Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere…The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble
This is the “Back to School” Edition 
[1]
- Has it been that long? I am reminded by Ed Morrissey that yesterday marks 36 years that Jim Croce [2]has been gone from us. Amazing. It’s sobering, how long it’s been. Actually, the reminder came last night, while I was out on the road. I was cast into the memory pit, almost at once. The kind of thoughts you have on a longish drive. I do, anyway.
I remember that “I”ve Got a Name” was the hit at the time, and the Top40’s in town, WBBF and WAXC were all over it. Jim was something special, to me, really, someone easily identified with. That self-identification was made somewhat easier by the idea that I was dating a girl who looked rather amazingly like Ingrid, Jim’s wife.
Jim had several albums, but the ones that mattered were the three he recorded for ABC records. I had them all. Still do, too. But the most striking memory of all about Jim, was a high school assembly, a multi-media affair that was a touring show, who did their thing about two weeks after his death. Very well done, particularly for the time, it was. But the one thing from that show I recall today was the reference to Croce. It was obvious that the scripting had always intended to include him and was written before his death. It included footage of Jim in the studio, cutting “I’ve Got a Name”. As the last notes faded away, the silence… the emotion… in the room was such you could hear the hum from the lighting in the room… a rarity with several hundred high school kids in the room. There was an open wound in the room that afternoon, and no mistake.
[3]I can’t help wondering where his music would have taken him. Certainly the style didn’t die out when Jim did. Not right away, at least. Lightfoot, for example, managed several more really fine albums, and is still touring today, mostly around Southern Ontario, this season… not far from his nest at Orillia. Of course, Gordo had been working since the 60’s and had his own following anyway. John Denver, already insanely popular, got even moreso within months of Jim’s death, too. (And, irony abounds, a plane claimed him, in the end, as well) Harry Chapin… (another tragedy)… I’ve always thought, got a slight boost from Jim’s passing, with Verities and Balderdash, Chapin’s last real hit album, peaking less than six months later. But there’s no denying that very few people came up behind him in more or less the same style.
Perhaps that’s because Jim’s talent was large enough to suck all the air out of the genre, or the pain was too great for most people, to suffer a faint copy, or a combo of the two, I don’t know.
- Gee, ya think? Why is anyone shocked athat Obama would like MSNBC [4]and it’s leftist lean? Might this also explain the amount of tax money ending up in GE’s pocket?
- Speaking of tax money: It tunrs out Jack Murtha’s newphew got a pile of it from Uncle Jack. Millions, in fact [5]. Michelle Malkin has much more [6].
- Hack: So, having your healthcare records online [7] is helpful why, again?
- The Honor is mine: An Honorable Mention at OTB’s Caption Contest [8].
- The Chrysler debacle: Kevin Hassett has a great piece over at Bloomberg you need to read. What Kevin doesn’t say, because this occurred since it was written, apparently, is that a number of investors have filed suit to stop the Chrysler bankruptcy [9], Why, I’ll leave to Boortz: [10]
Lauria claims that the Obama administration has violated the Constitution by trying to devalue the senior creditors’ holdings on behalf of junior creditors. What does Lauria base this on? Something called the 5th Amendment. Maybe you have heard of it. Just in case, here is a little reminder:No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
But wait … as they say … there’s more! Lauria, who represents the group referred to as the non-TARP lenders, is going to ask that the bankruptcy court keep the names of his client confidential. Why would that be? Because they have been receiving threats. You can bet that some of the threats are coming from union members. These union goons like the idea of their pension debts being given priority to Chrysler’s secured lenders, and I think we all know what union goons do when something happens they don’t like. There was a time not too long ago when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms noted that the number one illegal use of explosives in the United States came at the hands of union members engaged in work actions.
But there’s another group threatening the secured non-TARP creditors. That would be the White House. Lauria and others have claimed that people within the Obama administration have made it clear that if any of these secured lenders get in the way of Obama’s gift to the unions the White House will work to destroy their reputation. Now the White House denies this. What would you expect? But listen to the language … Obama has attacked these people in public as being “vultures” and has painted them as evil capitalists who don’t want to stand by the families of Chrysler workers. If he’ll do this in public, what do you think his attack dogs will do in private?
Exactly so. And, no I’d not put it past Obama. Neal has been doing a great job with all this, by the way, and you should be keeping an eye… and an ear… on the man over the bailout business.
I’m interested to see if this will actually get heard in court. If it does, it will not be good for the WH.
- No Photos: Speaking of not good for the White House, you will recall I suggested that if the photos taken of Air Force One over Manhatan the other day were intended to be used as a part of Obama’s dog and pony show, the things would never see the light of day. Bingo. [11] Maybe we can use the footage of peopel running from the damn thing, taken by citizens, instead. Reality TV at it’s finest.
- Ain’t it real? Kaus, yesterday [12]:
John Edwards runs an entire presidential campaign based in large part on his character as shown by his loyalty to his brave, ill wife, etc.–when in reality he’s cheating on her, practically setting up a second family–and the press doesn’t care (or, rather, pretends in public that it doesn’t care, lest its readers get interested). But a year later some prosecutor comes up with a tedious, hard-to-define potential campaign violation [13], and it’s katy-bar-the door [14]!
No kidding. Of course, what’s happening here is being pushed by his wife’s forthcoming book. Can you imagine what happens when the book comes out and the Obama administration isn’t pushing an investigation into the funding matters? It would look, correctly, like the Administration was sheilding a fellow Democrat. I’m telling you, absent the book , though, there’d be no investigation. As to the press, that’s the key to understanding all of this; they’re openly supportive of anything offered up by the Obama administration. GE owned NBC, particularly. The amount of coverage a political event gets, then, is directly proportional to the need of the administration to spread a particular version of the story.
- Ending Tax Loopholes? Look, gang, let’s call this what it is… We’ve been talking about closing loopholes in the tax code for deacdes, now. This nonsense [15] ain’t gonna happen. And isn’t it interesting to hear Obama complain about tax cheats when so many of his nominees are tax cheats themselves? This stuff would be laughable were it not so tragic. And again, Michelle has more. [16]