links for 2009-06-05

One other thing that President Obama left out of his global speech to Muslims today was word of the top-level shakeup in First Lady Michelle Obama's White House staff.

While the nation was watching the world watch Obama speak and tour in Egypt, news came out of the East Wing staff changes. Out as the old chief of staff after less than five months is Jackie Norris, who started working with Mrs. Obama during the Iowa caucus campaign.

In as the new chief of staff is Susan Sher, who's been a friend of her boss since even before they started working together years ago at the University of Chicago.

Norris was sent over to become a "senior advisor" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is suing the social-networking site Twitter, claiming an unauthorized page using his name damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress.

The suit filed last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco seeks unspecified damages.

Messages left Thursday with La Russa's attorney and San Francisco-based Twitter were not returned.

Cindy Sheehan, who drew national attention for camping outside former President George W. Bush's ranch in protest of the Iraq War, is following him to Dallas. Sheehan will lead a demonstration Monday protesting "crimes against humanity."

"We can't allow George Bush's crimes to be forgotten just because he is not in office anymore," she said in an e-mail.

While most people in Preston Hollow have gone out of their way to welcome the former president and first lady home, they're not exactly rolling out the welcome mat for Sheehan.

"Go away," resident Kathie Taub said. "Go back! Leave us alone!"

Taub said Sheehan had already protested and should "now leave everybody alone."

"She has already made her opinion known, and it is getting old," Michael Taub said. "She needs to go back to wherever she came from."

Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits.

“It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

If President Obama is going to push hard for the health care bill to include a government-run plan to compete with private insurance — a goal he campaigned on and repeated yesterday — he’s not just going to have to convince Republicans. He’s also going to have to convince the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats who could cause him trouble in the House.

This morning, the Blue Dogs released a set of conditions they say the so-called public option should meet, all of which are designed to make it as un-Medicare-like as possible. It’s clear that the group isn’t convinced there should be a public option in the first place, so the statement suggests that the White House and the chairs of congressional committees will have to decide how far they can really go to win Blue Dog votes.

Last night’s early metered market numbers for The Tonight Show slipped to a 4.3 household rating. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s down from 7.1 for the Monday night premiere and a 5.0 rating Tuesday night. The waning ratings are hardly a surprise, and it was still enough to best the late night competition from The Late Show with David Letterman (2.8) and Nightline (2.1) / Jimmy Kimmel Live (1.2).

Ultimately Conan’s ratings will begin to level off. The question is, where?

Just as another New England state greenlit same sex marriage Wednesday, a new California poll released Wednesday found that Californians are roughly split on same sex marriage. ("When asked, 'Do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose allowing same — sex couples to be legally married," 47 percent say favor and 48 percent say oppose. The poll was taken before last week's CA Supreme Court decision affirming Proposition 8.

So dead even, in margin of error terms, said co-pollster David Binder.

Nevada first lady Dawn Gibbons is atop a list of Republicans signed on to support U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's re-election bid in 2010.

Gibbons, a former Republican assemblywoman, confirmed her support for Reid, D-Nev., but would not comment on it. She is currently seeking a divorce from Gov. Jim Gibbons.

The Reid campaign released the list Wednesday.

Also on the list are Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, operators of the Stations Casinos gambling company. The Fertittas more often align with GOP causes and have a long-standing feud with the state's largest labor union.

Other supporters named were Jim Murren, chief executive of casino operator MGM Mirage, Tony Marnell, chief executive of M Resorts and entertainer Wayne Newton.

Mr Bernanke acknowledges that, despite the ”green shoots”, there are still question mark over which components of demand will kick into gear once the cyclical inventory pick-up runs its course, as it will inevitably do so over the next few months. Indeed, the chairman notes that ”businesses remain very cautious and continue to reduce their workforces and capital investments.”

Concerns about a sustainable recovery are not limited to the dynamics of the immediate cyclical recovery. Mr Bernanke also notes that ”even after a recovery gets under way, the rate of growth of real economic activity is likely to remain below its longer-run potential for a while, implying that the current slack in resource utilisation will increase further.”

Chanting "No, you can't!" and waving signs bearing messages in a similar vein, nearly 200 people held a demonstration outside the US Consulate on the capital's Rehov Agron on Wednesday evening, protesting the growing American pressure to stop construction in West Bank settlements.

A wise "woman"? Wait, what happened to a wise "Latina"? My goodness, Newt Gingrich caused a stir when he accused Sotomayor of racism, not sexism. Obama, in backpedaling from the "wise Latina" comment, understood the problem was racism, not sexism. The controversial Ricci firefighters case is about affirmative action as it relates to race, not sex. Who in the world does Sargent think he is kidding with the notion that "woman" and "Latina" are interchangeable in this context?

Moving on, the defense that Sotomayor simply misspoke in 2001 is now inoperative. She wrote what she wrote for the 1994 speech on women in the judiciary, revised it slightly for her 2001 effort on Latins in the judiciary, and here we are, wondering about the extent of Sotomayor's group solidarity.

The White House explanation for Sonia Sotomayor's 2001 "wise Latina" statement was that Sotomayor used a "poor" choice of words and certainly would "restate" the language. This spin made no sense, as the full text of the 2001 speech made clear that Sotomayor did not misspeak or use uncertain language. Rather, the speech taken as a whole and in context was a reiteration of standard identity-politics in which Sotomayor specifically was responding to and rejecting identity-neutral approaches of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Judge Miriam Cedarbaum.

Sotomayor seemed to confirm this defense yesterday, although obliquely, through a statement released by Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy:

"Of course one's life experience shapes who you are," but she added, "Ultimately and completely, a judge has to follow the law no matter what their upbringing has been."

Now it is revealed, by a supporter of Sotomayor no less, that Sotomayor used almost identical language in a 1994 speech:

In defending Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” remark, her supporters unveil a previous offense.

Interesting.

It turns out that her 2001 comment was not just a slip of the tongue.

She said something similar in 1994.

That’s not wise.

But U.S. counterterror teams may have been intentionally prevented from investigating radicalized converts to Islam:

Several weeks ago, STRATFOR heard from sources that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to “back off” of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts. At this point, it is unclear to us if that guidance was given by the White House or the Department of Justice, or if it was promulgated by the agencies themselves, anticipating the wishes of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Stratfor implies, however, that the investigations were canceled for purely political reasons.

…politics have proved obstructive to all facets of counterterrorism policy. And politics may have been at play in the Muhammad case as well as in other cases involving Black Muslim converts…

I know many will gush over President Obama's Cairo speech and I'm likely swimming against the tide of the media and my fellow Democrats and progressives. But reading the transcript, I was struck by two things:

1. Aside from a few platitudes, it is disappointingly weak on human rights and specifically women's rights.

2. It betrays a naiveté, perhaps feigned, about how the Arab world works.