text:
NORFOLK — Aaron Bacote takes the long view, which is both understandable and wise as Old Dominion winds down a historically dismal basketball season.
"I feel like I'm a glass half-full kind of guy," the Monarchs' freshman wing from Bethel High said recently. "I have three more years of basketball and a lot to look forward to. The challenge is to get this program back to where it was, to the top of the conference and make some noise nationally."
"I think this year has been really valuable. Experience is the best teacher. You've got to learn how to fight through things. The fact that we've gone through this at such a young age, I think will help us in the future."
Bacote is part of the Monarchs' silver lining, the six-man freshman class that has absorbed every bump, bruise, loss and lesson and deposited them into the motivation bin.
"I think it's an outstanding class and they've got a great future," interim head coach Jim Corrigan said as the Monarchs (4-24, 2-14 CAA) prepare for their home finale 7 p.m. Thursday against Drexel. "They're going to play a lot of good basketball over the next 3-4 years."
It's a deep and varied group — "sort of a team within a team," fellow freshman Stuart McEwen said — that's become inseparable, on and off the court.
"If one of us has a bad day, there's always somebody there to pick each other up," freshman guard Keenan Palmore said. "We're all going through a lot of the same things. We all have each others' backs."
One would be hard-pressed to assemble a more complete unit. There's a point guard (Palmore), three versatile guards/wings, all with slightly different strengths (Bacote, Deion Clark, Ambrose Mosley), a power forward with smarts and perimeter skills (McEwen) and a true post player (Ekene Anachebe).
For good measure, there's even a hard-working, local walk-on who's been embraced by his teammates — Martin Shaw from Kecoughtan.
"Even though it's a big group and a lot of personalities," Shaw said, "all those personalities complement each other. Most of us are pretty laid-back and calm and relaxed away from the court."
Palmore, Bacote, Clark and Mosley share an apartment, while Anachebe, McEwen, Anton Larsen and Dimitri Batten share nearby living quarters, and Anachebe regularly hangs with the first four. The freshmen often work out, eat and socialize together, and several of them are in the same classes.
Palmore and Bacote were constants in the lineup all season, as was Clark before a knee injury sidelined him in mid-January. Palmore averages 8 points per game and has a team-high 84 assists, as well as being a sneaky-effective rebounder. Bacote averages 7.8 points per game, and his 29 3-pointers are second to Batten's 45. Clark averaged 5.6 points per game and probably was the best perimeter defender of the three before he was shelved.
McEwen, a 6-9, 200-pound forward from Australia, played limited minutes this season. He joined the team the second semester of last season after spending the fall at a Connecticut prep school, but is still a freshman, in terms of eligibility.
Anachebe, the 6-foot-10, 280-pound man-child, sat out this season as a redshirt. Mosley sat out this season, as well, following an eligibility dispute with the NCAA Clearinghouse, dating back to his early high school days. Both will be redshirt freshmen next season, with four years of eligibility.
"It's been frustrating because my situation is different from everybody else's," said Mosley, who then cribbed the Nietzsche line: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
That could be the Monarchs' team motto. In their final season in the Colonial Athletic Association, they plummeted from one of the league's marquee programs and a model of consistency to a team that played hard but routinely came up short. They endured injury and illness, a record losing streak, the abrupt dismissal of head coach Blaine Taylor, and ultimately the program's fewest victories and most losses in the modern era.
"It's been one of the worst seasons in our lives, probably one of the worst times in our lives," McEwen said. "But I think we can use this moving forward."
ODU's nosedive is a product of defections, departures and recent recruiting mis-steps that collapsed the transition to which the program had become accustomed and put returning players in positions to which they were ill-suited. That, in turn, prompted the Monarchs to rely on freshmen to a greater extent than is ideal.
"Were the situation different, we might have redshirted another guy, had we been able to," Corrigan said. "It's a lot easier for a single freshman to play with a group of experienced guys, like Northeastern has with David Walker. But we weren't in that situation, so those guys had to play. Next year, they'll be way better, having played the minutes and the situations they played in."
By all accounts, the freshmen haven't lost heart. They come to work every day, limited only by their age and experience level.
"They want to be good, and that's a big key," Corrigan said. "It's something you look for when you're recruiting kids. They'll take coaching. They'll work hard. They'll put in extra time on their own."
All of the freshmen are thoughtful and well-spoken. McEwen and Anachebe are the most outgoing. McEwen is the stereotypical affable Aussie whose travels have made him a bit more worldly than the others.
Anachebe is a social animal who McEwen described as, "a little kid at heart." Bacote shook his head and smiled as he summed up Anachebe as "unique."
When Anachebe recited his present size, he was quick to add, "but I'm very mobile." Mobile, yes, though his game needs refinement.
"I would have liked to play," he said, "but we all have to make sacrifices for the good of the team. I'm taking the year to learn better post skills, learn the offense, learn the system. I'll be much better equipped to contribute next season."
That's a common refrain among the freshmen, whether they played significant minutes or not.
Palmore said he needs to become a better leader, in order to involve his teammates, and to become a better shooter. Bacote wants to get stronger, in order to be more consistent and to keep his legs and form late in the season.
McEwen must add weight and strength — no small feat, to hear him tell it. "My father and my uncles all have the same body type," he said. "We're all tall and thin and when they hit 40, that's when they put on weight — exactly when you don't want to."
Mosley welcomes the opportunity to practice, play and be a full uniformed member with his compadres.
"At first, I looked at my situation negatively," he said. "As a kid, you come to school to play basketball and I haven't had the chance yet. But I've realized that I can use the time to get stronger and work on my academics, so that when I'm a senior I'll be in much better shape."
Shaw played only a few minutes this season and hopes to remain along for the ride. He had modest numbers at Kecoughtan, serving as a backup and practice partner to former all-district player Josh Fortune, who's now at Providence.
"My role in practice is to push them on defense and pressure them," Shaw said. "On offense, I try to go at them and make them better defenders. You want to get your teammates better. That's the definition of a teammate: someone who makes their teammates better, regardless of their own situation."
All of the Monarchs, freshmen as well as upperclassmen, have tried to heed Corrigan's advice when the coaching change was made several weeks ago. Look ahead, he told them, since you cannot control the past. They eagerly await the offseason, armed with a year's knowledge and experience.
"I'm thankful for the situation I'm in," Bacote said. "God makes no mistakes. He put us all in this situation for a reason. Of course, we'd like to have more wins and be more successful. Nobody goes out there with the idea of losing, but we're in this situation for a reason and I believe we're going to be better for it."
Thursday's game
WHO: Drexel (11-17, 7-9 CAA) at Old Dominion (4-24, 2-14).
WHEN: 7 p.m.
WHERE: Ted Constant Center, Norfolk.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Adobe Flash Player and AIR (CVE-2010-2175) Unspecified Memory Corruption Vulnerability
Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR are prone to an unspecified memory-corruption vulnerability.
Attackers can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code in the context of the application. Failed attacks may cause a denial-of-service condition.
Very few technical details are currently available. We will update this BID as more information emerges.
NOTE: This issue was previously covered in BID 40759 (Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2 and AIR 220.127.116.1130 Multiple Remote Vulnerabilities) but has been given its own record to better document it.
Privacy Statement


text:
Florida Legacy contains content digitized from the collections of Tampa Bay Library Consortium(TBLC) member libraries, including photographs, books, pamphlets, documents, and newspaper clippings. Fifteen participating libraries have contributed over 50,000 records, including over 5,000 digital images of visual materials.
The first page gives an overview of the site. When you are ready, you can search by key word, or you can browse the collections and images. There are over 40 individual collections that comprise the Legacy database. In all cases you will be presented with complete citations of where the item you searched for can be found, and in many cases there are images available. Most all of the historic photograph collection is digitized.
The PGS has a class on all of the "other library databases" in addition to Legacy. Check the calendar on the PGS website <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flpgs/index.htm> to see if and when it is next scheduled. If it is not on the current schedule, keep checking as our courses come up on a rotating basis.


text:
A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
Full site
Title names
Author names
Advanced Search
This is an ongoing series of interviews with Liberty Fund authors and academics on their work and its relationship to the study of liberty.
