really running for governor, I so hope that he hires Lowell Feld. Because truly, that would be the best thing ever.
Category: Politics Page 38 of 73
I objected to CBS’ taking down a McCain ad from Youtube with a DMCA notice a few weeks ago. And now NBC has taken down an Obama campaign ad:
Obama’s web team whipped up a frenzy this week with an edgy YouTube video imagining a victory by Sen. John McCain. They used archival footage of Tom Brokaw announcing the news, and the video climbed to the top of YouTube — besting celebrities, SNL clips and the Sarah Palin montages that dominate political hits at the web site. But this afternoon, NBC stripped the video off the web by filing a copyright claim with YouTube.
I haven’t seen the ad, so I can’t provide much of an analysis in favor of fair use. That said, my very strong general objection to the ability of a commercial organization to control the message of a political candidate remains. And that objection doesn’t just extend to control over political speech by public figures like Obama and McCain, but to political speech by all of us. Earlier this week, I linked to a video which blamed the CRA (and, of course, Obama) for the current economic situation. One of the commenters complained that it was taken down when he clicked on it, and I found that it had been replaced. I had assumed that the original author had just updated it somewhat, and that was the issue. In fact, it turns out that the first version was knocked down by a DMCA notice, too. Why? The original used music, as described by Larry Lessig:
So, for example. when describing how Fannie and Freddie gave low interest and no interest loans, the music is Dire Straits “Money for Nothing.” And when talking about the speculation, Talking Head’s “Burning down the house.” When talking about the influence of money inside the campaigns, AcDc “Money Talks.” And when talking about how “it ends now” if (as the author but not this author hopes) Obama is defeated, the music is “Survivor – Eye of the Tiger.” In each case, the music amplifies the message in powerfully and socially relevant way.
That’s a much tougher fair use case, and Lessig (who knows a thing or three about fair use) makes a strong argument for constructing a legal framework beyond traditional “fair use” to accomodate things like this. Check it out.
The Senate hopes to revive Treasury’s $700 billion financial rescue plan Wednesday night by packaging it together with more than $100 billion in popular tax breaks as well as aid to rural schools important to House Republicans. [emphasis supplied]
[ . . . ]
With each permutation, the bill has steadily grown in size. Treasury’s initial plan was about three pages long. The House version, which failed, stretched to 110. The Senate substitute now runs over 450 pages. And tucked away in the tax provisions is a landmark health care provision demanding that insurance companies provide coverage for mental health treatment—such as hospitalization—on parity with physical illnesses.
Why don’t they just make straight cash offers for a Senator’s vote? It would almost certainly be cheaper.
Think maybe people are pissed?
The House is limiting e-mails from the public to prevent its websites from crashing due to the enormous amount of mail being submitted on the financial bailout bill.
As a result, some constituents may get a ‘try back at a later time’ response if they use the House website to e-mail their lawmakers about the bill defeated in the House on Monday in a 205-228 vote.
“We were trying to figure out a way that the House.gov website wouldn’t completely crash,†said Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the Chief Administrative Office (CAO), which oversees the upkeep of the House website and member e-mail services.
I understand the technical issue, but the symbolism is telling, no?
TPM highlights this video of McCain’s Wednesday meeting with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register. As noted, this liar sure doesn’t like being called a liar, does he?
Still less painful to watch than Sarah Palin being unable to name a single magazine that she reads (unless I’ve overlooked the recent publication of “Oh, You Know, All of Them”).
I wrote this last night, and never finished it up:
You know TARP, right? No? Barring a name change, I can almost promise it will become one of the most used acronyms in American political conversation for years to come. TARP is the Troubled Asset Relief Program (i.e., the Bailout).
Good thing, because we’ve got a new name this morning: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. While I thought that opposition to the originally proposed Paulson plan was a no-brainer, I’ve been trying to find decent analysis of the latest iteration. So far, this piece by Steven Davidoff has been one of the most forthright:
In the end, the bill is largely what Mr. Paulson wanted, with some interesting side bars. The House put in some oversight, but judicial review of the Treasury secretary’s actions is still subject to an “arbitrary and capricious†standard. Moreover, the executive compensation and the equity purchase provisions are so watered down that they are not likely to be implemented with respect to any participating company.
