Political Thermopylae

The Case for Mitt Romney

2012-01-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

I could compare and contrast Mitt Romney with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Senator Rick Santorum, and Representative Ron Paul. There are many good arguments that could be made in his favor with a direct comparison with any or all of his GOP nomination competitors. Sure Romney isn't perfect, but such a comparison would, in my view make a clear case. But....I will not be doing that. This is a more centrist blog and that wont be necessary. I will use comparison, and I will use contrast, and I will make the case why Mitt Romney is the superior choice,....but in the general election.

On another thread in The Rise of the Center I listed the criteria that I look for in a Presidential candidate in the comments section, I listed my 4 criteria and will use those criteria for my comparison here.

1. Obeys the US Constitution

A perfect contrast can be drawn here between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Mitt Romney in getting healthcare reform through in Massachusetts signed into law a mandate for coverage in his own State that was widely in support of such. There is no violation as the 10th Amendment gives States that right. Romney has time and time again dismissed any notion of forcing an unconstitutional federal mandate.

Barack Obama signed a widely unpopular bill with an unconstitutional mandate for the entire nation that ignore the protection of the 10th Amendment. This individual mandate was the very thing he criticized rival Hilliary Clinton for on the campaign trail in 2007 and 2008 during the Democratic Primary. Just look at the video record http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FknJLMc84bo

2. Actually be able to lead.

Mitt Romney got major things done in Massachusetts as a Republican governor in a Democratic State with two houses controlled by a democratic legislature. He lowered taxes, turned a $3 billion deficit into a $2billion rainy day fund by the time he left office. He slashed spending and balanced the state budget all four years he was governor. When he took over the state was 50th in rate of change in unemployment shedding jobs all over the place, when he left Massachusetts was in the top ten in the nation He did all this with a state legislature that was 85% democratic by cutting taxes and cutting spending. Now that is leadership, working with others, convincing them to follow you despite ideological differences, putting the right people in the right jobs and executing.

On the Other hand there is President Obama.....sure he inherited a bad situation, but so did Romney, granted Obama's situation was in someways worse, but in some ways it was much better. He went into office on a huge euphoric wave with his own party in control of both branches of government with a filibuster proof majority. He had tons of political capital as he was replacing the unpopular George W. Bush and riding the wave of Hope and Change and as the first black president which helped to shield him from much media and other criticism when he assumed office. But what happened? His signature healthcare reform could not get passed by normal channels even with his majority as moderate democrats rebelled and sided with Republicans who were in opposition. Not until a constitutionally shady gimick of reconciliation was brought in and twisted like a pretzel would he get it passed and even then only with questionable ethics using earmarks and favors to sway the democratic votes he needed, the "Cornhusker Kickback" to Sen Nelson for his vote, the "Louisianna Purchase" of Sen Landrieu's vote, etc.

But did Obama at least get the economy going in the right direction? I think most of us know the answer to that. Record deficits for three years that top any before he took office, Massive unemployment not just in the official rate but even more so in the real unemployment rate that doiesn't change when people give up and stop looking for work, no rainy day fund but instead a government that begs to raise its debt ceiling every couple of months because it continues to increase its spending. Department heads involved in scandal from the Interior and the Gulf spill, to the Feds less than 1% loans to big banks, to Justice's fast and furious, to Energy's loan to Solyandra and 23 other businesses that have failed or are in desperate straits.

I could go on and talk about the Olympics, about a President actually wagging his finger at the Supreme Court at a SOTU address, but I'll go to the next point after I do give one bit of credit to the President on the leadership issue, he did give his 'okie-dokie' when the Seals had Bin Laden in their sights, but serious does anyone reading this right now have one ounce of doubt they would have made that same call? does anyone even doubt they would make that no brainer for even a millisecond? I don't.

3. Putting the country first.

This is the one area where I won't have much to say. Both Romney and Obama try to put the country first, they just have different views of what policies achieve that, and both are bound by their own biases. Both also have sought to advance their careers and agenda without thinking about the consequences from time to time and been divisive. Its a fairly close call here, but I give the advantage to Romney who was able to work with a legislature that was 85% democratic and get his agenda carried out to a large degree, that took not only leadership but some compromise on his end on some things Obama has not proven himself able to put forth that same level of working across the aisle, not entirely his fault, but I can't say I' ever saw Governor Romney using the same type of verbal assaults and condescending finger wagging from his executive position.

4. Efficiency

Mitt Romney went into a state with severe economic problems and turned them around almost from the start and built on that until he left office.

President Obama went into his job with a similar situation and put hundreds of billions into projects with little effect, then for a year turned his head away from the economy and instead to a largely unpopular healthcare reform bill which got passed with shady tactics that he couldn't get done even with a filibuster proof majority and ignored the unemployment situation for a year. When he did he set up a commission on the deficit then promptly ignored the advice they gave him.

I ask you, which was more efficient, I think it is clear.

Obama, the debt ceiling and lack of leadership

2011-07-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

A flashback that is apt.

"The fact that we're here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means 'The buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit."

--Democratic Senator Barack Obama 2006

Holy come back to bite you in your presidential butt Batman!

No Crazy People as President Please

2011-07-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

The Centersphere

2011-04-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to make reference to a great collection of truly moderate (and not just trying to appear to be by using the word) and centrist oriented sites with descriptions from The Rise of the Center blog:

Donklephant – Justin Gardner runs this absolute staple for moderates, with the tongue in cheek tag line of “Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Surprisingly Reasonable.” Its a great place for some good political chatter, and fun. He’s been around a while and has earned a good following. In full disclosure, I used to post there myself, and may do so in the future.

Uncovered Politics – I really dig what I’ve seen from these guys, since I dug it up a couple months ago. One of the more professionally designed sites. Very newspaper like, in a good way. One of the bloggers there (Austin Cassidy) is a co-founder of Independent Political Report & Third Party Watch.

POLI-TEA – Probably the site out there that is most like mine… so of course I think its great! This is the personal blog of Damon Eris, who posts in several other places, from CAIVN, to Independent Political Report. One of the top voices in the centersphere, his blog is another must read.

Think 3 Institute – This isn’t a think tank, but it might as well be. The design is… not awesome, but they consistently have some of the most intelligent political commentary you can find anywhere. Generally a mix of in depth policy and both national and New York state politics.

The Center Lane – Just like Think 3, The Center Lane is a place you can go and always expect very high quality content. It chooses quality over quantity, but the quality is very very good.

The Pragmatic Center – Nick Goebel, who I’ve chatted with a bit, has his head on straight. His blog is a mix of common sense political talk on national and Michigan state politics.

