Our country is being battered by a take-over attempt, the battle-plan drawn up by the religious right and corporations. Sure, they call themselves "patriots." But, that's just to keep the unwary faithful from catching on. Winning would result in a corporate-theocracy, based on their narrow interpretation, not just of the Constitution, but of the Bible. The vehicles are the tattered remnants of the GOP and the flamboyant Tea Party led by the looniest of tunes, no need to name them.
The once-Grand Old Party is being dragged behind the stampeding Tea-herd, yoked to them as a result of their obstructionist, personal-attack history. Hopefully, these false patriots have set themselves up to become history. It's just a matter of time until voters realize the "shining city on a hill" is Dubai.
The GOP/Tea Bag consortium proclaims they want smaller government, more liberty, but almost every action they take moves the country in the opposite direction.
It was the Republican administration who misled us into the moral and fiscal swamp of the Iraq war and nation building. It was the Republican administration who put into place the unfunded budget-busting drug program for senior citizens.... a giant boondoggle for the drug and insurance companies. It was the Republican administration that assembled the Homeland Security Administration behemoth, the biggest single expansion of government, ever.
It was the Republican administration who put us on the path to unsustainable debt.... and a good argument can be made that it was done deliberately in order to later say we can no longer afford Social Security and Medicare. For them, corporate welfare is fine, individual help is unpalatable.
Smaller government, fiscal restraint. Read the tea leaves, that's not in the brew.
As for freedom and liberty, GOP liberty is only for some. All are equal except women, gays, and non-believers, next up to receive the GOP backhand. Corporations have been awarded personhood by the ability to pour money into our electoral process thanks to our no longer Supreme-judgment court. Sad to say, the highest court in our land has become just another tool in the GOP/Tea Bag toolbox. Left unfettered, is the United Corporate States of America far off?
As for the promise to create jobs, forget that. What the GOP/Tea Baggers crave is social reform, made in their religious-moral-code image. In their perfect world, women would be forced into burkahood as control over their reproductive rights fall under government control. Gays would be denied civil rights while corporations would be granted more rights... to pollute, to manipulate financial markets, and to further deregulate our food products. And clean energy, less dependence on oil. Forget it.
But there will be a reckoning..... 2012 is coming. We can reject this toxic brew. What happens to our country is up to us.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Friday, March 05, 2010
RNC Fundraising Underbelly
The D.C. lobbyists have been taking all the blame for the distorted campaigns against the Obama administration... especially health care reforms that would start to bring the insurance industry to heel and benefit millions of U.S. citizens.
But it's not only the lobbyists.... they're just the employed messengers.
The lobbyists are, after all, openly, blatantly, in the pay of big insurance, big pharma, big oil. They don't work for the little guy, the working middle-class.
But, our elected representatives aren't supposed to be paid lobbyists, aren't supposed to act like a big legislative wood-mulcher, taking in principled reform and spitting out dirty chips.
But they are. And we now can see how the GOP is fueling that chipper.... the RNC's marching orders linked to Kevin Huffman's "Tweaking the GOP's fundraising strategy," in today's Washington Post.
The Republican National Committee in its zeal to keep its fund-raising troops in perfect goose-step, gave this presentation at its February RNC Finance Meeting. Here is a page from their 72-page blueprint for fundraising success for the upcoming elections. At it's heart, literally, are the motivating factors to be used to raise money from evidently clueless donors:
Obama in white-face as the Joker is something we've seen before... oh yes, as a big placard at the "grass-roots," "spontaneous," Tea Parties. It's a PARTEEEE... but the GOP isn't a party to be proud of.
But it's not only the lobbyists.... they're just the employed messengers.
The lobbyists are, after all, openly, blatantly, in the pay of big insurance, big pharma, big oil. They don't work for the little guy, the working middle-class.
But, our elected representatives aren't supposed to be paid lobbyists, aren't supposed to act like a big legislative wood-mulcher, taking in principled reform and spitting out dirty chips.
But they are. And we now can see how the GOP is fueling that chipper.... the RNC's marching orders linked to Kevin Huffman's "Tweaking the GOP's fundraising strategy," in today's Washington Post.
The Republican National Committee in its zeal to keep its fund-raising troops in perfect goose-step, gave this presentation at its February RNC Finance Meeting. Here is a page from their 72-page blueprint for fundraising success for the upcoming elections. At it's heart, literally, are the motivating factors to be used to raise money from evidently clueless donors:
The image of a heart usually brings to mind thoughts of love, caring.... warm and fuzzies. But this is a rock-hard heart that divides GOP donors into two classes, the average knee-jerk Joes, and the heavy-hitter big shots, or wanna-be big shots, the major ego-driven donors.
The red-alert type trumpets a Chicken-Little-sky-is-falling approach .... "Save the country from trending toward Socialism." Woooooo.... the "S" word. And it works too, haven't you noticed?
But perhaps the saddest statement of the GOP fund-raising mindset is the attack mentality of reducing your opponent to an agent of the Evil Empire.... wonder what Ronald Reagan would think of the misuse of that phrase. The GOP is into Evil BIG TIME! You know like the "Axis of Evil." Here are the RNC's evil suggestions:
Obama in white-face as the Joker is something we've seen before... oh yes, as a big placard at the "grass-roots," "spontaneous," Tea Parties. It's a PARTEEEE... but the GOP isn't a party to be proud of.
Friday, January 22, 2010
End Senate Minority Rule!!
If it is true.... and it was at the least a major deciding factor.... that it was the proposed health care legislation that bloodied the tide in blue Massachusetts in last Tuesday's election.
That put an ex-nude-model conservative who vowed to defeat that legislation into the Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, whose lifelong crusade was affordable health care for all... then there is only one place to point the finger for that defeat.
Harry Reid. The let's-make-a-deal Democratic Senate Leader and the 60th vote rule.
Oh, there were many other factors in play. The all-out court press of the insurance company lobbyists who spread the green around to sway legislators and confuse the issue for voters, for one. And, the health care legislation was complicated and confusing.... until Reid and the Senate extortionists gave it a focus.
A deciding factor.
Thanks to the blackmailing, underhanded and downright unethical behavior of two Senators, and the complicity of desperation by Reid, the voters saw a mugging of the taxpayers, and they revolted.
Who could miss Independent Senator Joe Lieberman's holdup of this legislation. He had loudly proclaimed just months earlier that parts of the health care bill should be an extension of the already functioning Medicare program. But, when this was introduced into the bill, he withheld his needed 60th vote until it was stricken. With Joe, what you hear is not what he means. Don't forget, he's a Senator from Connecticut, the insurance-capitol-of-the-world Connecticut.
That was bad enough. And voters surely took notice, but then perhaps dismissed it as Joe being Joe.... which isn't a compliment.
The brazen holdup that finally soured the Massachusetts voters came from the heartland, from Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson. His 60th vote holdout started as a right-to-life roadblock that quickly morphed into Nebraska being granted certain Medicare benefits free, forever.
Nelson actually stopped the health care legislation train and told the conductor if he didn't give everyone on the train from Nebraska a free Medicare ride FOREVER he would derail it. And, conductor Reid punched Nelson's ticket. There was a national gasp.
The country, even Nebraska, was up in arms over this, disgusted is perhaps a better word. And this desperation on the part of the Democratic leadership in Congress to make any concession to pass the legislation, and President Obama's reluctance to wade into the issue and actually take charge, showed the voters of Massachusetts all too clearly that no one knew where this train was going. They wanted off.
Tuesday, Massachusetts Democrats and Independents sent the message loud and clear.... they didn't like the direction the Obama-Reid train was taking them. Free rides for some while keeping others hostage was a no-go. They cancelled the Democrats 60th vote.
So now the Democrats no longer have the filibuster-breaking 60th vote they need to pass almost anything. Not that they ever did, having to depend on the likes of Lieberman and Nelson, but the appearance at least was there. But that wasn't even the worst thing that happened to the Democrats, and more importantly the nation, this week.
While the nation's attention was diverted by the Massachusetts train wreck, the Supreme Court struck down the concept of one-man-one-vote democracy.
