The Pluribus Driver

I've Moved!

2008-12-18T12:59:00.002-06:00

Hear ye! Hear ye! The Pluribus Driver has moved! Phone the neighbors, wake the kids, and be sure to update your bookmark! My biting commentary and analysis can now be found HERE. Come on over and see what's new, won't you?

Thanks.

And Then There Were Two

2008-11-19T11:46:00.008-06:00

Anchorage, Alaska mayor Mark Begich has pulled far enough ahead in the race for Senate that he is being declared the winner. By a narrow margin, he has defeated six-term senator (and seven-count convicted felon) Ted Stevens.

What Begich's victory means is that the Democrats now have 58 seats in the Senate, with two races still to be decided. I would give Al Franken a slightly better than 50% chance of winning the Minnesota seat after the recount. In Georgia, the run-off election between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin will take place at the beginning of December. At this point, whichever party can persuade more people to turn out will most likely win that one.

Why is it so important for the Democrats to hit that magic number of 60 senators? Normally, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but thanks to the scorched-earth policy of the win-at-all-costs Republican party, it matters a great deal. In the curent session of Congress, which started in January of '07 and ends next month, the Republican minority has become little more than obstructionists, which may explain their crushing defeat on November 4th.

Here is an example:

(Image borrowed from OpenCongress.org. I hope they don't mind.)

A cloture vote is a procedural tactic that requires 60 votes in order to end, thus allowing a bill to move forward. The current obstructionist Republicans have used the cloture vote almost twice as many times as any previous Senate. This is the main reason that the Democrats so desperately want to have 60 senators. It's also why Harry Reed and company wussed out and allowed Lieberman to retain his cherished chairmanships, even after he endorsed McCain, spoke at the RNC convention, and expressed doubt as to whether Obama is ready to be president.

The fringe benefit of Begich's victory is that Stevens won't be expelled from the Senate by his colleagues, and Sarah Palin won't have an opportunity to take over his seat. Whether the Democrats hit the magic 60 or not, at least we have that to be thankful for.
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Bush Is Getting The Respect He Has Earned

2008-11-07T11:56:00.008-06:00

A couple days ago, in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro expressed his disgust in the treatment that President Bush has received by liberals and conservatives alike.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have.

I would have laughed at Shapiro's distortion of reality, had it not become fodder for right-wing bloggers. Crocodile tears aplenty are being shed for poor, poor President Bush. All he ever wanted to do was lead the people that he loves in a manner befitting his respect for America.

NOT!

A more appropriate title for Shapiro's piece would have been, "The Treatment of America by Bush Has Been a Disgrace."

I could provide a laundry list of Bush's disrespectful actions, but I think providing one example should suffice. As quoted by Think Progress, Bush said this in April of 2004 [Emphasis in original]:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

The thing about that is that Bush was lying. As he admitted in December of 2005, Bush signed the order for the NSA to spy on Americans without obtaining the required warrant from the FISA court. He went on to say that he had authorized that activity 30 times, and would continue to do so.

Bush apologists can argue that the illegal wiretapping program was necessary, but the fact remains that Bush lied. He said they were getting a court order for each wiretap when he knew damn well that they weren't.

There are many other examples of Bush's mistreatment of his office and his hatred of America, but I think one is enough to make my point. Bush lied to us. Not about getting his knob polished in the oval office, but about breaking the law. So don't come crying to me about how he is being so horribly maligned. If he hadn't cheated his way into office, thumbed his nose at the separation of powers, pissed on our Constitution, lied us into a war, etc., then maybe, maybe, a case could be made for his mistreatment. A president must earn the people's respect, though, and Mr. Bush has failed to do so.

From the Shapiro piece:

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush.

Well, that's just an insult to honest, hard working sewage plants everywhere.

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Maybe Nancy Pelosi Shouldn't Resign As Speaker... Yet.

2008-11-06T19:35:00.012-06:00

Over this past summer, Congress has enjoyed some of the lowest approval ratings ever. At one point, they sunk even lower than Dick Cheney's. (Now that's low!) The cries from the right were that this was clear and ample evidence of the citizens' dissatisfaction with the Democratic majority. Seeing as the Democrats held control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins (so slim, in fact, that they let Joe Lieberman caucus with them,) and the entire House was up for reelection as well, November 4th provided the perfect opportunity for the voters to send a clear message to Congress.

And they did.

There are still, as I write this, three Senate races that have yet to be called. Nonetheless, the Democrats have gained six seats, giving them a strong majority of 57 to only 40 for the Republicans. In the House, the Democrats increased their majority from 236 to 254 (with eight still up in the air.)

Apparently, the voters have decided that not only do they approve of the Democrats being in charge, but want them to have more power, so they can start pushing forward with a Democratic agenda. (Why else give them a larger majority? If the voters wanted more "compromise," they would have left the margins as they were.) Plus, a Democrat won the presidential election by a landslide, so there goes the veto threat.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi had the following reaction:

"I don't know what the final number will be," Pelosi said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference on Capitol Hill. "But it will be well over 250. It's a signal of the change that the American people want."

So she understands the significance of the increased majority that the voters have given her. She can finally dust off that Liberal Agenda that's been stuffed in her desk drawer for the past almost two years. Will she have the guts to lead, actually lead, with this vote of confidence from the American people?

It would be a break from recent Democratic behavior, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

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Election Reflection

2008-11-05T12:18:00.013-06:00

At 8:25pm last night (Central time,) ABC News projected that Obama would win Ohio's electoral votes. It was at that moment that I knew he would be our next president. As George Stephanopoulos remarked, the McCain camp didn't have a road map to victory that didn't include Ohio. Since they had called Pennsylvania for Obama early in the night, I knew that McCain was sunk.

As the night wore on, I watched with the world as the electoral map shifted. Here is what it looked like after the 2004 election:

Wow, that's a mighty sea of red, isn't it?

Once Ohio flipped to blue, the cards started falling. All told, nine stated shifted. (I'm giving Obama North Carolina, even though it may not be "official" yet.) These are the states Obama won that were Bush states in '04:

The final map looks like this:

Notice how the blue wave has spread out from the northeast and from the west coast. Another pattern of interest is that in several of the red states that remained red, the margin of victory for McCain was considerably smaller than that of Bush in 2004. For example, in Montana, Bush won by a margin of 21%, but McCain scraped by with 3.5%. In North Dakota, Bush enjoyed a 27.8% victory; McCain managed just under 9%. Back in June, I predicted (incorrectly) that Texas would flip over to blue in this election. That was wishful thinking, I guess. I still think it will, though, as the demographic shifts and the population becomes more urban (which is an overall trend that does not bode well for the republican party.) Bush won Texas by 23% back in 2004; Obama closed that gap to just under 12%.

Back then, my electoral map looked like this:

I was wrong on a few states, but I was only off by 10 electoral votes, giving Obama 354, so that's pretty good, I think. (If I do say so myself.)

So ultimately, does this election represent a fundamental shift in the voting pattern of America, or is it simply a reaction to Bush fatigue? It's difficult to say, but I have a feeling it's more of the former than the latter. The talk has already started about what the GOP needs to do to start winning national elections again. My advice to conservatives would be to use this opportunity to realign the party with its conservative roots, abandoning the radical neocon influence that has permeated it in recent years.

But then, I'm a liberal, so what do I know?

Nancy Pelosi Should Resign As Speaker

2008-08-03T19:45:00.004-05:00

In the current issue of Time magazine, in the 10 Questions section, Speaker Pelosi is asked this:

Why have you taken impeachment off the table as an option for President George W. Bush?

Which seems like a reasonable question, and is one I would have asked the speaker, if given the chance. The speaker's response was totally not what I expected.

I took it off the table a long time ago. You can't talk about impeachment unless you have the facts, and you can't have the facts unless you have cooperation from the Administration. I think the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment and take our eye off the ball of a progressive economic agenda.

So Nancy Pelosi Admits that the main reason she isn't pursuing impeachment is that the Bush administration isn't cooperating.

This is what passes for leadership in the Democratic party.

Bush Pulls Switcheroo - On Himself

2008-07-17T11:45:00.005-05:00

Last August, President Bush issued bold and decisive rhetoric about Iran. As reported in The Guardian:

Mr Bush said Iran's nuclear programme would cast the Middle East "under a shadow of nuclear holocaust" and said the regime was the "the world's leading supporter of terrorism".

He followed that up in May with a speech in Israel in which he labeled as an appeaser anyone who wished to find a diplomatic solution to the problem of terrorism, and compared these unnamed people to the Nazi appeasers of World War II.

From the New York Times:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said, in a speech otherwise devoted to spotlighting Israel’s friendship with the United States.

“We have an obligation,” he continued, “to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

This all fit in very nicely with Bush's saber rattling over Iran ever since his infamous "Axis of Evil" speech. Imagine, then, my shock when I read that Bush had reversed his position and that, as The Guardian reported:

The US is planning to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years, a remarkable turnaround in policy by president George Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his time in office.

My first thought, of course, was that George Bush must be reading my blog, since just last month I pointed out why I felt that his hard-line stance toward Iran was the wrong way to go.

The true reason for Bush's about-face is difficult to pin down. He may be trying to salvage some sort of positive legacy in the Middle East, since his "roadmap to peace" led absolutely nowhere, and his wars are at this point not at all likely to succeed in the long term. Or he may truly be interested in negotiation with Iran for its own sake, to improve the prospects for peace in the region.

Whatever the motivation behind Bush turning into one of the appeasers that he lambasted only a couple months ago, since the alternative is a march to war, this is one Bush flip-flop that I can live with.
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McCain's Health Care Plan Makes Me Sick

2008-07-07T07:21:00.005-05:00

There is an interesting tidbit in this Associated Press article about McCain's health care plan. First, there was this:

McCain would provide refundable tax credits of $2,500 for individuals, and $5,000 for families, for all those who buy health insurance.

This, in itself, is not all that interesting, except that what McCain is offering is a huge give-away of our tax dollars to the insurance industry disguised as a health care plan. Coincidentally, Obama is offering pretty much the same thing. The problem with these plans is that insurance does not equal health care.

It is the job of the insurace industry to make money off of policy holders. They do not make money by paying out claims. Therefore, every insurance company has an army of people whose sole purpose is to deny paying for medical expenses. I am not faulting the insurance companies for this; they figured out how to make tons of money by not providing the services they promise, so bully for them. My issue is with the notion that having the government pay for peoples' insurance is the solution to the problem. It is not; it is merely feeding the beast.

But perhaps that is an issue for another time.

In the AP article, there is also this:

Employer contributions toward health insurance would be treated as income, meaning workers would have to pay income taxes on it.

Hmm... Couple that with this quote from the Houston Chronicle:

Companies that provide coverage to workers still would get tax breaks.

McCain's plan is to pay for health insurance credits by taxing workers for the amount that their employer contributes. According to the Chronicle, McCain's advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin states McCain's plan would raise "an estimated $3.6 trillion in revenues."

So to sum up McCain's philosophy, we need to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy; we need to reduce or eliminate taxes on corporations; but it's OK to raise taxes on hard-working Americans to the tune of 3.6 trillion dollars.

So to every non-millionaire conservative, I ask this: how do you reconcile voting for a candidate who states flat-out that he's going to raise your taxes?
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One Debate We All Lose

2008-07-02T12:08:00.003-05:00

Senator Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has announced that not only is he going to continue one of Bush’s most constitutionally questionable policies, the faith-based initiative, but he is actually going to expand the program. In fact, the New York Times reports that if Obama is elected, he “would consider elevating the director of his Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to a cabinet-level post.”

Is this the sort of “change” that we can expect from an Obama presidency? I am not naïve enough to expect a candidate to agree with me on every policy position, but this is one of the more offensive initiatives that Bush has brought us. Despite the arguments that church-based organizations are often able to provide services better and/or cheaper than their secular counterparts, the government should not be giving money to them. Bush’s faith-based initiative represents a crack in the wall separating church and state; as such it should be filled, not expanded. I feel that Obama is really letting me down on this one.

One silver lining of the Obama plan is that he has pledged to rescind Bush’s executive order that allows the church-based organizations receiving tax dollars to discriminate in their hiring and firing based upon a person’s religious beliefs. Predictably, some religious groups are out of their minds over this.

“If you can’t hire people within your faith community, then you’ve lost the distinctive that is the reason why faith-based programs exist in the first place,” said Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Well, damn. And here I thought the reason the faith-based programs existed was to help people in need. Shows what I know.

For his part, Straight-talk McCain chimed in on the matter as well.

A McCain campaign spokesman, Brian Rogers, said Mr. McCain “disagrees with Senator Obama that hiring at faith-based groups should be subject to government oversight.”

So McCain believes that not hiring someone because of their religious beliefs is okay. Do we really need laws protecting people from discriminatory hiring practices? If McCain is elected, maybe we can get rid of them and find out. You know, free market blah blah blah.

So who wins the great faith-based initiative debate? Nobody. The religious nuts come off as religious nuts; McCain comes off as clueless once more; and Obama shows himself to be a sellout. The real losers, though, are the American citizens. The separation of church and state is a cornerstone of our democracy, and it seems that no matter who we put in office, that separation will be a little narrower as a result.
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Straight-Talking McCain Tells It Like It Isn't

2008-06-18T11:49:00.003-05:00

John McCain has a new ad (available on his web site) in which he blatantly tries to distance himself from George Bush. His people have finally wised up to the fact that McCain's allegiance to Bush is going to weigh on him like an albatross in the general election. So the new ad shows Maverick John standing on a mountain staring into the distance in what may be the most hammed-up moment of the campaign so far.