Independent Political Report – This is the most popular site on this entire list. There is a mix of centrist politics and independent politics (defined generally… including all non major party related news). A good place to keep track of the forces fighting the two party system.

Third Party and Independent Daily – This site doesn’t just stick to centrist type stuff, as any third party groups are discussed, but there is a lot of great coverage of smaller stories you don’t see anywhere else, related to those on the front lines of the war against the two party system. If you really want to keep your finger on what is going around with all the major groups that are trying to pare down the two party duopoly, this is a great place to start, along with IPR.

Outside the Beltway – This moderate conservative (they call themselves classically liberal) blog has been around since 2003, which might explain why the traffic ranking sites list it as the highest traffic site on this list. In general it is probably the most professionally put together site on the list as well.

The Wright and Left Report – This site’s tag line is “Determining fact from lunacy in the circus that is politics”, and from what I’ve seen so far, it does a pretty good job. There seems to be a lean to the left, but certainly no partisan shill.

Independent Rage – As the name would suggest, this puppy is a pit bull. He doesn’t pull punches, doesn’t censor himself, has Nirvana set to play when you load the site, is generally just a riot… and he likes posting pics of scantily clad women, so take all of that in mind. In his own words “Being serious about politics all the time is not everyone’s cup of tea, and so I really do try to mix up my blog with a combination of the fun and the serious.” But look past all that and you see someone who has a pretty interesting, and very honest, perspective.

Mildly Relevant Thoughts – Yet another blogger, this one mostly video blogging (which is a nice change of pace), who I’ve had the pleasure of talking to a bit. Much like Independent Rage, this one is… not exactly serious, and at times downright raunchy, but its all in good spirited fun. Check his site out for reliably funny and biting commentary on the absurd circus that is American politics.

Rebel Yid – This is another blog that I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with the man behind the keyboard, and has become one of my first reads. Sharp commentary, with “Ideas beyond the left/right, red/blue, and liberal/conservative thinking”. Definitely a right lean, but still moderate enough to fit under our big tent here.

All Things Reform – This is a pretty heady site, and isn’t about centrist politics, but most of it is what you might call ‘transpartisan’, that any good intentioned politico would support, and/or want to know about.

The New Moderate – Rick Bayan has been at it since 2007 apparently. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with him a bit by email, and his site has moved into the “First Read” section of my RSS feeds. This site falls into the category of blogs that don’t post all of the time, but when they do, they’re in depth and insightful.

Center Movement – This is one of the best designed sites on the list, and it most notable for the fact that it automatically aggregates content from some of the better moderate and centrists blogs, as well as a bit of original content of its own.

Moderate Voters – This is somewhat like Center Movement, but collects news from all over the web that they see as being related to moderates, not blog posts. Seriously though, they do a heck of a job scouring the news sites for stuff moderates might want to know about. A great resource.

The Hankster – Nancy Hanks is a long time activist in New York Independent Politics. Her blog is a must read, if only for her fairly regular “TODAY’S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS” updates, that cover an awful lot of what is going on in what I call the “independent groundswell”. She is well connected with the IndependentVoting.org crowd, which would be fairly described as the liberal side of the mainstream independent spectrum. (5.860)

John Avlon – I’m making an exception here. John Avlon doesn’t have a blog per se… although he has a column at what you could consider a professional blogging site, The Daily Beast. He’s written two great books, one on independents and another on the political extremists, is a political analyst for CNN and is probably the best centrist pundit around these days. Click his name for a Google News search for what he’s done lately.

The Future American – Jess Chapman, who cross posts here a few times a week, is a Canadian college student with ambitions of becoming the next John Avlon, a centrist political pundit in the United States. She covers national politics, occasionally mentions Canadian politics, and also some Northern Midwest coverage.

Rise of the Center – You may have heard of this new-ish blog that some guy from Omaha with a weird name runs… he’s quite the political junkie, I hear, and has an acute addiction to twitter, haha. Fastest growing centrist blog around.

Open thread for any banned at TMV

2011-03-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

With one of my favorite comment boards having the ban hammer held over heads in a threatening matter (and in some cases certainly justified), I figured I'd open this thread up so that any banned folks could let us know where they are posting now, or where they might like to join up and another board and post together. This goes to those I tend to see eye to eye with and those who I tend not to. I don't care what your views are far-right to far left or anywhere in between you are welcome to use this thread to let others know where to find you if you wish and to vent.

The invitation extends to any TMV moderators or staff if they wish to comment on any bannings or to vent.

Dr. Obama and the Medicine Show

2010-06-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

The fact that it takes a Rolling Stone article to get our President to act on the division among the administration figures in Afghanistan does not leave me inspired with confidence in his leadership ability. That coupled with the mishandling of the Guld Spill has lead me to dedicate a song to him....

...Hit it boys.....

(talking...) Ha ha ha I don't believe it
Da, da, ah, ah don't touch it
Hey, Rahm, Hey Axlerod tell them who we are.....

Well, we're political left wingers
We got away pointing fingers
And we're loved, media says we're great..... (except for FOX)
We make speeches about fairness and we lie about truth
At ten-thousand dollars a fund-raising plate..... (Cha-Ching)
We reconcile all kinds of bills nevermind we can't stop a spill.
But the spill we've never before known
Is the spill that'll grate when you get your war update
On the cover of the Rollin Stone

(Rollin stone.....) Wanna see my appointee on the cover
(Stone.....)Wanna buy five copies for my baby mother..... (fist bump)
(Stone.....)Wanna see my war update
On the cover of the Rollin Stone.... (that's a very very good idea)

I got a freaky ole lady name a Nancy Pelosi
Who embroideries on my ways and means
I got my poor ole grey haired caddy
Drivin my golfing limosine
Now it's all decided to blow our minds
But our minds won't really be blown
Like the blow that'll grate when you get your war updates
On the cover of the Rollin Stone

(Rollin stone.....) Wanna see our pictures on the cover
(Stone.....) Wanna buy five copies for our baby mothers..... (fist bump)
(Stone.....) Wanna see my war update
On the cover of the rollin stone
(talking) Hey, I know how
Hope and Change.....