The Supremes reached into the bedrock of our republic and tore apart its foundation as violently, and uncaringly, as the mind-numbing Haiti earthquake disaster. The shock waves will crumble our voting booths into a rubble of irrelevance.
The Supreme Court decided Thursday that soul-less, vote-less, non-citizen, steel and paper corporations are people, protected by the Constitution's freedom-of-speech guarantee. So, Wall Street, banks, insurance companies, oil companies... all those wonderful folks who brought you our budget-busting recession and more, now have the right to spend all they want on elections.
As David D. Kirkpatrick said today in The New York Times, "Lobbyists Get Potent Weapon in Campaign Finance Ruling" ....... "The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official that if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election."
All legislators will be the lackeys of special interests. The monied carriage-class will rule, and the rest of us.... the poor, sick and plain ignored.... will just pay for their ride.
Obama did show some outrage, stating after the decision that it's “a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” while Democrats vowed to push legislation to install new spending limits in time for the fall campaign. Predictably, Republicans disputed the partisan impact of the Supreme's decision.
So.... will it take 60 Senate votes to put the brakes on the political spending of the newest class of citizen.... corporations? If so, forget it. Nothing will get done for flesh-and-blood citizens until the Senate reinstates the "majority rule" conduct of business, and derails the current "minority can stop anything" obstructionism.
That put an ex-nude-model conservative who vowed to defeat that legislation into the Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, whose lifelong crusade was affordable health care for all... then there is only one place to point the finger for that defeat.
Harry Reid. The let's-make-a-deal Democratic Senate Leader and the 60th vote rule.
Oh, there were many other factors in play. The all-out court press of the insurance company lobbyists who spread the green around to sway legislators and confuse the issue for voters, for one. And, the health care legislation was complicated and confusing.... until Reid and the Senate extortionists gave it a focus.
A deciding factor.
Thanks to the blackmailing, underhanded and downright unethical behavior of two Senators, and the complicity of desperation by Reid, the voters saw a mugging of the taxpayers, and they revolted.
Who could miss Independent Senator Joe Lieberman's holdup of this legislation. He had loudly proclaimed just months earlier that parts of the health care bill should be an extension of the already functioning Medicare program. But, when this was introduced into the bill, he withheld his needed 60th vote until it was stricken. With Joe, what you hear is not what he means. Don't forget, he's a Senator from Connecticut, the insurance-capitol-of-the-world Connecticut.
That was bad enough. And voters surely took notice, but then perhaps dismissed it as Joe being Joe.... which isn't a compliment.
The brazen holdup that finally soured the Massachusetts voters came from the heartland, from Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson. His 60th vote holdout started as a right-to-life roadblock that quickly morphed into Nebraska being granted certain Medicare benefits free, forever.
Nelson actually stopped the health care legislation train and told the conductor if he didn't give everyone on the train from Nebraska a free Medicare ride FOREVER he would derail it. And, conductor Reid punched Nelson's ticket. There was a national gasp.
The country, even Nebraska, was up in arms over this, disgusted is perhaps a better word. And this desperation on the part of the Democratic leadership in Congress to make any concession to pass the legislation, and President Obama's reluctance to wade into the issue and actually take charge, showed the voters of Massachusetts all too clearly that no one knew where this train was going. They wanted off.
Tuesday, Massachusetts Democrats and Independents sent the message loud and clear.... they didn't like the direction the Obama-Reid train was taking them. Free rides for some while keeping others hostage was a no-go. They cancelled the Democrats 60th vote.
So now the Democrats no longer have the filibuster-breaking 60th vote they need to pass almost anything. Not that they ever did, having to depend on the likes of Lieberman and Nelson, but the appearance at least was there. But that wasn't even the worst thing that happened to the Democrats, and more importantly the nation, this week.
While the nation's attention was diverted by the Massachusetts train wreck, the Supreme Court struck down the concept of one-man-one-vote democracy.
The Supremes reached into the bedrock of our republic and tore apart its foundation as violently, and uncaringly, as the mind-numbing Haiti earthquake disaster. The shock waves will crumble our voting booths into a rubble of irrelevance.
The Supreme Court decided Thursday that soul-less, vote-less, non-citizen, steel and paper corporations are people, protected by the Constitution's freedom-of-speech guarantee. So, Wall Street, banks, insurance companies, oil companies... all those wonderful folks who brought you our budget-busting recession and more, now have the right to spend all they want on elections.
As David D. Kirkpatrick said today in The New York Times, "Lobbyists Get Potent Weapon in Campaign Finance Ruling" ....... "The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official that if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election."
All legislators will be the lackeys of special interests. The monied carriage-class will rule, and the rest of us.... the poor, sick and plain ignored.... will just pay for their ride.
Obama did show some outrage, stating after the decision that it's “a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” while Democrats vowed to push legislation to install new spending limits in time for the fall campaign. Predictably, Republicans disputed the partisan impact of the Supreme's decision.
So.... will it take 60 Senate votes to put the brakes on the political spending of the newest class of citizen.... corporations? If so, forget it. Nothing will get done for flesh-and-blood citizens until the Senate reinstates the "majority rule" conduct of business, and derails the current "minority can stop anything" obstructionism.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Behind Iran's Election Results
On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, Vice President Joe Biden hinted that Iran's election results last week didn't seem quite right... politicos shake their heads over the odor of corruption and huffing news outlets question their validity.
Of course, our own elections have been rife with questionable results.... think of the Supremes deciding the 2000 presidential contest.... while our hackable electronic ballot systems are nothing to brag about.
What we have here seems to be very wishful thinking, and an attitude of "do as I say, not as I do."
Americans want Middle East peace, they want President Ahmadinejad and his scary rhetoric shown the door.... just like we did to Bush/Cheney in 2004.... oh yes, we didn't do that to The Decider and Darth Dick. Instead, while the world held it's breath, we elected them to a second term, after they lied us into the worst foreign policy blunder in our nation's history, the war in Iraq.... the Middle-East-destabilizing war in Iraq.
Well, now we know how the world felt. According to the Washington Post, the rumors of Ahmadinejad's political demise were very premature. As reported by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty in "The Iranian People Speak," it appears the "election results in Iran may reflect the will of the people."
On what do they base such an outlandish statement.... on a scientific national poll conducted in Iran three weeks before the election. Ahmadinejad was the preferred candidate two to one, and those results reflect the election's results. The poll was "conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award." Oh.
That's not what we want to believe. Our instant-gratification conditioning hasn't the patience. But, closing our minds and living in a blame-game la-la land won't change the reality.... nor a system where all Iranian candidates are chosen by a non-elected supreme leader. Here is where the poll's results are very interesting, and encouraging. And, far from the expected safe answers one might expect in a country with an oppressive regime in power.
While preferring Ahmadinejad, for now, four out of five indicated in answer to the poll's questions that they wanted to elect the supreme leader, chose free elections and a free press as priorities, and 77 percent "favored normal relations and trade with the United States." Those weren't safe answers.
So, while choosing Ahmadinejad.... change is in the air. Isn't that what we should be talking about, and encouraging?
In Iran, there are now major protests by supporters of the opposing candidate. One thing all the ballyhoo has done is to evidently unsettle the supreme leader. He's now calling for an investigation into the election. But then, why not. He can't lose. He picked all the candidates.
Of course, our own elections have been rife with questionable results.... think of the Supremes deciding the 2000 presidential contest.... while our hackable electronic ballot systems are nothing to brag about.
What we have here seems to be very wishful thinking, and an attitude of "do as I say, not as I do."
Americans want Middle East peace, they want President Ahmadinejad and his scary rhetoric shown the door.... just like we did to Bush/Cheney in 2004.... oh yes, we didn't do that to The Decider and Darth Dick. Instead, while the world held it's breath, we elected them to a second term, after they lied us into the worst foreign policy blunder in our nation's history, the war in Iraq.... the Middle-East-destabilizing war in Iraq.
Well, now we know how the world felt. According to the Washington Post, the rumors of Ahmadinejad's political demise were very premature. As reported by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty in "The Iranian People Speak," it appears the "election results in Iran may reflect the will of the people."