Back in reality, however, we have a couple of interesting headlines:

Bush urges offshore oil drilling

McCain calls for lifting ban on offshore drilling

McCain is so different from Bush that he has the same worthless "plan" for easing down gas prices.

In his speech to the oil industry yesterday, McCain said, among other things,

But the stakes are high for our citizens and for our economy. And with gasoline running at more than four bucks a gallon, many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians. We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use.

What he said there is technically true, but it's misleading. While the US does have 21 billion barrels of proven reserves, according to the Department of Energy (check page 7 of this report,) there are 5.174 billion barrels of proven reserves that are not currently in production.

So if the US removed all impediments to drilling and the entire available reserves came online today, we would have the equivalent of a little under three years worth of OPEC imports available. This is McCain's big solution? He states that we can't afford to wait for "far-off plans of futurists and politicians," and yet, he offers little more than some far-off plans himself.

If McCain were truly serious about this problem five years ago, as his ad states, perhaps he should have done a little more to get the members of his party to join the cause instead of blocking every effort of the Democrats to promote conservation and improved fuel efficiency.

Maybe the real problem is that McCain just isn't a very effective leader.
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Why The US Needs Obama's Foreign Policy

2008-06-12T12:06:00.004-05:00

A lot of hay has been made by conservatives over Obama's foreign policy plans. The sentiments of the right were summed up nicely by President Bush when he stated that anyone who would have a dialog with our "enemy" was the equivalent of Chamberlain, who thought that appeasing the Nazis would avert a war.

Bush's analogy was, of course, absurd. Last I checked (though admittedly, I don't get CIA briefing on these things) Iran was not amassing troops at their border, preparing to attack a neighbor. Not even Israel.

Marco Vicenzino has an interesting article in the Turkish Daily News. In part, he states:

The reality is that dealing with Iran is less contingent upon who occupies the White House and more dependent on who wins Iran's next presidential election in 2009, and even more so upon the ultimate discretion of Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. If moderate rhetoric prevails on both sides at the early stages of both new presidencies, some form of a new direct or indirect dialogue could possibly evolve in a very gradual manner by the middle of each respective president's term.

Something that doesn't get a lot of play in the US media is the fact that Iranians elect their president. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a dictator, no matter how much the Bush administration likes to paint him as such. The coming election in Iran is at least as important as this fall's US election to the process of peace or war in the Middle East.

In the US, we have two main choices: Barack Obama or John McCain. McCain wants to bomb Iran. He has stated as much and even sang a song about it. With McCain in the White House, the people of Iran will have real reason to fear the US. They will live every day wondering if American HellFire is going to rain down on them and destroy their homes, their lives, and their country. McCain will push for more sanctions and further isolation of Iran from the global community. If those measures have their desired effect, the people of Iran will suffer as their economy takes a serious hit.

Within that context, they will be confronted by a choice: should they elect a president who will try to bargain with the Great Satan, or should they stick with Ahmadinejad, who stands defiantly thumbing his nose at the superpower?

Fear is a strong motivator. Just look at Bush's approval ratings after 9/11. Just look at the Republican scare tactics used in 2002 and 2004. All of you conservatives, think back to the election of '04 where you were faced with the threat of "Islamofascists" and had to pick between Kerry, who wanted to find a way to reduce our military involvement in the Middle East, and Cowboy Bush, who is so tough he told the enemy to "bring 'em on." Whom did you choose?

If the Iranian people are presented with a US president who is willing to work with their leaders to meet the security interests of the region and the world, while bringing them into the global economic community so they can prosper and have better lives, would they choose to reelect the radical Ahmadinejad, or the more moderate candidate who wants to work with the US to make their lives better?

So we have to decide: do we want to put the warmongering John "Bush III" McCain in charge so he can continue saber-rattling, all but guaranteeing that Ahmadinejad will win reelection and the spiral toward war will continue? Or do we want to put Barack Obama in the White House, so he can start moving Iran, and the Middle East, toward a more moderate leadership, so they can join the rest of the global community and perhaps make the Middle East a place where the constant threat of war is little more than a fading memory?

We need Obama's foreign policy. It's as simple as that.

NOTE: For an opposite view of Obama's foreign policy, check out According To Nikki.

Heads He Wins, Tails We Lose.

2008-06-08T19:48:00.006-05:00

The Senate Intelligence Committee finally released their report on the Bush administration's "intelligence failures" leading to the Iraq war. Why did it take so long? Because the Senate Republicans stonewalled every step of the way, as usual. The report doesn't shed a whole lot of new light on the matter; it simply verifies what most of us on the left have been saying for a long time.

From Senate Intelligence Committee chairman John D. Rockefeller's press release:

“Before taking the country to war, this Administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the Administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” Rockefeller said. “In making ethe case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.”

“It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa’ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa’ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led th nation into war under false pretenses.

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

You can read the entire report here.

The New York Times, in an editorial on the 6th, states:

Over all, the report makes it clear that top officials, especially Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, knew they were not giving a full and honest account of their justifications for going to war.

And:

According to the Senate report, there was no evidence that Mr. Hussein intended to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, and the intelligence community never said there was.

The Times ends their editorial with this:

We cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Bush lied about Iraq. But when the president withholds vital information from the public — or leads them to believe things that he knows are not true — to justify the invasion of another country, that is bad enough.

The defense offered by Bush apologists has been that the intelligence was bad, therefore the Bush administration is not to blame. So let me ask this: which is worse, a president who would deliberately mislead us into a war, or a president who is so [dim, slow, oblivious, out of the loop] that he doesn't know to ask the questions that will determine how much of a threat we are facing?

Bonus question: Given all that we know about the Iraq intelligence failure/manipulation, how are we supposed to trust what they say about Iran? Or any country, for that matter?
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EDIT: For an opposing view of the report, check out According To Nikki's take.

The Blue Wave

2008-06-01T14:42:00.012-05:00

Last Thursday, Bob Beckel over at Real Clear Politics had an article about how the election this fall will be a blowout in Obama's favor. He makes a strong argument, starting with the results of the 2004 election, which looked like this:

He gave McCain New Hampshire, which seems fair. Then he gave Obama Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Ohio. He took Montana, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida away from McCain since they are all too close to call. His map looks like this:

Which would result in a nice big win for Obama, no matter which way the four swing states fell.
I think that Beckel missed one important state, though. There is one state that has been a Republican stronghold recently, and in most scenarios is considered a gimme for the GOP. Let me put a picture of it here, so you all can start to get used to seeing it.

The latest poll I can find shows McCain leading Obama in Texas by only 5 percent, 48 to 43, with 9% undecided. I think that as McCain tries to play tough on illegal immigration and border fences in order to placate the GOP base, a lot of hispanics are going to shift over to the Democratic camp. Add to that the quarter-million blacks displaced from New Orleans who now call Texas home and the emergence of Bob Barr as a Libertarian alternative for Ron Paul's supporters, and I think that the Lone Star State will tip back to blue, as it was in almost every election through 1976. This is what my electoral map looks like:

Isn't that nice? I left Florida as undecided because it's too hard to say how that one's going to fall. I think it will be blue, but I'm not confident in that prediction. I also gave North Dakota to Obama because he's currently leading McCain in that state as well.

So, will McCain get wiped out this November or is it just wishful thinking? We'll find out in five months. Stay tuned.

NOTE: All of the maps here were created on my new favorite web site: 270toWin.com. Go check it out.
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America Leans To The Left

2008-05-29T07:33:00.004-05:00

It is a fairly common claim from conservatives that America is a right-of-center country; that Democrats are simply out of touch with the average citizen. I've never seen a conservative back up this claim, but that hasn't stopped them from saying it, or kept fellow conservatives from believing it, I would guess. Tell a lie long enough and it eventually becomes the truth (for an example of this, see the term "liberal media.")

Fortunately, there is evidence to back up a claim of the direction that the country is leaning, and you may have already guessed from the title, it isn't to the right.

Rasmussen Reports tracks ten issues that are important to American voters and the party that people trust more to handle each of the issues. May 2008's poll has some interesting results.

The most important issue: The Economy. Whom do people trust more? The Democrats, 50% to 36%. That's a pretty significant spread.

Issue Two: Government Ethics and Corruption. Which party is more trusted? Dems, 45% to 26%. No real surprise there.

Issue Three: National Security and the War on Terror. This is the Republicans' bread and butter, right? Nope. The Democrats are more trusted, 49% to 42%.

And so it goes with the other issues as well. The Democrats are more trusted on:

Social Security: 49% to 36%.
Health Care: 54% to 33%.
Education: 50% to 35%.
Iraq (Iraq!) 50% to 39%.
Taxes (Taxes?) 45% to 40%.
Immigration: 45% to 35%.
Abortion 46% to 39%.

The Democrats are more trusted by at least 5% on every major issue. There are two important conclusions to draw from this.

First: The Republican smear machine will be running full force this fall, because they know they can't win on any of the issues. All they have left are personal attacks. I'm sure we can look forward to seeing more footage of Reverend Wright.

Second: America is a left-of-center country.

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Tell Me Again Why I Give A Damn.

2008-05-22T12:08:00.003-05:00

This morning in London, the price of a barrel of oil hit an all-time high of just over $135. There has been a lot of talk in the past year about Peak Oil, which is the theory that the world's oil supply is limited and therefore we will reach a point where production declines, never to return. It seems more obvious to me now than ever before that we (all of us) should be doing what we can to preserve Earth's resources.

I drive a really small car that gets great mileage (A Scion xA, 30 city, 37 highway.) I don't drive much and have only filled the 11 gallon tank twice since Thanksgiving. (And still have almost 1/2 a tank.) I take the train to work, and walk to/from the train. I only run the air when it's really hot, and the heat when it's really cold. I use compact fluorescent light bulbs and turn off lights when I'm leaving a room. I shut off the water when I brush my teeth. I reuse containers, including plastic bags, and recycle everything I can. All of the toilet paper / tissues / paper towels I buy are made from recycled paper. I am vegetarian.

And yet, when I go outside, I see disturbing things. There's one over-compensating guy who drops his wife off at the train in their Hummer H2. The town I live in waters the grass bordering the municipal parking lots. Garbage cans on the train overflow with newspaper and plastic bottles. The expressway is jammed with people driving to work...

And I wonder, am I obligated to give a damn about this planet? Are any of us?

If car companies are allowed to produce ridiculously oversized and inefficient vehicles; car dealers are allowed to sell them; and consumers are allowed to buy and drive them, then why should I try to use less gas? Other than my own selfish gain (of spending less $ on gas,) what good does it do? Why should I reuse my paper grocery bags when other people dump millions of plastic bags a year into landfills and the ocean?

Who am I trying to help? I don't have kids, and probably won't (we can all be thankful for that, right?). So why should I care if the planet is rendered uninhabitable? What skin is it off my back if the population runs out of fresh water in 40 or 50 years? Why should I care if the price of oil keep going up and up until Americans have to pay $10 for a gallon of gas? Why should I take measures to reduce my footprint when so many people aren't doing shit? Why should I be sacrificing so some person I've never met can use that extra gas to fill the tank on their Mustang, or use that electricity to light their incandescent bulbs, or use that oil to make more plastic bags to choke our landfills?

So you tell me. Why should I not buy a Ford F-150? Why should I not leave the water running and the lights on? Why should I not throw out my recycle bins and get a bigger trash can? Why should I not burn through as much of the Earth's resources as I can in my short time on this planet? Seems like that what everyone else is doing.

(For some reason, I felt like ranting today.)
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More Crooked Talk From The Straight Talk Express

2008-05-20T07:26:00.005-05:00

John McCain was in Chicago yesterday to deliver a speech on the economy and explain how he's not going to just continue Bush's policies. I'm sort of hurt that I wasn't invited. Sure, I'm not a member of the National Restaurant Association, but I figured a maverick like McCain would want someone like me to be there. Oh well.

(All of the quotes from his speech in this post are from the copy provided on NBC's web site.)

I propose to bring some very different ideas to the presidency.

McCain is the candidate of change. Ignore for the moment the fact that over the past couple of years he has abandoned many of the positions that made him a "maverick." Don't pay attention to his many flip-flops and contradictions. He's all about change. Change, change, change.

As president, I will keep the current low tax rates...

Different Idea #1: Maintain Bush tax cuts.

What's more, we're going to double the size of the child tax exemption, so that moms and dads can spend and save more for their own children.

Aww, doesn't that sound good? Funny that someone who is so concerned about moms and dads having more money for their children would oppose a law that promotes equal pay for women and makes it easier for them to sue their employer over wage discrimination. Of course, something like that would be a limit on corporate activities, which McCain opposes flat out, across the board. (Unlike every other neocon in Washington -- see how different his ideas are?)

He also proposes phasing out the Alternative Minimum Tax, which will help rich people; add a flat tax system, which will help rich people; give tax credits for people to buy private insurance, which will help the rich people who run insurance companies; and reduce the capital gains tax, which helps rich people. (And before any of you fans of supply-side voodoo economics tell me about how reducing the capital gains will increase the revenue from it, read this article, which explains things like how the revenues from capital gains taxes were higher under Clinton, even though the rates were higher.)

Different Idea #2: Reduce taxes to help rich people.

McCain then goes on to explain how he wants to expand benefits to American workers who lose their jobs to globalization.

It is not enough to keep offering employment programs designed for the problems of the 1950's. We have to help displaced workers at every turn on a tough road, so that they are not just spectators on the opportunities of others. And I have made that commitment with reforms to expand and improve federal aid to American workers in need. We need to help millions of workers who have lost a job that won't come back find a new one that won't go away. As American companies invest abroad, we need to invest in our own country and in our own workers.

Different Idea #3: Expand a program of government handouts. (Keep in mind that at the beginning of the speech he said it was the Democratic candidates who would "spend more of your money in Washington.")