Ah, that's liberal

We got a lot of little fainting blue state groupies
Who do anything we say
We got a genu wine Tax Cheat
Who's teaching us a better way
We got all the politicians that lobbyist can buy
So we never have to be alone
And we keep getting irate when we get our war updates
On the cover of the Rollin Stone

(Rollin stone.....)Wanna see my appointee on the cover
(Stone.....) Wanna buy five copies for my baby mother..... (wa wa)
(Stone.....) Wanna see my general's face
On the cover of the Rollin Stone
On the cover of the Rollin.......
Stone.....) Wanna see my appointee on the cover
(talking) I don't know why we ain't on the cover, Baby....
(Stone.....) Wanna buy five copies for my baby mother
(talking) We're liberal subjects....
(Stone.....) Wanna see my smilin face
(talking) I ain't kiddin, we would make a liberal cover....
On the cover of the Rollin Stone......
(talking) fresh shot, right up front, Man.....
I can see it now, we'll be up in the front....
Smilin, Man......
Ahh, liberal.......

Slipping into Capitalism

2009-09-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports:

Faced with the smothering inefficiencies of a state-run economy and unable to feed his people without massive imports of food, Cuban leader Raúl Castro has put his faith in compatriots like Esther Fuentes and his little farm out in the sticks.

If Cuba is searching for its New New Man, then Fuentes might be him. The Cuban government, in its most dramatic reform since Castro took over for his ailing older brother Fidel three years ago, is offering private farmers such as Fuentes the use of fallow state lands to grow crops -- for a profit.

Quite a change for the island nation. Of course the rhetoric must be applied to justify this:

Raúl Castro prefers to call it "a new socialist model."

The "new socialist model" can be summed up in two words...... profit motive.

What brought this on?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of subsidies from Moscow and Eastern Europe, Cuba abandoned its huge farms devoted to sugar cane -- and that land was quickly taken over by marabu, a tenacious, thorny weed that now covers vast tracts of Cuba the way kudzu blankets the American South.

Guess they decided that its actually better to allow some capitalism than let the land sit useless under their previous policies. But what do the people of Cuba think:

Fuentes pointed to his new fields of sweet potatoes, corn, tomatoes, cassava and beans. He's also growing flowers to sell. Chickens were running around, and trees bore monster avocados. The future looks better.

"This is big change," he said. "Everyone wants in."

How far will it go? Who knows but one academic has an idea for them:

"If they really wanted to solve their problem, they could solve it in a minute, with the stroke of a pen," by allowing private ownership and free markets, said José Alvarez, a professor emeritus and authority on Cuban agriculture at the University of Florida.

Is Cuba likely to turn into a capitalist state? Not likely, but they are begging to face at least the reality that the profit motive will help them to feed their people.

Don't buy healthcare? pay $25,000. can't afford the fine? spend a year in jail.

2009-09-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

Policio reports:

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.
Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold.

Two thoughts occur to me.

First, not everyone will have an easy time scraping up the money to pay, although I know some assistance is planned to be made available.

Secondly, if they can't pay $1,900 what are the chances they can pay $25,000, can our overcrowded penal system handle the increased traffic? Should people who couldn't afford to pay be grouped with thieves, drug dealers, and worse?

To me this type of penalty makes this less appealing than a fully paid public option (as much as I oppose that). What they should do instead in my option, if they must do this at all, is to freely cover everyone with catastrophic insurance and let individuals buy their own other than catastrophic insurance on the proposed markets without threat of legal penalty but with any assistance having the cost of the catastrophic coverage taken out of it. Fining and imprisoning people for not buying into health care strikes me as against the principles of our nation.

Its time for Justice in Honduras

2009-09-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

The Congressional Reasearch Service (CRS) has released a new report on the ousting of former President Manuel Zelaya.

Among its findings:

Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system.

However, removal of President Zelaya from the country by the military is in direct
violation of the Article 102 of the Constitution, and apparently this action is currently under investigation by the Honduran authorities.50

So his removal from the Presidency was Constitutional, but his removal from the country was not.

Yet the Obama administration has still failed to recognize the government of Honduras is the rightful legal government of the Country, and the administration has cut aid by $30 million and threatened to cut another $200 million. This is about 2% of the Honduran GDP.

Furthermore the Washington Examiner reports:

Do the facts matter? Fat chance. The administration is standing by its "coup" charge and 10 days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went so far as to sanction the country's independent judiciary. The U.S. won't say why, but its clear the court's sin is rejecting a U.S.-backed proposal to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.

The upshot is that the U.S. is trying to force Honduras to violate its own constitution and is also using its international political heft to try to interfere with the country's independent judiciary.

Hondurans are worried about what this pressure is doing to their country. Mr. Zelaya's violent supporters are emboldened by the U.S. position. They deface some homes and shops with graffiti and throw stones and home-made bombs into others, and whenever the police try to stop them, they howl about their "human rights."

But it may be that Americans should be even more concerned about the heavy-handedness, without legal justification, emanating from the executive branch in Washington. What does it say about Mr. Obama's respect for the separation of powers that he would instruct Mrs. Clinton to punish an independent court because it did not issue the ruling he wanted?

Its time the Obama administration correct its failed position, and show a respect for the Rule of Law in other nations and their independent judiciaries.

Obama's transparancy problem

2009-09-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

When President Obama was campaigning for the Presidency,government transparancy was one of his rallying cries. His speeches were full of such gems as:

"When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as a president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing.”

"To achieve health care reform, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."

" "No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration."
Now you might ask, what has that last one have to do with transparancy, so I'll explain. On January 8, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama nominated lobbyist William Lynn as his Deputy Secretary of Defense. Objections were of course raised but lynn ended up being given a waiver by the administration and confirmed by the Senate. However other lobbyists followed and received their own wavers, some of whom were appointments not requiring Senate approval. Some other appointments don't even require waivers just "recusals" where the former lobbyist just voluntarily excuses himself from areas that he once lobbied for. But without the confirmation process little is know about the appointments, and even who all of them are. According to Polifact:

* Recusals appear to have even less documentation than waivers. We have yet to see a recusal "order," despite having asked the White House for them. We know there are at least two recusals; there may be more. We're not sure how recusals specifically differ from waivers because the White House has said little about the policy.

* The White House is not prompt about releasing the waivers. For two nominees who didn't require Senate approval, waivers were released weeks after they were signed and after the people took their positions. These two waivers were also substantially less detailed than the waiver issued for Lynn.

Also:

We haven't seen anything to make us change our ruling. But there's been a new development: Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa recently sent a letter asking for accountability about the recusals and waivers. (Grassley is one of four senators who voted against the nomination of William Lynn as a deputy secretary for defense; Lynn was a lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon.)

Grassley has asked Robert Cusick, director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, to require the Obama administration to release all waivers and recusals as they are issued and post the documentation to the Internet. Grassley said Cusick has that authority under the Ethics in Government Act.

Well, so much for transpaancy on that. I could go into his appointment of over 30 "Czars" but I think the point has already been made, now to the other items.

