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"There may be slicker candidates and there may be smoother debaters, but I know what I believe in and I am going to stand on that belief every day. I will guide this country with a deep, deep rudder." — Rick Perry speaking at a GOP conference in Michigican yesterday. [WaPo]
Putin and Medvedev at United Russia congress today.Photo: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images
Current Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today presented to the world the man who will most likely succeed him, and it just so happens it's the very same man who preceded him in that office: Vladimir Putin. Since Medvedev stepped up in 2008, many believed he was really just a placeholder for the far more hawkish Putin. But the former's agenda was aggressive in promoting significant economic reform and openness in a Russian economy infamous for its billionaire robber barons, vicious mob, and rogue KGB strongmen. That and Medvedev's decision earlier this year to seek a second term gave rise to speculations that maybe Putin's era had passed. Today's announcement at a congress for the ruling United Russia Party put the kibosh on that.
Yesterday the Department of Education released its annual report card for the city's public schools, warning that 100 schools are in danger of being closed for poor or failing grades. As for which borough's schools did the best, in Queens 72 percent had a B grade or higher, Manhattan and Brooklyn were both in the sixties percentile for A and B grades, while half or more of schools in Staten Island and the Bronx were earning less than a B. [WSJ]
As expected, a Bronx grand jury indicted 17 cops involved in the ticket-fixing scandal now gripping the city's police force—among them were eight delegates of the city's largest police union. "They'll have an opportunity to turn themselves in next week," a source close to the case told the Daily News. "We knew it was coming, but it's hard to swallow," said a police officer close to several of the men indicted. "When you take this job, you don't ever think you're going to be on the other end." But allegations are already surfacing that some higher ups are being protected; defense lawyers plan to reveal the names of supervisors and chiefs who the officers said told them to fix tickets, a line of questioning Bronx prosecutors apparently wouldn't touch. [NYDN]
This past week was probably not the best time to launch two separate — though not exactly competing — books about Mama Grizzly, what with the understandable will-she-or-won't-she-run fatigue. That said, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, by sensationalist writer Joe McGinniss, did get lots of press attention for its (anonymously sourced) claims that Palin had cheated on husband Todd, done cocaine, and fed her children burnt mac and cheese; there was even a deliciously barbed critique from the Times' Janet Maslin, who called the book "dated, petty," and full of "unsubstantiated, caustic gossip." That free press probably did its sales more good than harm — the e-book version currently tops the category of biographies of political "Leaders & Notable People" — though it has yet to crack the site's top 50 best-sellers list. (At the time of this writing, it was No. 80.)
Despite the drumming President Obama is taking in the polls — his popularity hit a new historic low of 36 percent, according to a new poll out this week — Republicans are not about to let up on the latest scandal brewing at the White House, referred to as "Solargate" by Fox News and "Crony-Gate" by conservative Newsmax. Already, a House Energy subcommittee has grilled several top administration officials and released internal documents that seem to back up claims that the White House fast-tracked over $500 million in Energy Department loan guarantees to solar company Solyndra, which then promptly went bankrupt. Yesterday, the committee called two more witnesses: Solyndra's CEO and chief financial officer.
How does a company go from having the president of the United States visit it to having the F.B.I. come in and confiscate its files?
That was Texas Republican Joe Barton, a member of the subcommittee. The "stony-faced pair, as the Times described them, refused to answer Barton's question or any other for that matter, invoking their Fifth Amendment right not to "witness against [themselves]."
GOP eyes Obama's close relationship with major Solyndra shareholder.
UBS CEO Oswald Gruebel has stepped down as head of the Swiss bank, considering it "his duty to assume responsibility for the recent unauthorized trading incident," the bank's president said. [AP]
One of the first NASA satellites ever to make an uncontrolled dive through Earth's atmosphere began raining bits of itself over the Pacific early this morning. And while the space agency still can't say whether any inhabited areas fall within the 500-mile debris radius, it did try to allay any lingering worries — the sky is falling! — by calculating that any one person's odds of getting smacked in the head by a falling antennae or solar cell are comfortably near zero at 1 in 22 trillion. [AP]
Today is the first day of fall, and even bears are getting into the spirit of the season, according to this video the Bronx Zoo has released of its bears playing with and eating pumpkins. The hairy beasts can't seem to decide whether they like the playing or the eating better, so they alternate: Take a few bites, try to balance on it, eat some of it, roll it around like a soccer ball ... what a versatile gourd.
A new internal operations memo from New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly orders officers to stop arresting people carrying small amounts of marijuana, as long as it's not out in the open. Under New York law, pot possession up to 25 grams is a criminal offense only if it is being burned or in plain view; whereas, if the drug is concealed, the violation is simply a ticketable offense. Kelly's note this week reminds officers that if they take out the drugs during a search or demand that someone empty their pockets, it should not result in an arrest.
