News Nuggets 152

An amazing and unusual image of Michelle from Time Magazine.  See the related Michelle news nugget near the end of today's list.

UP-FRONT VIDEO NUGGET!!

If you haven't seen Obama's address yesterday about the detainees and torture, see it HERE at C-SPAN as well as Cheney's response HERE.  Obama's is thoughtful and compelling -- and thus is the REAL nugget.  Most of today's nuggets deal with people's responses to these two addresses.

But before we get those response, here are a few REAL news items.

World Economies Plummet from the Wall Street Journal

"Steep declines in the economies of three of the U.S.'s biggest trading partners -- Mexico, Japan and Germany -- underscored the severity of the global recession and put pressure on major industrialized nations to revive moribund global trade talks."

America's Poor Are Its Most Generous Givers from the McClatchy News Service

"The generosity of poor people isn't so much rare as rarely noticed, however. In fact, America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does."

How much you want to bet that conservatives will turn this into a slam against poor people!  They wouldn't be so poor if they didn't give it away!  Giving it away to those people is such a waste anyway!

Climate Bill Clears Hurdle, but Others Remain from the New York Times

Very, very good news here!

"The House Energy and Commerce Committee, splitting largely along party lines, approved on Thursday the most ambitious energy and global warming legislation ever debated in Congress."

Pelosi's Probably Right (Jay Newton-Small) from Time Magazine

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had a tough week -- much of it her own making. But in looking at the substance of the accusations, it increasingly looks like she was right."

NOW, responses and related content:

Cheney Lost to Bush (David Brooks) from the New York Times

A fairly insightful contextualizing of Cheney's speech yesterday and how Obama hasn't changed very much of the LATTER half of the last administration's policies.

"When Cheney lambastes the change in security policy, he’s not really attacking the Obama administration. He’s attacking the Bush administration. In his speech on Thursday, he repeated in public a lot of the same arguments he had been making within the Bush White House as the policy decisions went more and more the other way."

The Unbalanced (Andrew SUllivan) from the Atlantic

"A simple note having now read the former vice-president's despicable and disgraceful speech. It confirms the very worst of him, and reveals just how callow, just how arrogant, and just how reckless and unrepentant this man is and has long been.  ...  fear always beats reason, that violence always beats dialogue, and that torture is always an American value."

Another Round for Democracy (Joe Conason) from Salon

Conason may be prematurely optimistic -- but I like the sentiment.

"In his landmark speech on terrorism and the Constitution, President Barack Obama sought to draw the sharpest contrast possible between his policies and those of his predecessor on the critical issues of secrecy, torture and the rule of law ... The commitment delivered again today by the president at the very least provides a benchmark for evaluating his performance and a restoration of the idea that Americans stand for fairness and decency."

Dick Cheney's Dangerous Game (Michael Tomasky) from the Guardian [of London]

"While Obama's speech on national security was judicious, Dick Cheney's riposte was sleazy, dishonest and divisive.  There are two issues at play in the intense, fascinating and potentially very dangerous debate taking place between President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney."

Mano-a-Mano (Jacob Heilbrunn) from Talking Points Memo

"Cheney began his speech by presenting himself as a simple, plainspoken fellow who had no office to seek, no grudges to settle. But by the end, his mask slipped and the culture warrior appeared. His war isn't against terrorism. It's against Obama."

The Bruiser Back from the Political Dead and Spoiling for Another Fight from the Independent [of London]

"If the 44th President is an optimist, who believes in compromise and the middle ground, and that good sense will ultimately conquer all, Cheney is the polar opposite.  And yesterday his bleak, Hobbesian view of the human condition was on full and familiar display."

Meet the Real RNC (Howard Fineman) from Newsweek

"Right now there are two RNCs here in Washington, side by side. The contrast is instructive.
One, the Republican National Committee, is a clueless self-parody. The other, the (R)ush-(N)ewt-(C)heney tag team, is providing the real muscle as the Republican right begins to build traction in taking on President Obama and the Democrats."

For GOP, A Southern Exposure (Ronald Brownstein) from National Journal

"Today the GOP holds a smaller share of non-Southern seats in the House and Senate than at any other point in its history except the apex of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's popularity during the early days of the New Deal."

22 Percent and Out of Ideas (Harold Meyerson) from the Washington Post

"There's a reason they enumerate old themes and gravitate to the most peripheral ones imaginable -- a reason that's neither old nor peripheral. The economic crisis has plunged their worldview into crisis, if not negated it altogether."

The Right is on the Wrong Track (Editorial) from Politico

"The continued ascent of the GOP’s fringe elements — and their unwillingness to embrace any sort of political compromise — are bringing the sort of political marginalization that Obama’s victory only hinted at."

The Meaning of Michelle Obama from Time Magazine

"Of all the revelations of her first 100 days, the most striking was that she made it seem natural. She did not spend decades dreaming of this destination, and maybe that's the secret. "I'm not supposed to be here," she says again and again."

ANOTHER NATURE NUGGET ABOUT WHALES!!

Evidence of Right Whales Found Off Greenland from the Associated Press

"Scientists ... said Wednesday they have found evidence of a significant right whale population in waters off the southern tip of Greenland. The whale was thought to have largely disappeared from that area decades ago."