That healthcare reform on C-Span pledge, well it just never happened.

Of course the Presidnet spins this in this way:

Not one has bought this line except for his most ardent cheerleaders.

Sources as varied as Salon, The Huffington Post,CNBC, Air America, Slate,The National Review, Glenn Greenwald, etc. are all critical of the backroom deals the Obama administration made. Where was C-Span then?

Now on to the first item mentioned, the 5 day pledge. The Cato institute details the lack of compliance with this promise back in April.

Of the eleven bills President Obama has signed, only six have been posted on Whitehouse.gov. None have been posted for a full five days after presentment from Congress.

Additionally:

Several times the White House has posted a bill while it remains in Congress, attempting to satisfy the five-day rule. But this doesn’t give the public an opportunity to review the final legislation – especially any last minute amendments. Versions of the children’s health insurance legislation, the omnibus spending bill, and the omnibus public land management bill were linked to from Whitehouse.gov while making their ways through Congress, but not posted in final form.

In some areas Obama has actually moved forward on transparency, but sometimes only due due to political pressure. For example the releasing of White House logs, which were in answer to lawsuits by watchdog groups and court rulings. Even after release the logs aren't easily acessable for previous periods before the turnaround and detailed requests for time and visitors must be made before the information is released, hardly transparant.

It seems to me that the way to transparancy in the Executive branch is still via watchdogs, investigative reporting by the media, and lawsuits. On its own, the Obama administration does not seem very transparent at all.

Someone give David Brooks a Dictionary

2009-05-29T14:45:00.001-07:00

I think he might need one

People without social emotions like empathy are not objective decision-makers.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/objective
ob⋅jec⋅tive

–adjective

5. not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.

6. intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book.

"Empathy" is just an excuse for judges not to uphold the law. Empathy is a good quality for a legislator tasked with writing and ammending the law, but not something I want to see in judges tasked with upholding to law in an imopartial manner.

Justice should be blind, we don't need to lift her blindfold.

The Torture debate

2009-05-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Conservative radio host Eric Mancow admits waterboarding is torture

Video here.

Well that settles that.

Amazing Beauty

2009-04-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

Susan Boyle

Click the above link, trust me you do not wanna miss this.

Obama administration throws Dodd under the bus to try to save its own hide.

2009-03-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

Gleeen Greenwald covers this pathetic turn of events.

But it was Tim Geithner and Larry Summers who openly criticized Dodd's proposal at the time and insisted that those limitations should apply only to future compensation contracts, not ones that already existed. The exemption for already existing compensation agreements -- the exact provision that is now protecting the AIG bonus payments -- was inserted at the White House's insistence and over Dodd's objections. But now that a political scandal has erupted over these payments, the White House is trying to deflect blame from itself and heap it all on Chris Dodd by claiming that it was Dodd who was responsible for that exemption.

The only point here is that what the White House and many journalists are claiming simply did not happen. They're just inventing a false history in order to blame the politically hapless Dodd for what Geithner and Summers did.

Pretty shameful. So this is what Hope and Change look like?

The Action Americans Need

2009-02-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

My response to

this Obama editorial

Are there things in the Stimulas package that benefit from being implimented ASAP? Yes there are. Are there things in the package that could benefit from a longer term debate, analysis and adjustment? Yes there are those as well. So why are we being given this "weapons of mass destruction, must act now" rhetoric? What should be done is to divide this gargantuan bill into two workable parts, one that addresses the immediate that can quickly be acted upon without the need to debate the longer term issues of the remainder. Many of these areas have wider bipartisan support and can be pushed though quickly, leaving the rest for a more detailed evaluation. Given the price tag on this monster of a bill, we really cannot afford to have a do over and care needs to be taken and we should not rush through what need not be rushed. We need to take care of the immediate and not throw in partisan wish lists out of fear of not acting quickly enough. Only a division of the bill is likely to achieve this.

The President can play a constructive role and show true leadership by recognizing and dividing the short and longer term necessities and this will allow him to address more bipartisan concerns than writing editorials in the Washington Post trying to hammer in a mantra of "Now is the time", "Now is the time", "Now is the time"....... Sorry, but for much of this package Now is not the time, for some of it, there will never be a time for it. We need clear thinking, time to consider, and the pooling of various information, knowledge and opinions on those parts that aren't of immediate impact which make up a majority of the legislation. We don't need the politics of fear, we had enough of that, we want a change of that, not a continuation under a new banner. Obama's article was entitled "The Action Americans Need", well the real Action American's Need, is a level headed leadership that isn't afraid of a reasoned debate and wont rush to a paniced decision when it need not do so. We need the President to seperate this bill to address both the concern for quick action on some fronts, and the need for wiser and more thought out action on others. We need leadership not a stump speech.

Shoddy Scholarship?

2009-01-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine on a political forum (although I'm not sure he thinks of me the same way since we often disagree with passion, but nonetheless a pretty good guy I think) posted this:

"A more factual synopsis of the Reagan presidency might read like this: That Reagan was a transformative figure in American history, but his real revolution was one of public-relations-meets-politics and not one of policy. He combined his small-town heartland upbringing with a skill for story-telling that was honed on the back lots of Hollywood into a personal narrative that resonated with a majority of voters, but only after it tapped into something darker, which was white middle class resentment of 1960s unrest.

His story arc did become more optimistic and peaked at just the right moment, when Americans were tired of the “malaise” of the Jimmy Carter years and wanted someone who promised to make the nation feel good about itself again. But his positive legacy as president today hangs on events that most historians say were to some great measure out of his control: An economic recovery that was inevitable, especially when world oil prices returned to normal levels, and an end to the Cold War that was more driven by internal events in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe than Americans want to acknowledge.

His 1981 tax cut was followed quickly by tax hikes that you rarely hear about, and Reagan’s real lasting achievement on that front was slashing marginal rates for the wealthy – even as rising payroll taxes socked the working class. His promise to shrink government was uttered so many time that many acolytes believe it really happened, but in fact Reagan expanded the federal payroll, added a new cabinet post, and created a huge debt that ultimately tripped up his handpicked successor, George H.W. Bush. What he did shrink was government regulation and oversight -- linked to a series of unfortunate events from the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s to the sub-prime mortgage crisis of the late 2000s."

Now I've seen it from both the left and the right, an effort to go after political "icons" of the other side, thats fine and dandy but you really should be able to offer up something better than shoddy arguments if you wish to do so with acclaim from more than guys on your own side of the political aisle. Now I admit, this is just a snippet from Will Bunch and his book Tear Down this Myth, but I have to wonder at his scholarly abilities with such statements. Kinda reminds me of Ann Coulter with all the bias just minus the outrageousness.

