Barack Obama

SOTU: Cue The Silly Arguments And Sound Bites

Posted by on January 27, 2010 at 11:27 pm. NO Comments :

Tonight the President delivered a rather typical State of the Union speech. That is not a judgment as to its content, but recognition that most State of the Union speeches have the same political goals. The President covered the territory that he regards as his priorities and exhibited the requisite measure of empathy for the difficulties many Americans are enduring. He also balanced his resolve to continue fighting for his health care and jobs programs, with a nod to his trademark (and pointless) affinity for bipartisanship.

But this is the part that stood out for me:

“Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions – our corporations, our media, and yes, our government – still reflect these same values. […] The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away. No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there. No wonder there’s so much disappointment.”

And with that the silly arguments and sound bites ensued. It hardly mattered what the President said because the reactions from the TV pundits were as predictable as the sunrise. Charles Krauthammer didn’t think the speech was presidential. Chris Matthews forgot for an hour that the President was black. And Sarah Palin – oh hell, I couldn’t really figure out what she was trying to say. Her run-on gibberish mentioned something about him being condescending toward Republicans, but it was impossible to translate into English.

I can, however, empathize with the President’s frustration with the media. But it may be naive to expect much to change. Fox News is not likely to abandon their mission now that they have successfully created the world’s first Pavlovian network. Their viewers have been carefully trained to salivate when the bell rings. Just this afternoon Glenn Beck exhorted his audience to avoid the speech altogether:

“You don’t even have to watch the State of the Union. I’ll watch it for you.”

See how easy it is to understand the world when you have people like Glenn Beck to do all the messy work of actually having to be conscious? And talk about your silly arguments…Beck’s certainly got that covered.

State Of The Union: Are We Fundamentally Transformed Yet?

Posted by on January 27, 2010 at 8:50 am. 1 Comments :

Even before President Obama delivers his State of the Union message, the rumblings of partisans can be heard rattling the media timbers. Democrats are putting the finishing touches on their heartfelt endorsements of the raw honesty of the speech and the bold agenda it laid out for America’s future. Republicans are polishing their spontaneous reactions to the flaccid presentation and counting every occurrence of keywords like “terror” or “deficit” as if the number of times you say them has an impact on their destiny. The post-game on these events is so thoroughly predictable it hardly requires a spoiler alert.

These ceremonies never really describe the state in which we find our union. It is more like a confessional wherein our shortcomings are enumerated and our commitment to dispatch them is renewed On both of those measures the President has much for which to answer. A little more than a year ago, just days before the election, he told a cheering audience of supporters that…

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

That was 453 days ago. I’m not sure that he can make a case that the U.S. has been fundamentally transformed yet. It was a stirring promise that was received with overwhelming enthusiasm at the time. But after a year of Town Howlers, Tea Baggers, and pusillanimous pundits praying for failure and openly weeping, that moment of inspiration has been twisted into an ominous threat. Glenn Beck repeatedly plays video of the sound bite with a sneering implication that the transformation Obama had in mind was one from an American fable of perpetual prosperity and freedom, to a hellish realm of impoverishment and tyranny. Never mind that many politicians invoke the vision of transformational change. Even Beck himself in his announcement for his contrived and disingenuous 9/12 Project:

Beck, 3/17/2009: We’ve got to fundamentally change. We’ve got to be involved.

Dick Cheney, 3/20/2008: There has been a huge fundamental change and transformation for the better.

Mitt Romney, 9/21/2007: [W]e’re going to have to take fundamental change in Washington.

Newt Gingrich, 2/7/2008: [A]nything less than fundamental change will lead ultimately to a weaker and more vulnerable America.

See? Everybody wants change. It’s a universal trait of humanity. Except for those who fear change. Which, ironically, is just as universal. Nonetheless, the hope and change that many were led to believe was just a new president away still eludes us. There is a laundry list of aspirations that remain unfulfilled. In fact, much of the current landscape looks eerily like the one we thought we had escaped.