On what do they base such an outlandish statement.... on a scientific national poll conducted in Iran three weeks before the election. Ahmadinejad was the preferred candidate two to one, and those results reflect the election's results. The poll was "conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award." Oh.
That's not what we want to believe. Our instant-gratification conditioning hasn't the patience. But, closing our minds and living in a blame-game la-la land won't change the reality.... nor a system where all Iranian candidates are chosen by a non-elected supreme leader. Here is where the poll's results are very interesting, and encouraging. And, far from the expected safe answers one might expect in a country with an oppressive regime in power.
While preferring Ahmadinejad, for now, four out of five indicated in answer to the poll's questions that they wanted to elect the supreme leader, chose free elections and a free press as priorities, and 77 percent "favored normal relations and trade with the United States." Those weren't safe answers.
So, while choosing Ahmadinejad.... change is in the air. Isn't that what we should be talking about, and encouraging?
In Iran, there are now major protests by supporters of the opposing candidate. One thing all the ballyhoo has done is to evidently unsettle the supreme leader. He's now calling for an investigation into the election. But then, why not. He can't lose. He picked all the candidates.
Friday, June 12, 2009
The GOP is Icing Up
This great illustration appeared with "The Ice Age Cometh" by right-leaning columnist, Mike Murphy in TIME this week. His op-ed is chock-full of good advice that the pooh-bahs in the GOP will likely ignore.
Murphy is facing facts, "Saving the GOP is not about diluting conservatism but about modernizing it to reflect the country it inhabits instead of an America that no longer exists."
Murphy is referring to demographics, the surge of Latino and under 30 voters who are turned off, and away, by pitchfork-waving mobs chasing gays through the GOP countryside. Ditto-heads... tribal GOPers whose "radio dials are stuck on AM"... who viciously scrabble at the constitutional bastion between their church and the state. The "all men are created equal" state.
We are a two-party nation. We need a strong GOP with sound values. To survive, they must tune-out the hairy mammoth's clarion-trumpet.... and yes, even the musty Reagan yesteryear's moldy oldies. Or, as Murphy warns.... "A GOP ice age is on the way."
Monday, June 08, 2009
Friday is Iran's Defining Moment
There is an event this week that could spell the difference between a peaceful settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict, reduced tensions in the Middle East, and a halt to the threat of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists; or.....
Escalating the current dangerous Israel/Palestine conflict, increasing tensions in the Middle East, while enabling the unstable ambitions of a nuclear-capable terrorist-funding regime. A regime headed by a holocaust-denying puppet of radical religious leaders.
There is an election scheduled for this Friday in Iran, and much of President Barack Obama's aspirations for Middle East peace, and curbing the bloody mayhem of jihad-inspired terrorism, rest on the outcome.
As reported in the Washington Post, "In Iran, Harsh Talk as Election Nears," by Robert F. Worth, this final week of Iran's presidential campaign, "has reached a level of passion and acrimony almost unheard-of in Iran."
As Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hurls fantastic accusations at his opponents, he is also ducking incoming fire, impassioned fire, and not from just his rivals, but also from long-suffering Iranians who are mad and not going to take it anymore.
For years Ahmadinejad has resorted to inciteful and false rhetoric.... from a constant refrain of threats against Israel, "to wipe them off of the face of the earth"..... and against any Western power that stands by Israel who "from now on will not see any result but the hatred of the people. You should not claim that we did not give a warning," he saber-rattles, to his oft repeated denial of the horrific WWII Jewish holocaust.
But, he also misled and terrorized his own people. In his last presidential campaign he promised the Iranians relief from poverty and a focus on domestic issues, what they got was a "police state" as one Iranian openly charged, and a foreign policy his leading opponent, reformist Mir Husein Moussavi, calls "adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism and superficiality.”
This time, Ahmadinejad's hateful-rhetoric is backfiring.... unofficial polls suggest 54 percent of Iranian voters would support Moussavi, while Ahmadinejad lags at 39 percent.
So much rests on the result of Friday's election, and not just for the Iranian people. By showing Ahmandinejad the door, they can lop off the festering head of a regime bent on taking the people back to the zealous, social-freedom-eviscerating, hard-line piety of the 1979 revolution, and stop the plunge toward a nuclear abyss.
As one Moussavi supporter said, “...at the beginning of the Islamic revolution we were all like Ahmadinejad, but we changed our path and our way. ” Another Iranian added that she was speaking on behalf of her friends, "We love our religion, but they have used it as a tool to take people’s rights.”
The good Iranian people can send a message to a hopeful world.... we're taking our lives and our country back. We chose peace over conflict, hope over fear. We're looking forward.
We wish them Allah's speed.....
Escalating the current dangerous Israel/Palestine conflict, increasing tensions in the Middle East, while enabling the unstable ambitions of a nuclear-capable terrorist-funding regime. A regime headed by a holocaust-denying puppet of radical religious leaders.
There is an election scheduled for this Friday in Iran, and much of President Barack Obama's aspirations for Middle East peace, and curbing the bloody mayhem of jihad-inspired terrorism, rest on the outcome.
As reported in the Washington Post, "In Iran, Harsh Talk as Election Nears," by Robert F. Worth, this final week of Iran's presidential campaign, "has reached a level of passion and acrimony almost unheard-of in Iran."
As Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hurls fantastic accusations at his opponents, he is also ducking incoming fire, impassioned fire, and not from just his rivals, but also from long-suffering Iranians who are mad and not going to take it anymore.
For years Ahmadinejad has resorted to inciteful and false rhetoric.... from a constant refrain of threats against Israel, "to wipe them off of the face of the earth"..... and against any Western power that stands by Israel who "from now on will not see any result but the hatred of the people. You should not claim that we did not give a warning," he saber-rattles, to his oft repeated denial of the horrific WWII Jewish holocaust.
But, he also misled and terrorized his own people. In his last presidential campaign he promised the Iranians relief from poverty and a focus on domestic issues, what they got was a "police state" as one Iranian openly charged, and a foreign policy his leading opponent, reformist Mir Husein Moussavi, calls "adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism and superficiality.”
This time, Ahmadinejad's hateful-rhetoric is backfiring.... unofficial polls suggest 54 percent of Iranian voters would support Moussavi, while Ahmadinejad lags at 39 percent.
So much rests on the result of Friday's election, and not just for the Iranian people. By showing Ahmandinejad the door, they can lop off the festering head of a regime bent on taking the people back to the zealous, social-freedom-eviscerating, hard-line piety of the 1979 revolution, and stop the plunge toward a nuclear abyss.
As one Moussavi supporter said, “...at the beginning of the Islamic revolution we were all like Ahmadinejad, but we changed our path and our way. ” Another Iranian added that she was speaking on behalf of her friends, "We love our religion, but they have used it as a tool to take people’s rights.”
The good Iranian people can send a message to a hopeful world.... we're taking our lives and our country back. We chose peace over conflict, hope over fear. We're looking forward.
We wish them Allah's speed.....
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
No "Bi" in GOP Partisanship
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
The Obama administration is failing to fully communicate to a panicky nation facing economic meltdown the fact that an obstinate GOP is crying wolf over a lack of legislative bipartisanship while refusing to conduct themselves in a bipartisan manner.
By Senate procedural rules, the minority party can hold up.... or frustrate.... any legislation by invoking a "filibuster" debate which means the measure under consideration has to get sixty percent, sixty votes, to end the filibuster and put the bill to a vote.
President Obama and Democrats have been watering down their economic stimulus legislation in the name of bipartisanship.... looking for bipartisanship participation, for those sixty votes, paring down job-creating spending programs and increasing tax cuts, the GOP's snake oil cure for all ills.
It's time to realize that for an all-politics-all-of-the-time GOP, there is no "bi" in partisanship. It's still their way or the highway. When time was of the essence as increasing unemployment hurtled unchecked toward depression levels, the Republican party looked to score points with their radical base.... good of the nation be damned!
Eugene Robinson's advice...."Roll Over Republicans" (WaPo) As he points out today, "Bipartisanship is safe and effective when used as directed. In the present circumstance, however -- dire economic crisis, hardheaded Republicans, time running out -- bipartisanship is doing more harm than good. President Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress can no longer afford to let comity defeat common sense."