All Groups


text:
Emulsified Raisin Yeast Water Loaf
Emulsified Raisin Yeast Water LoafCreature in the crumb
It is not uncommon when using a Yeast Water (YW) to strain out the food portion (vegetable, herb, or fruit) and use only the clear water portion of the culture. When the culture is fed with raisins (Raisin YW, or just RYW) the raisins tend to become empty skins after a few days. Before that, the raisins go through a transition from simple raisin into an alcoholic tasting fruit and as the WBBs consume the insides of the raisins, finally into the empty skins. Around the second or third day, the raisins make a fine treat to use in raisin bread, or salads, etc. However, by the time that only the skins are left, all the taste that is left is a bitterness of the skin. Thus, if the raisins go through the full cycle, one is left with just another form of discard, and basically a worthless one to strain from the balance of the RYW. In this test loaf, I tried using everything, but not as any "raisin bread" one would recognize from that name - in taste, nor appearance. I started a fresh RYW culture, using organic raisins, water, and a jump-start from my stock Apple YW. After 24 hours, I totally emulsified the soften raisins. At 48 hours I used 15g of this very active Raisin YW (RYW) plus 15g KAAP to start Build-#1 of a 3-build RYW levain at 100%HL (hydration Level). Builds #2 & #3 followed and resulted in a total levain of the desired 354g of RYW levain. The levain was combined with 118g of bread flour and 2% fine sea salt. Kneaded until a satisfactory windowpane was obtained, and then retarded for just over 45 hours. After the retardation, the dough was removed from the fridge, allowed to warm up for an hour, and then, shaped in a simple log form and placed in my standard A7½ (7.500" x 3.750" x 2.250") buttered bread pan. Covered and placed in a proof box at 82ºF ( 27.8º C) for the 10 hour final rise. The dough top, was scored from each end to make two 80% parallel scores. Place in TP Dutch Oven & 1 cup of boiling water poured on the floor of the DO. DO lid added at once. The cold oven stones removed. The DO placed at the lowest position, and the oven set to the max - 450ºF ( 232º C) for the first 20 minutes of baking. After 20 minutes, the DO cover was removed The oven was reset to 400ºF ( 204º C), and the door of the oven was cracked open 1/2" (12 mm). After a total of 45 minutes the loaf was removed and cooled on a wire rack for about 2 hours before cutting. I found the variation in the color in the sliced loaf surprising. I have seen this in other loaves, but not where I knew first hand that the kneading had been over 20 minutes on a Kitchen Aid hook at fourth speed. From the uniformity of the crumb, there can also be no doubt that the levain was well distributed through the dough. Since the total coloration came from the levain, I am left to speculate that the lighter portions of the crumb were colored primarily from the water portion of the levain and the darker areas are the larger raisin portions that were less capable of physical migration through the flour in the final dough mix. In any event, I fancied I could see a creature in the crumb. In order that you might more easily see what I refer to, at the lower right hand portion of the next image, I inserted a small marked up copy exaggerating the creature's position. A copy of my baking log is available on Google Docs using this Link:Z-110614-10_RYW_478g [Photos]_110615-1540 .pdf - https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_MScoZfDZkwMDVmMmVkYWQtNjlmMC00YjVmLTgwMmYtODhlOTM3ZjE4ZDli&hl=en_US
The crumb was softer than would be the case with SD. It also was less open than the last several loaves, excluding the Pullman enriched loaves. It looks as if it were a 30% rye, and could be mistaken in a photo – IMHO. The flavor is distinctly NOT like, SD, App.YW, Apr.YW, Potato YW, and despite the very dark crust, it is not sweet to my sense of taste. I believe that the tartness of the emulsified raisin skin, contained in the levain, somewhat offset the sweetness that a strained RYW has. As fully expected, there was no tang to the flavor, but a very full flavor that seemed more of a wheat than raisin. Indeed, there was no trace of any identifiable raisin flavor. I thought it a very pleasant flavor that might go well in combination with rye, which might be well worth testing.Ron


text:
Hi folks,
My BIBM install usually "just works" in perfect fashion, but I'm having trouble achieving something today and I wonder if it's not possible.
One of my many HDDs (HDD 3) is 4TB in size and so formatted as GPT. Currently, I use BIBM to boot from an Arch Linux install (Syslinux bootloader) on partition 1. In the BIBM boot edit screen, the entry just points to HDD3, and the "boot" field is blank. This works fine.
I've now installed Ubuntu into partition 2 on the same HDD. I want to add a new boot entry to BIBM, such that I can boot directly to that partition on the GPT drive, separately of the original Arch Linux install. But I can't work out how to do it. The boot menu won't let me specify a GPT partition to boot from; seems it's the whole disk or nothing.
Am I missing something?


text:
It's no secret that the National Rifle Association is probably the most powerful lobbying group in America, noted
for its no-nonsense tactics and fervent membership. Beyond that, virtually everything about the NRA's political
agenda, its financial structure, and how it spends the vast amounts of money it collects from contributors has
been kept a tightly guarded secret, not only from the public but from NRA members as well - until now.
In Ricochet a one-time NRA lobbyist and avid Second Amendment defender unmasks the inner workings, influence,
and goals of this highly secretive political behemoth. From internecine warfare, media manipulation, and
executive bankrolling to gun control bills and school massacres, Richard Feldman, former NRA regional political
director and lobbyist for the firearm industry, exposes the NRA as a cynical, mercenary political cult obsessed
with wielding power while exploiting members' fear in order to maximize contributions.
Looking back over his long association with the NRA, Feldman reveals the inside stories behind the organization's
responses to the Bernie Goetz subway shootings, the Assault Weapons Ban, gun-control legislation, the Oklahoma City
Bombing, the Long Island Railroad shootings, and Feldman's own voluntary gun-lock agreement. He explains how the
NRA's inflexible positions have placed the nation's most prominent representative of law-abiding gun owners in
increasing opposition to law enforcement, gun makers, and moderate Republicans. The upshot is that the NRA is not
an effective advocate for its members' interests. Obsessed with fundraising, scare-mongering, and wielding political
power, NRA leadership undermines commonsense solutions that would protect gun owners' rights while reducing
accidental shootings and gun violence.
Ricochet is not for gun control advocates: It is a wake-up call for gun owners who cherish their Second
Amendment rights. The message is that the NRA has betrayed your trust, misused your hard-earned donations, and
strengthened the hand of those who would take your guns away. Read this hard-hitting exposé to discover how this
has happened and what you can do about it.
RICHARD FELDMAN was a regional political director for the National Rifle Association during its rise
to power in the 1980s. In the 1990s he was chief lobbyist and spokesman for the firearm industry's national trade
association. The founder of MLS Communications, a public relations and political consulting business, Mr. Feldman is also an
attorney specializing in public affairs.
"Ricochet tells the truth. With each page I can hear the echo of footsteps down the Rayburn Building's marbled halls as Feldman tells the intimate story few know and even fewer survive" -- Hon. Jack Brooks, former Chairman U.S. House Judiciary Committee
"Ricochet casts an eye-opening spotlight on the shadowy world of behind-the-scenes gun politics. Is it accurate?
Absolutely! I was there." -- John Aquilino, former Director NRA Public Education
"Ricochet is right on target. Feldman's behind-the-scenes memoir vividly describes America's firearms debate and
struggle to win in extraordinary detail. I thoroughly enjoyed it." -- John W. Magaw, former Director of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms
MEDIA INQUIRES Contact: Sarah Gorback
989 Market Street, Fifth Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel: (415) 782-3213
Fax: (415) 433-4151
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
How to Sim Unlock Motorola Motokey Mini EX109? | Motorola Unlocking
SIM unlock code of all Motorola is available, means Motorola Motokey Mini EX109 can be unlocked easily with unlock code. It is fast and secure way to unlock Motorola phone by IMEI. You can unlock all Motorola Motokey Mini EX109 devices from any network. Once the restriction is removed, you can use all GSM simcards on your phone.
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Have any question, let us know before placing the order.
Also check supported networks to unlock your Motorola Motokey Mini EX109 by code : View Brands.


text:
Squirrels have fuzzy tails.
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
the other processor i am considering is a Linksys "slug".
what about inputs? what level of controll do you need?will your bot just follow a set sequence of movements or would you like it to react to it's environment or user input (remote control etc)?


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She Sings
For being such a light-feeling guitar, the Fat Lady definitely sings like its name implies. This acoustic is truly remarkable for the ground it covers—everything from soft fingerpicking to good-time strumming comes through clearly and with a well-balanced tonal range. Everything seems to be in proportion here, from the guitar's crisp highs to its full-but-not-overpowering bottom-end, and it really feels like each part of the instrument adds to the greater whole in just the right amount. The dreadnought body style and bracing give the sound depth and body; the Queensland maple body and neck provide shimmering highs; the Bunya top gives this guitar just the right amount of warmth (almost akin to a cedar-topped acoustic, without the mushiness at higher volumes or intensities). Perhaps even more impressive is the guitar's responsiveness; despite its size, this Fat Lady is nimble, dynamic and brilliantly expressive at all points.