  • Iraq
  • Afghanistan
  • Gitmo
  • Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
  • Rendition and Enhanced Interrogation
  • Patriot Act
  • Wall Street Bailouts
  • Massive Deficits
  • Record Foreclosures
  • Crippling Unemployment
  • Global Warming
  • Health Care

Even worse, the appetite for change, and for the agenda articulated in the campaign, has seemed to wither. It appears that all of the momentum today is for regression to the last decade’s legacy of war, greed, and the bliss that so famously accompanies ignorance. How else can you explain the once unimaginable yearning for a return to the shallow austerity of George W. Bush’s America? Could anyone have ever seriously predicted this:

No, I do not miss him. I do not miss the smirking arrogance, the corruption, the cronies, the incompetence, or the bull-headed insistence on selling our nation out to corporations and masters of war. But I do miss the hope that I held for a resurrection from the morbid state in which Bush left the union. I miss having faith that the goals to which our nation aspired were closer than ever to our grasp. I miss believing that we, as a country, were coming to our senses.

Many of the President’s defenders make the legitimate point that a year is not nearly long enough to erase the fiasco of the previous eight. But it would be nice to have the sense that we were a little farther down that road. With the disheartening compromise and collapse of the health care legislation, and the recent electoral debacles, and the enduring economic and job slump, and the persistent rise of right-wing media, it is getting harder to remain optimistic.

None of these issues will be resolved this evening when the President gives his speech. I don’t expect him to leave the podium with legislative victories in hand. Nor do I expect unemployment to decline tomorrow morning. And it appears unlikely that our troops will be returning from the Middle East any time soon. The only thing I would ask of the President from this address is that he return to the message that got him elected in the first place. I ask that he rediscover in himself the ambition to serve the poor and working-class Americans who worked their hearts out so that he could assume this high office and be their representative.

That’s all I ask. Just a simple request for a return to genuine compassion, fairness, and justice. Is that too much to hope for?

Fox News Poll: Obama Beats All Republicans In 2012

Posted by on January 22, 2010 at 10:54 am. 6 Comments :

All it takes is a fluke victory in Massachusetts for Fox News pundits predict the demise of the Democratic Party. In the days since Scott Brown won the special election for the Senate the conservative press has been unreservedly giddy. They have proclaimed the end of everything from health care to the Obama presidency. The only problem is that nobody told the voters.

A poll from that bastion of socialist twaddle, Fox News, shows that Barack Obama is preferred over every Republican they surveyed against him.

By 47 percent to 35 percent Obama bests former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The president has an even wider edge over former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (55 percent to 31 percent), and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (53 percent to 29 percent).

On top of that, the Tea Bagger phenomenon is turning out to be the biggest bubble since the tulip mania. As I wrote in The Tea Party Delusion, the popularity of the movement is largely a mirage created by the media (i.e. Fox News). Almost half the country doesn’t even know they exist. In this new poll from Fox, they match Obama against a generic candidate from the Tea Party and Obama wins by more than two to one (48% to 23%). Even amongst Republicans a majority (54%) reject the Baggers.

Perhaps the rumors of the President’s demise are highly exaggerated. The significance of these results in a poll from an overtly hostile source cannot be understated. By the same token, the lesson of the Massachusetts race is that overconfidence is a dangerous extravagance.

The 2012 election is still 34 months away and the stable of potential opponents have a not-so-secret weapon: Fox News. Yes, the network that commissioned this poll actually employs four prospective GOP candidates. In addition to the two surveyed here, Palin and Gingrich, they also have Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum on the payroll. It is unprecedented that a so-called news enterprise would actually employ so many electoral adversaries from the same party, or for that matter, any party. You have to wonder if Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Bobby Jindal feel left out.

The association with Fox could prove valuable over the next two and a half years. The Fox Farm Team will have an opportunity to rack up a lot of free practice time on the air. That exposure, along with the rest of Fox’s advocacy for the rightist agenda, is an expensive asset that will only be afforded to members of the team.

Fox Nation HitlerAnd the coaching staff at Fox is already preparing the field. Fox Nation took the occasion of Brown’s victory to promote a video that portrays Democrats as despondent Nazis being berated by their leader, Adolf Hitler.

