AmericaBlog

Reader Keith Bruns took this during the Bellevue, Washington fireworks display last night. Click the photo to see a larger version.

If the economy was doing better, losing foreign travelers wouldn't be quite as bad but unfortunately that's not the case. Is it our poor human rights record in recent years or have we become an unfriendly country or are other countries more interesting places to visit? If the US wants to be a world leader, does it even matter what the world thinks?

Jed has details on the latest attack piece from the Associated Press's Jennifer Loven on Obama: How bad was Loven's hit piece? Well, it made Josh Marshall's eyes bleed and it numbed Steve Benen's mind.Jennifer Loven is giving AP's Liz Sidoti a run for her money They're probably fighting for the seat on McCain's plane. The media-types are giddy about the new plane, which Jed renamed the Lap Dog Express.

Actually, the political reporters are just giddy about McCain. It's a problem. The Washington Post's David Broder told his fellow pundits and reporters that McCain is off-limits: McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes. His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura.The Broder edict is that McCain is sacrosanct. But, Obama is fair game. Just watch how the press gobbles up the GOP talking points -- even when they're wrong. We'll see this happen over and over and over. What's disturbing is that the reporters are covering for McCain. Big time. Every reporter covering McCain knows the stories about his temper. They know his reputation. Some have even talked to McCain's Republican Senate colleagues who truly think McCain is off his rocker. Yet, none of that matters. They like McCain -- and Obama hasn't endeared himself to them. Again, it's a problem.

But, as Jed reminds us, it all comes back to donuts. Dunkin Donuts. With sprinkles:

Who needs the environment when condos can be slapped up and friends can make a handsome profit?The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal.

"We have 40 years of Forest Service history that has been reversed in the last three months," said Pat O'Herren, an official in Missoula County, which is threatening to sue the Forest Service for forgoing environmental assessments and other procedures that would have given the public a voice in the matter.

Hooray! Best democracy in the world! So the lesson learned is that Big Oil knows they pretty much own the government and can do as they damn well please. Safety? Screw you. Fines? Not on your life. It's not just in distant lands where anything goes, it's right there at home. Nobody is arguing against business, but is it really so hard to find a middle ground between what business wants and what humans wants? As the GOP does the dirty work for Big Oil and their dreams of drilling in ANWR and off the Florida coast, keep in mind how much money industry is investing in legal battles to make it easier for them to ditch safety regulations.

At least we can finally move past those crazy ideas of the past, when we bothered to show interest in expanding the middle class. It's best that we care more about making the rich even richer and forget about everyone else. As long as we have yacht workers (preferably at or near minimum wage), that's all that matters. Sure it's a shame that 50% of the buyers are from overseas but at least we're still creating enough yacht owners at home.According to Camper & Nicholsons International, a broker of yacht sales and charter contracts, there are about 3,800 yachts over 80 feet in service around the world now. About 1,800 of those have been built since 2000. The study predicts that that by 2010, there will be 5,000 such yachts on the water.

"There's not enough supply," said Ed Slack, editor of International Boat Industry. "It takes two years to build some of these yachts and the demand hasn't slowed down."

So far, Trinity's largest vessel has been a 192-foot yacht that would carry a replacement price of $60 million to $65 million. The company is working a 242-footer that will have a price tag in excess of $90 million.

Hell, yes. Read the whole article which provides the lowlights of this despicable man.Senator Jesse Helms, member of the US Senate's foreign relations committee for two decades and its chairman from 1995 to 2001, has died at the age of 86. To echo this newspaper's memorable comment on the death of William Randolph Hearst, it is hard even now to think of him with charity. From his earliest years, Helms's attitudes recalled those of an earlier southern bigot, Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, who so outraged his Senate colleagues, that they eventually refused even to let him take his seat.

There was never a comparable risk for Helms, who maintained an old-world courtesy in his personal contacts. But that was only on the surface. He became one of the most powerful and baleful influences on American foreign policy, repeatedly preventing his country paying its UN contributions, voting against virtually all arms control measures, opposing international aid programmes as "pouring money down foreign rat holes", and avidly supporting military juntas in Latin America and minority white regimes in Southern Africa.

In domestic politics he denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress", voted against a supreme court justice because she was "likely to uphold the homosexual agenda", acted for years as spokesman for the large tobacco companies, was reprimanded by the justice department and the federal election commission for electoral malpractice, and compiled a dismal personal record as a slum landlord.

It's not easy running for Bush's third term.

Articles in two of the big papers show the internal conflict McCain and the Republicans are having over the on-going relationship with their leader, their hero, their mentor: George W. Bush. It's sounds tawdry: clandestine meetings, lots of money, secret love and the fear of public exposure.

First, the Washington Post tells us that Bush is still the GOP's ATM: His popularity rating in national polls is dismally low, and the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, is doing his best to avoid him, but Bush remains a formidable force on the GOP fundraising circuit during his final months in office.

He has already clocked 31 political events this year, raising nearly $70 million for GOP candidates and the national and state parties, according to the Republican National Committee. The tally puts the president on track to meet or exceed the amount he raised before the midterm elections in 2006, according to GOP officials.

To look at it another way: Since the start of 2007, Bush alone is responsible for raising more money than the entire Democratic National Committee.