The Fat Lady's electronics have been custom built by Cole Clark to compliment the guitar's tonality, and I'm proud to report that they do a hell of a job. The system is comprised of six individual piezo sensors under the bridge and a Face Brace transducer with three sensors mounted under the soundboard. A unique Blend slider on the guitar's preamp allows you to adjust the crossover point of where the guitar's high-end frequencies are captured from—moving the slider away from you causes more of the bridge piezos' high-end to be amplified; pulling the slider towards you causes the system to amplify more highend from the sensors. It's a fairly ingenious and natural-sounding system that allows you to really dial in the nature of your high-end— the Face Brace provided the Fat Lady with a little more "airiness"—although playing through a Genz Benz Shenandoah Compak 300, I found the best sounds to be in the central range of the slider, drawing equally from both sources. The system does a great job of bringing out the warmth and clarity of the guitar, and the only time feedback was an issue was at high volumes with the Face Brace sensor fully engaged.
The preamp interface itself is fairly pedestrian, Blend function aside. It has a Volume slider, and a 3-band EQ allowing you to dial in your Highs, Mids and Lows. This was really the only place that I had any quibbles with the instrument— the labels for the sliders were damn near invisible in anything short of bright light, and the conspicuous lack of an on-board tuner seems like a major omission for such a welldesigned system.
In terms of playability, the Fat Lady is certainly playable, but you'll likely want to spend a little time dialing it in for your tastes. The guitar comes strung with .012s and a medium setup (.078" on the treble side and .098" on the bass side), and the company's website says, "It is fully expected that specific settings are the responsibility of the customer." The 12" fingerboard radius, the medium C profile and 1 ¾" nut width make this guitar extremely comfortable to play (although smaller hands might struggle with lower position chording), while a Graphtech TUSQ nut and Grover Rotomatic tuners keep everything stable and in tune, no matter how heavy-handed you get.
The Final Mojo
It's safe to say that Cole Clark Guitars is on to something here—the Fat Lady is one of the finest acoustics you'll encounter in the sub-$2000 market, and the fact that it's made of more sustainable varieties of wood is the cherry on top. It looks great, it plays great and it sounds even better—what more could you ask for?
Buy if...
you're looking for a bright, articulate acoustic you can feel good about.
Skip if...
you're a spruce fanatic.
MSRP $1540 - Cole Clark Guitars - coleclarkguitars.com


text:
WHEN Oxford entrepreneur Gareth Reakes sold his third start-up for £10.8m, he was ready for a fresh challenge.
It soon appeared, in the form of his nan, Vera.
He said: "My nan used to give three rings on the phone and then hang up, just to let my mum know that she had made it through the night.
"It was reassuring for my mum, but she was only one person in the family. We thought we could solve this problem and give other relatives peace of mind."
A computer graduate of Oxford Brookes University, Mr Reakes, 38, linked up with business partner Steve Purdham, who had worked with him at his previous start-up, music-streaming business WE7, sold to Tesco and now named Blinkbox, and based at Oxford Business Park.
With Steve's wife Julie, they developed an online service called 3rings, which automatically contacts a network of family and friends, using an app, text message, e-mail or phone call to tell them an elderly relative is OK.
At first they designed an array of sensors to build a 'pattern of normality' which would alert the family to anything unusual.
But they soon realised that was too complicated, and decided the 'three rings' code was ideal.
Mr Reakes said: "Other companies are looking at how to solve this in a technical way, through installing lots of hardware. But we learned that simplicity is the key."
Their service is activated by three rings on a phone, and relatives can choose whether to be alerted by email, text or phone.
After talking to family and friends, he realised that older people wanted security, but didn't want to be a burden.
"I could understand that they prefer it if their children don't need to ring all the time to check on them," he said.
The 3rings service is Internet-based, but activated by a traditional landline. "There is no hardware, nothing to install and no new technology for the older person to understand or worry about.
"We use a home phone that everyone is comfortable with."
Sadly Mr Reakes's nan has since died, but Mr Purdham's mother Iris, 82, has tested the service and features in a video on the 3rings website.
Mr Reakes said: "My nan certainly would not have had a smartphone, but the grandchildren are happy to use them. Our system is about offering different channels."
They used part of the WE7 windfall to set up an office at Oxford Business Park, employing six full-timers to launch the business.
"At the moment our primary aim is to make people aware of the service," he said.
Contact: www.3rings.co.uk


text:
I lived!
From the beginning of the battle, to the end I lived.
Not Squidly with his "I got heals", but Gnomeaggedon with this Suicide Mage tendencies, paper thin armor and critmter level health pool.
I guess I have Rip to thank for that, maybe I am less of a suicide Mage now than I have ever been.
Another Battleground, another kill.
The other thing that happened during that Wintergrasp was a little reward for returning to Battlegrounds.
Squidly did this with his eyes closed.. just follow the pack, heal people, soak up the HKs and if things got bad, he would just heal himself.
Gnomeaggedon just found death, death and more death, which was rarely the oppositions, most frequently his own.
Now admittedly I haven't made it to Prelimar's 100k kills… but slowly and surely I will get there.
Long time Blogger, 1st time Meeter.
I've had lots of whispers in the past, most along the lines of:
I've even had people drop by Aman'Thul and surprise my socks off, but they have been more like family, blogging family.
I've never been stopped in the streets of Dalaran, Ironforge or Wintergrasp for an autograph…
To be honest, I still haven't, but I got my 1st reader whisper.
Right after I zoned in.
Just as I was about to be slaughtered by 2 Horde lurking in this tower as the battle began (At least I managed to blastwave one off the tower before I visited the spirit healer) (/cough exploit /cough)
Grand Advice
Kashinboner followed this up by getting me a VoA25 invite.
I'd love to say I didn't embarrass myself too much.. actually I didn't, but I came close.
Luckily one of the many Mages in the raid was discussing the exchange of buffs when I realised I was still in my PvP spec with my PvP gear… that could have been embarrassing.
I wasn't the top of the charts, but I wasn't the bottom either… there were some tanks and healers and a couple of DPS below me.
I have been feeling a little bit of that pressure that Krizzlybear went through for so long as I assume it is my spec that is in part reducing me to 1/2 every other Mage's damage… ohhh well, I like things to go boom.
I lived through both bosses though, I did my bit and I was happy.
I was happiest, of course, because of the whisper that started it all.
/Cheers Kashinboner!
Until we meet again… For Gnomeregan!
Note: Any typos in this post brought to you by the kitten Wiley.
Gnomer and Out!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.


text:
Events concerning the Grand Theft Auto series in 2013:
Grand Theft Auto V Era
- Grand Theft Auto V will be released on 17 September for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360[1]. A PC version has not yet been confirmed.
- As GTA V is said to occur in modern day Los Santos, This would also put the game's setting in 2013.
- Grand Theft Auto Online will be released on 1 October for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- GTA O is said to occur in Los Santos, prior to the events of GTA V.
- Mock police records on the Grand Theft Auto 2 website are dated between 10/07/13 and 03/11/13[2]. This, along with the game's futuristic setting led some fans to believe that the game takes place in 2013. However, the game's manual uses the phrase "three weeks into the future", and the website's clock is always set three weeks ahead of the current time[3] - this puts forward the idea that the game takes place in an unspecific time and place, fitting with the game's setting of "Anywhere, USA". On top of this, radio host Johnny Riccaro mentions in the game that "the millennium's coming," which would set the game shortly before 2000.


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- Font:
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- -
Guest Host: Michael Smerconish
Guests: Eugene Robinson, Richard Wolffe, Melissa Francis, John Larson, Dan Boren, Richard Blumenthal, Steve Womack, John Pistole
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, HOST: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Let's play some HARDBALL.
Good evening. I'm Michael Smerconish, in for Chris Matthews.
And leading off tonight: No change. House Democrats took a historic debt on election day. Independents abandoned them. Moderate Blue Dogs were crushed. Republicans are readying to take control. And how do the Democrats show voters they've heard their message? How do they prove they're willing to change? By keeping the same exact leadership that presided over their colossal defeat.
Nancy Pelosi and her top lieutenants will hold onto their jobs, despite challenges from both liberals and moderates. And tonight, we'll talk to one of those leaders who's keeping his job and a moderate Democratic who's been a vocal Pelosi critic.
Plus, Connecticut senator-elect Richard Blumenthal was one of the few Democratic candidates who beat back the Republican tide. I'll ask him what he's going to do to help his party regain voter confidence and fix the economy.
And can you believe Republicans actually rebuffed President Obama's White House invite for tomorrow? Will this play right into the president's hands?
Also, more than 80 percent of Americans support the use of those new airport body scanners, so is that enough to quell calls by privacy rights advocates to boycott those intrusive scanners on the day before Thanksgiving? The head of the TSA says passengers who object to all enhanced screenings will not get on the plane, and he will be here tonight.
And "Let Me Finish" with some thoughts about homework.
We start with the Democratic leadership, same as it ever was.