It’s not a terribly long or dense analysis – I urge you to read the whole thing for yourself. It ends with this:
If the bill is passed in this form, the Democrats will claim a victory through these executive and corporate governance provisions as well as the warrant provisions. But Mr. Paulson can decide how much of these warrants to take, and the executive compensation and corporate governance provisions are unlikely to be implemented for any companies. The bill is not much different than the original proposal — just 107 pages longer. Ultimately, the credit markets are frozen and we need this plan, but the authority provide the Treasury secretary and the potential scope of this program is troubling.
I’m still inclined to stand against it. Sure would like to see a convincing argument for it, though.
Update: Krugman thinks that it’s the best viable bill the current political circumstances can produce. Weak tea, indeed. (This is what thinks would be ideal, the politics of it aside.)
Update II: This post has already been copied and posted to some site with the url – troubled-asset-relief-program.net. And already, I’ve gotten traffic from J.P. Morgan as a result. Hey, people, get back to work!
I’m not much for using Blacknell.net as a reprint service, but I suspect this will be of interest to many of my local readers:
1 ) Please help us spread the word that our upcoming ACDC [Arlington County Democratic Committee] meeting on Wednesday, October 1st will be dedicated to volunteer outreach activities. The meeting will be held at our normal location – NRECA Conference Center at 4301 Wilson Blvd. The meeting begins at 7:00pm with important updates on our Get Out The Vote (GOTV) activities between now and the election. The second half of the meeting will be focused on volunteer activities. During this portion of the meeting you will have an opportunity to visit different stations to directly help or learn about how you can participate in critical volunteer needs. We hope you will plan to attend and encourage you to bring a friend.
Here are some of the volunteer activities that will be highlighted:A) Stamping Envelopes – we need volunteers to stamp envelopes for our Dollars For Dems fundraising and absentee voting mailing
B) Individual Fundraising Challenge – learn how you can easily raise small dollar donations from your family and friends to support our GOTV activities in Arlington
C) Election Day Official – find out how you can serve as an election official to educate and process voters to help minimize the lines we will face at the polls
D) Metro Voter Registration/Absentee Voting – learn how you can assist in our efforts to promote voter registration and absentee voting at Arlington Metro Stations.
E) Building Ambassadors – if you live in a locked building, found out how you can make a difference in this election by serving as a Building Ambassador
F) Canvassing and Phone Banking -Â sign up to talk to your neighbors through weekend canvassing or weekday phone banks
G) Rides to Voter Registrar’s Office – you’ve heard of Rides to the Polls, find out about how you can get involved in our new Rides to Registrar program
I hope DC metro area residents will consider making Arlington/NoVA their home base for any volunteering related to the national election. We already know how DC and Maryland are going to turn out, and running up the margin there won’t really matter. However, it will matter in Virginia.  The higher the margin in NoVA, the better the chances are of Virginia’s electoral votes falling into the Democratic column, come election night.
At Clarendon Day, Rep. Jim Moran faces down tougher competition than he’ll see this Election Day. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my neighborhood?
(Photo used without permission. So sue me.)
In honor of tonight’s “debates”:
Boys Don’t Cry, I Wanna Be A Cowboy
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s05jcrJw0as[/youtube]
Jamie O’Neal, There Is No Arizona
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22tktN87ASk[/youtube]
Paula Cole, Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6K7iJ0ahqU[/youtube]
Vivian Paige is graciously hosting a live debate watch thread tonight. As I write that, it occurs to me that I’ll not only have to face this debate without too many drinks (up early in the AM), but I’m going to have to clean up my language if I want any of my posts to show up over there. Fuck.
Ah well. Head on over around 9pm so we can all commiserate on the state of the American political conversation.