If I am elected president, this country will honor its international agreements, including NAFTA, and we will expect the same of others. And in a time of uncertainty for American workers, we will not undo the gains of years in trade agreements now awaiting final approval.

Different Idea #4: McCain will push for the same free-market trade agreements that have been a centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy agenda.

Then McCain did something that would be surprising if I didn't already know what a flip-flopping hypocrite he is: he lambasted Congress for giving tax breaks to huge corporations. He said, "I have proposed a reduction in the corporate tax rate..."

Oh, wait, that's the part of the speech where he was for giving tax breaks to huge corporations. In the part of the speech where he was against it, he said,

...along with the [farm] subsidies comes the usual harvest of tax breaks, bailouts, and other forms of corporate welfare. To take just a few examples, the thoroughbred industry hit it big this year with 93 million in tax breaks for race horses. The timber industry made off with 260 million dollars in tax breaks. And then there's a company that describes itself as, "the largest and most geographically diverse land owner in the nation." That doesn't sound like a hardship case to me. But the Congress has just voted to give that same company 250 million dollars in public money.

Different Idea #5: Support giving tax breaks for corporations, but don't support giving tax breaks to corporations. Don't like where "straight talk" McCain stands on an issue? Wait five minutes.

McCain then wraps up his speech with a slew of abstract promises about free markets and helping farmers and blah blah blah.

So what are the "different" ideas that McCain promises to bring to Washington? I'm not sure; from the speech he gave yesterday it sounds like he's offering more of the same: Bushonomics, flip-flopping, and empty rhetoric. Conservatives have been spouting on about how voting for Obama would be choosing the unknown, but what is their candidate offering? Which McCain would show up to any given meeting? Pro tax cut or anti tax cut? Pro handouts or anti handouts?

And the one thing that McCain didn't mention, that I really wish he did, is how he plans on paying for the occupation of Iraq. He claims he wants to bring fiscal responsibility to Washington, but Bush has been paying for the occupation on borrowed money. Would McCain do the same, or would he use tax dollars? Where would those extra few hundred billion dollars per year come from? Where's the straight talk when you need it?

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They're Coming To Get You!

2008-05-12T12:24:00.004-05:00

This being an election year, it is inevitable that the threat of terrorist strikes against the US will be shouted by all manner of right-wing politicians and pundits in an effort to keep the electorate scared to the point that the GOP will regain the majority, or at least stem the blue tide that has been ushering them out of office.

It is fairly common for conservatives to claim that we are "at war" with an insidious enemy that wants nothing less than to destroy the United States. Being the cynical person that I am, I am compelled to ask a very simple question to all of the conservatives who lose sleep to the fear that letting our guard down for even one second will allow the radical jihadists to turn our great nation into a theocracy guided by sharia law.

How, exactly, are radical Muslims going to destroy our country?

I ask this question because the claim seems like one of the most absurd that I've heard in recent years. I simply cannot comprehend how such a thing would happen. So please, conservatives, enlighten me.

Thank you.

When A Loss Is A Win And A Win Is A Loss

2008-05-11T14:28:00.004-05:00

Last week, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton split the two contests, with Obama taking North Carolina and Clinton winning Indiana. On the surface, it seemed to be a draw and everyone sighed as the marathon primary season continued. A more thorough look at the results shows that last Tuesday was for all intents and purposes the end of the road for Hillary.

Obama won in North Carolina 56% to 42%, a decisive margin of victory. Clinton took Indiana, on the other hand, by 2%, 51 to 49. According to Joe Klein in the May 19 edition of Time:

Clinton's slim margin of victory in Indiana was provided, appropriately enough, by Republicans, who were 10% of the Democratic-primary electorate and whose votes she carried 54% to 46%...

If that's the case, Clinton's margin without the help of the Republicans would have been .34%, or about 4,000 votes. This after Obama took a beating in the press over his various "scandals," ranging from Reverend Wright to a flag pin absent from his lapel. And in a state that Clinton was expected to win, no less.

Indiana was not a victory for Clinton. Her last-ditch effort to sway the remaining super delegates has been to claim that she is more electable than Obama. She would have needed to win Indiana by a good 10 points or more in order for her claim to have any credibility. Winning the state by .34% or 2% just doesn't cut it.

So while Obama technically lost Indiana, I think he can claim it as a victory because not only did he split the Democrats in a state he was presumed to lose, but he even got 45% of the Republicans who crossed over and voted in the Democratic race. That means that Obama received enough Republican votes to finish ahead of Huckabee, Romney and Paul.

Obama has the lead in pledged delegates and in the popular vote, and has taken the lead in super delegates. At this point, the only questions that remain are, how much longer until Clinton bows out, and whom will Obama pick as his running mate.

What Indiana's Voter-ID Law Really Means

2008-05-02T08:24:00.005-05:00

I was not the least bit surprised when I read about the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's voter ID law. The only real shock was that Justice Stevens sided with the court's conservative majority on a decision that I figured would have run 5-4 along the usual line.

Indiana's law requires everyone who votes in person in an election to present a government-issued ID at the polling place, to prove their identity before being allowed to vote.

The reaction to the Supreme Court's decision was fairly predictable. From the right, we heard that Indiana's law will help to curb the problem of in-person voter fraud. The defendants in the case failed to provide even one single documented instance of such fraud ever taking place in Indiana. In fact, the Bush Justice Department performed a five-year investigation into in-person voter fraud and found that there is, as the NY Times said, scant evidence of any. Nonetheless, the court decided that the state had a valid interest in preventing such a thing from happening, even though it may never happen anyway.

From the left, the cry was that this law is merely an effort by the Indiana Republicans to maintain (or recapture) their majority by suppressing the Democratic voter turnout. Since the GOP has reaped great rewards in recent presidential elections from the disenfranchisement of key Democratic constituencies, I'm inclined to agree with this assessment of the Indiana law.

In fact, looking at research performed at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's Employment & Training Institute (Wisconsin is considering a similar voter ID law,) the numbers pretty much spell it out.

An estimated 23 percent of persons aged 65 and over do not have a Wisconsin drivers license or a photo ID.

[...]

Less than half (47 percent) of Milwaukee County African American adults and 43 percent of Hispanic adults have a valid drivers license. ... The situation for young adults ages 18-24 is even worse -- with only 26 percent of African Americans and 34 percent of Hispanics in Milwaukee County with a valid license.

The study "found 558,000 residents (in the age groups 18-24 years, and 35 and older) likely to face problems voting under Voter ID laws". That's over half a million voters, mostly in demographic groups that vote consistently Democratic: young people, the elderly, students and minorities. Would that be enough to swing an election? In 2004, John Kerry won Wisconsin by 10,000 votes, so I'd say yes. Of course, in order to know the true damage such a law does in Indiana, there would have to be a count of all the voters who were not able to obtain proper government-issued ID for the election. Hopefully someone will do that.

The point of Indiana's voter ID law, however, was not to force people to show a government ID in order to vote. The real driving force behind this law and the many others like it that are pending in other states, is to force people to get a new drivers license or ID card.

**Begin paranoid rant here **

What possible reason could the government have in people getting a new drivers license or ID? It all stems from H.R.1268: Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005. Specifically, Division B of that legislation: The REAL ID Act of 2005.

The REAL ID is being sold as a means of deterring identity theft, illegal immigration, terrorism and whatever other boogeyman the Republican party can think of. The truth is, though, that it will do no such thing. The people who pushed this bogus law on us knew that it would never pass the scrutiny of people who actually care about our liberty, so it was tacked on to an "emergency" appropriations bill.

One of the flawed arguments presented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in their REAL ID Final Rule is that seven of the eighteen 9/11 hijackers used fake IDs while preparing for and carrying out their plans. The suggestion being, of course, that the REAL ID law would have prevented 9/11, which is preposterous. What DHS doesn't point out is that eleven of the hijackers had valid drivers licenses, and thus the REAL ID law would have done nothing to stop them. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if seven of the hijackers hadn't been able to secure the documents needed to board the planes, they would have been replaced by seven other terrorists who could.

The REAL ID Act of 2005 specifies that a REAL ID will be required to board a commercial aircraft. DHS also specifies that people will need a REAL ID to enter federal buildings or nuclear plants. Think about the major terrorist attacks that have happened since 9/11. The coordinated bus/subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid. The REAL ID would do nothing to prevent this sort of attack.

Unless the program was expanded to include trains and buses.

DHS has set the bar so low for this program that there is no way it was created to help stop terrorism. In the comments section of the Final Rule, DHS states:

DHS estimated that if the requirements of the proposed rule lowered by 0.061% per year the annual probability of a terrorist attack that caused both immediate and longer run impacts then the quantified benefits of the REAL ID regulation would be positive.

So if they reduce the probability of a terrorist attack by .061%, that is a success. Feel safer now? DHS also admits something rather odd:

DHS notes that individuals without a REAL ID-compliant document will still be able to enter Federal facilities and board commercial aircraft, and these rules cannot determine what alternative documents are acceptable for those purposes.

So DHS admits that the REAL ID system will not stop people without a REAL ID from boarding a commercial aircraft. What was the purpose of this law again?

The real purpose of the REAL ID is to get people used to the idea of a national ID card and to having their personal information stored on a government database.

Changes in technology in the future may enable the States to reduce the elements to a pointer that would electronically link to a database and provide only authorized parties access to information that today is stored in the MRZ

The MRZ being the Machine Readable Zone (barcode) on the back of the REAL ID. Currently, the MRZ is slated to contain little more than the information on the front of the card, but there is no law stopping them from expanding it. Once it's tied to a database, there is really no limit on what can be stored.

We've already been conditioned to accept long lines at the security gates and to remove our shoes to board commercial airlines. How much more of a hassle will it be to have our REAL ID card scanned as we board and then scanned as we leave? How about trains, buses, subways, taxi cabs? Once we're used to swiping our cards in pretty much any public mode of transport, it can be expanded to include the train stations and bus terminals, and then maybe sporting events, starting with the Super Bowl.

Eventually, every aspect of our daily lives will be monitored by our REAL ID. Where we go, how we get there, what we buy, when we buy it. Think I'm just being paranoid? Maybe you don't remember the Total Information Awareness project.

Anyway, getting back to Indiana's voter ID law. The people interested in gathering all of the data they can on every American (let's call them the Bush administration, though it goes beyond that) want to force the people who would normally not bother getting a REAL ID to sign up by taking away their ability to vote. The Indiana law, and others like it, will have one of two effects. The people who would normally live off of the government's ever expanding radar will be compelled to join the system, or millions of Democratic-leaning voters will stay home on election days, increasing the chances of a Republican majority. It's a win-win situation for them.

Oh, and Indiana just happens to be one of the first states to adopt the REAL ID requirements for their drivers licenses and state IDs. Coincidence?

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McCain And Torture, Part Two

2008-04-19T20:57:00.004-05:00

This is the second post in what hopefully will not become a series on John McCain and the politics of torture. You can read the first post here, if you like.

SEC. 327. LIMITATION ON INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.
(a) LIMITATION.—No individual in the custody or under the
effective control of an element of the intelligence community or
instrumentality thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location,
shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation
not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human
Intelligence Collector Operations.

That's the section of HR-2082 that John McCain had an issue with. It's one clause in a military appropriations bill, but it was enough to cause McCain to vote against it. The bill passed, but was vetoed by The Decider. The vote to override the veto fell short--there are simply too many torture-loving Republicans in the House.

Of course, there could be any number of reasons that McCain voted against the bill. He is marketed as a fiscal conservative, after all. Maybe he wanted to reduce the budget for the military. Yeah, right. McCain was actually crystal clear on his reasons for voting against this bill. His statement on the floor of the Senate starts with this:

Mr. President, I oppose passage of the intelligence authorization conference report in its current form.

During conference proceedings, conferees voted by a narrow margin to include a provision that would apply the Army Field Manual to the interrogation activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.

And in fact, his entire statement is about how the Army field manual is insufficient for non-military intelligence agencies, specifically the CIA. The problem with the Army field manual is that it makes clear and plentiful references to the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war. For example, in section 5-73, the manual quotes Article 17:

No physical or mental torture or any other form of coercion may be inflicted on EPWs to secure from them information of any kind whatever. PWs who refuse to answer may not be threatened,insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

The field manual not only makes extensive reference to the Geneva Conventions, it also explains why we want to adhere to them. However, this flies directly in the face of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), which states:

GENEVA CONVENTIONS NOT ESTABLISHING SOURCE OF RIGHTS.
—No alien unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights.

§ 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject to trial by military commission under this chapter.

The MCA also states that information obtained through the use of torture (or "in which the degree of coercion is disputed") may be admissible in a tribunal so long as a military judge determines:

(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value;
(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence; and
(3) the interrogation methods used to obtain the statement do not amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment prohibited by section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

Wow. That's a grey area big enough to drive a truck through. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which McCain holds up as an example of the laws that protect Illegal Enemy Combatants, states:

No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

The DTA subsequently gets its definition of "creul, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" from the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984. That document states:

the United States considers itself bound by the obligation under Article 16 to prevent "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," only insofar as the term "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Wouldn't it fall to the Supreme Court, then, to determine the legality of various interrogation methods, since they are the final arbiter of what is or isn't constitutional? I don't believe that the SC has declared waterboarding to be unconstitutional. In fact, according to the Washington Post:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin M. Scalia echoed the administration's view when he said in a BBC Radio interview yesterday that some physical interrogation techniques could be used on a suspect in the event of an imminent threat, such as a hidden bomb about to blow up. "It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that," Scalia said. "And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game: How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"

So with the Bush administration, the Bush Justice Department, and at least one Supreme Court Justice lining up on the side of torture, the only way to protect anyone from the eager ghouls in the CIA is through the type of legislation that John McCain voted against--because he is in favor of torture.