In the run up to the 2008 election, and in the year that followed, there were many complaints about the right-wing’s hyperbolic attempts to associate the President with Hitler, Stalin, or Marx, and despite the documented evidence of it, Fox always tried to dismiss it as overzealous opponents. But this video is unambiguously making the Nazi correlation and it is prominently featured on the Fox Nation web site. And it’s not the first time:

Fox Nation Hitler

The campaign for 2012 is clearly in progress and Fox is implementing their most aggressive and dirtiest game plan. But according to their own poll it isn’t yet having much of an effect. The operative word there is “yet.” If there is one thing that Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, et al have in abundance it is patience. This is just the bottom of the second inning and they have plenty of pine tar left to apply extra spin to the ball.

Fox Nation: Obama Reacts Too Swiftly To Haitian Earthquake

Posted by on January 13, 2010 at 11:32 am. 30 Comments :

The headline on Fox Nation today shouts that: Pres. Obama Reacts to Haiti Earthquake Faster Than Christmas Bomber. How typical of Fox to turn a tragedy into a trivial partisan attack.

News Flash to Fox Nation: The Crotch Bomber succeeded in blowing up nothing other than his own loins. He was quickly subdued. The plane suffered no damage. There were no casualties amongst the passengers. He was taken into custody without incident and he remains incarcerated. Moments after the event there was no imminent risk to anyone on the plane or elsewhere. There was no reason to rush a response to the Crotch Bomber because the threat had been neutralized.

On the other hand, Haiti was struck by the worst earthquake the region has experienced in over two hundred years. Thousands may be dead, and thousands more in peril. Fast action is necessary and will undoubtedly save lives. The risk is severe and ongoing. But all the Fox Nationalists care about is politicizing the catastrophe and castigating the President for responding with appropriate urgency.

What a despicable bunch of cretins. Perhaps they would be happier with the Bush model that left New Orleans stranded, desperate, and dying, in the critical hours after Katrina.

At least the view from the right is thoroughly consistent. If a few air travelers (and wealthy airlines) are briefly threatened by an incompetent, wannabe terrorist, drop everything and rush off to Detroit. But if it’s an entire population of dark-skinned, poor people who are in danger, let them suffer. After all, as Rush Limbaugh said of the Haitian people this morning, “They produce zilch, zero, nada.” Therefore, there is no reason to extend any humanitarian services to alleviate their suffering. Or as Pat Robertson said, they brought it on themselves because they “swore a pact to the devil.” See? These lazy Satanists are just getting what they deserve.

For those who are not despicable rightist cretins, you can donate to Haitian relief efforts here:
International Committee of the Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Oxfam International

Fox Nation Wonders What Obama Is Avoiding

Posted by on January 12, 2010 at 6:58 pm. NO Comments :

The folks at Fox Nation featured a story today about the lack of recent press conferences by President Obama. They headlined the piece, “What’s Obama Avoiding? Six Months Since Pres Held Press Conf.”

That immediately struck me as funny because previously the Fox Nationalists made such a big deal about how often the President was holding press conferences with headlines like:

  • All Obama, All the Time: The President Is Getting Overexposed
  • Overexposed?
  • Another Speech: Obama Addressing Joint Session of Congress
  • Obama Presser Backfires… Approval Rating Dives
  • Obama to Do ‘Full Ginsburg’ on Sunday

So if the president does frequent press conferences he is overexposed. If he holds back for awhile he is hiding something. I wonder where the sweet spot is. And if it isn’t enough to merely point out the Fox Nation’s brazen hypocrisy, the truth was even articulated by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in the article to which they linked:

“The last time we had this conversation here about the president’s media strategy, I was informed by many of you that the president was overexposed.”

Do the Fox Nationalists even read the articles they link to? Or do they just slap disparaging headlines on any old article and expect that their audience isn’t going to bother reading it anyway? The answer is pretty clear. It is also clear that no matter what this administration does Fox will find a way to criticize it. If Obama healed a leper they would want him prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license.

Andrew Breitbart’s BigHypocrite.com

Posted by on January 4, 2010 at 4:50 pm. NO Comments :

Today on Fox Nation they are featuring a story on whether President Obama’s advisor, David Axelrod, is losing control of the President’s image. The headline is accompanied by a photo collage of what the Fox Nationalists must think are silly pictures, but which most people would regard as human pictures.