Congressman John Larson of Connecticut is the Democratic caucus chair. Congratulations on maintaining that position. There's a perspective you've heard from others that says you didn't get the message. More than 60 lost their seats, and it's the same face for the leadership of Democrats. How do you respond?
REP. JOHN LARSON (D-CT), DEM. CAUCUS CHAIRMAN: Well, no, we did get the message, and it was a heart-felt message. We heard in more than five hours yesterday from our members, including members that won't be joining us in the 112th Congress, Michael. It's about jobs. It's about the economy. We get it. And certainly, while it was a historic caucus (SIC), we didn't get enough done on behalf of people. We had a Roosevelt moment, and we responded in many respects like Hoover.
So we know that we have a lot more to do, and we hope that we can work with the Republicans now. Instead of saying no, they have an opportunity to come forward and create jobs. We will join with them in that. We understand this is about the American people. And when you're out of work and you don't have employment, times are tough. They're tough, but we're committed to respond in a way that will be helpful to the American people and put them back to work.
SMERCONISH: Congressman Larson, there's a temptation to think that this is a lot of inside baseball, but I offer you the perspective of a radio host who sits in a studio and hears commercial after commercial in that last cycle on radio stations across the country where Speaker Pelosi was the face, speaker Pelosi was the voice that Republicans very effectively used in a successful campaign. So you know, to that person's perspective, you kept her in position, albeit not as the speaker.
LARSON: Well, I think anyone who's demonized with more than $75 million, ratings are going to be low. But what I would say to the American people, and certainly what our caucus had to say, is that we understand her heart and we understand her will. We understand her effectiveness. That's why she was demonized.
And frankly, what this is about, at the end of the day, isn't about Nancy Pelosi or John Larson or any of our leadership. This is going to be about the American people and working on their behalf. And so that's what the caucus came together around. And everybody had an opportunity to speak. And I am so proud of the camaraderie and the feelings that were emanating from our caucus. It was actually uplifting and a very difficult two days.
SMERCONISH: Take me, if you would, sir, inside that caucus and paint the picture for me. What did the Speaker have to say?
LARSON: Well, what the Speaker—I think what's important is what the members had to say, what the members had to say about her and about her effectiveness and about their districts and about their willingness to run again, and how we have to keep the faith. And also members in striking candor were talking about how difficult it was to be associated with her and to be branded that way.
What people talked about was the Citizens United decision and what happened with the Disclose Act. Members stood up and said, We shouldn't pass anything from the Senate until they wake up and pass the Disclose Act, so that all the dirty money that's gone into soiling not only the good name of Nancy Pelosi but all of these races across the country—we've got to wake up to that. I thank a lot of people on MSNBC, who at least get it and talk about it, as opposed, as you pointed out, Michael, to a lot of the stations around the country that don't.
SMERCONISH: Well, regardless of how we got here, one wonders if you did a favor to the president today because it now sets the stage for 2012. Presumably, he's running for reelection, and you can already see those images and hear those commercials.
LARSON: Well, I think, again, it's going to be about jobs and it's going to be about the economy. And certainly, I think the president understands this. And I said before we have a Roosevelt moment. There's got to be more fireside chats and connecting with the people. We've got to have the ability to do that. We have an articulate, young, visionary president who is certainly very capable of doing that. We look forward to working with him to achieve those goals. But we're certainly bound and determined to focus on jobs and this economy. Our slogan continues to be, Make it an America so that every American can make it.
SMERCONISH: Congressman, there was an interesting analysis offered at Politico today by Jonathan Allen and John Harris that suggested that among the reasons why the Speaker maintained her leadership position within the Democratic Party was to hold the White House in check, that she would be a progressive check on a president's temptation, this president's temptation, to gravitate toward the middle. Does that make sense to you as someone who was supportive of her?
LARSON: Well, certainly, you know, it's important that Congress as a body be an important check on the executive branch, but we look forward to working with this administration. Certainly, Nancy has demonstrated that she can do that, but she is—I think that's a good analysis. She is an important check not only on the president but on the Senate, as well.
And I think you're going to see a more determined House come around in terms of our relationship with the Senate and our ability to work with the executive branch. And she certainly does represent that.
But more importantly, we know how to work together with people. We're willing to reach across the aisle to the Republicans. They've got a difficult task in front of us. We've got to put aside differences of Democrat and Republican and work to put America back to work. That's what our charge is. We will not turn back the clock. We will stick with our principles. We will not allow the privatization of Social Security and the vouchering of Medicare, and we will fight for American jobs. That's as we see our goals. We won't turn back the clock again on Wall Street reforms, either. That's what we stand for. That's why I'm proud to be a Democrat.
SMERCONISH: You mentioned working across aisle. I think it doesn't bode well for the country if a dinner invitation extended by the president is snubbed, and that's what it appears to be, from all accounts, for tomorrow night. Is that a sign of what's to come?
LARSON: Well, I think the Republicans are in disarray. They're having a battle within their own caucus in terms about who's controlling their caucus. Is it the Tea Party? I heard John McCain today questioning the Tea Party and their influence within the Senate, and within the House, as well. So they're going to be going through struggles, as well.
I think the important thing is to focus on jobs. We demonstrated in our caucus that we can work together. Dan Boren, who you're going to hear from next, and I (ph) have worked together with a guy like T. Boone Pickens to put America's energy system back together, in support of the Natural Gas Act, create the kind of jobs that we need here in this country and put America back to work. That's what we've got to do. That's what our caucus is focused on.
SMERCONISH: You make reference to Congressman Boren. And of course, I think of Congressman Boren as Blue Dog Democrat. Does this spell the death knell, politically speaking, of Blue Dog Democrats, the result of this vote today? Is there a place for them in your party?
LARSON: Not at all. There's a big tent in our party and a huge spot for the Blue Dogs. They were articulate. They did a great job both yesterday in our five-hour-long caucus and today in our organizational meeting. And the important thing in our caucus is that we can sit down and reason together, even where we disagree. And we're not always going to have agreement. That's why we have such a huge tent. But what we know is that we can work together towards a common goal, and a common goal that we share is jobs.
SMERCONISH: Thank you very much, Congressman John Larson. We're going to talk to Blue Dog Democrat Dan Boren in a moment. But first, take a listen to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur last week right here on HARDBALL.
REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D), OHIO: I was just going to say, if I might just mention, I look forward to alliances with some of the Tea Party Republicans that have just been elected because when NAFTA passed in 1993, we only had a 12-vote margin that would have made the difference. And look at the terrible hemorrhage of jobs that occurred because of that. I'll tell you, I think that there's a real Democratic/Tea Party Republican alliance to be born in this new Congress. And if it doesn't happen, the people who don't support jobs in this country won't be reelected two years from now.
SMERCONISH: And the suggestion of Congresswoman Kaptur's comments and the reason I wanted you to hear that is that she expresses a willingness to work with the Tea Party. I wonder if Congressman Dan Boren feels the same way. Congressman, I know you heard just the tail end of that. What's your willingness to reach across the aisle and work with Tea Party-elected candidates?
REP. DAN BOREN (D), OKLAHOMA: I'm willing to work with anybody, anybody that wants to bring this country together to solve problems. I think the electorate said they're tired of the partisanship. They want people who are going to work for common sense solutions to bring this economy back. We're so tired of the polarization.
I don't care who it is, whether the Republicans, Democrats, Blue Dogs, independents, you know, progressives, whatever the strife, we've got to set these differences aside. And frankly, today, we had a big leadership election, and some of us on the more conservative side of the Democratic caucus were disappointed. But the focus is going away from the Congress to the president.
SMERCONISH: Did you—you had said, sir that you intended to vote against the Speaker in her leadership capacity. Did you, indeed, cast that ballot?
BOREN: I did. I voted for Heath Shuler of North Carolina, a more conservative Democrat. I will vote on the floor of the House for a more conservative Democrat than Nancy Pelosi.
SMERCONISH: Well, let me say—let me ask you, if I may, what I asked Congressman Larson, which is from the outside looking in, I mean, here's a party that got drubbed in the election, lost more than 60 seats, and holds onto the same leadership. It seems as if the party's tone deaf.
BOREN: I agree with you. The problem is, we only had 43 votes. I think most Americans would agree there needed to be some changes. But unfortunately, they didn't have those votes. There were over—there are 150 Democrats who voted to stay with the same leadership.
But what I'm going to try to do is move forward, see if the president, frankly—again, back to the president. He's got to move to the middle. He is way off on the left flank, frankly, from—I can tell you from Oklahoma, he is. He's got to get to the middle. Is he going to be Bill Clinton, or is he going to be Jimmy Carter?
SMERCONISH: Would you—
BOREN: Is he going to be a one-term president or a two-term president?
SMERCONISH: Would you go so far, Congressman, as to say that it was selfish for those who maintained leadership positions not to stand down?