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Iraqis Should Not Pay To Fix What We Broke

2008-04-15T11:52:00.005-05:00

"Iraq's financial free ride may end."

That's the headline of an Associate Press article about the latest twist in the Iraq war debacle. The idea that is uniting Senate Democrats and Republicans, war supporters and war critics, is that since Iraq has money flowing in through their oil industry --with even more to come, thanks to record high oil prices-- they should be paying to fix their country. Sure, the US demolished it, but does that mean that we should pay to fix it?

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska doesn't think so.

"I think the American people are growing weary not only of the war, but they are looking at why Baghdad can't pay more of these costs. And the answer is they can."

Neither does Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

he wants to add a provision to a defense policy bill that would force the Iraqi government to spend its own surplus in oil revenues to rebuild the country before U.S. dollars are spent.

Also supporting this are Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana, along with Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. There may be others as well.

I get it. They know that Americans are getting tired of seeing the enormous piles of debt that the Iraq war is creating. They want to find a way to stem the red tide that future generations of Americans will have to deal with. Fine.

But this idea is ludicrous.

We destroyed their country. We shocked and awed them, we covered them with depleted uranium, we ruined their infrastructure, decimated their hospitals and schools, stood idly by with our thumbs up our asses while looters ran wild after the fall of Baghdad. We walled off sections of their cities and fenced in entire towns. We brought with us a plague of sectarian violence, civil war, and ethnic cleansing. 40% of the population still doesn't have access to clean water. 4 million Iraqis are still displaced from their homes.

And we don't want to pay to fix it?

This is a new level of selfishness, from a group that makes its living being selfish. Having tired of burdening Americans with debt while funneling money into the hands of contractors (aka Bush's base), the Senate is going to take Iraq's money and funnel it into the hands of contractors, who last I checked, were allowed by the US-drafted Iraqi constitution to send 100% of their revenues out of the country. It looks like the Senate Democrats have found a way to stop giving Bush blank checks for his war without having to actually stand up against it. Every time I think that the Senate Democrats can't get any more pathetic, spineless, worthless, or contemptuous, they manage to prove me wrong. Looks like they've done it again.

Hazaa! Let the true looting of Iraq begin!

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General Petraeus Confirms The Surge Has Failed

2008-04-09T20:38:00.004-05:00

The greatest lie foisted by the Bush administration upon the American public since the start of the Iraq war is that the surge is a success. During his testimony before Congress this week, General Petraeus confirmed the failure that the compliant conservative media has refused to admit.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Crocker, the top U.S. diplomat, described progress as fragile and reversible. They asked for patience and a suspension of troop withdrawals that will leave 10,000 more American soldiers in Iraq through the end of the Bush presidency than before the surge of 30,000 was announced more than a year ago.

They will not be removing all of the additional troops by this summer, but will be leaving one third of them in country. Apparently the surge has not produced the stability that the administration wants us to think it has.

Perhaps the most appalling comment General Petraeus made was not specifically about the surge, but about the overall disaster that the war has been.

Warner of Virginia pressed Petraeus to answer whether the war has made the United States more secure.

"I've thought more than a bit about that, senator, since September," Petraeus replied, referring to the last time he testified before the congressional committees. The question is "perhaps best answered by folks with a broader view and ultimately will have to be answered by history."

The top commander of the war in Iraq can't tell us that it has made us more secure. Instead, he has decided to follow Bush down the path of dubious waffling and declare that only "history" will determine if the hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been well spent. Perhaps the follow-up question should have been, "Then what the hell are we doing there?"

Petraeus also said, as quoted in the Daily News:

We haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible.

Five years. Five long years since the toppling of Saddam's regime. How close are we to any sort of end to the occupation? We can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel. The surge has been declared a success by the conservative media and yet "we haven't turned any corners."

So what now? Staying the course has failed. Surging the troops has failed. It's time to come up with a concrete plan for withdrawal.

The Failure Of The Surge

2008-04-01T12:04:00.005-05:00

[Editor's Note: Though this post is dated April 1, it was actually posted on April 5. Blogger is using the date that I saved the first draft. Sorry for any inconvenience that may cause.]

Over the past couple of months, the Bush administration and pundits in the conservative media have been beating us all over the head with the insistence that Bush's "surge" strategy has succeeded. John McCain has predictably taken the opportunity to point out that he supported the surge strategy, and therefore he's the best qualified to be president. Amid this fanfare, we should all take a moment to think about something that is going unmentioned, namely that the surge is not a success.

Bush's surge strategy has four elements:

1. Escalate troop levels in Baghdad.
2. Decrease sectarian violence.
3. Enable political reconciliation of warring factions.
4. Reduce troop deployments to pre-surge levels.

Point 1 has been accomplished. Point 2 has arguably been, as well, though I'm not sure that the causal link between 1 and 2 is as cut and dry as people in the conservative media and the Bush administration would have us think.

Point 3? Umm... No. Point 4? Also negative.

Therefore, at best, it is premature to declare the surge a success. The overall strategy will only be a success once all 4 elements have been a success. Calling the strategy victorious at this point is only going to set Bush up for another "mission accomplished" moment, once things fall to pieces again.

Speaking of that, the recent fighting between the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi security forces have shown us that not only has Bush's surge not succeeded, but it has, in fact, failed.

From the BBC:

The monthly figure of people killed in Iraq rose by 50% in March compared with the previous month, according to official government counts.

A total of 1,082 Iraqis, including 925 non-combatant civilians, were killed, up from 721 in February.

The Mahdi Army decided to ignore Muqtada al Sadr's cease-fire order and resist the assault of the Iraqi army to take control of Basra, resulting in a burst of violence from Sadr City in Baghdad to the southern tip of the country. The Iraqi army was unable to gain any ground against al Sadr's forces and had to resort to calling in US air strikes. After a long week, several members of Iraq's government traveled to Iran and met with al Sadr, a meeting mediated by the Iranians, and brokered a cease-fire.

From The Huffington Post:

The Iraqi government sent a three-member delegation that was headed by a prominent Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, Ali Adeeb, and also included two of his Shiite colleagues, Hadi al-Amri and Qassem Sahlani, said the Iraqi official based in Tehran. The meetings in Qom also included representatives from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, he said.

If you recall, the Revolutionary Guard is the group that Congress last fall declared to be a terrorist organization.

Once al Sadr asserted his authority and instructed his followers to stand down, the level of violence fell back to the atrocious level it had been previous to the week's events.

I don't wish to diminish the role of the US troops who have been surged into the country, but it seems like the reduction in violence has a lot more to do with al Sadr's cease fire and the Sunni insurgent cease-fire (aka the "Awakening") than with the troop surge. If al Sadr were to declare an end to his cease-fire, there would be an explosion of violence across the southern half of Iraq, which, incidentally, is what people are preparing for.

The real question about part 3 of the surge strategy is what will happen after this fall's provincial elections. As Robert Dreyfuss at The Nation puts it:

Sadr's movement is positioned to register a massive win at the polls in Basra and throughout southern Iraq in provincial elections scheduled for October, an electoral defeat that would portend the end of the Dawa-ISCI regime.

So even if the Bush administration is able to successfully enact step 4 of the surge strategy and bring troops back to pre-surge levels, his strategy has failed.

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McCain Proves He Really Really Really Doesn't Get It

2008-03-29T20:49:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday, the 25th, John McCain gave a speech before the Orange County Hispanic Small Business Roundtable. (Read the text here. ) The main topic of the speech was to address the current financial crisis faced by the US., namely the aftermath of the subprime mortgage collapse.

McCain pointed the finger at a few of the parties responsible (curiously leaving out the Federal Reserve and George Bush, who both have some culpability.) He blames the homeowners who bought more house than they could afford, and the mortgage companies that loaned them the money. I agree with his assessment that those two groups are partially to blame.

He then goes on to say:

The other part of what happened was an explosion of complex financial instruments that weren't particularly well understood by even the most sophisticated banks, lenders and hedge funds. To make matters worse, these instruments -- which basically bundled together mortgages and sold them to others to spread risk throughout our capital markets -- were mostly off-balance sheets, and hidden from scrutiny. In other words, the housing bubble was made worse by a series of complex, inter-connected financial bets that were not transparent or fully understood.

While his explanation of the mortgage-backed securities scam is not complete, it will suffice. The important part is where he says these instruments "were mostly off-balance sheets, and hidden from scrutiny." And the part about "financial bets that were not transparent..." The problem is that the convoluted mechanisms that banks used to turn high-risk loans into triple-A rated securities was hidden from view and understood by very few people.

So far, I'm with him.

But then he said, "Let's start with some straight talk," so I knew the BS was to follow.

His plan to help homeowners is to do nothing to help homeowners. Any assistance that the government offers to people with mortgages must be limited to those who didn't act irresponsibly. So he wants to give aid only to those people who don't need it, because if someone signed on to a mortgage they didn't understand or couldn't afford, then they should lay in the bed they made (which will probably be in a refrigerator box under a viaduct.) "Central to those reforms," he says, "should be transparency and accountability." He wants people to be accountable. There's some straight talk.

So how would Saint McCain handle the banking industry, which has brought our economy to the very brink of collapse, requiring a several-hundred-billion dollar bailout by the Fed?

Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.

The financial institutions that a few minutes earlier he was lambasting for using unregulated, hidden tactics to spread massive risk throughout the economic foundation of America should be allowed to do whatever they want to make money.

So to sum up: after very nearly destroying the economy (and really, the jury is still out on that) these titans of greed should be trusted to do whatever they feel is appropriate to increase their bottom line. Remember when McCain said, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should"? Well, this is what he was talking about.

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McCain Takes Much Needed Break From Reality

2008-03-26T20:13:00.007-05:00

Earlier today, John McCain spoke about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the NY Times, he said:

withdrawing American military forced [sic] in those countries could allow them “to sink back into chaos and extremism” that would “determine the fate of that critical part of the world, but our fate, as well.”

If US forces leave, he says, Iraq could sink back into chaos and extremism. I hate to be the one to break it to him, but if Iraq has risen out of chaos and extremism (which is itself a dubious claim) it is already well on its way to sinking back into the quagmire. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Residents and Mahdi Army militants alike appeared to be bracing for a coming battle, guarding against US and Iraqi forces advancing to stop the rockets allegedly fired from Sadr City that hit the Green Zone again Wednesday for the third day since Sunday.

Although it's in Basra, the oil-rich southern city, where the Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces were locked in a bitter fight for a second day, killing at least 55, many in Baghdad fear that clash will trigger a new battle in Mr. Sadr's Baghdad stronghold. Already there were reports by US-funded Al Hurra TV, citing hospital sources, that at least 20 people have been killed and 140 wounded in sporadic clashes in Sadr City since Tuesday.

Now, in a place where the US has done battle many times before, a sense of siege and helplessness has replaced some of the flickers of optimism that emerged over the past few months as a result of improved security made possible by the US surge and the Mahdi Army's seven-month cease-fire, which now looks to be shattered.

McCain went on to say:

We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq. It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal.

One of the most disturbing talking points of the right is that there is a possibility of ethnic cleansing taking place in Iraq if US troops pull out. How can we trust McCain to lead this country if he doesn't even know that Iraq has already fallen victim to ethnic cleansing? How far up his own ass has McCain stuck his head? Is he getting the same daily briefings that Bush gets? The ones that say, "Everything Is Good?"

You can Google Iraq ethnic cleansing and see for yourself, but in case you don't feel like doing that, here's a bit from Patrick Cockburn:

Civilian casualties have fallen from 65 Iraqis killed daily from November 2006 to August 2007 to 26 daily in February. But the fall in the death rate is partly because ethnic cleansing has already done its grim work and in much of Baghdad there are no mixed areas left.

Once everyone has been killed, it only stands to reason that the death rate will drop.

And of course McCain claims that Bush's "surge" is working.

“Political reconciliation is occurring across Iraq at the local and provincial grassroots level,” he said. “Sunni and Shi’a chased from their homes by terrorist and sectarian violence are returning."

Obviously there isn't any evidence of political reconciliation. As for the people chased from their homes, ReliefWeb puts it like this:

Hundreds of thousands of Baghdadis now live in walled-in, ethnically cleansed, heavily guarded enclaves that they are terrified to leave. Sunnis do not venture into Shia areas, and vice-versa. Sectarian hatreds have been contained, but not resolved.

2 millions of internally displaced and 2 millions of refugees ... are still struggling to survive in dire conditions. They cannot return to their place of origin, as their safety cannot be guaranteed.

I don't know what Iraq John McCain just visited, but it sounds a hell of a lot nicer than the one that we have here on Earth.

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McCain Appears Presidential

2008-03-21T11:40:00.004-05:00

John McCain has been on tour this week, first through the Middle East, and then on to England. The point of his trip, of course, is to provide many photo-ops of him with various leaders to shore up his claims of having foreign policy experience. He wants, in short, to appear presidential. I'd say he has succeeded.

Unfortunately, the president he resembles is George W Bush.

We all had a chuckle on Tuesday when McCain asserted more than once that Iran is training Al Queda operatives and then sending them back to Iraq. His response was that everyone makes mistakes and we should move on. (The one difference with McCain being that Bush would never acknowledge making a mistake. History would have to judge that.)

In England, McCain met with their Prime Minister for more glad-handing. According to The Telegraph, in a piece that got all wet and sloppy with how awesome Saint McCain is and how he would never have screwed up Iraq as much as W, McCain said:

"The problem with Iraq ... is because it was mishandled after the initial success. That caused great sacrifice, frustration and sorrow."

While that statement may be true to a degree, in that the occupation was indeed mismanaged and has certainly caused a great deal of "sacrifice, frustration and sorrow," that is not the problem with Iraq.