What’s truly silly about this is that the item links to an article at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment web site that expounds at length on what a terrible job of image building the White House is doing. The author, Kristinn Taylor, is appalled by what he regards as inadequate visual communications:

“Richard Nixon had advertising executive H.R. Haldeman; Ronald Reagan had image master Mike Deaver; Barack Obama has public relations guru David Axelrod.

“All three men understood the power of visuals in communicating the strengths of the presidents they served on the campaign trail and in the office of the presidency.

“I don’t know where David Axelrod has been since President Obama began his ten-day Christmas vacation in Hawaii, but it is safe to say he is goofing off as much as his boss.”

Taylor goes on to lament that the Obama team has…

“…failed in their most basic duty of reassuring the American public that the president is on the job.”

First of all, it is rather revealing that right-wingers like Taylor, and his boss Breitbart, so openly revere the manipulative art of public relations. The fact that they regard the most basic duty of presidential staff as providing pictorial reassurances that the President is on the job, as opposed to helping the President to actually get the job done, says a great deal about the Breitbart philosophy.

These are a breed of propagandists whose heroes are masters of deception like Haldeman, Deaver, and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. And they are not in the least embarrassed to admit their preference for style and appearances over substance. That is the cornerstone of conservative leadership for decades. Reagan’s tough-guy, movie hero persona was thoroughly manufactured by PR professionals, as was Bush, Jr.’s cowboy everyman. Taylor’s article reinforces this superficial approach to public service and criticizes the Obama administration for not being sufficiently shallow.

It is also interesting to note that the complaint made by Taylor and company contradicts previous conservative complaints that this White House has been preoccupied with image. They never seem to tire of lame jokes about the President’s use of TelePrompters, or his photo-ops with the troops. On those occasions the President was being disingenuous for exploiting imagery. His aides were cynically attempting to manipulate the public, and were considered dishonorable for doing so. But now they are accused of failing in that “most basic duty” by not performing it.

I suppose it might be too much to expect Breitbart’s crew to refrain from hypocrisy. Taylor complained that it took four days for the White House to post a picture of the President on the phone. Oh my stars, someone get the smelling salts. In fact that wasn’t even true. There were many pictures of the President working, just not the ones Taylor cared to notice. He was too busy whimpering about presidential tiewear or the price of his hotel room.

In the end, as with most matters concerning this president, Obama cannot win. He is damned if he uses PR effectively, and he is damned if he doesn’t use it all. As Hillary Clinton once said, if he were to walk on water his critics would gripe that he can’t swim. But even more disturbing to me is the lust these people have for phoniness. They celebrate it and curse those who fail to worship it as they do. There is a place for reasonable image-making. But clearly the right has taken it way too far.

Is Glenn Beck Guilty Of Treason?

Posted by on December 17, 2009 at 5:37 pm. 9 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch’s pet paranoidal pea-brain, Glenn Beck, has been a persistent purveyor of fear for years. He has predicted the most dire catastrophes for America, its economy, its values, and its people. The stench of doom that surrounds him is debilitating even in small doses.

On his program yesterday, Beck leveled an accusation that President Obama, or someone on his staff, had threatened Sen. Ben Nelson with the closing of a military base in Benson’s state, Nebraska. The only evidence of such a threat was a posting by a former McCain spokesman with an anonymous source on the conservative Weekly Standard web site. But Beck has blown this unreliable, unverified, rumor up into a serious allegation that crossed over into territory into which even he can’t believe he is going:

“The Obama administration is possibly – and I can’t bring myself to say these words because it is abhorrent if it is true but it sure fits the pattern. They’re playing politics with the national security of the United States.”

Despite insisting that he couldn’t say the abhorrent words, he managed to summon up the resolve to say them in the very next sentence. And with those words he came within a hair’s breadth of declaring President Obama a traitor – several times.

“There’s a story at the bottom of the hour that if it is true, and we have three sources on it now, if it is true. I mean how much closer do you get to treason?“

“But his party reportedly very angry and allegedly making threats. This one borders treason, I believe.”