Robinson shares our anger over the end result of this begging-for-votes hijacking by a GOP bent on frustrating the process.... "One of the most effective items in the House bill was $79 billion to be transferred to state governments, which are hurting; in California, our most populous state, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ordering furloughs of state workers. Any dollar given to the states will fly out the door by sundown. That $79 billion would have instant impact.
"But in the Senate, the ad hoc "gang" of moderate Republicans (all three of them) and conservative Democrats cut those state funds to $39 billion. It's wrong to see this as the normal give-and-take of legislative sausage-making, the usual trek down a well-worn path toward the golden compromise that everyone can live with. This is not, repeat not, a time for compromise. Meeting in the middle, which the Senate sees as its role in our democracy, renders the whole exercise potentially useless. If we don't get enough money into the economy, and if we don't do it soon, we risk wasting a king's ransom on a stimulus that's too puny to stimulate."
Robinson is onto something. Bipartisanship isn't working. The conundrum is how to get past or around the GOP grandstanding obstructionists.
Harry Reid, take note..... the next time the GOP Senators want to "filibuster," do it the old-fashioned way. Don't agree to a filibustering set-time debate .... make the naysayers stand up and talk all night, or however many days and nights they choose, so their filibustering impediment is seen by Americans for what it is. A cynical roadblock to progress.
Make the Republicans own their delaying tactics. Make them literally stand up and be counted as they impede and obstruct. Otherwise, these blackmailers will continue to impose their bullying tactics, in the guise of "debate" with cries of non-partisanship, on a nation desperate for government action.... now.
Robinson advises.... "Obama and the Democrats have public opinion on their side and the wolf at the door. Republicans need to get out of the way -- or get run over."
Hear! Hear!
The Obama administration is failing to fully communicate to a panicky nation facing economic meltdown the fact that an obstinate GOP is crying wolf over a lack of legislative bipartisanship while refusing to conduct themselves in a bipartisan manner.
By Senate procedural rules, the minority party can hold up.... or frustrate.... any legislation by invoking a "filibuster" debate which means the measure under consideration has to get sixty percent, sixty votes, to end the filibuster and put the bill to a vote.
President Obama and Democrats have been watering down their economic stimulus legislation in the name of bipartisanship.... looking for bipartisanship participation, for those sixty votes, paring down job-creating spending programs and increasing tax cuts, the GOP's snake oil cure for all ills.
It's time to realize that for an all-politics-all-of-the-time GOP, there is no "bi" in partisanship. It's still their way or the highway. When time was of the essence as increasing unemployment hurtled unchecked toward depression levels, the Republican party looked to score points with their radical base.... good of the nation be damned!
Eugene Robinson's advice...."Roll Over Republicans" (WaPo) As he points out today, "Bipartisanship is safe and effective when used as directed. In the present circumstance, however -- dire economic crisis, hardheaded Republicans, time running out -- bipartisanship is doing more harm than good. President Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress can no longer afford to let comity defeat common sense."
Robinson shares our anger over the end result of this begging-for-votes hijacking by a GOP bent on frustrating the process.... "One of the most effective items in the House bill was $79 billion to be transferred to state governments, which are hurting; in California, our most populous state, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ordering furloughs of state workers. Any dollar given to the states will fly out the door by sundown. That $79 billion would have instant impact.
"But in the Senate, the ad hoc "gang" of moderate Republicans (all three of them) and conservative Democrats cut those state funds to $39 billion. It's wrong to see this as the normal give-and-take of legislative sausage-making, the usual trek down a well-worn path toward the golden compromise that everyone can live with. This is not, repeat not, a time for compromise. Meeting in the middle, which the Senate sees as its role in our democracy, renders the whole exercise potentially useless. If we don't get enough money into the economy, and if we don't do it soon, we risk wasting a king's ransom on a stimulus that's too puny to stimulate."
Robinson is onto something. Bipartisanship isn't working. The conundrum is how to get past or around the GOP grandstanding obstructionists.
Harry Reid, take note..... the next time the GOP Senators want to "filibuster," do it the old-fashioned way. Don't agree to a filibustering set-time debate .... make the naysayers stand up and talk all night, or however many days and nights they choose, so their filibustering impediment is seen by Americans for what it is. A cynical roadblock to progress.
Make the Republicans own their delaying tactics. Make them literally stand up and be counted as they impede and obstruct. Otherwise, these blackmailers will continue to impose their bullying tactics, in the guise of "debate" with cries of non-partisanship, on a nation desperate for government action.... now.
Robinson advises.... "Obama and the Democrats have public opinion on their side and the wolf at the door. Republicans need to get out of the way -- or get run over."
Hear! Hear!
Monday, February 09, 2009
"My Kingdom for a Horse....."
The current stimulus package making it's torturous way through both houses of Congress is like the saying..... what do you get when you ask a committee to put together a horse? A camel.
Nothing wrong with a camel, but the country needs a horse to start pulling us out of the economic ditch.
Paul Krugman's asks today in "The Destructive Center" (NY Times) .... "What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?
"A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished."
The centrists in the Senate just created a camel, and President Obama seems unable, or unwilling, to fix it.
Krugman opines, "One of the best features of the original plan was aid to cash-strapped state governments, which would have provided a quick boost to the economy while preserving essential services. But the centrists insisted on a $40 billion cut in that spending.
"The original plan also included badly needed spending on school construction; $16 billion of that spending was cut. It included aid to the unemployed, especially help in maintaining health care — cut. Food stamps — cut. All in all, more than $80 billion was cut from the plan, with the great bulk of those cuts falling on precisely the measures that would do the most to reduce the depth and pain of this slump.
"On the other hand, the centrists were apparently just fine with one of the worst provisions in the Senate bill, a tax credit for home buyers. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research calls this the 'flip your house to your brother' provision: it will cost a lot of money while doing nothing to help the economy.
"All in all, the centrists’ insistence on comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted will, if reflected in the final bill, lead to substantially lower employment and substantially more suffering."
It was Obama who lifted the flap so the "lower taxes" camel could poke it's nose into his change-we-can-believe-in tent. We are in this economic mess because the GOP rich-get-richer trickle-up policies cost trillions and didn't work.... and according Pulitzer-winning economist Krugman and many others, this camel of a bill isn't the economic horse we need now.
MSNBC's Chuck Todd puts a fine point on this today in his "First Read" posting.... many ask just "how the Obama White House and the Democratic committees allowed themselves to get worked over by the Republicans.... how did a Republican Party that had turned a budget surplus into a projected trillion-dollar deficit get away with becoming paragons of fiscal responsibility? "
Krugman points out, "After all, many people expected Mr. Obama to come out with a really strong stimulus plan, reflecting both the economy’s dire straits and his own electoral mandate.
Instead, however, he offered a plan that was clearly both too small and too heavily reliant on tax cuts.
"Why? Because he wanted the plan to have broad bipartisan support, and believed that it would. Not long ago administration strategists were talking about getting 80 or more votes in the Senate."
There's a lesson for Obama here. His high-minded attempt to build a bipartisanship tent ran into the "loyal" opposition's ideological take-no-prisoners stone wall.
Has Obama learned this lesson?
Evidently not. This weekend he was busy trying to saddle this unwieldy stimulus camel.... "Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands, the scale and scope of this plan is right,” he declared on Saturday.
As Krugman laments.... "No, they didn’t, and no, it isn’t."
Nothing wrong with a camel, but the country needs a horse to start pulling us out of the economic ditch.
Paul Krugman's asks today in "The Destructive Center" (NY Times) .... "What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?
"A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished."
The centrists in the Senate just created a camel, and President Obama seems unable, or unwilling, to fix it.
Krugman opines, "One of the best features of the original plan was aid to cash-strapped state governments, which would have provided a quick boost to the economy while preserving essential services. But the centrists insisted on a $40 billion cut in that spending.
"The original plan also included badly needed spending on school construction; $16 billion of that spending was cut. It included aid to the unemployed, especially help in maintaining health care — cut. Food stamps — cut. All in all, more than $80 billion was cut from the plan, with the great bulk of those cuts falling on precisely the measures that would do the most to reduce the depth and pain of this slump.