BOREN: Well, I was very public. I thought that we needed a new direction. We needed new leadership. But you know, the elections are over with. I tried my darnedest. I've been speaking out all over, not only in Oklahoma but all across the country, here in Washington, D.C. And unfortunately, my caucus did not listen.
But you know, what do we do now? That's the thing. The leadership election was lost. Now what do we do? I think it's really up to the president. The president has the big podium, not necessarily the minority leader.
SMERCONISH: Do you interpret—and I only have 30 seconds left. Do you interpret Speaker Pelosi's success today as progressives saying, We need her here to hold him, the president, in check so that he doesn't drift toward the middle?
BOREN: Well, they did say that, but that's why it's so important to see what the president's reaction is going to be. Is he going to extend the tax cuts, which I support? We cannot raise taxes in the middle of a recession.
SMERCONISH: Congressman—
BOREN: We've got to work with the business community. People are not talking about that. Democrats need to work with the business community. Barack Obama needs to work with the business community, the people that create jobs in this country.
SMERCONISH: Congressman Dan Boren, many thanks for your time. We appreciate it.
BOREN: Thank you.
SMERCONISH: Coming up: Meet the freshmen. Senator-elect Richard Blumenthal beat Linda McMahon in the Connecticut Senate race. He survived a Republican wave, and now he'll tell us what he's planning to do once he takes his seat.
You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
SMERCONISH: It's official in Alaska. NBC News is projecting that Lisa Murkowski is the apparent winner in the Alaska Senate race. She's won reelection as a write-in candidate. After two weeks of counting write-in ballots, Murkowski has a lead of about 10,000 votes with only a few hundred ballots left to count. That makes Murkowski the first Senate candidate to win a write-in campaign since Strom Thurmond did it back in 1954.
HARDBALL back after this.
SMERCONISH: Welcome back to HARDBALL. All this week on HARDBALL, we're meeting some of the newest members of the House and Senate. And joining me now, Senator-elect Richard Blumenthal, who currently is Connecticut's attorney general. He defeated former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon by 12 points.
Senator, full disclosure. I once predicted on HARDBALL that you'd never survive, politically speaking, that flap over your military record. Congratulations. You did so.
SEN.-ELECT RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: Thank you. Thank you very much. A very decisive victory, and I'm very glad to have won after being outspent 7 to 1. But I'm here because people of Connecticut know me. They know my record. And that may not have always been as apparent to folks who didn't live here and perhaps the national press, as well.
SMERCONISH: Earmarks. Senators McCaskill and Udall say ban them.
What do you say?
BLUMENTHAL: I say at a minimum—at a very minimum—we should end the secret earmarks that have so bedeviled the process and undermined confidence. And there ought to be a rational process if there are designated spending for any state or any district. But you know, earmarks are really only a tiny part of the deficit and debt problem, less than a fraction of 1 percent. And I'm much more concerned about the major opportunities for cutting spending and getting serious about reducing our national debt. And I made some very specific proposals about how to do it.
SMERCONISH: How would you treat those upper 2 percent income earners who are getting so much attention in this conversation?
BLUMENTHAL: I believe there ought to be an extensions of tax cuts for the middle class. I have opposed extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent. The idea that somehow those tax breaks benefit small businesses I think is a complete ruse.
But I would—and I stress I am very strongly in support of tax relief for small businesses. Priority number one has to be aid for those small businesses in the form of more capital, more and—and more secure deductions, R&D tax credits for small businesses that are the major source of job creation in this country, more than 70 percent of all new jobs.
And we need more infrastructure investment. So getting America back to work, putting America become on track, in Connecticut, fighting for those people who are out of work and small businesses that need that kind of tax relief and capital, because the banks aren't making loans, has to be priority number one.
SMERCONISH: Speaking of your home state of Connecticut, where you remain the attorney general, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you for a comment on that horrific set of circumstances presented in the home invasion case that has captivated much of the nation. You'd agree with me, I hope, that the death penalty is warranted in that case, for he who's already been convicted and for number two, should he be convicted, as well?
BLUMENTHAL: Absolutely. If the death penalty is warranted in any case—and I support the death penalty in cases of heinous and horrific crime—certainly, this one is absolutely a poster person for it. Both Hayes and his co-defendant certainly deserve the death penalty.
SMERCONISH: And that Dr. Petit, a rock, a—a steel-willed individual, un—unlike any I have ever paid attention to in the past.
BLUMENTHAL: You know, I think he has provided inspiration, not only for his immediate family and for people who know him, but really for the entire state, maybe for others outside the state of Connecticut, not only in his courage and dedication and his perseverance, coming to court every day, staying with the process that, unfortunately, as some criminal justice cases illustrate—and I say this as a former United States attorney, as well as now attorney general—sometimes fails to move as quickly as it should.
SMERCONISH: Another issue that's been on your agenda as attorney general that you will deal with now in the United States Senate, health insurance, and I know, if not today, perhaps it was yesterday, Anthem.
Can you give us the Cliffs Notes version of what is going on?
BLUMENTHAL: I was in the Insurance Commission hearings literally today opposing a 20 percent rate increase request, completely unjustified. I have fought Anthem and other insurance companies in their rate increase requests year after year.
Last year, Anthem received a 20-plus percent increase, recently, a 30 percent to 50 percent increase. Now it wants a 20 percent increase on some of its plans. And I have also fought, by the way, insurance companies when they fail to cover people under policies, using excuses like preexisting conditions, and the doctor's out of network, the treatment is experimental.
My experience leads me to believe we can't go back to a time when insurance companies made the rules and ran the show, which is why I want these protections for consumers, improve the health care bill by cutting costs, but not repeal it.
SMERCONISH: I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a 20 percent increase, but why can't the market solve that problem? Why does it require government intervention?
BLUMENTHAL: Because the market is not as competitive as it should be, very simply.
As you know, the antitrust laws fail to provide the kind of protection in this industry that they might in others, and the free market fails to operate in a way that it should, which is why there has to be stronger regulation or scrutiny, at least, oversight and scrutiny. This health care bill fails to provide it. I see it firsthand in Connecticut, where there's no right to a hearing, no right to appeal. And consumers deserve better protection.
SMERCONISH: Senator, I'm just a fill-in guy. Help me make some news tonight. Are you for Lieberman in 2012?
BLUMENTHAL: You know, I'm not going to make news for you there.
We have just finished literally a little more than two weeks ago an election. And I think folks are pretty well tired of elections, campaigning. And I'm going to let that one go.
SMERCONISH: All right, thank you, Attorney—I had to try.
SMERCONISH: Thank you, Attorney General Blumenthal, the incoming senator from Connecticut. We appreciate your time.
BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.
SMERCONISH: Up next; Now that he has broken ground on his presidential library, what is President Bush planning to do with this infamous banner declaring mission accomplished? The "Sideshow" is straight ahead.
You are watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
SMERCONISH: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Time now for the "Sideshow."
First up: Now that construction is under way for President Bush's library, what to do with that mission accomplished banner. You remember it, the banner that hung on the USS Abraham Lincoln when Bush declared the end of combat operations in Iraq? That was May 1 of 2003.
Now the banner's in storage and will become part of the library's collection. Whether and how it's displayed is still to be decided, but if the decider has his way, I think we know what he would prefer.
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No question it was a mistake. And I say so—
MATT LAUER, CO-HOST, "THE TODAY SHOW": Yes, and it's one of those times where you used—your words were used against you over and over again.
BUSH: No, and that happens when you're president. It's—and if I had to do it over again—which you don't get to do when you're the president—you know, I'd have said, good going, men and women. Great mission.
SMERCONISH: Sounds like it might stay in storage for a while.
Remember the Florida pastor who threatened to burn the Koran to protest an Islamic center near Ground Zero? Now, he says his anti-Muslim zeal cost him his congregation. Yesterday, as he visited Ground Zero, he told reporters they left because—quote—"They are not interested in the truth."
Well, flock or no flock, the pastor keeps on going. He has got a Facebook page for his new effort, Stand Up America, an organization that he says will teach about the dangers of radical Islam.
And, as for the book burning, Pastor Jones told a reporter no plans to burn the Koran, but he may call for International Judge the Koran Day.
That's a way to build a congregation, I imagine.
Next: Could Jim Morrison finally get justice? Outgoing Florida Governor Charlie Crist will submit Morrison's name to the clemency board. In a 1970 trial, Morrison was convicted on charges of profanity and indecent exposure during a 1969 concert in Miami. Governor Crist says that he's reviewed the evidence and—quote—"We don't really know if the alleged act occurred."
Morrison was appealing the conviction when he died two years later. Now, imagine if Crist had done this before the election. A coalition of baby boomer Doors fans might have sent him to the Senate.