"This president still has fundraising muscle," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. "Despite the economy, the war and the Republican brand problem, his numbers among Republicans are still very good. . . . He's still the commander in chief, with the top political job in the country.In other words, McCain is still dependent on Bush to be his sugar daddy. So, like so many other tawdry relationships, McCain and the Repubs. love Bush for his money, but they're trying to hide how close they really are. But, as the New York Times reports, that's going to be hard to do at the GOP convention. The Bush/McCain relationship, which they've tried unsuccessfully to keep under wraps, will become very public:This year, of course, Mr. McCain is trying to escape from Mr. Bush’s shadow. Most Republicans say Mr. Bush should play whatever role Mr. McCain wants him to. Some, like Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, simply wish Mr. Bush would keep out of it, though few would say so openly.

“I don’t think there are a lot of people who want to see him at the convention,” said Mr. Rohrabacher, who is especially irked with Mr. Bush for his stance on immigration. He said the president “should stay home from the Republican convention, and everybody would be better off.”

But others, like Rob Portman, a former congressman and budget director for Mr. Bush, say Mr. McCain would be unwise to put too much distance between himself and the sitting president. “The president’s approval rating among Republicans’ base voters who are needed for a successful McCain campaign is relatively high,” Mr. Portman said.

That is the crux of the Republicans’ 2008 convention quandary. If the imagery coming out of St. Paul looks like a McCain-Bush hug fest, the Arizona senator will turn off voters who are through with Mr. Bush and want to move past him. If the imagery looks like Mr. McCain is trying to file for some kind of Republican divorce, it will turn off party conservatives who are already skeptical of Mr. McCain.

So Republicans may just have to grit their teeth.Grit their teeth, but take the money. That sounds like a bad story line on a soap opera.

Good morning. Hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend.

The poem of the week is "Introduction to Poetry." It's fun -- and gives some insight into poetry itself (and poet humor.)

What's the news?

This is a program from PBS, focusing on Pete Seeger's music and message.

This is a program from PBS, focusing on Pete Seeger's music and message.

This is a program from PBS, focusing on Pete Seeger's music and message.

Not that people such as Thabo Mbeki of South Africa are watching. (And strangely enough, Mbeki and the South Africa media are being asked to explain why they publicly claimed Zambia's president Mwanawasa died, when he didn't. Mwanawasa just happens to be a vocal critic of Mbeki's close friend Robert Mugabe.) Growing up in the US, we tend to think vote-tampering is exclusively a problem somewhere else, but of course, we know that's simply not true. Whenever and wherever it occurs, it's disgraceful. Watch the video embedded in the article and follow the process, including how voters were intimidated by tracking their vote to their ID.

Tell me something I didn't already know. In its current form, this is one of the worst ideas in a long time. Stick a fork in this and move on to something else. Will someone please raise this issue at the G8 next week, regardless of the embarrassment it may cause. Is embarrassment of some fragile ego worse than someone starving?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.

Republicans used to attack anyone who suggested such an idea so it's going to be interesting to see how this one flies. Looking at the more radical plans the GOP is promoting (such as damaging the environment) this addresses the key issue of trimming fuel consumption in a pain-free way. Of course, I only drive on rare occasions and for reasons that do not make any sense to me, people get worked up on the issue of driving fast. More on the John Warner speed limit plan.Warner cited studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year.

"Given the significant increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater," Warner wrote Bodman.

Warner asked the department to determine at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient, how much fuel savings would be achieved, and whether it would be reasonable to assume there would be a reduction in prices at the pump if the speed limit were lowered.

Maybe it's the "Cheez-It" logo that does it. Somewhere, somehow, Adams, Hancock and Franklin must be proud knowing that they have been honored and shown proper respect by receiving regular sprays vegetable oil so they don't dry out. I'm just glad we could move beyond old-fashioned American values such as privacy, human rights and separation of church and state and instead fully embrace the corporate sponsorship of all things American.

Not planning to let a dead bigot ruin my 4th of July. Here are some shots I took 5 years ago on the mall here in DC. The best fireworks photos I ever took (and they're not doctored at all, other than adjusting contrast, etc.). Enjoy. Oh, and let's find some good YouTubes of fireworks from around the country and world like we did last year. Feel free to post em in the comments or email me.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Pig.

ANOTHER NOTE FROM JOHN: AP could only find one negative quote that Helms made? They're making him sound like Garrison Keillor.

One of the most hateful men in American politics is dead:Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who became an icon to conservatives, died Friday at the age of 86, a senior congressional source told CNN.Can't even begin to think of anything nice to say about this guy -- but a lot of other people will start praising Helms as if none of the hateful stuff matters. The hateful stuff matters. Let's reminisce on the life of one of America's biggest bigots who ruined the lives of so many.

Jesse Helms on "negroes":As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)

The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)

Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)Helms on "degenerate, weak, sick homosexuals":Over the years Helms has declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." (Newsweek, 12/5/94) In a tirade highlighting his routine opposition to AIDS research funding, Helms lashed out at the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/88)Helms being a racist:And the man ABC News now describes as a "conservative icon" (8/22/01) in 1993 sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries." (Chicago Sun-Times, 8/5/93)Helms filibusters making Martin Luther King day a national holiday:A year before the election, when public polls showed Helms trailing by 20 points, he launched a Senate filibuster against the bill making the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday. (David Broder, Washington Post, Aug, 29, 2001)On cutting AIDS funding:Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct," The New York Times reported Wednesday....

"We've got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts," Helms told the Times.And before anyone says that Helms came around on AIDS in his later years. No he didn't. He came around on AIDS in Africa. Still didn't want to help Americans with AIDS because, you know, they were homersexuals.