"On the other hand, the centrists were apparently just fine with one of the worst provisions in the Senate bill, a tax credit for home buyers. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research calls this the 'flip your house to your brother' provision: it will cost a lot of money while doing nothing to help the economy.
"All in all, the centrists’ insistence on comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted will, if reflected in the final bill, lead to substantially lower employment and substantially more suffering."
It was Obama who lifted the flap so the "lower taxes" camel could poke it's nose into his change-we-can-believe-in tent. We are in this economic mess because the GOP rich-get-richer trickle-up policies cost trillions and didn't work.... and according Pulitzer-winning economist Krugman and many others, this camel of a bill isn't the economic horse we need now.
MSNBC's Chuck Todd puts a fine point on this today in his "First Read" posting.... many ask just "how the Obama White House and the Democratic committees allowed themselves to get worked over by the Republicans.... how did a Republican Party that had turned a budget surplus into a projected trillion-dollar deficit get away with becoming paragons of fiscal responsibility? "
Krugman points out, "After all, many people expected Mr. Obama to come out with a really strong stimulus plan, reflecting both the economy’s dire straits and his own electoral mandate.
Instead, however, he offered a plan that was clearly both too small and too heavily reliant on tax cuts.
"Why? Because he wanted the plan to have broad bipartisan support, and believed that it would. Not long ago administration strategists were talking about getting 80 or more votes in the Senate."
There's a lesson for Obama here. His high-minded attempt to build a bipartisanship tent ran into the "loyal" opposition's ideological take-no-prisoners stone wall.
Has Obama learned this lesson?
Evidently not. This weekend he was busy trying to saddle this unwieldy stimulus camel.... "Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands, the scale and scope of this plan is right,” he declared on Saturday.
As Krugman laments.... "No, they didn’t, and no, it isn’t."
Friday, January 16, 2009
Finally.... It's Over!
Last night Bush The Decider wistfully bade farewell (WaPo).... trying to paint a good face on the stinking corpse of his administration with self-serving "I was willing to make tough decisions" legacy-speak.
Excuse me, but isn't the job of the president making tough decisions?
As Georgie piled on the lipstick, we were reminded that he never could color within the lines.... so now we're left to clean up the smeary mess of his eight years of misapplied ideology.
Which brings us to what he did right.
As Robert Creamer so pithily points out (Huffington) .... "History will record that George W. Bush made one critically important contribution to our country -- and to the entire world. He and his administration provided unquestionable proof of the bankruptcy of radical-conservative ideology, and set the stage for a qualitatively different progressive era in American politics.
"By assuring that all of the fruits of the growth of productivity in our economy went to the wealthiest 2% of our population, the Bush administration set the stage for the current economic collapse.
"By actually putting into practice the Neo-Conservative theories of pre-emptive war and unilateralism, George W. Bush demonstrated their failure more persuasively than could the most articulate progressive critic.
"By abandoning our historic commitment to due process and sinking into the dark world of torture, George W. Bush and his partner Dick Cheney isolated themselves from the growing worldwide commitment to human rights."
The last few weeks we have watched Bush and his Rovian enablers relentlessly apply his legacy lipstick. But a suffering nation knows the truth beneath the rosy facade..... "he will be remembered as the man who set the stage. He has played the Hoover to Obama's Roosevelt, the James Buchanan to Obama's Lincoln."
The omens are good.
Yesterday while Bush was trying to prop up the toxic remains of his poor judgment, lousy execution and disastrous outcomes, a skilled pilot guided (WaPo) his crippled passenger jet to a hard, but safe, landing on the Hudson River in New York.
Rescuers rushed in and with "level-headed teamwork" saved all the passengers.... "the weak and infirm, including an infant and an elderly woman in a wheelchair."
It's a good sign as next Tuesday Barack Obama takes over the piloting of our distressed nation that a reckless Bush administration put on course for a crash landing. With Obama's thoughtful leadership and a spirit of teamwork we can all come through.
Excuse me, but isn't the job of the president making tough decisions?
As Georgie piled on the lipstick, we were reminded that he never could color within the lines.... so now we're left to clean up the smeary mess of his eight years of misapplied ideology.
Which brings us to what he did right.
As Robert Creamer so pithily points out (Huffington) .... "History will record that George W. Bush made one critically important contribution to our country -- and to the entire world. He and his administration provided unquestionable proof of the bankruptcy of radical-conservative ideology, and set the stage for a qualitatively different progressive era in American politics.
"By assuring that all of the fruits of the growth of productivity in our economy went to the wealthiest 2% of our population, the Bush administration set the stage for the current economic collapse.
"By actually putting into practice the Neo-Conservative theories of pre-emptive war and unilateralism, George W. Bush demonstrated their failure more persuasively than could the most articulate progressive critic.
"By abandoning our historic commitment to due process and sinking into the dark world of torture, George W. Bush and his partner Dick Cheney isolated themselves from the growing worldwide commitment to human rights."
The last few weeks we have watched Bush and his Rovian enablers relentlessly apply his legacy lipstick. But a suffering nation knows the truth beneath the rosy facade..... "he will be remembered as the man who set the stage. He has played the Hoover to Obama's Roosevelt, the James Buchanan to Obama's Lincoln."
The omens are good.
Yesterday while Bush was trying to prop up the toxic remains of his poor judgment, lousy execution and disastrous outcomes, a skilled pilot guided (WaPo) his crippled passenger jet to a hard, but safe, landing on the Hudson River in New York.
Rescuers rushed in and with "level-headed teamwork" saved all the passengers.... "the weak and infirm, including an infant and an elderly woman in a wheelchair."
It's a good sign as next Tuesday Barack Obama takes over the piloting of our distressed nation that a reckless Bush administration put on course for a crash landing. With Obama's thoughtful leadership and a spirit of teamwork we can all come through.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
A "Can Do" 2009
The Washington Post looks at 2009 today in "The New Year - There is good reason for trepidation, but also for hope."Most of us know about the trepidation, so let's focus on the hope.
"A new presidential administration is on the way, full of ideas and vigor."
Ideas, vigor.... YES!
And just to put a fine point on president-elect Obama's resolve to move ahead, another WaPo headline tells us that on Monday "Obama, Pelosi to Discuss Scope of Economic Package."
"Sources said Obama and Pelosi will discuss the scope and timing of the economic recovery package, which Obama has said will be his first priority upon being sworn into office. Pelosi has said her goal is to have the legislation on the new president's desk and ready to be signed on Jan. 20."
Obama's thirst to get things moving with solid policies is more than the empty Texas boast we've come to expect. As WaPo editorializes.... "Policy will matter, and in this regard it is good to know that the president-elect is not given to following the tired formulations of the left, the right and the various shills and operators who dominate so much of what passes for public discussion. He is pragmatic, open-minded and thoughtful. But, as he knows, he will also have to take on some powerful forces, those aligned with his party and those in opposition, and that will take courage.
"And in the end, of course, it will be not just policy that saves us but, as always, the energy, imagination and desire of the people -- people who see opportunity where others do not and who have the freedom to pursue it.
"Some well-known words from Abraham Lincoln, delivered to Congress in December 1862, have been cited often in the past few months. They are worth citing once more on this day: 'The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.' "
Out with dogma, in with pragmatism... out with division, in with cooperation... out with pandering, in with courage.
Yes we can!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
January 2009... End of an Error
This is the last day of the year 2008. A year when the effects from the missteps, failures and duplicities of the tumultuous eight years of the Bush administration came home to roost. Or, should we say, were flung at him.
As Bob Herbert laments today in "Add Up the Damage" (NYTimes).... "This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job."
The invasion of Iraq is a good example of the wrecking ball the White House mafia took to our country. Herbert reflects on the devastation.... "The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?
"Exploiting the public’s understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to nuke us: 'We cannot wait,' he said, 'for the final proof — the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.'
"He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.... The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz."
So just how does The Decider view this sorry Iraq-war chapter in his catalog of horrors?
"A year into the war Mr. Bush was cracking jokes about it at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association. He displayed a series of photos that showed him searching the Oval Office, peering behind curtains and looking under the furniture. A mock caption had Mr. Bush saying: 'Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere.' ”
Couldn't you just die laughing.