And, finally, tonight's "Big Number," it involves a beverage quaintly nicknamed blackout in a can. Today, the FDA moved to clamp down on these drinks which combine alcohol and caffeine, sending warning letters to four companies that make them.
One of the most popular, which is the equivalent of drinking three beers and a tall cup of coffee, is called Four Loko. So, that is tonight's "Big Number," four.
Up next: President Obama invited Republican leaders to the White House tomorrow night, but the Republican snubbed him. They are not going. What does that tell you about how things will go in Washington for the next two years?
You are watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MELISSA FRANCIS, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: I'm Melissa Francis with your CNBC "Market Wrap."
Stocks trading mixed most of the day, ending right about where they started, the Dow slipping 15, the S&P up a fraction, and the Nasdaq moving six points higher.
Investors trading cautiously today, wondering what the European Union has in mind for dealing with Ireland's debt crisis. A team of E.U. and IMF experts will land in Ireland tomorrow to begin hammering out a rescue plan.
And back here at home, an avalanche of strong earnings and outlooks from the retail sector, Target, Chico's, B.J. Wholesale all delivering better-than-expected earnings and strong holiday forecasts.
But homebuilders took a hit, as housing starts fell to an 18-month low in October, mortgage applications also falling to their lowest level in four months.
And GM is back. It just priced its IPO at $33 a share. That is the high end of expectations on 478 million shares of common stock. It starts trading tomorrow under the symbol GM.
That is it from CNBC, first in business worldwide—now back to
SMERCONISH: Welcome back to HARDBALL. I'm Michael Smerconish.
Republicans indicated how they intend to deal with President Obama when they rebuffed his post-election invite to the White House, which was scheduled for tomorrow. The president billed the summit as a necessary first step in the reconciliation process for both sides.
So, will their snub give him the upper hand?
Eugene Robinson is a "Washington Post" columnist and MSNBC political analyst. MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe is the author of a new book called "Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House."
Gene, what a sad day, if, because of the optics, an overture from the president to the incoming class and leadership is canceled, snubbed, use whatever word choice you see fit.
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. It is pretty amazing. I mean, I think it is—it does certainly make the president appear to be taking the high road. He invited them. He is the president of the United States.
To kind of turn down that sort of invitation or at least postpone that sort of invitation from the president doesn't really look good. One can understand. Remember, the last time there was a kind of public encounter between the president and Republican Caucus, it didn't go that well for the Republicans in that session.
SMERCONISH: You talking about Baltimore?
ROBINSON: Up in Baltimore, that's right.
And you can—one can understand the Republicans wanting to kind of have their act together, get on the same page about how they are going to go into this new phase, you know, before doing that.
Nonetheless, it is the president of the United States. And when he invites you to the White House, it is protocol to go.
SMERCONISH: Yes.
I don't understand, Richard, how the optics are for or against one or the other side, if the invitation is to come and break bread in the presidential quarters of the White House.
RICHARD WOLFFE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, you're right. And people are paying attention right now.
You know, the Republicans need to learn the lesson from recent history, which is that when Obama came into power and he started just dealing with Democrats, it backfired on him. You cannot go out there—if you think you're winning elections because of independent voters, you cannot go out there and just deal with your own side and play to your own base.
And if Republicans are going to go down that track, if they draw that conclusion, they are not going to find they have enough votes when it comes to 2012. They need to hold onto independent voters. And Obama needs to pull them back. So, an outstretched hand in this situation is what independent voters want. They shouldn't spurn it, in all political sense.
SMERCONISH: Richard, allow me to tap into some of that inside knowledge that is in evidence of your new book, "Revival."
How do you believe, within the White House today, it plays that Nancy Pelosi has maintained her leadership position? Because I'm sitting here and I'm saying, you know, he is next in 2012, and he will be saddled now with her role.
And I can tell you, it was used effectively throughout the country. I referenced earlier having heard umpteen radio commercials in markets all across the country where it was Nancy Pelosi, the face of the Democratic Party.
WOLFFE: Well, to put it mildly, they are conflicted about this one.
You know, as I recount in "Revival," they had an extremely difficult set of negotiations with Nancy Pelosi. The president told me that he enjoyed negotiating with her. I kind of was a bit skeptical about that, because those negotiations over health care were so painfully drawn-out that they cost them not just time, but political capital, because things extended into Massachusetts and beyond.
So, you know, what you have here is someone who they need for her discipline and her organization. On the other hand, there is some tactical advantage. This is a president who liked to say, well, on the left, they want to do this kind of big-government stuff, and, on the right, they're all, you know, you are on your own.
Pelosi and Boehner are two useful extremes for the president to say:
I'm in the middle here. I'm grown-up, and I can pull these sides together.
SMERCONISH: Eugene Robinson, I would love to share with you something that Ohio Governor Ted Strickland said relative to tax cuts.
He said, "I would like to see the president say, I will not borrow money from China in order to give a tax break to people who make over $1 million a year, and thereby explode the national debt, and say it over and over and over," then he added, "like they do on FOX News."
Might we hear something similar to that from the president?
ROBINSON: Well, I suppose we might.
I mean, that is one of the kind of ways this—this issue could be finessed. It has got to be finessed some kind of way. So, you could say make it $1 million and not $250,000 or whatever. I'm not sure that is the road the president is going down.
I think, in the end, you know, there is a—there is—there is a lot of sentiment on the left of the Democratic Party to hold tough on the line that the president drew, $250,000.
And, in the final analysis, the president—a deal has to be made. And if I had to put money down on it, it would be that they are going to make a deal, maybe with some sort of finesse about $1 million, as opposed to $250,000. Maybe they can get that.
SMERCONISH: Richard, tomorrow is the GM offering. And perhaps you just heard that the stock has been valued on the high end at $33, meaning the high end of expectations.
You talk a lot in the book about the poor communications, how it sort of went wrong from the campaign. They were very adept, to becoming very inept.
So, prognosticate for me. What is the spin tomorrow about GM? How is this portrayed by this White House?
WOLFFE: Well, Axelrod told me for my book that people confused a lot of these bailouts. They confused TARP and recovery and the auto bailout and it all merged into one.
Something they have to do over the next couple of years is explain how actually the taxpayer is coming ahead on a number of these things, on Wall Street and everything else. It's not easy to do that when the economy is still sluggish, but as the economy picks up, as the numbers become clear, there is a story they can tell and will have to tell, because this debate is not going to go anywhere unless they do something about it.
And that means telling their own story.
SMERCONISH: Eugene, no conversation about the headlines of the day would be complete without reference to Governor Palin.
WOLFFE: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SMERCONISH: Barbara Walters interviewed had her for her most interesting people special to air next month.
Now, check out what Governor Palin said about challenging President Obama. Let's listen.
SARAH PALIN ®, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: I am looking at the lay of the land now, and—and trying to figure that out, if it is a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing.
BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: If you ran for president, could you beat Barack Obama?
PALIN: I believe so.
SMERCONISH: Eugene, I mean, what else could she say, right?
ROBINSON: What else could she say?
You know, I'm hearing distant chorus from the White House saying, run, Sarah, run. Run, Sarah, run. As you know, her negatives are stratospherically high for someone who wants to be elected president. And so, that would—that would be—that would be very, very difficult for her and I think it would—it would be good political news for the White House if that was the matchup.
SMERCONISH: You know, it's interesting, you say that and my hunch is that someone else cheering this on might sound counterintuitive would be Governor Mitt Romney, because I think putting her in the race guarantees a split of whatever conservative vote might be out there that's not going to go in his direction and, you know, come backs to this issue of who is able to be dominated versus who's able to be elected and they're not necessarily one in the same.
Richard, you want a piece of that?
WOLFFE: Yes. Look, I cover the Dean campaign and it's brief and glorious life in 2004, and it strikes to me that there's a similar dynamic here—grassroots, untested candidate who can go off the rails. And when Democrats look to the numbers, they decided they had to go for a more electable guy, whether it's Mitch Daniels or Mitt Romney or any of the other governors out there running against an incumbent president, the bar is that much higher.
I will say I agree with Sarah Palin. For the discourse, at least on cable TV, it should be wonderful.
SMERCONISH: Yes, my business is dependent upon it.
Thank you, Eugene Robinson and Richard Wolffe. I appreciate your time.
WOLFFE: Thank you.
SMERCONISH: Up next: we've heard lots of anger about the use of full-body scanners at airports. But what's the alternative? We've got the man. The head of the TSA joins us next.
This is HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
SMERCONISH: The Democrats lost in a slew of swing states in this year's midterms, but the electoral map for President Obama may not be as narrow as some now feared. We've got a new poll from Virginia. Obama was the first Democrat in a generation to carry the state back in 2008 and he looks to be in decent shape against the top Republican challengers the next time around. Obama would beat Mitt Romney 48 to 43. He can top Mike Huckabee by the nearly same score of 49-44. And if Republicans run Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich, President Obama's lead widens to 11. He'd beat Palin 51-40, Gingrich by a spread of 52-41.