The problem with Iraq is that we should never have invaded in the first place. The problem with Iraq is that the cause for war was fabricated. The problem with Iraq is that the invasion was illegal, immoral, unjust and unnecessary. Of course, I wouldn't expect McCain to do anything but stand behind the decision to go to war in Iraq. Why would he let facts get in the way of his ideology? In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, when asked about the NIE that stated Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program, he said:

I was critical of the NIE at the time. The director says now he wouldn't do that again, but I think the damage that was done by weakening the resolve of our European allies was serious.

This latest round of sanctions that was passed at the UN is remarkable in its weakness. I don't even know how you call them sanctions. So I believe the NIE was damaging, but I do have some optimism particularly where [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy is concerned. I'm glad the [German] chancellor is here in Israel.

Over time we may be able to gather more European support as the evidence becomes clear, as it will, that Iran is progressing on the path towards construction and acquisition of nuclear weapons.

The intelligence estimate states that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Since that's counter to McCain's ideology, he has decided to not believe it, replacing actual intelligence with made-up "facts" that will support his agenda.

So we got to see McCain acting presidential this week, showing us a little bit of what we can expect if Saint McCain prevails in the coming election.

I don't think our country, or the world, can survive four more years of Bush policies, Bush agenda and Bush wars, which is exactly what McCain promises.

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McCain's High Road Leads Over Cliff

2008-03-16T09:15:00.005-05:00

Last Thursday night, Senator John McCain cast a vote in favor of a bill that would have halted the practice of earmarks for one year. According to CNN, the measure failed by a vote of 29 to 71. McCain took the opportunity to speak on the one issue that he has been consistent on over his career, and to harp on the Senate for not following the will of the people, who he claims are opposed to earmarks.

"There's only one place left in America that they don't get it," McCain told a town hall gathering outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, referring to Washington. "Pork-barrel spending is out of control and Americans want it stopped."

He said the result "is an interesting commentary on how the Congress and the Senate [are] disconnected from the American people."

The suggestion, of course, being that McCain is the true man of the people and that the two Democratic candidates are not, even though they both voted in support of the 1-year suspension of earmarks.

The problem with McCain's argument is that it opens him up to an evaluation of his other positions under the same microscope.

According to CNN:

A majority of Americans consider waterboarding a form of torture. ... Asked whether they think waterboarding is a form of torture, more than two-thirds of respondents, or 69 percent, said yes; 29 percent said no.

Asked whether they think the U.S. government should be allowed to use the procedure to try to get information from suspected terrorists, 58 percent said no; 40 percent said yes.

So on the issue of torture, McCain is obviously, as he puts it, "disconnected from the American people."

According to USA Today:

Which would be better for the United States?
Keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better: 35%
Set a timetable for removing troops and stick to it regardless of what is going on in Iraq: 60%

Obviously, McCain is out of touch with America when he says, on his campaign website:

A greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success in Iraq. John McCain agrees with retired Army General Jack Keane that there are simply not enough American forces in Iraq. More troops are necessary...

So 60% of Americans want to set a timetable for withdrawal and McCain wants to send more troops. Who's disconnected?

One of McCain's strategies is to run as an outsider. People in Washington just don't get it, he says, conveniently ignoring the fact that he is one of the people in Washington. Americans are disappointed with Congress, which doesn't listen to them, and doesn't get anything worthwhile accomplished. Meanwhile, McCain--who is a member of Congress--has totally ignored his duties as a Senator. According to that first CNN story:

McCain returned to the Senate for the first time in a month to cast his ballot for an issue that is one of his central themes on the campaign trail.

McCain's only interest in his job as a Senator is making himself look better for the presidential election this fall. Maybe we should have a poll to find out how many Americans approve of that.

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The Conservative Media Whitewash Continues

2008-03-11T20:16:00.004-05:00

Today, the House Democrats unveiled their own FISA bill, refusing to simply vote for the Senate version. Their bill excludes immunity for telecom companies that cooperated with President Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping program. As could be expected, the response from the right was melodramatic. According to CNN, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith, said:

Today's proposal is further evidence that House Democrats are not only out of touch with the needs of the American people, but also with Senate Democrats, the White House and our intelligence community," he said in a written statement. "Their careless disregard for the concerns of our intelligence community simply proves the point that Democrats are weak on national security.

I can't say for certain that Smith believes the House Democrats are "weak on national security" just because they refuse to give blanket retroactive immunity for a few huge corporations. I do know, however, that Smith is pretty much echoing the Bush administration's opinion on the matter.

My first reaction to Bush's insistence on providing immunity was that he wanted to protect the telecom companies because they give a lot of money to the Republican party. But then I started thinking. (Dangerous, I know.) If these companies are found liable in civil cases, that may be enough to implicate Bush, whose orders they were following. Whether there would ever be legal action against Bush as a result, I can't see that being a risk that he would take. We've already seen him manipulate the system to protect himself in the Valerie Plame case, where he commuted Libby's sentence in order to prevent the convicted man from having to testify further.

But that's not what I was talking about when I mentioned the conservative media's whitewash. According to the same CNN story, the Senate version of the FISA bill "would give telecommunications companies legal immunity for agreeing to participate in the program after the 9/11 terrorist attacks."

I've noticed that it has become an accepted fact in the conservative media that Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping program started after 9/11. There is evidence, though, that the program began well in advance of Bush's so-called War On Terror. In fact, according to Wired Blog, one of the pending lawsuits claims:

The NSA program was initially conceived at least one year prior to 2001 but had been called off; it was reinstated within 11 days of the entry into office of defendant George W. Bush.

An ATT Solutions logbook reviewed by counsel confirms the Pioneer-Groundbreaker project start date of February 1, 2001.

And:

According to court documents unveiled this week, former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio clearly wanted to argue in court that the NSA retaliated against his company after he turned down a NSA request on February 27, 2001 that he thought was illegal.

So it starts to become clear why the Bush administration is so adamant about providing retroactive immunity to the telecom companies. If these, and other, suits are allowed to go forward, the most damning allegation against Bush may be proven; that he was illegally spying on Americans long before 9/11.

Clinton's Message: It's All About Me

2008-03-05T07:32:00.003-06:00

In yesterday's primaries, Hillary Clinton won Ohio and Texas (and Rhode Island). The two larger states were seen as must-wins for her campaign if she was to have any hope of winning the Democratic nomination. Her victories in those two states, and her reaction to them, reveal that her candidacy at this point represents a real defeat for the Democratic party.

According to ABC News:

In talking points circulated late last night, the Clinton campaign acknowledges that it can never overtake Obama with pledged delegates, and asserts that it intends to overtake him with the support of superdelegates.

Clinton's strategy has shifted from actually winning the nomination through the votes cast in primaries and caucuses to being selected by the party insiders and elected officials who make up the super delegates.

Disregarding for the moment whether or not the super delegates would even give the nomination to the candidate who received fewer votes from the masses, the fact is that Clinton wants them to do just that. She has apparently decided that her own ambition matters more than the will of the people. She is clearly putting herself above her party.

As soon as the Clinton camp realized that their candidate had no chance to surpass Obama's pledged delegate total, Hillary Clinton should have dropped out of the race. If she receives the nomination through the (imo) underhanded super delegate system, it could have devastating consequences. Who can predict how many of Obama's supporters will decide not to vote, or to vote for McCain? Does Clinton believe that she would get their support just because she would be the Democrat on the ballot and arguably the lesser of two evils?

At this point, Hillary Clinton's campaign is serving no one but her. She doesn't care about the voters. She doesn't care about the democratic process. All she cares about is getting her chance, even if it means alienating her party -- and almost certainly handing Bush III (aka McCain) the presidency -- once she gets it.

McCain: Talk, Shmalk, Let's Have Some Action!

2008-02-25T15:41:00.003-06:00

John McCain is pinning his electoral hopes on people's perception that he will make a good commander in chief. He is a war veteran, of course, and for some reason that is supposed to automatically qualify him for the job. The major question is how he would prosecute the Iraq war.

This morning, McCain stated:

My friends, the war will be over soon. The war for all intents and purposes [will be over], although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it'll be handled by the Iraqis not by us...

How does McCain envision the war ending? How will the US hand the problem over to the Iraqis? I would have imagined by getting the various parties to come together and work out their disagreements. Later in his town hall meeting, McCain said:

I think one of the most overrated aspects of diplomacy is talks

So... He plans on handling the war in Iraq by... not talking to the Iraqis? I'm beginning to see why he predicted that the US will be in Iraq for another hundred years.

With McCain running the show, we'll continue Bush's failed policy of shooting first and not asking questions later. If we had listened to McCain last summer, we'd be at war with Iran right now, over a non-existent nuclear program. Serving in the military doesn't automatically make someone a good leader. It's time Americans took the stars out of their eyes and looked at the man behind the uniform.

Obamarama Rolls On

2008-02-20T12:14:00.004-06:00

Last night, Obama won the Wisconsin primary and the Hawaii caucus. Neither contest was even close. He took Wisconsin by a margin of 17%, and Hawaii by 52%. At this point in the race, those numbers spell almost certain doom for the Clinton campaign. The real dagger last night was that Obama cut into Hillary's core voters. Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics.com sums it up nicely.

Clinton suffered significant loses across many of her core constituencies. White women, Democrats, union workers, downscale voters, and white Catholics all drifted to Obama last night - some so much that Obama actually won them.

What this shows is that the Clinton Campaign strategy of going negative in recent weeks didn't help her, and in fact may have backfired.

It's 13 days now until Hillary's D-Day. She has to pull out strong victories in both Texas and Ohio in order to even have a sliver of a chance of getting the nomination. Right now, according to CNN, Obama is ahead in the pledged delegate count by 143. While Clinton leads in the polls in Ohio, a Monday CNN poll shows Texas as a dead heat.

Can Hillary stage a comeback? Negative tactics don't seem to work against Obama's message of hope and change. The real question is whether the Clinton campaign has any new tricks up its sleeve, because the old ones aren't getting the job done.

McCain Was Against Bush Tax Cuts Before He Was For Them

2008-02-17T16:18:00.004-06:00

Senator John McCain voted against Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. At the time, he said:

There's a theory, I think, that's prevalent--it was true in the 2001 tax cuts--that if you give it to the wealthy people, then they will then, you know, create jobs, etc. The interesting thing to me is that most economists will tell you that it's the middle-income Americans that have been keeping the economy afloat buying cars, buying houses, consumer goods, not the wealthiest of America.

Tax cuts for rich people do not help the economy. That's what McCain said. For some reason, though, he has changed his position.

[McCain] could "see an argument, if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates, and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates," as well as giving people the ability to write off depreciation and eliminating the alternative minimum tax.

McCain was defending his support for an extension of tax cuts sought by President Bush, which McCain voted against.

I guess the one positive aspect of this is that if McCain were to become president, nobody would be able to say that they are surprised when he turns out to be another Bush. He's been steadily laying the groundwork for just that. And just to make sure we get the point:

"No new taxes," the likely GOP presidential nominee said during a taped interview broadcast Sunday.

Read his lips.

As McCain's Star Rises, His Integrity Approaches Zero

2008-02-15T07:25:00.006-06:00

John McCain is a straight shooter. He tells it like it is and if you don't like it, that's too bad. He compromises when he has to, he works across the aisle, he buckles down and gets things done --all in the name of America. At least that's his shtick. And because people buy into it, they believe he has integrity. The interesting thing is that McCain has shed pretty much all of his "independence" and "maverick" style over the past couple of years. Now, he is little more than a morally bankrupt Bush clone.

CBS News reported yesterday that Bush has promised to veto the Intelligence authorization bill that just passed the Senate, because it limits CIA interrogators to techniques outlined in the US Army Field Manual. No big surprise there. The surprising (well, not surprising. More disturbing, really) part was this:

Sen. John McCain, who has previously spoken out against torture (having been tortured himself while held captive during the Vietnam War), voted against the bill, but said his vote was not inconsistent with his previous calls for a ban.

The disturbing part is that McCain knows that torture doesn't work. Newsmax, Limbaugh and some other right-wing hacks have taken some of McCain's quotes out of context to argue that he claimed that torture worked on him during the Vietnam war. Media Matters has an article that refutes that claim. They quote a passage from a Newsweek article in which McCain states:

Obviously, to defeat our enemies we need intelligence, but intelligence that is reliable. We should not torture or treat inhumanely terrorists we have captured. The abuse of prisoners harms, not helps, our war effort. In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear -- whether it is true or false -- if he believes it will relieve his suffering. I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the names of the members of my flight squadron, information that had little if any value to my enemies as actionable intelligence. But I did not refuse, or repeat my insistence that I was required under the Geneva Conventions to provide my captors only with my name, rank and serial number. Instead, I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line, knowing that providing them false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse. It seems probable to me that the terrorists we interrogate under less than humane standards of treatment are also likely to resort to deceptive answers that are perhaps less provably false than that which I once offered. [Media Matters' emphasis]

So John McCain knows that torture is not a reliable way to get useful information out of a detainee. He knows because he has been subjected to torture (which I think gives him a unique perspective on the matter among his fellow Senators) and when he reached his breaking point he gave up false information because he knew that as long as the interrogators got that much, they would stop torturing him. But now he's flip-flopped on the issue. Why? What could he possibly gain from it?

Oh yeah, he's going to be the Republican nominee for president. Got to look tough if you want to do that. Can't let little things like reason or logic or a basic respect for human rights get in the way.

McCain has a reputation (justifiably or not) as someone who will compromise to get the job done. The job this time is getting the nomination for president. The compromise? His ideals, apparently.