Now The Decider is trying to tidy up the record of his apocalyptic reign by rewriting history. But, we were given a more accurate image to remember him by in the form of a size 10. No, not the measurements of his ego-inflated all-hat-and-no-cattle Stetson, but the shoes of an irate reporter flung at his head during his recent legacy-burnishing trip to Iraq.
For a Bush legacy summation after eight years of pent-up frustrations, for a you-deserve-no-breaks-today job evaluation.... on the your-place-in-history scale of 1 to 10, this shoe-fly moment was a ten plus.
On January 22 Barack Obama will right the national course and restore the forward momentum our nation enjoyed before we were so rudely interrupted.
That most of all is why we celebrate the arrival of 2009, a Happy New Year!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
In Some the Superficial Runs Very Deep....
Sometimes when you're least expecting it you are gifted with a "wow" moment.
Today's "wow" moment erupted on MSNBC's early show "Morning Joe" hosted by Joe Scarborough with sidekick Mika Brzezinski.
From time to time Mika is able to lure her father Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski onto the show to share his foreign policy wisdom. Today, as all too often happens, arrogant Joe thinks he knows it all and uses his best "final word" pushy attitude to talk down views differing from his own and started down that path with Dr. Z.
But..... today, Dr. Z turned the tables and delivered a jolt to Jivin' Joe. He interrupted Joe in mid-spout after Joe flatly stated about the current dangerous Israel-Hamas escalation of the Palestine conflict.... "you cannot blame what's going on in Israel on the Bush administration."
Unable to bear Joe's sound-bite-analysis any longer, an exasperated Dr. Z stopped Joe in his tracks and face-to-face charged him of having "such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on, it is almost embarrassing to listen to you."
Wow!!!
Mika, as evidently is her assigned task, did her squirming best to restrain Joe's typical slash and burn response.... even throwing her father under the bus by explaining to the obviously ego-bruised Joe that her father's "stunning" comments would pass for affection in their family. For shame Mika. What price honor?
The Morning Joe show has great guests, but Joe needs to drop the rude "Imus wanna-be" routine. He can't pull it off and despite Mika's best efforts, too many times he boringly makes himself and his talking-point world view the story, taking time away from the truly interesting and knowledgeable opinions being offered by real experts.
Here is the video of this "wow" encounter.
Thanks for the upper, Dr. Z.... we needed that! Happy New Year!
Today's "wow" moment erupted on MSNBC's early show "Morning Joe" hosted by Joe Scarborough with sidekick Mika Brzezinski.
From time to time Mika is able to lure her father Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski onto the show to share his foreign policy wisdom. Today, as all too often happens, arrogant Joe thinks he knows it all and uses his best "final word" pushy attitude to talk down views differing from his own and started down that path with Dr. Z.
But..... today, Dr. Z turned the tables and delivered a jolt to Jivin' Joe. He interrupted Joe in mid-spout after Joe flatly stated about the current dangerous Israel-Hamas escalation of the Palestine conflict.... "you cannot blame what's going on in Israel on the Bush administration."
Unable to bear Joe's sound-bite-analysis any longer, an exasperated Dr. Z stopped Joe in his tracks and face-to-face charged him of having "such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on, it is almost embarrassing to listen to you."
Wow!!!
Mika, as evidently is her assigned task, did her squirming best to restrain Joe's typical slash and burn response.... even throwing her father under the bus by explaining to the obviously ego-bruised Joe that her father's "stunning" comments would pass for affection in their family. For shame Mika. What price honor?
The Morning Joe show has great guests, but Joe needs to drop the rude "Imus wanna-be" routine. He can't pull it off and despite Mika's best efforts, too many times he boringly makes himself and his talking-point world view the story, taking time away from the truly interesting and knowledgeable opinions being offered by real experts.
Here is the video of this "wow" encounter.
Thanks for the upper, Dr. Z.... we needed that! Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
GOP Senators: Put USA First
What are the GOP Senators thinking? "Auto Bailout Clears House but Faces Hurdles in Senate." (WaPo)
"The House last night approved an emergency plan to prevent the collapse of the nation's domestic automobile industry, but the measure faces serious opposition in the Senate, where Republicans are revolting against a White House-brokered deal to speed $14 billion to cash-starved General Motors and Chrysler."
After giving white-collar financial types over a trillion dollars.... with barely a string attached.... to bail them out of the fix we're in largely because of their reckless lending and "bundling" practices, Republican senators.... especially southern senators who are protecting their foreign-owned local auto manufacturers.... are threatening to risk all to "stand on principle" and reject a comparatively paltry $14 billion bridge-loan to the blue-collar Big Three.
Risking all means.... bankruptcies that would throw up to 3 million out of work and possibly turn a deep recession into a 1930s depression!
Already rocketing unemployment makes such a denial of financial help an even more death-defying act.... "New Unemployment Claims Surge Unexpectedly." (Huffington)
"The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial applications for jobless benefits in the week ending Dec. 6 rose to a seasonally adjusted 573,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week.
"New jobless claims last week reached their highest level since November 1982...."
And the GOP wants to play Russian Roulette with millions of jobs. It's time to forget mindless ideology and narrow lobbying interests.... it's time to vote for America. Pass the auto financial aid bill!
"The House last night approved an emergency plan to prevent the collapse of the nation's domestic automobile industry, but the measure faces serious opposition in the Senate, where Republicans are revolting against a White House-brokered deal to speed $14 billion to cash-starved General Motors and Chrysler."
After giving white-collar financial types over a trillion dollars.... with barely a string attached.... to bail them out of the fix we're in largely because of their reckless lending and "bundling" practices, Republican senators.... especially southern senators who are protecting their foreign-owned local auto manufacturers.... are threatening to risk all to "stand on principle" and reject a comparatively paltry $14 billion bridge-loan to the blue-collar Big Three.
Risking all means.... bankruptcies that would throw up to 3 million out of work and possibly turn a deep recession into a 1930s depression!
Already rocketing unemployment makes such a denial of financial help an even more death-defying act.... "New Unemployment Claims Surge Unexpectedly." (Huffington)
"The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial applications for jobless benefits in the week ending Dec. 6 rose to a seasonally adjusted 573,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week.
"New jobless claims last week reached their highest level since November 1982...."
And the GOP wants to play Russian Roulette with millions of jobs. It's time to forget mindless ideology and narrow lobbying interests.... it's time to vote for America. Pass the auto financial aid bill!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Blag the Extorter
Just follow your nose. It's not like Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich didn't already exude the stink of corruption.
In April of this year, a Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that at least three of every four $25,000 donors to Boss Blag got something from the administration.... including jobs, contracts or favorable regulatory rulings.
A month later Illinois lawmakers passed an ethics reform bill targeted directly at Blagojevich and his record-setting efforts to collect campaign contributions from state contractors.
The effect of this legislation .... it kicked Boss Blag's arm-twisting into high gear.... "with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target," according to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. The end of July The Tribune reported that in the month since lawmakers passed the ethics bill, the governor ramped up his efforts by collecting more than a quarter of a million dollars from those with business before the state.
Besides using his office in an effort to trample the Tribune's editorial voices of criticism, Boss Blag thumbed his nose at the state's attempts to reign him in .... toward the end of August he vetoed the ethics bill saying he wants it to be tougher and to include lawmakers as well as himself.
Undoubtedly Boss Blag knew he was being bugged and taped.... but he must have thought he was the windy city's Tony Soprano..... too smart for the Feds, using his "organization" to make crime pay, big time.
His big take would be the selling of the U.S. Senate seat vacated by president-elect Barack Obama. By Illinois law, as governor, Boss Blag is the only person who can name Obama's replacement.
Note to Illinois lawmakers: You couldn't see this situation developing? You were happy to just let this extortionist name your one of two U.S. Senators for Illinois?
Yesterday.... federal prosecutor Fitzgerald of Scooter Libby investigation fame made Boss Blag and his chief of graft, John Harris, do the perp walk, arresting them on corruption charges.
Yet......