Take the bit on taxes and the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, which I think is part of what you are referring to. Reagan did indeed sign it agreeing to raise taxes, but, he did so with a stipulation you make have forgotten about, that for every $1 of additional taxes, that government reduce spending by $3. Now that is a Conservative ideal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Equity_and_Fiscal_Responsibility_Act_of_1982

Also on that link note the table and the totals. 4 year average of the net effect on tax revenues as a per centage of GDP -0.95 I'd call that a tax reduction. This expression as a % of GDP eliminates distortions due to inflation, total federal reciepts, and real economic growth.

Now lets take that new cabinet position mentioned:

Guess he's is referring to the cabinet level office of Director of the National Drug Control Policy when he signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988

While Reagan was definately for an aggessive approach to the drug issue, Reagan wasn't a big fan of the idea of the big government aspects.

http://www.criticism.com/policy/republicans-drug-policy.php

Reagan's secretary of health and human services, stressed education and rehabilitation, an approach often taken by Democrats. William J. Bennett, a conservative who served as Reagan's Secretary of Education, argued for greater military involvement in stemming the influx of drugs. He also urged Reagan to appoint a drug czar, but the president opposed it on grounds that it would necessitate more "big government."

You have to also remember that that same legislation allowed for the death penalty for drug kingpins, definately a conservate item. Somehow I don't see Reagan signing this bill as a show of him being un Conservative. What I do see, is shoddy scholarship. If some average guy like me can put some quick holes in this guys argument without much effort, can't expect his work to be worth much time.

These examples really point to him acting in a non Conservative way, they are examples of him acting in a moderate way to get Conservative items in that he felt important and doing so by working with a democratic Congress to do so. When the opposition is in power in the Congress there are limits on what items of your own agenda you can get through, and there are only certainways to introduce them that will be sucessful, Reagan understood that well, and used them.

But, like I said, perhpas I'm wrong and the liberal blogosphere and forum posters are just choosing to post a particularly bad excerpt, and the rest of his work might be stellar. Well, maybe but until I see something with more promise of serious scholarship than this, I think I'll pass on this guys writing. But Hey if your a liberal and like being part of the choir being preached to, by all means run out and buy a copy, you will likely enjoy a partisan show, even if factually challeged.

Nation Tribes and Nation States

2009-01-27T11:14:00.000-08:00

A very interesting piece.

Paradigm Shift: The US Foreign and Security Policies in Flux

Excerpt:

US policies used to be, and still nominally is, Nation-State centric. Everything the United States does has to be channeled through states and official governments. For example, we know that terrorists reside in, say, Sudan. However, we can't just go in and grab them. We have to petition the Sudanese government for extradition, even though the Sudanese government does not have that much control over the terrorists. Once the terrorists get the wind of an impending extradition, they can use bribes and their contacts in the government to get out of Sudan. And there's nothing we can do about it [except the CIA].

Another

One useful way to think about this shift is on the question of sovereignty: We used to be on the "Theory of Sovereignty", that we assumed every government had full sovereignty, even if reality conflicts with that claim. Now we will operate on "the Test of Sovereignty", where we only acknowledge your sovereignty after you have demonstrated it credibly. To use a dated example, we will acknowledge Indonesia's sovereignty over East Timor only if Indonesia can exercise its sovereign powers over East Timor.

"Wanker of the Day"

2008-12-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

Atrios

The three stooges, John, Joe, and Lindsey, go to the Washington Post to tell us
that what's important that we
find "consensus" on Iraq.This Washington fetishization of everyone agreeing
with each other is just weird. People disagree about stuff. I'd think people in
politics would understand that.

Yes God forbid that politicians should ever try to work togehter and come to an agreement. The far-lefties are just as bad as the far-righties. Atrios meets Ann Coulter. No there is only one stooge here, and that Stooge is Atrios.

Why do they even prentend to want bi-partisanship?

2008-09-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

Why even pretend, its so obvious.

“Today Democrats showed up at scheduled bipartisan talks, but said they forgot to invite the Republicans." --NBC

Newshttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619#26905489

Rumsfeld of the Left?

2008-09-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

Obama sounded a bit Rumsfeldian at the DNC:

“You know, John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives,” said Barak Obama during his speech at the Democratic Convention.

To me this brought back a memory :

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

–Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

So if Mr. Obama knows where Osama Bin Laden's cave is, why doesn't he kindly provide the military with the address? We all know where claims to know something can go exactly wrong.

Today's Worst Person in the World

2008-06-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald busts Keith Olbermann for blatant partisanship and selling out for his candidate of choice Here :

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/26/olbermann/

Excerpt:

What's much more notable is Olbermann's full-scale reversal on how he talks about these measures now that Obama -- rather than George Bush -- supports them. On an almost nightly basis, Olbermann mocks Congressional Democrats as being weak and complicit for failing to stand up to Bush lawbreaking; now that Obama does it, it's proof that Obama won't "cower." Grave warning on Olbermann's show that telecom amnesty and FISA revisions were hallmarks of Bush Fascism instantaneously transformed into a celebration that Obama, by supporting the same things, was leading a courageous, centrist crusade in defense of our Constitution.

Is that really what anyone wants -- transferring blind devotion from George Bush to Barack Obama? Are we hoping for a Fox News for Obama, that glorifies everything he says and whitewashes everything he does?

I don't always agree with Greenwald, but he is consistent, and he will go after Democrats as well as Rebublicans when his values don't match theirs, unlike Olbermann who seems quite willing to sell his soul for his man Obama.

Obama's Fish Story Speech

2008-03-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

Jonah wasn't digested by the Obama "Whale of a Speech"

Excerpts:

Oh, thank goodness Obama fired the starter's pistol in the race to discuss race. Here I'd been under the impression that every major university (and minor one for that matter) in the country already had boatloads of courses -- often entire majors -- dedicated to race in America. I'd even read somewhere that professors had incorporated racial themes and issues into classes on everything from Shakespeare to the mating habits of snail darters. And scratching faintly in the back of my mind, I felt some vague memory that these same universities recruited black students and other racial minorities, on the grounds that interracial conversations on campus are as important as talking about math, science and literature. A ghost of an image in my mind's eye seemed to reveal African American studies centers, banners for Black History Month and copies of books like "Race Matters" and "The Future of the Race" lined up on shelves at college bookstores.

...

It all seems so otherworldly. I feel like one of the last humans in an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" movie in which all of the pod people are compelled by some alien DNA to pine continually for yet another "conversation" about a topic we've never, ever stopped talking about.