HARDBALL back after this.
SMERCONISH: We are back.
As the fight over new airport security screening procedures continues, some pilots are speaking out against them, including the nation's best known pilot, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. Here he is on today's MSNBC programs.
CAPT. CHESLEY SULLENBERGER, HERO PILOT: Airlines have concern about the screening procedures. First, they are not an effective and efficient use of our limited resources. I think we need to do a much better job of taking a risk-based approach. And I think since airline pilots are already the last line of defense in defending the cockpit against those who might use it for ill and since we are very trusted partners in this important security process, I think we need to be treated as such.
And we already have the means, if the TSA would choose to use it and implement it nationwide, to very quickly identify and verify each pilot's identity, to verify their current employment status, and that would go a long way to be much more effective meeting any possible threat. And we also have concerns about the small additional radiation exposure.
SMERCONISH: But a new CBS news poll shows that the public overwhelmingly supports the procedures. Four out of five say airports should use full-body X-ray machines.
John Pistole is the administrator of the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration.
So glad that you are here. Respond if you would to Captain Sullenberger.
JOHN PISTOLE, TRANSPORTATION SAFETY ADMINISTRATION: Well, thank you, Michael.
I actually spoke with Sully yesterday. We had a good discussion and it's interesting that when I started in this position, July 1 of this year, I brought a risk-based, intelligence-driven approach to how we go about our job of trying to provide the best possible security. So, I agree with many of the things that Sully mentioned. The question is: what is the best way of implementing some of this risk-based approach. So, I hope I have announcements about a good way forward as it pertains in the very near future.
SMERCONISH: I fear that this is getting away from you on the basis of Internet lore. And I would to break down as best we can within a short time period and explain and separate some of the fact from fiction. Give me the short version, what's the drill? I fly, I walk up, what's about to take place?
PISTOLE: So we have advanced imaging technology in about 80 airports now. And if you go there and you want to opt-out of that AIT machine, then you go through the walk-through metal detector and you would receive what we describe as a thorough pat down. If want to go through the AIT or walk-through metal detector and there is no alarms, no alerts, then there's no pat down. So, that's the basic process.
The best way people can prepare is to make sure they have everything out of their pockets and that there's nothing in there that would showed up on the advanced imaging technology machine.
SMERCONISH: Relative to the full body scan, have you fully vetted the health concerns?
PISTOLE: Before they were deployed, this actually goes back to the fall of '07, when the first ones were deployed. So, this has been in process quite a while, actually accelerated after the 12/25 event with Abdulmutallab, and a nonmetallic device. The FDA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Johns Hopkins all did independent assessments and all found that the radiation from these machines are well within the acceptable safety limits.
SMERCONISH: All right. I'm glad you referenced Johns Hopkins because, Mr. Pistole, this morning on my radio program, I had James Babb. He is one of those—he wrote for "USA Today." As a matter of fact today, he's one of those trying to organize a grassroots protest movement.
And when I raised that subject with him, here's what James Babb, who runs the "We Won't Fly" organization, said. I want you to respond.
JAMES BABB, WEWONTFLY.COM: The study you mentioned from Johns Hopkins says, you know, because of the large number of people doing this, somebody is going to get cancer from it if this is allowed to continue.
SMERCONISH: Wait a minute. You're not saying that the Johns Hopkins people said that, are you?
BABB: Yes, I am.
SMERCONISH: What's the story?
PISTOLE: As I understand, that study, it talks about the probabilities, but it looks at the underlying issue, how much radiation is a person exposed to—and the analogy was about three minutes of flying at altitude. So, let's say 30,000 feet. There have been other people who have done their assessment of the study who've come up with this idea that given the millions of air hours people are flying, there is a possibility out there, at some point, that somebody may—may—and so many "mays" built in here—may have some additional exposure concerns.
So, I think I just have to go back to what the FDA, NIST and Johns Hopkins say what is safe and acceptable. And that was their conclusion.
SMERCONISH: All right. Here's another one that I hear from radio callers, the Muslim garb exception. You may not even know what I'm talking about. But if someone approaches a TSA checkpoint and they're wearing, by a way of example, a burqa, what's the drill?
PISTOLE: Everybody goes through the same process. So whatever their ethnicity or religious beliefs which I'm sensitive to and appreciate, the bottom line is people are treated the same in terms of either going through the advanced image technology if that's available or the walk-through metal detector. And if they alert, then they have to have that alert resolved, and the best way of doing that is through a thorough pat down.
SMERCONISH: No free rides, right, Mr. Pistole?
PISTOLE: That's correct.
SMERCONISH: OK, another question. How invasive should a properly carried out pat down actually be? Because you know you hear some of the horror stories, there's this kid in California who was raising a beef. How invasive a process should it be?
PISTOLE: So, the pat down needs to be thorough enough to detect well-designed, well-concealed, non-metallic especially, explosive devices—such as we saw on 12/25, last Christmas. It needs to be thorough, and that this pat down, coupled with the technology, is designed to identify and neutralize any possible threat in that regard.
SMERCONISH: Are you comfortable in saying that there's no way that someone who subjects themselves to the full body scan, will ever have the image that's created, broadcast, saved, put out on the Internet, et cetera, et cetera, fill in the blank?
PISTOLE: Yes, I am because the machines that we have deployed at airports are deployed in the way that has all those capabilities that you mentioned rendered inoperable. So, we don't have the opportunity to either store, transmit, do anything with those images. They are deleted as soon as the person is cleared, the next image comes up. And, obviously, we don't allow camera, cell phones with cameras or anything in that screening room.
And, of course, we have the screener who sees the image—and again it's an image, I've seen these crazy things out there about the photos and different things. It's an image and with parts blurred and things. But the person who sees that image never sees the person. The security officer who sees the person never sees the image. And again, those images are deleted and not retained. It's not possible to retain them.
SMERCONISH: And, finally, Mr. Pistole, Captain Sullenberger made
reference to risk-based processes. I'm not sure what he meant. And you
also used some of that terminology.
To me, risk-based means taking into consideration the commonalities of those who threaten the United States. I'm not going to use that dreaded "p" word because of all of the connotations associated with it. Are we taking into consideration, as we seek to prevent an attack, the commonalities of those who would wreak havoc on this country?
PISTOLE: Michael, we're trying to do everything possible, inform by the latest intelligence, to insure that the traveling public is safe. So, if intelligence says, you know, there is a group of individuals or specific individual—obviously, that's the best way to go. When we don't have that intelligence, then we try to do a risk-based approach in saying what information do we know about the person, how can that help inform our judgments and actions.
But we are moving forward—in a risk-based perspective, I think there's more to come on that. But the pilots that we are talking about, I think is a first step, again, in terms of how do we best apply this approach.
SMERCONISH: Got it. Mr. Pistole, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
PISTOLE: Thank you, Michael.
SMERCONISH: When we return, why I'm no longer of use helping my fourth-grader to do his math homework.
You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
SMERCONISH: Let me finish tonight with an update from the home front.
I have apparently reached the point where I'm of no value when it comes to helping our youngest son with his homework. Sooner or later, it happens to all of us. The problem in my case, our youngest son is only in the fourth grade.
Now, here's the brain teaser that he came home with just last week. Ready? Mrs. Roden (ph) buys a table and six chairs for $1,233. The table costs $750 more than each chair. How much does Mrs. Roden pay for the six chairs?
Easy I thought. Take the total amount that Mrs. Roden spent, the $1,233, subtract the $750, divide by six, right? Wrong.
A couple minutes later, I had the iPhone out. The calculator function was turn on. I still couldn't figure it out.
Soon, I was daydreaming about details we didn't know. What kind of table was it? Where did she buy it? Is it clean? What do those chairs look like? And what exactly do we know about Mrs. Roden?
I was within an inch of pulling out a slide rule or an abacus. And granted it's been 30 years since I had to do intensive math without a Texas instrument next to me, but I was still embarrassed—just not too embarrassed—to mention my math deficiencies on the radio the following day. And sure enough, plenty of callers couldn't figure out the answer either.
It took an aerospace engineer, literally a rocket scientist named Josh to correctly lay out and solve my fourth grade son's extra credit problem.
The equation he told me looks like this: 6x, the number of chairs, multiplied by each one's cost, plus x, plus $750, the cost of the table, which is $750 more than one chair, equals $1,233, the total cost.
So, here's what it looks like. You work it out. You get $414 for the six chairs, or $69 per chair.
The whole episode left me contemplating a different answer for this and any other math problem that our son should bring to me in the future. Son, I shall say, your mom is upstairs.
