The produce used on the Food Network's Jan. 3 Iron Chef of America
two-hour special White House show was billed as being from the White
House garden. But the show did not disclose that "stunt double
vegetables" were used and not produce from the First Family's garden.
Somehow I'm not shocked at the phoniness. But it will be interesting
to
compare and contrast the coverage this actual phoniness
receives
with the bogus
"fake
turkey" story that even now is repeated by the
clueless to slag Dubya.
Fearless Prediction on Carol Shea-Porter's ObamaCare Vote
Patrick Hynes' Now! Hampshire got an Instalink
a few days back for this
big news about my very own Congressperson:
One thing is clear:
Unless Sen. Harry Reid and President Barack Obama back down on the
excise tax in the health reform bills being merged in a secret
conference committee, Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) will not
vote for the final bill, the New York Times reports.
And that's not the only
feature of the final bill Shea-Porter is likely to oppose.
The first link doesn't work; my guess is that this
story is the one in question. Sure enough, it contains:
The House [version of the ObamaCare]
bill, meanwhile, passed by only a five-vote margin, and at
least three Democrats who voted for it -- Mr. Courtney, Phil Hare of
Illinois and Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire -- have said they would
oppose a final bill if it contained an excise tax [on so-called
"Cadillac" insurance coverage] like the Senate
version.
A previous Now! Hampshirearticle on Shea-Porter's
likely vote said:
Influential liberal blog Fire Dog Lake is reporting
that Democratic Congresswoman Carol Shea- Porter (NH-01) has "vowed to
vote against any bill that does not have a public option."
Follow the link to Fire Dog Lake, however, and it appears it's been modified (without
explanation). The relevant text now reads:
Carol Shea-Porter vowed to vote against any bill that does not have a public
optionhas
an excise tax, so she looks to piss off both liberals AND
conservatives with a "yes" vote.
Hm, so what's the real story? Again, playing follow-the-link we get
to:
This tough talk [from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka about the excise
tax] was buffeted [?] by a labor liberal in Congress, Carol
Shea-Porter, who over the weekend said she
would vote against any bill which included the excise tax. While
190 Democrats have signed a letter rejecting the excise tax, I don't
recall any member of Congress making this claim before. Shea-Porter,
while generally a liberal, won her seat in 2006, and faces a fairly
tough re-election battle. This movement on the health care bill may be
as much about November as it is about any firmness on the excise
tax.
… and the link goes back to the original Now! Hampshire
story.
But wait, it gets worse. Later in that same article, there's an
un-timestamped update:
UPDATE: Shea-Porter spokeswoman Jamie Radice just
emailed a statement saying that the Congresswoman has NOT made an
ultimatum on the excise tax:
"Both in private and in public,
Congresswoman Shea-Porter has never said that she would vote for or
against a final health care reform bill if it contained an excise tax.
She has spoken out forcefully against this tax, which is contained in
the Senate's health care reform bill, but she is waiting to see what the
conference report looks like before making any final decisions. She
remains in support of the House version."
So, um, there you go. She says she never said it.
My guess: she got leaned on, and she caved, on both the
public option and excise tax issues. And my fearless prediction:
if her "yes" vote
is necessary
to pass the monstrous legislative turd excreted by
the current closed-door negotiations, she'll provide it.
A 1941 screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks, from a Billy Wilder
screenplay, with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.
The main question: how could I have waited so long to watch it?
Cooper plays Professor Bertram Potts, the youngest member of a gang of
eight scholars diligently working on a multi-year encyclopedia project.
The project is funded, it's explained, by a benefactor who was outraged
that the Encyclopedia Brittanica failed to properly credit his
invention of the electric toaster.
They live a monastic existence in a Manhattan brownstone.
Potts is writing an article about slang, but a
chance visit from a garbageman makes him realize that his grasp of the
subject is woefully out of date.
So Potts goes out into early-40's New York, soaking up the colorful
language of the street, poolhall, subway, and ballpark. He winds up at a
nightclub, where the star performer is one Sugarpuss O'Shea (Miss Stanwyck).
Potts wants Sugarpuss badly—for research purposes, of
course! She's reluctant, but (as it turns out) the DA is after her to
testify against her mob boss boyfriend. So she decides to hide out
with the encyclopedists, with hilarious results.
There are a lot of things to like here. Nobody played brassy bad girl roles
(with or without the optional "heart of gold" accessory)
better than
Barbara Stanwyck. Coop's pretty good at light comedy too. The dialogue
is clever, and must have been considered pretty racy for 1941.
The
supporting cast contains lots of actors any old-movie fan will
recognize, and they're all great here: Dana Andrews, in a rare comic
role as the mob boss; Dan Duryea and Ralph Peters as his bumbling
henchmen; Charles Lane as an officious lawyer; Henry Travers (Clarence
himself), S. Z. Sakall (Carl himself), and Richard Haydn (the
Caterpillar himself) as professors. And more.
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