--------------------------------

Jonah is exactly right. For a better speech on race look at the one Bill Clinton made in October 1995. Bill at least didn't need a scandal to prompt his voice.

BTW Obama, if your so against discrimination why did you support the opposition to Proposition #2 in Michigan in 2006? The one that forbid the State to discriminate based on Race, Gender, or Religion?

PROPOSAL 06-2 A PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO BAN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAMS THAT GIVE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO GROUPS OR INDIVIDUALS BASED ON THEIR RACE, GENDER, COLOR, ETHNICITY OR NATIONAL ORIGIN FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION OR CONTRACTING PURPOSES

The proposed constitutional amendment would:

• Ban public institutions from using affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes. Public institutions affected by the proposal include state government, local governments, public colleges and universities, community colleges and school districts.

• Prohibit public institutions from discriminating against groups or individuals due to their gender, ethnicity, race, color or national origin. (A separate provision of the state constitution already prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.)Should this proposal be adopted?

Yes

No

---------------------------

How about a third option for Obama?

Yes

No

Hypocrite.

Hypocrisy

2008-01-28T21:22:00.001-08:00

As much of the Conservative blogosphere lines up to cast stones at john McCain's candidacy, one thing struck me a couple of days ago. Much of their ire comes from McCain's sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold bill on campaign finance. The argument is usually one that it is an unconstitutional impediment to free speech. Yet I have yet to see any of these conservatives bring Taft- Hartley into the debate. Taft-Hartley severely restrained the influence of the trade unions, and among its provisions were limits on campaign finance. Perhaps they should revisit and discuss this act along with McCain-Feingold when making their claims of unconstitutionality.

While they are at it they might also look at; The Federal Corrupt Practices Act, The Federal Election Campaign Act, The Hatch Act, The Naval Appropriations Bill of 1867, The Civil Service Reform Act, The Smith-Connally Act, The Espionage Act of 1917, and The Sedition Act of 1918.

Campaign finance restrictions that are viewed as unconstitutional only when they work against one's party, but not when they benefit it seem the epitome of hypocrisy to me. That's why I dismiss those who make this criticism of McCain-Feingold as partisan hypocrites and fools. It would be refreshing to see them called on this more often and forced to defend their positions to the blogosphere at large.

Divided we fall

2008-01-23T16:35:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged much recently. There have been plenty of worthy issues that have merited it for sure, but I've taken a bit of a step back on many current issues to get a little bit of perception. One thing that is quite troubling with the Presidential primary process in full swing now is how so many candidates are dividing America for their own political careers. Although in many cases it might be done with the noblest intentions and a firm belief in their own visions, the candidates are for the most part pulling us apart as they launch dogmatic assaults on each other.

The resent escalation of hostilities between Hiliary Clinton and Barrack O'Bama is the latest in the series. One thing I had found quite admirable about O'Bama, was his appeal as a uniter, and although I think the Clinton camp was responsible for beginning the escalation, I have seen little from the O'Bama camp as far as taking a moral high ground to try to unite when faced by this sort of tactic. If he can't manage this with the Clinton campaign, will he be able to manage it vs a Republican candidate? If he wins the Presidency will he be able to unite the people if a large portion of Congress is hostile? I'm simply not impressed by his performance here, nor that of Senator Clinton.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney seems to be about as divisive figure as anyone could imagine, and Mike Huckabee's recent pandering to the Pro Confederate flag crowd to win votes at the expense of inflaming deep divisions show little promise of uniting a nation if either were elected. I'm from South Carolina and I an very much for the Confederate flag, though as a sign of heritage, and not as one of racism as many of the more ignorant of my fellow South Carolinians indeed do, so I'm not speeking against Huckabee's feelings on the issue itself, but on his using it for his own benefit despite the fact he would be applying the fan to the fire when it doesn't need be applied. Thus far Rudy Giuliani has pretty much alienated 1/2 the country with his assaults on the Democrats for political gain, making him one of the worst of the lot.

That leaves me with John McCain. I'll tell you upfront here that I'm a long time McCain supporter. I see him as a uniter that can bring together the center, the moderate left and the moderate right, and even some from the far-right. The bad thing (or maybe its a good one) is that those who don't like him, tend to dislike him with a passion. But those are members of his own party. They will continue to apply fire to the situation even if he is elected making compromises with the other side of the aisle more difficult for McCain. So can he truly unite the country, or does he also fall short like the others? It will certainly be a political tightrope, with critics lining up on both sides. But maybe this is the correct test for America, whether a candidate who is more open to working with both sides of the aisle and facing criticism on both fronts will perform better than one who is firmly entrenched on one side who while having no chance to appeal to about 1/2 the electorate, still has a better chance of attracting the appeal of the other half than a McCain tightrope act would.

Yet, for all the dangers of a double bladed sword slicing at a McCain approach, I'm not ready to surrender 1/2 the population's wishes to the other half in the "safety" of pure partisanship. Its a test whose time has come, and whether we will or will not be able to pass it is a question of the utmost importance.

United we Stand

Divided we Fall

..and Fail.

Political Correctness gone crazy

2007-11-09T11:54:00.001-08:00

A hair salon owner is being sued for religious discrimination after refusing a Muslim teenager a job as a stylist because she wore a headscarf?

Story here:

Whats next a Muslim woman suing for being refused a job in a shampoo commercial?

Cry Baby Limbaugh

2007-10-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh on his show:

"McCain sort of halfway threw me under the bus by saying "if" what Limbaugh said as reported is correct, blah, blah, blah, then it's disgusting and horrible and so forth and so on."

---------------

The man condemend someone who would call real soldiers phonys and stated that he would have to look at the real remarks before he decided whether he thought you actually said them. Not giving you Carte blanche to be defended no matter what came out of your mouth isn't throwing you under a bus. Is it a wonder that a man with the exceptional service record of Senator McCain would jump to the defense of real soldiers who were rsking their life for their country rather than a blowhard pundit who avoided serving due to a cureable ingrown butt-hair? You should be kissing McCain's butt for fighting the war you hid from, he suffered in that POW camp while you were nice and safe and you have the nerve to say this about him when he makes a statement to defend the troops first. That is the difference between a man and a wittle boy. Grow up Rush!

Americans For Polarization

2007-09-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

From Andrew Sullivan's site:

reader writes:

You wrote:

"[Obama] detects an enormous weariness among Americans about their internal divisions in a time of war..."
There seems to be an assumption that politicians are divided, but Americans wish to be more united. The problem is: we are the divisions. There is no "us" (citizens) and "them" (national politicians). The pols reflect our divisions.