By Supporting "Intelligence" Bill, Senate Democrats Show They Have None

2008-02-13T07:23:00.006-06:00

In a move that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention for the past five years, 19 Senate Democrats defected from the defense of American civil liberties and Constitutional rights and gave the Bush administration a major victory in the War On America.

According to the NY Times,

One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers.

That sums it all up right there. The Bush administration's shameless use of 9/11 to promote their agenda of stripping away our rights continues, undaunted by the Democratic majority in the House and Senate. Indeed, many of the Senate Democrats (who are surely concerned more about re-election than actually serving the interests of American citizens) are totally on board. John D. Rockefeller (D-WV):

This, I believe, is the right way to go for the security of the nation.

Which I'm sure is totally unrelated to the "$42,000 in contributions that Mr. Rockefeller received last year from AT&T and Verizon executives."

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was a little slippery to begin with. From Wikipedia:

[FISA] allowed warrantless surveillance within the United States for up to one year unless the "surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party". If a United States person is involved, judicial authorization was required within 72 hours after surveillance begins.

It was created to accommodate the sometimes urgent need to gather intelligence. It provided (in theory, at least) protection of the civil liberties of Americans while allowing for necessary surveillance to take place.

The new intelligence bill, which was supported by 19 Senate Democrats, changes the basic structure of FISA.

The bill, which had the strong backing of the White House, allows the government to eavesdrop on large bundles of foreign-based communications on its own authority so long as Americans are not the targets. A secret intelligence court, which traditionally has issued individual warrants before wiretapping began, would review the procedures set up by the executive branch only after the fact to determine whether there were abuses involving Americans.

“This is a dramatic restructuring” of surveillance law, said Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department intelligence lawyer who represents several telecommunication companies. “And the thing that’s so dramatic about this is that you’ve removed the court review. There may be some checks after the fact, but the administration is picking the targets.”

So now, thanks to 19 Senate Democrats, we no longer have any sort of safeguards against illegal wiretapping. Do you feel safer yet? The bill also, of course, grants retroactive immunity for any telecom company that gave up caller information to be added to the giant NSA database back when the illegal program began.

There is something about this bill that stinks almost as much as the stripping of our rights against unwarranted search and seizure. It will serve to absolve the Bush administration of any charges of wrongdoing stemming from their illegal wiretapping program. Granted, there are a few hundred other criminal charges that could be brought against them, but this one was pretty solid. Bush has tried to deflect criticism by referring to his illegal wiretapping program as a Terrorist Surveillance Program. Wow, who would have guessed they'd try to use 9/11 to justify their criminal activity? Thing is, this program started well before 9/11.

And now, thanks to 19 Democrats in the Senate, Bush gets what he wants, the Telecoms get what they want, the Republicans get what they want, and the rest of us get screwed.

GOP Strategy: Cheat Early, Cheat Often

2008-02-11T11:31:00.000-06:00

Given the recent history of voting "anomalies," and "fraud, malfeasance, or incompetence" in our presidential elections, I would have thought that the Republican party would make every effort to at least create the appearance that the election process has not been completely compromised.

Apparently I was wrong.

As reported in the Brad Blog, John McCain won Saturday's Republican caucus. Luke Esser, the chair of the Washington state Republican party, was so certain of a McCain victory, that he didn't even need to see all of the votes. With 87% of the votes counted and Mike Huckabee only 242 votes behind, Esser stopped the count and declared a winner.

Sound familiar?

After the 2000 and 2004 elections, I think an argument can be made that we need to have some sort of monitoring of our national elections, perhaps by the UN. It may seem like a slap in the face to suggest that the world's greatest democracy doesn't have its shit together, but come on. I haven't trusted Republicans to run a fair election against the Democrats since November of 2000. Now it would appear that they can't be trusted to run one within their own party. How long do we have to watch these people destroy our country before we say, ENOUGH!

Please note: I am not suggesting that all Republicans don't care about representative government. We just need to watch the ones who are running the elections.

Speaking Of The Politics Of Failure...

2008-02-06T20:00:00.000-06:00

The NY Times, reporting on director of national intelligence Mike McConnell's appearance before the Senate:

The testimony, in an annual assessment of the threats facing the United States, was the latest indication that Al Qaeda appears to have significantly rebuilt a network battered by the American invasion of Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It follows a National Intelligence Estimate last summer that described a resurgent Al Qaeda, and could add fuel to criticisms from Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates that the White House focus on Iraq since 2002 has diverted attention and resources from the battle against the Qaeda organization’s core.

Contrast this to what Bush stated in his State of the Union address:

Since 9/11, we have taken the fight to these terrorists and extremists. We will stay on the offense, we will keep up the pressure, and we will deliver justice to our enemies.

And a few moments later:

Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt. Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated.

So now that Bush has focused 150,000 US troops and hundreds of billions of dollars on defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq (Where they, by the way, did not exist before Bush's war / occupation,) the terrorist organization is, according to McConnell:

gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States.

So while Bush is desperately trying to keep Iraq from completely disintegrating, Al Qaeda has set up shop down the street, in a country that has nuclear weapons. The sad truth is that Bush has no idea how to wage a "war on terror." Worse is the fact that none of the incompetent people he has surrounded himself with seem to have a clue, either.

The Politics Of Spoilage

2008-02-06T07:23:00.000-06:00

Mike Huckabee is a spoiler. Ask any Republican who either supports Mitt Romney, or simply opposes John McCain, and they will tell you. In fact, Romney himself fanned the flames of derision by "calling on Mike Huckabee to drop out of the race..." and "expressed concern that Huckabee will peel off enough conservatives to deprive him of victory over McCain in Super Tuesday's Republican nomination contests..."

Huckabee, of course, went and won five states on Super Tuesday to Romney's seven, which perhaps will serve to reduce the cries of spoiler! coming from the Romney camp. As the likelihood of McCain getting the nomination comes closer, the spoiler tag may become permanently affixed to Huckabee, as it has to Ralph Nader.

The tagging of a candidate as a spoiler, and using the term in a derogatory manner, has no place in our political system and is born out of anger and ignorance. I should know; I readily applied that tag to Nader after he (in my eyes) stole enough of Al Gore's votes in Florida in 2000 to swing the state in Bush's favor. I had feared that he would do just that when I saw that he was on the ballot. Any support that he got was obviously going to detract from Gore's. He had no right to ruin the election just to serve his own massive ego.

Sometimes I'm astounded by my own ignorance.

The concept of a "spoiler" in politics is flawed in several ways. First, in the case of Florida, the assumption that if Nader hadn't been in the race, all of his votes would have gone to Gore is presumptuous. Who's to say how many of his supporters would have simply stayed home if their only options were Gore or Bush? Who knows how many would have written in someone, or voted for one of the other candidates. Plus, nobody knows how many contingency plans the Bush team had ready, to assure their candidate "victory."

More troubling, though, is the very notion that the votes that went to Nader (or any votes, for that matter) belonged to Gore. Somehow, he was entitled to all of the "liberal" votes. So how dare anyone take them away from him? Please. The point of a representative government is that the people get to decide for themselves who they want representing them. The idea that one person deserves the votes of a certain demographic is ludicrous. Nobody deserves our votes; they are supposed to earn them.

The other problem with the spoiler is the mainstream parties' response to them. Rather than finding out what is causing people to leave them and lend their support to third party candidates, the two major parties instead try to make the process more difficult for anyone not endorsed by either the DNC or the RNC. The same goes for inter-party fights, such as between Huckabee and Romney. Perhaps instead of calling for Huckabee to quit, Romney should have tried to figure out what it is about his campaign that is causing Republicans to support Huckabee instead (or McCain, for that matter.)

The only spoiler in politics is failed leadership.

Republicans Filibuster Stimulus Plan

2008-01-31T12:12:00.000-06:00

The Senate Democrats have crafted a stimulus package of their own, ignoring for the moment the bill passed by the House. Their bill, which passed out of committee yesterday, has an additional $30 Billion in spending over 2 years. The Senate Republicans reacted in the only way they know how. They filibustered it.

According to the New York Times:

Senate Democratic leaders said on Thursday that they were short of the 60 votes needed to advance a $161 billion economic stimulus package toward approval in the Senate.

Why do they need 60 votes?

Sixty votes are needed under Senate rules to shut off debate on a measure and move to consideration of the measure itself, a step known as cloture. Without cloture, opponents of a Senate bill would be able to prolong the debate indefinitely.

So the Republicans have decided that they don't want to vote on the bill, probably because they know it would pass, and they can't have that. How would it look for the Democrats to be able to gloat that they were able to pass a bill to help Americans in this time of crisis? (I'm not arguing that it would help, that's just what the Dems would claim.) And in an election year, at that.

Plus, the Republicans see this as an opportunity to gain ground in a completely unrelated fight --Bush's illegal wiretapping.

They also said that they had yet to reach agreement on extending the Bush administration’s terrorism surveillance program, which Republican leaders have set as a condition for allowing the stimulus bill to move ahead.

Why won't the Republicans stop with the partisan politics long enough to work with the Democrats in giving the economy a much-needed boost? Why must they constantly put party concerns above all else? Why won't they allow the stimulus bill to receive an up-or-down vote, like they were crying about over and over the one time the Dems blocked a judicial appoinment (or maybe it was two times)?

State Of The Onion

2008-01-29T12:08:00.000-06:00

This thing is like an onion: the more layers you peel, the more it stinks! (George Costanza)

I didn't watch President George's final State Of The Union address. I can handle only so much bullshit at one time, and Bush's SOTU typically exceeds my threshold in a minute and a half. However, since I like to stay informed, I try to read the transcript. Here's how last night's address began:

Madam Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens: Seven years have passed since I first stood before you at this rostrum. In that time, our country has been tested in ways none of us could have imagined. We faced hard decisions about peace and war, rising competition in the world economy, and the health and welfare of our citizens. These issues call for vigorous debate, and I think it's fair to say we've answered the call.

Look at that, not even a minute in and already I'm past my limit in BS.

They've answered the call for vigorous debate. That's the claim he made. Hmm... Maybe I'm just not remembering things the same way he is.

Cheney's energy task force: met in secret with industry insiders, stonewalled attempts to gain access to the notes, defied orders from federal judges to release the notes, and finally the Supreme Court refused to rule on the matter (big shock there) and sent it back to the appeals court, which decided that Cheney's secrets can remain in the closet, for now.

Iraq War: There's so much on this topic, I'm only going to point out one. George Bush said this in July of '03,

We gave him (Saddam Hussein) a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.

Which is funny, because according to Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspection team, the opposite was true. On January 27, 2003 (before the war started,) Hans said this in a report to the UN:

For nearly three years, Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. It was only after appeals by the secretary-general and Arab states and pressure by the United States and other member states that Iraq declared on 16 September last year that it would again accept inspections without conditions.

And this:

The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect. And with one exception, it has been [without] (sic) problems.

That example is typical of the "debate" that was had during the lead up to the Iraq invasion. All evidence that contradicted the plan was ignored and the machine marched forward undaunted.

You may argue that those things are ancient history, that Bush is all about open dialog now. In fact, George made a statement about that in the SOTU:

Let us show them that Republicans and Democrats can compete for votes and cooperate for results at the same time.

He seems to have glossed over the part where the Republicans in the Senate have set the record for the most filibusters in a single session. And that they set that record in the first year, where every previous record took two.

Is that the kind of vigorous debate he's talking about, the kind where you knee-jerk block every move by your opponent rather than discussing things and voting on them? Where you decide what you're going to do and then ignore any input that doesn't toe the line? Where the absolute worst thing you could possibly do is change your course of action, no matter how obvious it becomes that you're driving toward a cliff?

Maybe somebody needs to whisper into W's ear-piece just what the word "debate" actually means.

See? This is why I don't watch the SOTU.

This One Should Be In The Bag

2008-01-26T21:16:00.000-06:00

This is a chart of the responses to one of the exit/entrance poll questions asked at each primary/caucus. The question is "what is the most important issue?" I don't have the exact wording of the question, but all of the data was taken from the CNN election site. (Click on image to see full-size.)

In every state, with the exception of Iowa's Republicans, the main issue has been the economy. The Iraq war has been pushed down to second or even third place (except for the Iowa Democrats.) Typically, this would mean one thing: A Democrat in the White House in January of 2009. All they have to do is ask the right question, namely "are you better off financially after 8 years of a Republican president than you were after 8 years of a Democratic president?"

For the vast majority of Americans, the answer to that question is "no."

After 7+ years of Bushonomics, the election almost wins itself for the Democrats. Even Bush's bribe, I mean "stimulus package," shouldn't be enough to save his party. However, having observed the Democratic party screw up one thing after another over the past 8 years, coupled with the "voting irregularities" that always seem to benefit the Republicans, the coming election is anything but decided.

Which is unfortunate, because if we get stuck with another puppet whose strings are pulled by an America-hating ideologue like Cheney, then this country is truly up shit creek. It's going to take a long time to undo all of the damage that the Bush regime has done, and we need to start on January 20, 2009. I only hope that the Democrats can figure out how to effectively use the one issue that should guarantee them (and us) a victory in November.

I Must Have A Different Definition Of "Stimulus"

2008-01-24T13:07:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, Bush's economic stimulus package of 2001 had no noticeable effect on the economy. The $300 "rebates" sent to individuals didn't get spent, the tax incentives for business didn't spur investment. Now, word has come down that there is a tentative agreement over this year's stimulus package.

It will be comprised of a $300-$1200 "rebate" for people, and tax incentives for business.

Wow. I can only imagine how the conversation in Congress went.

Republicans: "Hey, remember that thing we tried seven years ago that didn't do squat to help the economy? Let's do that again!"

Democrats: "Nah. Let's try new stuff like expanding unemployment benefits and boosting food stamp programs."