In each of the past three GOP primary debates, the audience has found new ways to disturb and horrify us. In the September 7 debate, the audience erupted in applause when it was noted that Rick Perry has overseen more executions than any governor in modern times. In the September 12 debate, a few members of the audience shouted "Yeah!" when Wolf Blitzer asked if an uninsured man should be allowed to die. But last night may have topped them all. A few members of the audience actually booed a soldier serving in Iraq because the soldier was concerned about protections for gay soldiers like himself.
Catherine Li is trekking by foot to New York City from San Francisco for no reason. "I just felt like walking," said the 24-year-old, who moved to the United States from China ten years ago. She has a cell phone, a tent, and a "tattered 52-page direction guide printed off Google Maps, hand-bound with string," all of which she pushes in a shopping cart — which she says she didn't steal, but asked for nicely. There doesn't appear to be a gimmick — no blog, Facebook, Twitter, or sponsor — but there is a self-enforced code of ethics:
"To be honest, I did take a few rides," she admitted. "One time, a policeman escorted me out of a certain area at night, but the next day I asked him to take me back to the same spot. I don't want to cheat."
She's not walking back, though. That would be ridiculous.
Cross-country quest on foot leads traveler through Bucks [MSNBC]
Following five months of appeals after being thrown off the ballot for failing to meet residency requirements, the Olympic gold medalist has finally decided that this is one race he can't win. [AP]
Rush Limbaugh had it earlier in the day, but bumper stickers and tea-party rally signs had it two years ago. Johnson said a former Tonight Show writer texted him the joke a few hours before the debate. [Weigel/Slate, TPM]
Obama at the U.N.
The easy assumption about President Obama's United Nations speech — coming as it did after months of complaints by pro-Israel Jews, and directly on the heels of a special election loss in a heavily Jewish district in New York — is that it was a sort of concession to domestic politics. (See the staunchly pro-Israel David Frum for a sample of this argument.) I think that's wrong.
Earlier this month, the White House launched "We the People," a website that allows citizens to create and sign petitions directed at the White House for issues they care about. Senior adviser David Plouffe said at the time, "If a petition gathers enough signatures, the White House staff will review it, make sure it gets to Obama Administration policy experts, and issue an official response. President Obama will even answer a few himself." As of right now, three of the top six petitions demand the legalization of marijuana. [Ben Smith/Politico]
When I started at West Point, I knew I was different, but I didn’t know how. I just didn’t want to date guys. It was during my sophomore year that things started clicking. I realized I had made all these different friends, and they were all gay.
I didn’t see much overt homophobia, but there was always fear of being caught. Especially because once your junior year begins, you have a commitment to serve five years, and if you get kicked out, you can owe the military a ton of money for your education. So if someone was really homophobic and wanted to sabotage you, they could do that in an instant, and there wasn’t much you could do about it.
I had straight friends who I told, too — you just had to find the people you could trust.
Dust. Wind. Dude.
Scientists at CERN say they've observed neutrinos (a kind of sub-atomic particle) traveling faster than the speed of light.
The CERN research institute near Geneva said measurements over three years had shown neutrinos pumped to a receiver in Gran Sasso, Italy, had arrived an average of 60 nanoseconds sooner than light would have done — a tiny difference that could nonetheless undermine Albert Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity
This is a big deal. If it's confirmed, it could change physics forever. It could even mean ... time travel?
Billionaire falls from the sky.Photo-illustration: Photos: Getty Images, Jacob Cohl
Few will admit it, but the theater can be a moving experience for a man. You can be as tough as nuts in your daily life, so ruthlessly successful that you're regularly referred to as an evil monopolist, but then one night you're sitting there in the darkness, anticipation and the smell of greasepaint mingling in the air, and then the curtain rises and the music swells, piercing your heart with a giant stick of What Could Have Been, and next thing you know you're entertaining the idea of throwing it all away and joining up with summer stock troupe in the Berkshires. This is apparently what happened to Carlos Slim Helú, the world's richest man, upon seeing Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark Wednesday night. According to the Post.
“[Slim] said the show made him want to act,” said a backstage source.
If he was that affected by Spider-Man, shareholders will want to keep Slim away from the Book of Mormon, then.
Slim entourage [Page Six/NYP]
If the Timeline's catalog of old pictures, breakups, and self-serious status updates wasn't a sufficient self-esteem suck, here's how to figure out just who's unfriended you over the years. [BuzzFeed]
politics, 2012, barack obama, rick perry, hurricane irene, rock you like a hurricane, media, neighborhood news, michele bachmann, michael bloomberg, 9/11, video, mitt romney, master debaters, white men with money, the internet, ink-stained wretches, nypd, rick rolling, bob turner, nyc, sarah palin, september 11, technology, the national interest, twitter, david weprin, early and awkward, early and often, libya, libya zero hour, news corp. scandal, the third terminator, bachmann ambition overdrive, crime and punishment, crimes and misdemeanors, dick cheney, israel, politics 2012, rupert murdoch
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