That's HARDBALL for now. Thank you for being with us.
Right now, it's time for "THE ED SHOW" with Ed Schultz.
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I don't normally stray far from my area of expertise in these posts, but a couple of you have asked whether political science can shed any light on the events occurring in Iran, specifically the allegations of vote fraud. Although I have little expertise in Iranian politics, I have been following the work of some of my colleagues in this area, and thought I'd provide a brief summary of their findings. By way of background, as most of you know Iran held its presidential election on June 12. The incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was declared the victor in what purportedly amounted to almost a landslide, but the main opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi (as well as other opposition candidates) is arguing that the results were tainted by fraud. (According to official government results, Ahmadinejad won more than 62 percent of the vote, compared with 34 percent for Mousavi, his closest challenger in a four-person race. That is almost identical to the percentage Ahmadinejad won four years ago in a two-person race, but that result came in a runoff election. Seven major candidates participated in the first round of voting in 2005 — when no incumbent was running — and Ahmadinejad got 19 percent.) During the week since the election was held, there have been widespread demonstrations among both candidates' supporters and the situation remains volatile. Yesterday, in an effort to put a lid on the continuing protests (see story here), Iran's religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened to crack down on opposition leaders should the demonstrations continue.
So, was the election fraudulent? Those who believe it was point to a number of indicators, including the apparent speed with which the paper ballots were tabulated, and violations in protocol for recording votes at polling stations (see here). Beyond these impressionistic indicators, however, is there any other evidence of fraud? Political scientists typically use a couple of statistical methods to detect vote fraud more generally. One (somewhat controversial) method is to look at the polling results and see if the distribution of the digits in the electoral totals conforms to statistical expectations. Interestingly, in many data sets – like street addresses – digits are not randomly distributed; there are far more addresses beginning with one than nine, for instance (this is called Benford's Law, after physicist Frank Benford, although he wasn't the first to come up with the idea). Some argue – but there's no consensus on this that I know of – that in election results that are the result of natural processes, certain numbers should occur more frequently in the listed vote totals. (The controversy partly has to do with how the methods by which votes are registered [say, by machine versus paper ballot] influence the distribution of digits in the vote total). So if reported results don't conform to this expectation, it suggests someone manipulated the results. Unfortunately, since the Iranian results have been aggregated at the level of townships (that is, results from polling booths have been combined in each township) the standard tests designed to see whether voting results conform to the statistical expectations of Benford's Law probably can't be used because of the "mixing" of polling booth data that washes out these patterns.
A second method is to compare results across successive elections, to see how well votes in the first election predict the results in the second, taking into account the dynamics of both elections. For example, if one wishes to explain Bush's vote totals in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, a good predictor is to take the 2000 results and simply add about 3% across the board among all voting demographics supporting Bush, and you'd come up with a pretty accurate approximation of Bush's 2004 votes. This is because there wasn't much deviation in the underlying voting coalitions across the two elections; Bush drew on the same voting groups in 2004 as he did in 2000, but he increased his support among those groups. In fact, the correlation between Bush's vote in 2000 and 20004 is about .97. That is, the best predictor of how Bush did in 2004 is to look at who voted for him in 2000.
University of Michigan political scientist Walter Mebane has applied this method to study the Iranian results (see the Mebane paper here). For the less statistically-inclined, a straightforward discussion of Mebane's analysis is contained HERE, at the Pollster.com website. But essentially what Mebane does is compare the town-level results in the 2005 Iranian presidential election with the town-level results in 2009. (The analysis is slightly complicated because in 2005 there was a run-off election between Ahmadinejad and his main opponent following the first round of elections, whereas in 2009 there was no runoff election, since Ahmadinejad purportedly won a majority of the votes in the first round of elections.) So Mebane is really comparing the second-round results in 2005 with the first round in 2009. Mebane expects, given the high turnout in 2009 (supposedly close to 85% of voters) and the apparent surge of support for the opposition candidate in 2009, that in towns that did not support Ahmadinejad in 2005, his proportion of the vote total would go DOWN in 2009. Conversely, one would expect Ahmadinejad to perform best in 2009 in those same towns that voted for him in 2005. In fact, however, Mebane finds that this is not always the case; there are numerous outliers that do not conform to expectations. Mebane concludes: "More than half of the 320 towns included in this part of the analysis exhibit vote totals for Ahmadinejad that are not well described by the natural political processes the model …represents. These departures from the model much more often represent additions than declines in the votes reported for Ahmadinejad. Correspondingly the poorly modeled observations much more often represent declines than additions in the votes reported for Mousavi." Mebane's bottom line: while the data are not conclusive, he suggests there is "moderately strong support for a diagnosis that the 2009 election was afflicted by significant fraud."
Before accepting Mebane's analysis, let me add two caveats: first, as he readily acknowledges, Mebane is no expert on Iranian politics. He doesn't read Farsi (Persian), has no understanding of the local political dynamics in the towns whose data he analyzes, and he is relying on data provided to him by someone else with no way of verifying its accuracy. Second, his "naturalistic" model assumes that the surge in voter turnout reflects an increase in support for Mousavi. But it's quite possible that the dynamics of this election reflect a surge, particularly in more rural areas, for Ahmadinejad as well. More generally, without independent confirmation, there is a lot of uncertainty built into the assumptions underlying Mebane's model, as he freely admits. We cannot dismiss the possibility that Ahmadinejad did, in fact, win a commanding victory.
Of course, many observers in the U.S. are hoping that Mousavi – as the more "moderate" candidate – won, and therefore are inclined to support the idea that the election was tainted, despite the uncertainty. We shouldn't let our ideological predispositions influence our assessments of the facts, however. (As a quick test of our willingness to do so, consider the following: how many of you believe that by intervening in the 2000 presidential election and stopping the statewide recount, the Supreme Court prevented Al Gore from winning Florida? Quite a few of you, I'd wager, although we now know this is not the case. )
There is a larger point, here, however: viewed by "western" standards, the electoral system in Iran is fraudulent, regardless of the outcome. There is no truly independent media, and the results, in the end, must satisfy the ruling theocracy to stand. In this respect, I would argue, there is little debate: the Iranian election WAS tainted, regardless of whether Ahmadinejad or Mousavi truly received the most votes.
NOTE: I am on deadline to finish my book on White House staffing and therefore (as I hoped you've noticed!) will be blogging much less frequently throughout the summer. However, if you have questions or topics worthy of a blog posting, do send them along and I'll try to respond in a somewhat timely manner.


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The Catholic Relief Services Collection Helps "Jesus in Disguise"
WASHINGTON—The Catholic Relief Services Collection (CRSC) supports families in distress, whether across the street or half way around the globe. The national date for this collection, which funds six major national and international Catholic relief agencies, is set for the weekend of April 2-3.
"I invite Catholics in the United States to consider all the good that these agencies do on our behalf by assisting families and people around the world and to donate generously to The Catholic Relief Services Collection," said Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas, chairman of the USCCB Committee on National Collections.
The Catholic Relief Services Collection's theme is "Jesus in Disguise: How will you help?" This year the focus of the collection is the family. The collection helps families, values their fundamental role in society, and strives to protect them.
For, example, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. (CLINIC) program called National Pro Bono Project for Children matches unaccompanied immigrant children with legal service providers. These children are the most vulnerable migrants; they are usually without resources and are forced to navigate complex legal proceedings without representation.
Bridging Refugee Youth and Children's Services (BRYCS, pronounced "bricks") is another program run through the Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). BRYCS helps refugee children, youth, and their families. The services provided by BRYCS help keep immigrant families intact and help them adjust to their new world.
In its initial response to the earthquake in Haiti, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) provided more than 10 million meals to more than a million people. Currently, CRS is providing food to more than 90,000 students in more than 270 schools, as well as monthly food rations to more than 100 orphanages and child care centers in Port-au-Prince. CRS continues to build transitional housing for displaced families and its cash-for-work program also provides a source of income for Haitians while they help to rebuild their country. CRS is also helping to rebuild St. Francois de Sales Hospital in Port-au-Prince and is leading an effort to provide advanced training to Haitian doctors and nurses.
The Catholic Relief Services Collection funds six Catholic agencies. In addition to CLINIC, MRS and CRS, other agencies funded by the collection are: the USCCB's Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, which provides outreach and pastoral care to different ethnic and cultural groups; the Holy Father's Relief Fund, which provides assistance to victims of natural disasters and other emergencies around the world; and the USCCB's Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, which advocates for poor and vulnerable peopleand for international justice and peace.
Additional information on The Catholic Relief Services Collection can be found at http://www.usccb.org/crs/.
Keywords: National Collections, The Catholic Relief Services Collection, CRS, MRS, BRYCS, CLINIC, Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, USCCB Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, The Holy Father's Relief Fund, Bishop Kevin Farrell
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