Sue Schmidt is in the pocket of the right wing. It's just that some of her pieces suggest that she has Bush-friendly, or in the above case DeLay-friendly sources, that she could take pause before quoting. That's all I'm saying.

Feels Like Abromass

It's hard to know what to add to the Washington Post story on Abramoff's guilty plea (which appears to have ceased evolving). Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy seems about right.

Still, I feel like I should say something. If for no other reason than to make up for the sounds of silence you hear from the Malkins and Powerlines of the world.

When I read other left-of-center bloggers I hear a subtext: Get Delay. Get Norquist. At the very least Get Ralph Reed.

And there's nothing wrong with these sentiments. These three little piggies should not go to market, but to a House of Fed. And no matter how much the big bad warbloggers huff and puff, they should be punished to the full extent of the law.

Even more important than this, however, the flashlight of justice needs to be shined straight into the face of the K Street Project.

(ambulance sounds. Then the steps of a state trooper as he strides towards the driver's window.) "Do you know why I pulled you over? Your votes have been weaving across the line dangerously. Son, I want you to step out of the Congress. You've been Legislating Under the Influence of Cash."

Your Brush Cleaner-in-Chief Hard at Work

I saw the above shot of Bush on 9.11 at Newsweek via firedoglake.

It apparently shows Bush explaining to Cheney what happened earlier that day, with Cheney respectfully listening, so he can get up to speed. Bush seems to be miming the planes that flew into the World Trade Center towers. Obviously, that's my interpretation, he could showing Cheney how to do the Macarena. History will be a blank slate on this score.

I do know this: After reading "The Pet Goat" at an elementary school, Bush spent the rest of 9.11 on Air Force One. Dick Cheney spent the day monitoring events from an undisclosed location, from where we might suppose the above photo was shot later on in the day.

Bush landed back in DC late on 9.11. So, I'd have to guess that the photographers were brought into the situation room late that night, and took some shots for documentary purposes.

Now, if you've never done a press shoot, here's how it works. The photographer warms you up with a couple of posed shots, and he or she knows they'll probably be throw-aways. Then they say: "That's was fantastic. You're a natural with the camera."

Then they do the real shoot. "Mr. Vice President, the camera loves you. Hand on the chair, glasses off, the ladies like it when you take your glasses off, Mr. Vice President, okay that's really sexy. Okay, now turn to the side... No, I'm not trying to hide what some people call a 'snarl', it's just that your profile is so handsome. And we'll button our jacket, and look even more handsome. Oh, my god, are you dating anyone, 'cause you are just too handsome."

"Now you, Mr. President, oh look, the camera loves you, too. Unbutton your jacket, so we can see your abdomen. Oh, my. Have you been working out? Now, your hands, Mr. President. When the camera sees your hands plastered onto the sides of your face, some people might read that... No, I didn't mean anything by that. It's just that you've got such masculine, presidential hands. Now, hands off the side of our face. That's right. Hold them up in the air. Now, pretend your leader of the free world."

Meanwhile, at Drinking Liberally...

Like many political bloggers, I wear a few hats. One of those hats is of course this silly, yet occasionally pointed website which you are currently perusing.

Another hat is as one of the co-conspirators behind DCDL, the DC chapter of Drinking Liberally. Recently, we hosted Patrick Gavin of the delightful Fishbowl DC blog. Today he discusses his remarks at DCDL at the Huffington Post.

I put in my own $.02 here.

Greetings Wonkette Readers

Thanks Wonkette for the link, and the next round's on me in a DC establishment of your choice. Though, word of advice, stay away from the Abramoff joints for the next week or two. Enough said.

The Snoopgate Files

Both KCinDC and eRobin have correctly pointed out that "Snoopgate" is a very poor name for Bush circumventing the Legislative branch, or more to the point, believing that the Executive branch trumps the law in a time of (elective) war.

But, I'm stumped, as far as a better name is concerned. It's one of those things that takes a paragraph to explain, and as we all know, paragraphs make sucky sound bites.

Instead, what I'm going to do is lay out the whole sordid business in mp3 format. Of course, the fact that we're all a lot more comfortable with the algorithm for compressing sound files than we are the balance of powers under our government says something about us, I think. It says, we are a nation of thinkers, as long as Radiohead is part of what we need to think about. Otherwise, we'll let the Judicial branch sort it out. And by the way, about the Judicial branch... oh, yeah. I forgot you're here for the mp3. My bad.

Snoopgate files part 1 here.