Republicans: "Old ideas are better than new ideas."

Democrats: "But old ideas failed. New ideas might succeed."

Republicans: "We're afraid of new things."

Democrats: "You're right. Let's try the old crappy ideas that didn't do any good last time, because we're a bunch of spineless turds who don't like to cause any trouble for the bullies who might be the minority party but are still calling the shots."

And thus we have another plan from Congress that allows Bush to claim victory but won't actually do anything useful.

Bravo.

Bush Can Keep His Freaking $800

2008-01-18T12:07:00.000-06:00

In 2001, The Commander Guy decided that the economy needed a jump-start in order to avoid a recession. His plan was to offer a so-called tax rebate of $300 to $600 per household, with the stated reason being that people would spend the money and thus make everything rosy once more.

There was one problem: Bush was wrong.

Surprising as it is, the 2001 "rebate" had only a minor effect on economic stimulus, according to this from Christopher L. House, Matthew D. Shapiro and Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan’s economics department:

Direct evidence on consumption and investment spending in response to the tax changes suggests that these policies provided only modest stimulus.

...

Official statistics reflect ... that most of the rebate was saved. Specifically, personal saving jumped in 2001 by precisely the amount suggested by the survey results. Since they were mainly saved, the 2001 advanced payments provided little stimulus.

They go on to say that the portion of the 2001 stimulus package that gave business owners tax breaks on certain investments were of little help, as well:

Because the policy was narrowly targeted, because equipment investment is only about 8% of the economy, and because investment incentives squeeze out consumption spending, the aggregate effects of bonus depreciation were modest.

Bush's 2001 "rebate" was coupled with his tax cuts. Reagan believed that giving tax cuts to the richest Americans would cause them to spend more on business investments, thus creating a "trickle-down" effect of more jobs for the middle class. George H.W. Bush referred to this as "voodoo economics." Our current President, however, has sided with Reagan in this debate. Of his tax cuts, House, Shapiro and Slemrod say:

Most of the tax cuts went to high-income taxpayers, who tend to bank additional income rather than spend it. The most promising element was a tax rebate of up to $600 sent to almost all taxpayers even before they had filed tax returns. But a study by Shapiro and Slemrod found that only about one-quarter of rebate recipients actually spent the money. Most was saved or used to pay down debt and thus did little to boost demand. And taxpayers faced a lot of confusion in reconciling the advance payments with their actual taxes due when they filed tax returns.

The one thing that irked me the most about Bush's "rebate" was that it wasn't a rebate at all. It was an advance on expected tax refunds. By coincidence, 2001 was the first year that I actually owed money on my return. Also a coincidence, I owed just over $300. So if President George wants to send me an $800 advance on next year's return, I say he can keep it.

Huckabee Admits He Hates America

2008-01-16T12:14:00.000-06:00

One of the principle tenets of the United States is that we do not have an official religion. The right to freedom of religion (and by extension, freedom from religion) is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Mike Huckabee doesn't like that. Doesn't like that at all. He feels that what America needs to be, rather than a democratic republic, is a theocracy. Specifically, a Christian theocracy. He wants to change the Constitution, which doesn't mention God anywhere, "so it's in God's standards." (See Raw Story article here.)

So Huckabee has finally admitted what I think we've all known for a while. He is hostile to the Constitution and wants to override it to conform to his religious views. Hopefully enough of the American public understands what a threat he is to our liberties that his candidacy fades away shortly after Super Tuesday.

This Isn't The Change I Was Looking For

2008-01-12T15:33:00.000-06:00

The health care system in America needs to be fixed. Ask any of the leading candidates for president and they will tell you the same. Their approach to fixing the problem, though, is considerably different, depending on their party affiliation. It almost goes without saying that the Democrats have a better plan. However, what they don't have is a liberal plan.

Each of the three Democratic front-runners (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) have the same plan. They want to issue tax credits to help us pay for our private insurance. They want to offer us the same menu of plans to choose from that Congress has. (That must have fared well with the focus groups, because all of a sudden, they're all saying it.) The problem with this, of course, is that throwing tax dollars at a broken system isn't going to fix it. It's simply going to transfer more money from the middle class into the pockets of the insurance industry.

Sound familiar? It's the same plan that Governor Schwarzenegger has for California, which I ranted about back in December. What we're seeing is the Democratic party shifting further to the right. Is it a coincidence that no matter which of the likely candidates gets the nomination, we're going to have a Democrat who wants to help the insurance industry get paid?

As for the Republicans, there's a little more variety, but it all pretty much boils down to a few standard conservative principles. Reduce regulation, reduce the burden on industry, leave the consumers to fend for themselves.

A few intersting notes: On McCain's site, under the header "John McCain Believes in Personal Responsibility" he says:

Public health initiatives must be undertaken with all our citizens to stem the growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes, and to deter smoking.

Personal responsibility in the form of the Nanny State?

I'd comment on Huckabee's plan, but he doesn't have any details on his site, only vague platitudes about lower costs, more control, and blah blah blah.

Mitt Romney doesn't get into any specifics, either. He does offer something the other Repubs do not, a gross misrepresentation of the Democratic plans.

Democrats believe that the solution to these problems is a one-size-fits-all, government-run, socialized health care system — a course that threatens medical progress and restricts free markets. They think that government can do a better job of choosing a doctor and making better health care decisions than individual Americans can.

As I point out, none of the Democratic front-runners is offering "socialized" health care. And when has any Democrat ever said that the government should be picking people's doctors or making their health care decisions? Romney is either ignorant of the shift of the Dems toward the center, or he is a big fat liar who is counting on his potential supporters being ignorant.

The irritating part is that none of the likely nominees from either party has any real interest in fixing the system. The Democrats want to give tax credits for insurance premiums over a certain amount (percent of income, for example.) They want to give people a choice of private insurance plans to choose from. What they don't want to do is actually address the real problem, which is that the private insurance industry was designed to benefit one group: the private insurance industry.

And of course, the Republicans only want to help big business at the expense of the middle class and the poor. No real shock there.

Unfortunately, that leaves the majority of Americans on the short end of the stick. In Europe and elsewhere, health care is seen as a basic right. In America, it's seen as a profit center for major campaign contributors and lobbyists. Until that changes, we're stuck every four years voting for the "lesser of two evils," instead of someone who can make a real difference.

The Not-So-Fair Tax

2008-01-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

When Mike Huckabee won the Republican Caucus in Iowa last week, a cheer went up from one particular fringe group: the Americans For Fair Taxation. They proclaimed that "The Fair Tax Wins In Iowa!" I've heard Huckabee mention the "Fair" Tax before, so I decided to investigate.

The "Fair" Tax would eliminate the payroll taxes that most Americans have deducted from their checks. Personal income tax and social security taxes would no longer be withheld. More interestingly, the "Fair" Tax would eliminate taxes such as the estate tax, gift tax, capital gains tax and all commercial real-estate transaction taxes. My assumption going in was that the "Fair" Tax was a scheme to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class and poor, and it appears that the primary goal is to create a system where wealthy people can accumulate wealth without paying taxes on it, and then pass it along to their heirs without them having to pay taxes on it.

I wanted to do a thorough evaluation of the "Fair" Tax, but there is so much to it that I'd have to dedicate all of my time to deciphering the reports that the Americans For Fair Taxation have paid to have produced. Instead, I chose one claim that struck me as particularly dubious and decided to look into it.

One of the things mentioned over and over in the literature is that the "Fair" Tax is progressive. They claim that they have worked in a way to make it less of a burden on poor people, as opposed to a standard flat tax, which would disproportionately target the lower income brackets. The way they fix it is to send everyone a check once a month, equal to the 1/12th of the "Fair" Tax payments on purchases up to the poverty level. A single person, for example, would get a check for about $196 per month. That way, nobody is paying taxes on life's necessities, or so they claim.

I wondered how it could be that a sales tax that would produce a 30% increase in the cost of all goods and services that people buy (excluding "used" items) could possibly be a larger burden on the wealthy. So I checked out one of the reports that the "Fair" Tax people paid for, titled "A Distributional Analysis of Adopting the FairTax." What I found was not very surprising at all.

"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of people know that." -Homer Simpson

From page 4 of the report:

We argue that current expenditure is a better measure of an individual’s well-being than current income. This is because current expenditure is more closely related to lifetime income than is current income and is less subject to temporary shocks. Current expenditure is also a better measure of wealth, since people may live off their savings while undergoing a temporary drop in income. Therefore, we conclude that the FairTax, with the prebate, is more progressive than the current tax law.

There, in a nutshell, is how the "Fair" Tax crowd can claim their plan is progressive. If you spend more money, your "well being" is greater than if you spend less money. (Would anyone other than the rich come up with that?) By their logic, if you take two people who each earn $50,000 per year, the one whose expenditures are $70,000 per year is twice as well off as the one whose expenditures are $35,000 per year. Magical conservathink. Spend yourself into debt to be better off.

On page 19 of the report, in section IV. Distribution on a per Capita Basis, there is an interesting finding:

As noted before, even people in the poorest income per capita deciles have relatively high levels of expenditure per capita. The introduction of the FairTax would not favor these people; they would gain little from the abolition of taxes on income (because their incomes are low), but would pay the FairTax (because their expenditures are substantial), as shown in column (M). This effect is attenuated when the dynamic expenditure-expanding effects of the FairTax are taken into account, but the poorest half of the population (as measured by income per capita) would be worse off due to the FairTax. A similar conclusion emerges from an examination of the pattern of income per capita, shown in columns (Q) through (V) in Table 9. [Emphasis Added.]

So the group's own report states flat out that when you look at the numbers on the basis of income rather than expenditures, the "Fair" Tax actually hurts the poorest half of the population. How is that progressive, again?

And then, to perhaps water down the bitter taste from the report's conclusion, they add:

Note the very low average income of those in the poorest income per capita decile – just $1,243 in 2001 – which is surely a poor measure of the well-being of this group of the population.

Because really, how could you judge someone's well-being by the fact that they live in abject poverty? As long as they're spending lots, then they're A-OK.

If A Caucus Voter Fell In The Woods...

2008-01-04T07:45:00.000-06:00

What if you threw a party and nobody showed up?

Wyoming, in an effort to become relevant, decided to move their Republican caucus up ahead of everyone else (thus becoming the new Iowa, perhaps.) Unfortunately, they didn't count on Iowa's determination to remain Iowa, or New Hampshire's determination to remain New Hampshire. Both of those states moved their primaries up to compensate, leaving Wyoming sandwiched in between.

So what happens when you're a nobody who tries to sneak a seat at the popular kids' table? You tend to get ignored.

According to an AP story, "Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul have passed through [Wyoming] since September. Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have not."

It's a bad sign when only one of the viable candidates passes through your state. In fact, the candidates seem to have headed to New Hampshire after last night's results were known and speeches were made. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that Wyoming simply isn't ready for Prime Time, no matter how early their caucus is held.

Another Lesson Not Learned

2007-12-29T16:03:00.000-06:00

Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, is a dictator. As Wikipedia says: "He came to power in 1999 by effecting a military coup d'état and has suspended the constitution of Pakistan twice." He may have removed his uniform, but he's still calling the shots, and last I checked he wasn't elected in any fair and open sort of way.

Nonetheless, the US has decided to call him an ally. Reluctantly, perhaps, but since he serves our short-term interests, he's called an ally just the same. Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, Iraq. Surely, things will work out better this time, though.

Or not.

The assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has pitched Pakistan into a political freefall and raised fears that increasingly bitter divisions in the society are turning the country into another Iraq.

Shocked citizens blame the deepening turmoil on President Pervez Musharraf and his U.S.-backed crackdown on Islamic extremists. Overwhelmingly poor and more concerned with survival than anti-Western terrorism, most crave stability above all, and many believe things will only get better if Musharraf resigns.

"The government of Musharraf has created an Afghanistan and Iraq-like situation in our country," said Zaheer Ahmad, 47, who works at a private clinic in Multan. "I don't know who killed Benazir Bhutto. But I do know that it is the result of Musharraf's wrong and bad policies." [emphasis added]

So if Pakistan dissolves into chaos and Musharraf is "forced" to resume his military dictatorship and suspend the constitution again, will the US once again become the object of scorn for a new generation of extremists?

The real question is whether our government will ever stop backing dictators. It's deplorable behavior for a country that claims its mission is to "spread democracy."

The Governator Proves He Really Is A Republican

2007-12-19T12:11:00.000-06:00

This just in:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly leader Fabian Nunez are touting their plan to reform health care in California

Reform healthcare. That's what they're saying. The governor and the Democrats in the state Senate. Reform, as in "make better" or "fix." While it is somewhat discouraging to see that the Democrats in California are using that term, what's really irritating is that the media has picked it up as well. The governor's plan is not reform. It will do nothing to fix the healthcare crisis.

The governor's plan has a couple flaws.

1) It does nothing to address the real problem with healthcare, which is that it costs too damn much. Arnold's plan is simply to use taxpayer money to help people pay for overpriced private insurance, partially "with fees on hospitals." How is that supposed to reduce costs?

2) It forces people to buy private insurance. Pumping more money into the broken system is not going to fix it. That would be like trying to fix the problem of lobbyist influence in DC by forcing everyone to hire a lobbyist, and then using tax dollars to "subsidize" the expense.

Basically, Arnold's plan is to funnel more money from the middle class into the pockets of the already wealthy CEOs of the bloated inefficient insurance industry. If there were any doubts that he's really a Republican, this should help to crush them. What's most surprising is that the Democrats are going along with him. Providing insurance for everyone is a laudable goal, but Arnold's plan is the wrong way to go about it.

Meanwhile, the California Nurses Association is urging senators to reject the Assembly bill in favor of a government-run, single-payer health care system.