“Threatening to weaken our national security defenses to fulfill your Utopian social justice agenda. To me that borders on treason.“

Beck has a lot of nerve accusing other people of treason. There are numerous examples of him making statements that are hard to interpret as anything less than treasonous. He agreed with his guest Michael Scheuer, that…

“… the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

And he declared his own enmity of America in a discussion that speculated about civil war:

“And don’t get me wrong. I am against the government, and I think that they have just been horrible, and I do think they are betraying the principles of our founders every day they’re in office.”

During yesterday’s program, Beck dispensed his usual legal disclaimer that he may not have all the information necessary to draw a conclusion. He conceded that all parties involved, the White House and Sen. Nelson, have denied the allegation, which they did emphatically. Yet, just as he did with his floating of the FEMA prison camp nonsense, Beck went just far enough to introduce the heinous charges, then allowed them to simmer while his conspiracy-addled audience sucked in the fumes of malicious hearsay. But even that wasn’t enough as Beck explicitly characterized these rumors as fact:

“It doesn’t matter if it’s credible or not that they could do it. The fact that they threatened it – it is our national security.”

The truth is that the whole scenario is not credible and they couldn’t do it. The procedure for base closings takes years and was designed specifically to disallow political influence. Both the White House and Sen. Nelson would be aware of this. Therefore, the only purpose for advancing a vile and improbable lie like this one is to slander the President. Beck is deliberately seeking to cast the nation’s leader as a traitor, which could lead to removing him from office and imprisoning or even executing him. And since these charges are wholly unsupported, Beck’s intentions would be tantamount to assassination. This, if true, would make Beck a traitor. Is Glenn Beck guilty of treason? Well, to paraphrase him…

“No one wants to believe that the president of the United States host of a TV program or any of his advisors would stoop to these kinds of tactics. But what are we supposed to believe here?”

Exactly! What are we supposed to believe? I’m not accusing Beck of anything. I’m just asking questions. Beck knows that he can reach me here at this web site to respond to or correct any misinformation. To date he has not done so. That leads me to conclude that all of this is true. Why else wouldn’t he contact me?

Greetings from The War On Christmas

Posted by on December 10, 2009 at 4:57 pm. 9 Comments :

Just when you thought hostilities were subsiding, Fox Nation is escalating the War on Christmas. Their new volley of seasonal aggression kicks off with insinuations questioning President Obama’s sincerity with regard to his faith:

Fox Nation Obama Christmas

So the Obama’s cards don’t mention Christmas. Well, that must mean they are secret Muslim after all. Except for…..Uh oh…..

Click to enlarge:

These are the “Holiday” cards sent out by George and Laura Bush in 2006, 2007, and 2008. None of them mention Christmas either. I wonder what religion the Bush’s belonged to secretly. I’m going to guess it’s the Snake Handlers. That would explain how they could work so closely with people like Cheney and Rove.

It’s Beat Sarah Palin Day!

Posted by on December 8, 2009 at 11:12 am. 2 Comments :

A little over a year ago Barack Obama was elected to the presidency of the United States of America. It was an historic event that made headlines around the world and will forever be remembered as milestone in American politics.

No one deserves more credit for this achievement David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager. He orchestrated a brilliant strategy that emphasized hope and change, and the result was a remarkable victory over both the entrenched Democratic Clinton dynasty and the wealthy Republican Grand Old Machine of Washington.

Now the winner of this contest has a book out that is competing with the second banana of the loser’s ticket. It is a contest that pits Sarah Palin’s book, “Going Rogue,” that was ghost written for her from the perspective of defeated candidate, and is chock full of the ideology that contributed to her defeat, against a book written by a modern master of politics with insight into the winning philosophy and strategy.

The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory
David Plouffe, Audacity to Win

David Plouffe not only led the effort that put Barack Obama in the White House, but he also changed the face of politics forever and reenergized the idea of democracy itself. The Audacity to Win is his story of the groundbreaking achievement, taking readers inside the remarkable campaign that led to the election of the first African American president.

In this extraordinary book, David Plouffe unfolds one of the most important political stories of our time, one whose lessons are not limited to politics, but reach to the greatest heights of what we dream about for our country and ourselves.