Despite Fitzgerald saying that "the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," hours after his arrest Boss Blag was out of jail on his own recognizance.... on a $4,500 bond.... chump change to Boss Blag. (ABC)
Today he's back in the governor's office and as of this writing still has the sole power to appoint Obama's replacement.
Even though according to the Tribune timeline, the "federal criminal investigation" of Boss Blag began in June of 2004, an investigation of what has been labeled as a political crime spree, he was, and still is, allowed to continue to abuse the considerable power of his office.
We need to hear much more.....
In April of this year, a Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that at least three of every four $25,000 donors to Boss Blag got something from the administration.... including jobs, contracts or favorable regulatory rulings.
A month later Illinois lawmakers passed an ethics reform bill targeted directly at Blagojevich and his record-setting efforts to collect campaign contributions from state contractors.
The effect of this legislation .... it kicked Boss Blag's arm-twisting into high gear.... "with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target," according to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. The end of July The Tribune reported that in the month since lawmakers passed the ethics bill, the governor ramped up his efforts by collecting more than a quarter of a million dollars from those with business before the state.
Besides using his office in an effort to trample the Tribune's editorial voices of criticism, Boss Blag thumbed his nose at the state's attempts to reign him in .... toward the end of August he vetoed the ethics bill saying he wants it to be tougher and to include lawmakers as well as himself.
Undoubtedly Boss Blag knew he was being bugged and taped.... but he must have thought he was the windy city's Tony Soprano..... too smart for the Feds, using his "organization" to make crime pay, big time.
His big take would be the selling of the U.S. Senate seat vacated by president-elect Barack Obama. By Illinois law, as governor, Boss Blag is the only person who can name Obama's replacement.
Note to Illinois lawmakers: You couldn't see this situation developing? You were happy to just let this extortionist name your one of two U.S. Senators for Illinois?
Yesterday.... federal prosecutor Fitzgerald of Scooter Libby investigation fame made Boss Blag and his chief of graft, John Harris, do the perp walk, arresting them on corruption charges.
Yet......
Despite Fitzgerald saying that "the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," hours after his arrest Boss Blag was out of jail on his own recognizance.... on a $4,500 bond.... chump change to Boss Blag. (ABC)
Today he's back in the governor's office and as of this writing still has the sole power to appoint Obama's replacement.
Even though according to the Tribune timeline, the "federal criminal investigation" of Boss Blag began in June of 2004, an investigation of what has been labeled as a political crime spree, he was, and still is, allowed to continue to abuse the considerable power of his office.
We need to hear much more.....
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
The Crawford Crawl
Here's a little ditty to set your foot to tappin', and your spirits soaring. Listen here to.... "Crawl Back to Crawford" (YouTube) by Matt Farmer, performed by the Blue State Cowboys:
CRAWL BACK TO CRAWFORD
VERSE
Well, for eight long years
We've been payin' your rent
But now your lease done run
And all our money's been spent
So pack up your bags and take a last look around
At how you drove a great nation straight into the ground
CHORUS
And don't let the door
Hit you in the ass on the way out
Don't bother with the goodbyes
Just make sure that you stay out
There ain't no need to call
No need to write
We don't even need you to turn out the light
Just crawl back to Crawford, brother
Promise that you'll leave us alone
VERSE
Every step of the way, your story's been the same
Just cruisin' through the world
On your daddy's name
You had the oilmen friends
You had the Skull and Bones
But it never would have happened if your name was Jones
BRIDGE
Slam dunk, privatize, deregulate
Tax cuts, trickle down
The politics of hate
Flag pin, waterboard
Intelligent design
You were handed your throne by just five of the nine.
Thanks, Matt and the Blue State Cowboys, we needed that!
Matt and the Cowboys are from Chicago and, as Matt said, they wanted to "offer our musical tribute to W's 'legacy.' "
Many of us will admit to suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome... and while this musical gem offers some respite, we'll only find lasting relief when The Decider crawls back to Crawford!
After eight long years.... just 41 more agonizing Bush-days to get through.
CRAWL BACK TO CRAWFORD
VERSE
Well, for eight long years
We've been payin' your rent
But now your lease done run
And all our money's been spent
So pack up your bags and take a last look around
At how you drove a great nation straight into the ground
CHORUS
And don't let the door
Hit you in the ass on the way out
Don't bother with the goodbyes
Just make sure that you stay out
There ain't no need to call
No need to write
We don't even need you to turn out the light
Just crawl back to Crawford, brother
Promise that you'll leave us alone
VERSE
Every step of the way, your story's been the same
Just cruisin' through the world
On your daddy's name
You had the oilmen friends
You had the Skull and Bones
But it never would have happened if your name was Jones
BRIDGE
Slam dunk, privatize, deregulate
Tax cuts, trickle down
The politics of hate
Flag pin, waterboard
Intelligent design
You were handed your throne by just five of the nine.
Thanks, Matt and the Blue State Cowboys, we needed that!
Matt and the Cowboys are from Chicago and, as Matt said, they wanted to "offer our musical tribute to W's 'legacy.' "
Many of us will admit to suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome... and while this musical gem offers some respite, we'll only find lasting relief when The Decider crawls back to Crawford!
After eight long years.... just 41 more agonizing Bush-days to get through.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Unveiling Bush's Legacy
"Welcome to my hanging."So said popularity bottom-feeder President George W. Bush at the unveiling of his Union League of Philadelphia's portrait.
Continuing to entertain his receptive audience, he complimented the artist, Mark Carder, for his fine job and observed, "I was taken aback by how much gray paint you had to use."
He later remarked, "I'm especially proud to be co-recipient with a guy I call '41'... we owe our achievements to the same savvy political counselor and firm disciplinarian: Barbara."
After these witty and self-deprecating remarks The Decider made an unabashed grab for Abraham Lincoln's distinguished coattails.
The Union League presidential gallery displays portraits of every Republican president since Lincoln. Bush seized on "Abe's" controversial leadership legacy saying.... "the principles on which he stood have stood the test of time: All men are created equal under God, he said, unflinchingly throughout his presidency. Liberty was given to every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. He has taught Presidents that you must act on your principles and make tough decisions, regardless of the political consequences.
"I have been a..... I have drawn strength from his example. I have learned lessons by reading about Abraham Lincoln"
Oh, pleeeeeze.
Too bad The Decider didn't live up to his own rhetoric or Abe's example.
An editorial in today's The New York Times, "Tortured Justice," paints a far different portrait than the one Bush wants us to see.... "The nation’s courts continue to grapple with the abuses committed by President Bush’s administration in the name of fighting terrorism. The extent of the damage to American liberties, and how lasting it will be, will be told in part by the outcome of two cases that are to be heard by the federal courts."
"On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that turns on Mr. Bush’s claim that he can order people living in the United States to be detained by the military indefinitely without charges. The case involves Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who was in the United States legally. He was declared an enemy combatant in mid-2003 and has been held in a Navy brig since then..... This intolerable reading of the law would leave a president free to suspend the rights of anyone, including American citizens."
The second case involves "a Syrian-born Canadian with no ties to terrorism who became a victim of the Bush team’s lawless policy of 'extraordinary rendition' — the outsourcing of interrogations to foreign governments known to torture prisoners.
"Mr. Arar’s ordeal began in 2002, when he was seized by federal agents as he tried to change planes on his way home to Canada from a family vacation. After being held incommunicado in solitary confinement and subjected to harsh interrogation without proper access to a lawyer, he was 'rendered' to Syria, where he was tortured. He was locked up for almost a year in a dank underground cell the size of a grave before he was finally let go."
The Union League Bush portrait depicts a benignly smiling man.... not the ruthless, law-breaking, Constitution-rending, outlaw president who destroyed the American ideal of equal justice for all. Hopefully when hanging The Decider, the Union League doesn't place his portrait anywhere near honest Abe's.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Sixty-seven Years After Infamy....
"December 7, 1941.... a date which will live in infamy.... the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. "
So said President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he asked Congress for a Declaration of War sixty-seven years ago.
On that day Japan also attacked Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island and Midway Island.
In response to this all-out attack, Roosevelt clearly and forcefully declared.... "As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us...."