This is not to say that Obama's gamble isn't worth taking, nor that what he is doing isn't noble. Obama is an exceptional man for all of the reasons you have articulated on your blog. But I am not convinced that Americans want to be brought together. They may not want things to be as divided as they are now, but we still are divided on many key issues. And we're divided on what we should care about: economics vs values, for instance.

Remember: It was just 3 short years ago that 61 million people voted for GWB --- well after it was evident that his presidency was a disaster.

The fact is, Hillary vs Rudy may be exactly what the electorate wants.

Sullivan concludes:

It seems to be what Bush wants.

This may well be the case, if so I can't think of a greater tradgedy for America.

Rove's Legecy

2007-08-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan is spot on:

"While he spins. The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. For this, he got two terms of power - which the GOP used mainly to enrich themselves, their clients and to expand government's reach and and drain on the productive sector. In the re-election, the president with a relatively strong economy, and a war in progress, managed to eke out 51 percent. Why? Because Rove preferred to divide the country and get his 51 percent, than unite it and get America's 60. In a time of grave danger and war, Rove picked party over country. Such a choice was and remains despicable.

Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president's eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul."

This man was one of the Chief Architects/Archvillians of dividing our nation along partisan lines sacrificing the temendous spirit of unity following the 9-11 attacks for a politically partisan agenda. Seeing him depart is a relief and the day shuld be a national holiday.

Now if only we can remove the rest of these archvillians, David S. Addington, Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney.....

An Unpatriotic Company

2007-08-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

Johnson and Johnson has done the unimaginable, flied a lawsuit against the Red Cross.

Details here.

Excerpt:

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, which uses a red cross as its trademark, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the American Red Cross, demanding that the charity halt the use of the red cross symbol on products it sells to the public.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, marked the breakdown of months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, and prompted an angry response from the Red Cross.

“For a multibillion dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute ... simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene,” said Mark Everson, the Red Cross president.

This is the organization that provides relief to Americans and folkes around the world in time of crisis and supports the efforts of our troops, and has provided care packages for our soldiers when captured by an enemy. For Johnson and Johnson to sue over the trademark is petty. I wont be buying any of their products until they issue a formal apology to the Red Cross and the American people. I call on anyone who reads this to do the same as your patriotic duty.

Until we see American soldiers getting a Johnson and Johnson care package in a war and Johnson and Johnson starts responding to natural disasters, I say to hell with their products.

Contact this unpatriotic company and let them know how you feel here.

http://www.jnj.com/contact_us/index.htm

Also I've begun contacting those that sale their products. Eckerd's, WalGreens, and CVS have been contacted so far, and I'll begin working on Grocery Store Chains as well.

UPDATE: More info about this can be found here.

Greenwald lays into John Yoo

2007-07-26T03:20:00.000-07:00

The Flip-Flopping partisanship of Yoo exposed here.

You get him Glenn.

The Last Real Reporter?

2007-06-29T05:59:00.001-07:00

Gleen Greewald interviews with Helen Thomas

Excerpt:

HT: Two weeks after he became President in the first term, President Bush dropped into our press room, and held an impromptu news conference. He went down the front row, and I was sitting in the front row, and every reporter asked about his pending tax cuts.

But when he got to me, I said: "Mr. President, why don't you respect the wall between church and state?" And he said: "I do," and I said: "No, sir, you don't. Otherwise you would not establish, for the first time in history, a religious office in the White House." And he drew back, and I said: "you're secular." So we had this dialogue.

That afternoon, I got a call from Ari Fleisher, the White House Press Secretary, saying: "What's the idea of blindsiding the President"?

I like a reporter who will blindside the President, whether I agree with a President or not, they should be accountable for all their policies at all times, not just what they want to be held accountable for and when.

A Conservative wants to Impeach Cheney

2007-06-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

From Slate we have this story.

Excerpt:

Under Dick Cheney, the office of the vice president has been transformed from a tiny acorn into an unprecedented giant oak. In grasping and exercising presidential powers, Cheney has dulled political accountability and concocted theories for evading the law and Constitution that would have embarrassed King George III. The most recent invention we know of is the vice president's insistence that an executive order governing the handling of classified information in the executive branch does not reach his office because he also serves as president of the Senate. In other words, the vice president is a unique legislative-executive creature standing above and beyond the Constitution. The House judiciary committee should commence an impeachment inquiry. As Alexander Hamilton advised in the Federalist Papers, an impeachable offense is a political crime against the nation. Cheney's multiple crimes against the Constitution clearly qualify.

Personally an impeachment trail is not the one I really want to see Cheney brought to, I prefer a criminal one. But maybe its best if this doesn't happen while Bush still has the power to grant pardons.

The VP, his attorney and Presidential Power

2007-06-26T03:09:00.000-07:00

This article from the Washington Post, is the best summation I've seen about these issues and the Executive branch process, figured I'd share. I thought even those here who don't share my views of these acts might want to read about the processes and workings of the Executive branch.

I Agree Mr. President But.....

2007-05-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

I agree with the President that it has been drug out for political reasons, but.... that has alot to do with DOJ footdragging and a lack of cooperation by the Whitehouse in providing documentation and witnesses to testify under oath. If the Whitehouse and DOJ had been more forthcoming and cooperative this affair may have already been concluded. Yet for political reasons this cooperation and disclosure has been denied. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Harry Reid Scores!

2007-05-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

No more dodging Senate confirmation on political appointees for the Bush administration. Read here.

I hope the practice is continued after 2008 no matter who is elected, the recess appointment process has been abused for too long.

Ron Paul Supporter Fire Back

2007-05-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

A video which expresses Ron Pauls real argument, and not the "Strawman" that Rudy Giulaini sought to errect.

I'm not for Paul's isolationism, but he brings issues forth that need to be addressed and not answered with rhetoric aimed at avoiding the issue and evoking a 9-11 talking point. Giuliani is desperate to evoke 9-11 as many times as he can to divert the audience from his policies on abortion, gun control, business connections with mafia figures, Saudi Arabia, Hugo Chavez, etc., and his total lack of foreign policy experience.

An Explanation for Partisanship?

2007-05-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

From babylon 5

Retired Gen. John Batiste on Iraq

2007-05-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

The Case For GITMO

2007-05-10T20:55:00.001-07:00

From Boston Legal,

hattip Andrew Sullivan

Michele Malkin Fearmongerer

2007-05-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

From the New York Post Michelle Malking doing what she is know for read here.