For some reason, the loser is winning this book race. I’m not sure what this says about the America’s book consumers, but there is a disturbing message in there somewhere. Well, Plouffe is not taking it laying down. He has launched “Beat Sarah Palin Day,” an effort to sell more copies of his book, “The Audacity to Win,” in one day than Palin’s collection of fables and self-indulgence. This no easy task, as Palin’s disciples are motivated and hungry for more of her shallow platitudes and liberal bashing. Plouffe describes her book and his impression of her in the video below saying…

“Her book obviously talks about an agenda that was completely rejected November 4, 2008, by the American people, and I think would take us in the completely wrong direction. So the truth is, I hope her book tour goes on for a long time because I think having her out there, and her message, as the kind of opposing viewpoint to what the President is trying to do, could not be more helpful.”

I agree. Palin is the best thing to happen to Democrats in decades. Republicans like to demonstrate how popular she is by citing polls that show 60-70% of the GOP want her to run for president in 2012. I bet if they polled Democrats the number would be 100%.

Today is our opportunity to give Sarah a big smackdown. We can show that we are out here too, and we’re not buying her garbage. To be clear, the results of this contest don’t really have a great deal of meaning in the big picture. It is more for the fun of it. Book sales are not an accurate barometer of electoral strength. Just as right-wingers like to believe that Fox News’ ratings validate their superiority, the truth is that that is a poor gauge. It is always better to win at the ballot box than at the idiot box, which is what we did in 2006 and 2008, despite Fox’s ratings. And the same holds true for publishing. Especially when the rightist propaganda engine skews the numbers by purchasing tens of thousands of books that they give away or offer as premiums for joining their organizations or subscribing to their magazines.

So if you are interested in reading a true account of a brave campaign, today is the day to buy Plouffe’s book. If you are looking for a gift for family or friends, this would be an excellent choice. If you just want to stick it Palin and thumb your nose at the Tea Baggers lining up at Barnes & Noble, here is your chance. Plouffe says in the video that if you weren’t already planning to buy his book, that you shouldn’t do so for this event. But I disagree. If you’ve got $15.00 that you don’t need for rent, this is a great way to use it. Not only do you get an enlightening literary experience, you also get to poke Palin. And on top of that, $1.00 from every book sold today will be donated to child and adult literacy programs.

So now is the time to take up the challenge. Let’s BEAT SARAH PALIN today. And then every day thereafter. What could be more satisfying – and fun?

Fox Nation Finger Bangs Obama

Posted by on December 7, 2009 at 2:49 pm. 3 Comments :

Alas, technology has not yet developed a measuring device strong enough to gauge the stupidity of the Fox Nation, its partners, and the community it hosts.

Obama FingerFeatured today on Fox Nation is a story asking whether President Obama gave the finger to a guest in the audience. This controversy was triggered by video of the President scratching his head. To the Fox Nationalists this is a cryptic, Da Vinci coded gesture of disdain. Apparently Fox is now forming strategic political direction by watching episodes of Seinfeld. Thank goodness Fox Nation was there with their secret decoder rings to capture the incident.

The Fox Nation story linked to a post on the uber-rightist Breitbart web site where the FingerGate scandal has blown up into near Balloon Boy proportions. This is not simply an itchy eyebrow at issue. It is a covert master plan to flip off America and impose a tyrannical dictatorship, or something. And you’ve got to “hand” it to the Fox Nationalist/Breitbart/Tea Bagger crowd for turning this into a racial cesspool and a platform for (once again) advocating assassination.

This is becoming more and more representative of the level of discourse from this pathetic throng of losers. They have already tried to make federal cases out of phony death panels, presidential bowing scandals, child indoctrination via stay-in-school speeches, White House guest lists, and how many pages a bill contains. The ever more lame content of their complaints reveals just how desperate they are to come up with something about which to bitch.

There is an obvious evolution of lameness on the right. In the old days they employed the primitive flag lapel pin gambit. Then they tacked to the War on Christmas. And there is the always popular idiocy of “Who would you rather have a beer with?” But now they have shattered all previous records if idiotic asininity with the ticklish temple tactic.

Next on the Republican scandal agenda: How often does Obama floss? I probably shouldn’t give them any ideas.