Today it is much different. Seemingly nationless enemies strike civilian populations.... cloaked suicidal terrorism is the new norm, not declarations of war between nations.
As Richard A. Clarke who was the White House counterterrorism coordinator under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush explains today in his op-ed "Plans of Attack" (WaPo) .... "Ten young men land a small boat at a quay in a city of 18 million people. Within minutes of setting ashore, they are throwing grenades and raking crowds with automatic weapons fire. Days later, almost 200 people are dead, more are wounded, the financial capital of a nation of a billion people has ground to a halt, and the world is riveted.
"To most of the world, the Mumbai massacre seems inexplicable and random, like the periodic devastation caused by typhoons or tornadoes, or simply pointless, just killing for killing's sake. But the attack was neither random nor pointless. The carnage in Mumbai was goal-oriented, an attempt to advance an overall strategy that is being ruthlessly pursued by the Islamist radical network."
That is the face of conflict today.
Even Osama bin Laden's dastardly 9/11 attack on the twin towers wasn't a Pearl Harbor.... it wasn't backed by a nation declaring war. The very nationless nature of the attack allowed the Bush presidency to name its own target for retaliation.... Iraq.... leading America down the shadowy path of their selective-intelligence "war on terrorism."
Clarke maps out the terrorism minefield facing the Obama administration.... "Seven years after 9/11, the United States has neither eliminated the threat from al-Qaeda nor secured Afghanistan, where bin Laden's terrorists were once headquartered.
"To accomplish these two tasks, we must now eliminate the new terrorist safe haven in Pakistan. But that will require effective action from a weak and riven Pakistani government. It might also depend upon dealing with the long-standing India-Pakistan rivalry."
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt galvanized the nation through his leadership and call for shared sacrifice as he declared war on Japan. It now falls to Barack Obama to rally the nation, and the world, to a common goal.... the defeat of the hydra-headed terrorist monster.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Life Without Duffy.... Stuffy
If a picture is worth a thousand words.... what is the cost of losing that picture?
Iowa is about to find out.
The once-Pulitzer Prize winning Des Moines Register just showed the door to the last of their what-makes-us-any-different-than-getting-the-news-online-or-from-TV-networks feature.... it chopped Brian Duffy from its staff, thus ending his quarter of a century tenure as the Register's front page political cartoonist and the unique standing of the Register as the only newspaper in the country that carried a front-page cartoon commentary.
It's like taking away our morning coffee.... or the jam on our toast, the raisins in our bran flakes, the frosting on our cinnamon bun!
Let's hope the Register doesn't Bush-up their mistake by refusing to listen to disappointed, even outraged, readers who not only looked forward to Duffy every morning, but counted on him for the wry smile that helped them face another day.... especially during these unsettled times.
Register, reconsider.... please.... give us back our Duffy!
Here is Duffy's final (it doesn't have to be) cartoon.... it says it all without a thousand words!
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Big Three: Bush, Hoover, Buchanan
Harold Meyerson looks George W. Bush in the eye and calls him what he is.... Herbert Hoover.
In "Bush's Final Fiasco" Meyerson compares the Bush administration's handling of our downward-spiraling economy to the actions of the 1930's Great Depression president .... "Herbert Hoover, we should recall, had a program for dealing with the Depression. It consisted of lending to banks but opposing fiscal stimulus or direct aid to individuals. Which is why Hank Paulson's frenzied endeavors to prop up the banking sector and Bush's dogged resistance to assisting anybody else amount to pure neo-Hooverism.
"As the 1930s began, Hoover believed that the coordinated actions of the private sector could save the beleaguered economy. It soon became apparent that the only action that private-sector businesses could agree upon was closing down factories and offices and throwing people out of work. Under immense pressure to do something, in late 1931 Hoover asked Congress to establish the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to provide funds to banks it deemed creditworthy.
"Having done his bit to bail out the banks, however, Hoover rested. He opposed provisions that would have enabled homeowners to hang on to their homes."
Sound familiar?
As Meyerson points out, "The Bush administration's approach to today's meltdown is to direct all its energies and largess to lending institutions. There is, as yet, no program to help floundering homeowners renegotiate the terms of their mortgages. The president is opposed to further stimulus programs, even though private-sector investment in the United States has all but ceased."
Meyerson asks, where's the outrage? He suspects that the answer "is that you can only irreversibly give up on a president once. Further catastrophic failures on the president's part elicit only diminishing returns. Buchanan did nothing while the South seceded: That was it for him. Hoover did nothing as farmers, workers and middle-class America got wiped out: With that, he was beyond rehabilitation. Nixon had Watergate: Enough said. One mega-strike and you're out."
And when it comes to mega-strike outs, Bush has swung and missed over and over. Meyerson counts three biggies.... "He misled us into a nearly endless war of choice to disarm a threat that never really existed. He let a great American city drown. And now he stands by while the economic security of tens of millions of Americans is vanishing.
"Yet in the hearts of his countrymen, Bush's place is already fixed. Even before the financial collapse, he was in the ninth circle of presidential hell, with Buchanan and Hoover. At his own party's national convention this summer, his was the name that no one dared speak.
"And so, though his mishandling of the economy is criminally inept, he is being spared one more outbreak of public rage by two countervailing public sentiments: Americans' relief that he soon will be gone and their kind reluctance to kick a corpse."
Bush justifies his record by saying he kept us safe for eight years (he myopically doesn't count 9/11 or the myriad of victims of his ill-conceived policies).
That's kind of like saying that despite his rampaging through our domestic and foreign landscape like a bull in a china shop one tea cup survived..... but President Decider, that tea cup was made in China.
In "Bush's Final Fiasco" Meyerson compares the Bush administration's handling of our downward-spiraling economy to the actions of the 1930's Great Depression president .... "Herbert Hoover, we should recall, had a program for dealing with the Depression. It consisted of lending to banks but opposing fiscal stimulus or direct aid to individuals. Which is why Hank Paulson's frenzied endeavors to prop up the banking sector and Bush's dogged resistance to assisting anybody else amount to pure neo-Hooverism.
"As the 1930s began, Hoover believed that the coordinated actions of the private sector could save the beleaguered economy. It soon became apparent that the only action that private-sector businesses could agree upon was closing down factories and offices and throwing people out of work. Under immense pressure to do something, in late 1931 Hoover asked Congress to establish the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to provide funds to banks it deemed creditworthy.
"Having done his bit to bail out the banks, however, Hoover rested. He opposed provisions that would have enabled homeowners to hang on to their homes."
Sound familiar?
As Meyerson points out, "The Bush administration's approach to today's meltdown is to direct all its energies and largess to lending institutions. There is, as yet, no program to help floundering homeowners renegotiate the terms of their mortgages. The president is opposed to further stimulus programs, even though private-sector investment in the United States has all but ceased."
Meyerson asks, where's the outrage? He suspects that the answer "is that you can only irreversibly give up on a president once. Further catastrophic failures on the president's part elicit only diminishing returns. Buchanan did nothing while the South seceded: That was it for him. Hoover did nothing as farmers, workers and middle-class America got wiped out: With that, he was beyond rehabilitation. Nixon had Watergate: Enough said. One mega-strike and you're out."
And when it comes to mega-strike outs, Bush has swung and missed over and over. Meyerson counts three biggies.... "He misled us into a nearly endless war of choice to disarm a threat that never really existed. He let a great American city drown. And now he stands by while the economic security of tens of millions of Americans is vanishing.
"Yet in the hearts of his countrymen, Bush's place is already fixed. Even before the financial collapse, he was in the ninth circle of presidential hell, with Buchanan and Hoover. At his own party's national convention this summer, his was the name that no one dared speak.
"And so, though his mishandling of the economy is criminally inept, he is being spared one more outbreak of public rage by two countervailing public sentiments: Americans' relief that he soon will be gone and their kind reluctance to kick a corpse."
Bush justifies his record by saying he kept us safe for eight years (he myopically doesn't count 9/11 or the myriad of victims of his ill-conceived policies).
That's kind of like saying that despite his rampaging through our domestic and foreign landscape like a bull in a china shop one tea cup survived..... but President Decider, that tea cup was made in China.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)