Jean Simmons dies at age 80

I just saw the notice that Jean Simmons, one of my favorite film actresses, died this weekend.

According to the NY Times:

Ms. Simmons became a star before she was 20 years old, and always seemed to place opposite strong leading men such as Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando and Burt Lancaster. She was best known from her early work in “Great Expectations” and “Hamlet” and later in her career, “Guys and Dolls,” and “Spartacus.”

I guess the many times I’ve watched Guys and Dolls on TV and my fond memories of the opening of Spartacus during my teen years leave me thinking about Simmons at a particular age… I just don’t imagine her “old”.

She played Estella in Great Expectations the year I was born…1946… and her career as an actress in films, on stage and on television lasted over 40 years.

She will be remembered by so many of us.

From the NY Times: Dodd & Gregg think Bernanke will be approved…

This is a clip from the NY Times… go HERE for the whole article. There’s a lot more to it.

clipped from www.nytimes.com WASHINGTON — Two senior senators, a Democrat and a Republican, jointly issued a statement Saturday predicting that the Senate will confirm Ben S. Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, hoping to quell doubts that had shaken markets and forced the White House to scramble to keep him from becoming a casualty of populist anti-Wall Street fervor. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Democrat from Connecticut who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a Republican who is a longtime member of the panel, said in their statement that “based on our discussions with our colleages, we are very confident that Chairman Bernanke will win confirmation by the Senate for a second term.” Mr. Dodd, who recently decided to retire as his own re-election looked doubtful, and Mr. Gregg, who also is retiring, not only forecast Mr. Bernanke’s approval but also provided a fulsome endorsement.

It’s not that easy, though:

At least 11 senators have said they would oppose Mr. Bernanke, including four Democrats, Ms. Boxer, Mr. Feingold, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota and Jeff Merkley of Oregon; one independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont; and six Republicans.

“Especially since the election in Massachusetts, Democrats are waking up to the fact that Americans are profoundly disgusted with the behavior on Wall Street that led to the disaster we’re currently in,” Mr. Sanders said. “In the last week the president has decidedly changed his tone on Wall Street — in my view, quite appropriately. He would be well served to have an ally at the Fed who shares those concerns.”

My comment to the Supreme Court: Corporations Are Not People

I have personally created several corporations in my time, and never once have I thought any of them to be separate “people” – if I had I would have been granting myself more than the “one man, one vote” concept of our Constitution and all related laws.

Now we have the Supreme Court allowing Corporations (and, yes, Labor Unions – also not separate “people”) the ability to spend unregulated amounts of money on elections… because they are “people” within the law.

This is scary. In his weekly radio address, President Obama said:

“This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way — or to punish those who don’t.

—

“I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.”

(You can get all of Obama’s comments in his weekly address HERE.)

I believe one of the main issues that the Conservatives have claimed to have brought to the Supreme Court is the idea that they do not make law, but only interpret the Constitution.

Well, they have not only made law here, they have overturned laws that have served us well since the Teddy Roosevelt Administration in 1907 – 102 years. During that century-plus, the law was updated, improved, added to by both Democrats and Republicans and made consistently better, all in an effort to guarantee our citizens (ie: human beings not organizations) the absolute power of “one man, one vote” without overpaid arm bending and potential blackmail by corporate interests.

So what do we do with a law-making Supreme Court that clearly has a majority of its members firmly planted in corporate pockets? Dahlia Lithwick, in Slate, has called the Supreme Court’s action The Pinocchio Project – they have turned the concept of the corporation into a “real, live boy.” Justice Stevens, in his partial dissent, commented that the Framers of the Constitution kept a “cautious view of corporate power” – something the current Supreme Court seems to be not only uncautious of but supportive of.

Can Congress create law to overturn this decision? I don’t know. What we need is the unlikely event that will throw the Court’s majority back to a more centrist (or, dare I say it, more progressive) majority. Remember, Justice Earl Warren, who brought a truly Constitutional view of Civil Rights to the Court in the 50s and 60s, was a Conservative Republican when appointed. There is the odd chance that a right-leaning Justice will actually see the error that was made here and turn the Court around.

It’s possible. It’s unlikely.

Air America Radio closed its doors on Thursday…

…and Ron Reagan is now out of a broadcast forum. He comments in Salon:

“The voices of progressive media figures like Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartman and Randi Rhodes can still be heard. Off the airwaves, there’s still Salon, Talking Points Memo, the Huffington Post and the vital progressive blogosphere.With a bit of luck, I and some other Air America hosts will be back on the air before long. Let’s hope so. Progressives — and the rest of America — can use all the help we can get. “

Here’s a clip from his article:

clipped from www.salon.com The conservative wing of the Supreme Court has brazenly revealed its corporatist agenda; President Obama may have found a populist voice with which to hector Wall Street; having given away Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat to a former Cosmo centerfold, Democrats are preparing to roll over on health insurance reform; and without doubt, Rush Limbaugh is making a complete ass of himself. Yet, for the first time in over a year, I won’t be able to talk about any of this on the radio. Air America, the long-suffering progressive talk radio network that carried my show, is no more. From its inception, the network faced an uphill fight. While right-wing talk radio enjoys enormous corporate support, lefty chat has always been a harder sell. So, just when the left could use it most, a platform for progressive thought and opinion disappears. Obama came to office pledging to reform not only healthcare but the entire way business is conducted in Washington. But to reform a system you have to expose it.