One Day in "What's Wrong With The World" x 7

Fri. April 27, 2012:

It's just one day, and from just one source -- the NYT home-delivered issue of Thu. April 26m 2012.
But, sturdy readers, does anyone else out there feel as buffeted by discouraging news as your friendly blogger Bitesfromedwin?

1.  Obama's solicitor general Donald B. Verrilli Jr. has another terrible & unconvincing performance in front of the Supremes.  "You can see it's not selling very well," say one Justice -- and this time it's a liberal,  Justice Sonia Sotomayor!  So now, not only will the Obama administration lose the Affordable Health Care Act, but they'll lose against the horrific Arizona immigrant-profiling law.  Bad people win again, this time gloaters like Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.  Who IS this incompetent Verrilli, and who is responsible for appointing him Solicitor General of the USA?

2.  Rupert Murdoch may have poisoned political discourse in the USA & Britain more than any other single person in history.  Yet in the witness box 2 days ago, he was "modest, self-deprecating, charming and funny," and "hardly seemed the power-hungry newspaper baron" who has polarized U.S. politics with Fox News/Wall Street Journal [against MSNBC/New York Times].   He's likely gonna get away with this global crime against humanity.  And Fox News will continue to thrive.

3.  U.S. political polarization will only get worse for another reason, too.  It is this insidious ongoing practice of states redistricting themselves -- especially conservative & rural-dominated states.  Says a Blue Dog Congressman from Arkansas:  "In civics class in high school, you learn there are 435 members of Congress, and every one of them could lose in the next election.  Now we're down to less than 100 who can ever get beat in a general election."  "So the Democrats run to their corner.  The Republicans run to their corner, and as a result the country is being run by the extremes."
"Redistricting," he added "has been bad for the country."

4.  On Jan. 29, 2011, in Lyons, Georgia, another white man shoots & kills another unarmed black kid.
But this time, no Al Sharpton marches, no national attention.  Situation not so clear-cut.  This time, the black boy had been invited to the murder house for sex & drugs, including a 14 year old girl who said she was 18.  The white man feels awful about it, and the black parents feel devastated.  "I think about it every day," says the white man.  "It's the worst thing I've ever been through . . . In two minutes it just went bad.  If you ain't never shot nobody, you don't want to do it, I'm telling you."


5.  Florida's Tea Party governor, Rick Scott, had promised to appoint a task force to give a fair & full review of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Law.  But 3 of 4 lawmakers on this 17-person panel either co-sponsored or voted for that same law, and the 4th is ardently pro-gun.  Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law" review panel will not have a single lawmaker who favors gun controls.

6.  A Romney economic advisor claims in the WSJ that Obama's economic plans would mean a huge tax increase for all Americans.  This, in the face of the fact that Obama has long pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class and poorer Americans.

7.  Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, who got elected to Ted Kennedy's seat by pretending to be a Tea Party guy, is now trying to keep that seat by abandoning the Tea Party and being Mr. Reasonable Bipartisan Republican.  All politicians have to play this game at one time or another.  But just sayin',  Senator Scott Brown's lovable persona is a farce, and it will probably work, against another female Democrat -- this time a "strident Harvard professor."