When will people realize that's the only way to fix this problem?

Bush Chooses Big Business Over Kids' Health

2007-12-15T18:07:00.000-06:00

When President Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill on Wednesday, he didn't do it because he's hostile toward poor children. I'm sure Bush has nothing against poor kids, so long as they pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make it on their own, like he did. He didn't even do it becuase he simply doesn't care about poor kids. He did it because he had to. Bush had to stand up for the one thing that he truly believes in: Undying loyalty to big business.

Bush vetoed the expansion of the SCHIP program because he is afraid of it. Or rather, his corporate backers and the goons that run the RNC are afraid of it. SCHIP is the Republican party's greatest nightmare for one simple reason. It works. The program provides health insurance to poor people, mostly kids, at a rate far lower than any private insurance company can (or is willing to.) A look at the numbers tells the story that causes Bush to wake up screaming in the late evening.

Currently, the SCHIP program spends $5.04 Billion per year to provide healthcare to 6 million poor people, mostly children of people who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private insurance. That means that the program spends $840 per year per person. That's $70 per month.

Wait, let me repeat that. SCHIP, a government healthcare program, provides insurance at the cost of $70 per month per person. That's less than I (a single person) pay for my employer-subsidized insurance.

Under the expanded SCHIP plan, the government would spend roughly $12.04 Billion per year to provide insurance for about 10 million people. Again, mostly children. That works out to $1,204 per person per year, or $100.33 per month.

George Bush said that he vetoed this bill because "it moves our country's health care system in the wrong direction." And he's right. This bill provides healthcare to poor children in a manner that is far more cost-effective than private insurance. As proof of his fealty to the industry, Bush's proposal, as presented in his State Of The Union Address last February was to give tax deductions to people who already have insurance. His plan has no cost benefit over SCHIP. As he said, "For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, this proposal would mean a substantial tax savings -- $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year." That works out to $375 per month ($26 less than SCHIP). That $375 isn't providing the family with healthcare, though. It's helping them to pay for private insurance. (Only someone who has never had to buy insurance ever in his life would believe that $375 per month is going to cut it in the private insurance world.)

Ultimately, Bush's plan is simply to push more tax dollars into the pockets of the Insurance industry. (Or as he calls them, "his base.") In his veto statement, Bush said, "our Nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage." At the same time, according to Marilyn Clement, "His proposed $15,000 income tax deduction for middle-class families would jeopardize both Medicare and Social Security..." And that's a never-ending goal of the Republican party.

So what is Bush really doing by vetoing the SCHIP expansion bill? He's trying to keep America from noticing that SCHIP is a federal insurance system that provides healthcare more cost-effectively than private insurance companies can. After all, that's not the sort of thing you want to become public knowledge when there's an election right around the corner.

Romney's Message To Atheists: Go To Hell

2007-12-06T12:14:00.000-06:00

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. ... Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

So there you have it. According to Mitt Romney, if you do not believe in the God of the Bible, then you are leading the US on a path to destruction. I'm not sure which is more annoying: Romney's pandering to the evangelicals in a last-ditch effort to win in Iowa, or his utter ignorance of the religious beliefs of our nation's founders.

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places.

Putting the words "In God We Trust" on our money had nothing to do with the Founders. According to the US Treasury, "The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War." And, "IN GOD WE TRUST first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin."

As for the pledge, religioustolerance.org says, "In 1954, during the McCarthy era and communism scare, Congress passed a bill, which was signed into law, to add the words 'under God.'" I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Founders had nothing to do with that, either.

Of course, Romney's view of religion is predictably Christ-centric. He said, "I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God." So either he hasn't encountered that many faiths, or he feels that all religions have the same god.

It seems to me that Romney's view on religion is rather single-minded. Tolerance of religion means tolerance of his religion. Freedom to worship means freedom to worship the god of the Bible. Our rights come from his god. Our laws come from his god. Our nation exists only because of his god. If you're a person of faith, you're obviously worshiping his god. If you're not a person of faith, then you're what's wrong with this country.

So, Romney's message to all Atheists: Go to hell. America doesn't need you.

(All quotes from Romney's speech were grabbed from WCVB in Boston.)

Credit Where Credit Is Due

2007-12-04T07:28:00.000-06:00

I am not a friend to the Democratic party. I feel that they have abandoned many (or most) of the principles that democrats are supposed to stand for --standing up for our liberties being the most important. I felt that the Senate Democrats made a huge mistake when they made Harry Reid the majority leader. Dick Durbin, from Illinois, would have been a much better choice.

Nevertheless, I have to give Harry Reid (and the Democrats) some credit with regard to the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that was released on Monday. There has been much talk about the information held in that estimate, and predictably, the Bush administration is spinning it to support their desire to march toward war. What seems to be glossed over in most accounts I've seen, is that this NIE, which I think everyone can agree reveals intelligence that is of vital importance, would not have been generated if not for the Democrats requesting it.

From Reid's statement (from the Senate Democrats' web site):

Democratic Committee leaders and I requested this assessment early last year so that the Administration could not rush this Congress and the country to another war based on flawed intelligence.

This underscores the importance of the Democrats taking back control of the Senate in the last election. If the Republicans had still been in the majority, there's no way they would have allowed the Democrats to request this NIE, and we'd all be counting down the days until Bush's World War III.

So to Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats, I have to say that despite how much I despise your lack of integrity and your inability to stand up to the Bush administration (until recently), you've done good. I think that all Americans (and indeed the entire world) should be thankful that you were able to inject at least one tiny glimmer of sanity into the madness of Bush's foreign policy.

Humor Is Where You Find It

2007-11-30T07:22:00.000-06:00

Seeking some information on the Presidential Medal Of Freedom, I browsed over to what may or may not be the official web site. It has information on the recipients of the award over the years and even allows for listing by year or by president.

I don't know who runs the site, but I'm pretty sure it's a group of loyal Bush supporters. Or should I say lazy Bush supporters. The information obviously hasn't been updated since before the Iraq war. Even so, it proved to be a source of great amusement (unintended, I'm sure.) First item of note, whoever updated the site after George W Bush took office apparently scrubbed the Clinton bio clean off. (Unless there never was one, but since every other president has one, I find that hard to believe.)

So, what do we learn of George W Bush from this site? For starters:

Many political pundits and analysts have stated that President George W. Bush has surrounded himself with an all-star team comprised of the most qualified and diverse people our government has ever seen.

Yeah, that's a nice start to the stroke-fest.

Unlike the previous administration, this President has surrounded himself with an honest, qualified and hard working staff needed to most effectively serve the American people.

Ah, there's the first good laugh. Of course, this text is from before Bush's honest, qualified and hard working staff lied us into a war and outed a CIA operative for revenge. It was back in the good old days when the Bush administration only lied about inconsequential things like illegal warrantless wiretapping of US citizens, the "intelligence failure" that led to the 9/11 attacks, and rigging an election.

We all should be aware of those individuals who will shape the history of our nation in this time of crisis. The hunting down of Osama bin Laden, the bombing of Afghanistan, and the downfall of the Taliban government is in the hands of our National Security “Dream Team” hand picked by President Bush.

So how has Bush's "Dream Team" fared? Let's see, the hunting of Osama Bin Laden: um, nope. The bombing of Afghanistan: check. The downfall of the Taliban: not quite. But, hey, one out of three isn't bad. And at least they succeeded at the one where they bombed people. That's what matters most.

Then there is a short bit about each member of the "Dream Team," which consists of Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Powell. (Coincidentally, all four of those people served under Bush Sr. at some point.) Then, to sum it all up:

This glimpse into the people that define this administration has hopefully provided you with confidence in the leadership of this nation. George W. Bush has shown us his greatness through his leadership during this trying time, his willingness to surround himself with people who have proven their abilities time and time again and his undying faith in the American people and the American way of life. He knows that we will be triumphant and that America’s ability to unite in these times is what makes the United States the greatest country that the world has ever known.

Bush has "shown us his greatness?" Seriously, who wrote this? Katherine Harris?

The Lesson Of Greed

2007-11-21T07:31:00.000-06:00

While reading about the impending crunch that is going to hit us as a result (in large part) of the subprime mortgage fiasco, I reviewed a newsletter from John Maudlin back in August, The Panic of 2007. In it, John explains how there is plenty of blame to go around, and several parties to share it. One thing he says is this:

But then in 2004 loan practices began to change and had got completely out of hand by 2006. In 2005-6, about 80% of subprime mortgages were adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, also called "exploding ARMs." These loans are so-named because they carry low teaser rates that often reset dramatically higher, increasing the borrower's monthly mortgage payments by 25% or more.

Interesting. Subprime mortgages are given to people who are more likely to have difficulty making the payments. So what do the mortgage brokers do? They push these people toward the loans with low "teaser" interest rates. That way, the broker gets the closing (and the commission) and is out of the picture by the time the rate jumps and the borrower defaults and the bank forecloses.

Another item that caught my eye:

The loan application and review process for 'no-doc' loans was so lax that such loans are referred to as 'liar loans.' In a recent report by Mortgage Asset Research Institute, of the 100 loans surveyed for which borrowers merely stated their incomes on loan documents, IRS documents obtained indicated that 60% (!) of these borrowers overstated their incomes by more than half.

I had no idea that there is such a thing as a "no-doc" loan, or the "stated income" loan. Apparently, these loans allow people to get a mortgage without actually having to verify their income. They simply tell the bank how much they make. I'm sure that these loans were created for a legitimate purpose. The flaw, though, is the part of human nature that causes these to be referred to as "liar loans."

The bottom line is that deregulation and lack of oversight do not work. I understand that it has been a conservative wet-dream since at least the Reagan era to rid the country of all government interference in business, but time and time again, we see that businesses can't be trusted to regulate themselves. The concept of deregulation may look good on paper, but conservatives never seem to account for the one factor that always screws things up: greed.

The subprime catastrophe is the perfect example of the downward spiral of greed. Greenspan held interest rates at unreasonably low levels due to Bush's greed (It masked the failing economy so Bush could be "re"-elected.) Home buyers and speculators started buying more house than they should have, especially once home prices started climbing faster and faster. Banks eased the process of getting a loan because there was a lot of money to be made.

Eventually, of course, the sputtering economy caught up with the housing market and now we're seeing the beginning of the destruction that a lack of regulation and oversight brought to the mortgage industry.

For Some Reason, I Don't Believe Him

2007-11-19T12:20:00.000-06:00

President Bush vetoed the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008. In the statement that he sent to the House, he said that the bill simply spends too much money. Specifically, $10 Billion more than he wanted.

So all of a sudden, George W. Bush is a fiscal conservative. Stop laughing, he really is! Here's what he said:

Americans sent us to Washington to achieve results and be good stewards of their hard-earned tax dollars.

Bush said that on the same day that he signed the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense FY 2008 budget, which increased defense spending by $40 Billion.

The reason that I mention the defense budget is not to harp on the fact that the US spends waaaaayyyyyy too much on defense, but rather to point out the hypocrisy of Bush's statement about being a good steward of our tax dollars. For example, by the Pentagon's own admission, they have "lost" several trillion dollars over the years. If Bush wants to cut spending, maybe he should have vetoed the Defense Department budget and forced them to become a little more responsible with their money before giving them more of it. Who knows, if they're able to clean up their act, maybe they'll be able to afford Bush's Iraq Occupation.

Reality Is Overrated

2007-11-17T20:09:00.000-06:00

President Bush is isolated form the world. That in itself is not unusual. Bush has admitted that he doesn't read much and relies on his advisers to provide what he thinks is an objective report on world events. In the current issue of Time magazine, John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN answers ten questions and provides a glimpse into the sort of insulation that our president has wrapped himself in.

Here's a particularly telling bit:

Q: What do you think is the root cause of the anti-American sentiment sweeping the nations of the world? -BEN WONG CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND
A: I don't think there's anti-American sentiment sweeping the world.

The only question is whether he actually believes that. Judging from the inability for anyone in the Bush administration to admit they ever did anything wrong, I suspect he does.

Another chilling exchange:

Q: How should Iranians feel about the unfriendly threats of war issued by the U.S.? -ALI FARROKHIAN, TEHRAN

A: Our concern is not with the Iranian people, and I think we've gone out of our way to make it clear. If it ever did come to the use of military force, we need to make it clear to the people of Iran that this is not aimed against them.

Isn't that what this administration told the people of Iraq before unleashing "Shock And Awe" on them?

Of course, Bolton was simply one of dozens, or even hundreds, of ideologues in the Bush administration who have been openly hostile toward the organization they were supposed to head / oversee / work with.

What, Me Worry?

2007-11-15T12:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, the Pentagon issued a statement that they are not worried about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. This is a direct 180 from the concern expressed by Lt. General Carter Ham, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A New York Times article quotes Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell as saying, "At this point, we have no concerns. ... We believe that they are under the appropriate control."

There has been some talk lately of how the US policy toward Musharraf (specifically, supporting an unpopular dictator who took power through a military coup) is similar to that of when the US stood behind the Shah in Iran for so many years. That situation, of course, led to strong anti-American sentiment among the people of Iran, which I think we're paying for right now, as will continue to for some time.

My concern with Pakistan, then, is not that Musharraf doesn't have a tight grip on his country's nuclear weapons. My concern is that the way things are going, there is a pretty good chance that he won't be in power much longer. What will become of the nuclear weapons once he is out of power? Will the US finally find out what happens when you back a dictator? If our failed policy with Iran is pushing us ever closer to another war, and has the Warmonger In Chief talking about World War III, what will happen when Musharraf is out of power, and the strong anti-American sentiment in Pakistan is backed with nuclear weapons?

Whatever the Pentagon's selling, I'm not buying.