Except:

Eight years ago, at the Clinton administration's behest, this nation welcomed refugees escaping a genocidal regime whose military spread fear and brutalized its people. Eight years later, we have a homegrown jihad plot targeting a base that symbolizes the best, the brightest and the most compassionate our military has to offer.

I invite Malkin to show a connection between these refugees and the terrorist suspects of Ft. Dix. other than the fact that they are of the same racial mix. She should show where these despicable men were admited under the government program, or how they were given these kindnesses and betrayed our trust.

There is one problem however, she can't because these are illegal aliens who were not part of that program. She tries to point the finger and say that no matter what kindnesses we do for these people they are likely to stab us in the back and ties the tens of thousands of refugees who legally arrived here due to the kindness of the American people in with terrorist. Its simply balderdash and inflamatory fear mongering propaganda from Malkin. I wonder what she would have done during World War II when people looked at her Asian ancestory and wondered if she were a sabeteur, because she sure sounds like the people who condoned the Japanese American internment camps with this piece of propaganda.

Olbermann: Giuliani and the Politics of Fear

2007-05-02T00:48:00.000-07:00

Olberman is spot on. A shame, Rudy is probably the closest a Republican candidate will come to my views on many social issues. But National Security, a sense of democrcracy without fear mongering, decency, and integrity come first. I'm going back to McCain, hes experienced, stands strong on the terrorist issues and understands bipartisanship and what it takes to bring a divided nation together rather than throw out words that keep us apart.

----------------

In other news Terrorism incidents are up. Read here.

I wonder how much higher Rudy thinks they would be with a Democrat as president.....

McCain making good sense again.

2007-04-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

Fox News interviews John McCain and its beginning to look like the Straight-talk express may be back on track. Good answers about government, McCain-Feingold, the War on Terror, and all while keeping it free of mud-slinging. I've been a McCain supporter for quite some time and its nice to see him getting back to Straight-talk and away from trying to make a statement about standing behind a failed President, even if the policies he is standing behind are appropriate we need to see the Straight-talker be more than a yes man from time to time and not allow Bush's failures to cast their shadow on him by not doing so.

Excerpts:

WALLACE: Senator, you talked about torture. Former CIA Director Tenet now says that the intelligence that they got from harsh interrogation techniques against some of these big Al Qaida types, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the intelligence they got from them using, reportedly, things like water-boarding, extreme temperatures, was more valuable than all the other CIA and FBI programs.

Were you wrong? I mean, this is the CIA, former CIA director, saying this. Were you wrong to limit what CIA interrogators could do?

J. MCCAIN: A man I admire more than anyone else, General Jack Vessey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, battlefield commission, told me once — he said, "John, any intelligence information we might gain through the use of torture could never, ever counterbalance the image that it does — the damage that it does to our image in the world."

I agree with him. Look at the war in Algeria. Look, the fact is if you torture someone, they're going to tell you anything they think you want to know. It is an affront to everything we stand for and believe in.

It's interesting to me that every retired military officer, whether it be Colin Powell or whether it be former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — everybody who's been in war doesn't want to torture people and think that it's the wrong thing to do. And history shows that.

We cannot torture people and maintain our moral superiority in the world.

WALLACE: But when...

J. MCCAIN: And that's a fact.

WALLACE: But when George Tenet says...

J. MCCAIN: I don't care what George Tenet says. I know what's right. I know what's morally right as far as America's behavior.

WALLACE: But if I may, sir...

J. MCCAIN: Yes, sir.

WALLACE: ... when George Tenet says we saved live through some of these techniques...

J. MCCAIN: I don't accept it. I don't accept that fundamental thesis, because it's never worked throughout history.

Spot on!

----------

WALLACE: Governor Romney, Mitt Romney, outside the Beltway, but obviously an opponent of yours, says that you flipped — said it today, you've flipped on taxes, you've flipped on ethanol, you've flipped on Roe vs. Wade.

First of all, how do you feel about being called a flip-flopper by Mitt Romney?

J. MCCAIN: Well, look, I'm not going to respond to that. I'm simply not going to respond to it. I'm not into that now and I won't respond to it.

Class, it has been so missing from politics lately.

------------

J. MCCAIN: Before we get into any of those specifics, you have to know that anyone who gets out front on this issue without sitting down and negotiating with everything on the table will get nowhere.

And so I will do what Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did. I will sit down with the Democrats. We will look at the options on the table. We'll call in the smartest people that we can find, and we'll reach an agreement.

If I take a position on any of those issues right now, one, it doesn't work. And second of all, it's got to be the product of bipartisan negotiations where people sit down across a table from one another.

Bipartisanship, such a lovely word, and McCain has the history ala Gang of 14 to back it up as more than rhetoric.

The complete interview is here

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

2007-04-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Lee Iacocca on Leadership:

Excerpt:

Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

Follow the Link above to read much more scathing criticism from the former Chrysler CEO.

A Falilure in Generalship

2007-04-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

Photo: Failed French General Maurice Gamelin

A friend on a political discussion board posted this article by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling and I just had to post it here.

A Falilure in Generalship

Excerpt:

Having spent a decade preparing to fight the wrong war, America's generals then miscalculated both the means and ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.

I'll do more commentary later as I'm still digesting much of what Yingling writes, but this piece just has that quality that screams TRUTH and is a must read.

Edit:

Added the Maurice Gamelin photo as I am reminded of him.

Gustave-Maurice Gamelin

Gamelin's failures to respond to German aggression directly led to his own country being invaded. Relying overly much on the Maginot Line, he was caught by surprise when the German invaders bypassed the line and attacked through the "impenetrable" Ardennes forest. To make matters worse, he was at best unfamiliar with modern mobile warfare. His mindset was (as with many other prominent world military leaders, of course) that of WW1. "Combat tanks are machine to accompany the infantry", he said to his officers. "In battle, tank units constitute an integral part of the infrantry.... Tanks are only supplementary means.... The progress of the infantry and its seizing of objectives are alone decisive." He was similarly unprepared to deal with the German aerial attacks. "There is no such thing as the aerial battle", he told the French air forces only even after seeing the success of the Luftwaffe in Poland, "there is only the battle on the ground."

I doubt that the US generals were so inept as Gamelin, but rather simialr to those of Gamelin's subordinates who saw past his limited vision but kept their silence with disasterous consequences. Only Rumsfeld deserves to be compared to Gamelin himself.

Buying the War

2007-04-26T16:53:00.001-07:00

Something everyone should watch

Bill Moyers "Buying the War"

Now I think the Democratic plan for a definitive timetable is unwise, I I did and still do support the toppling of the Saddam regime in Iraq through use of US Military force. My reasoning was never based on WMDs or Al Queda ties but upon the attrocities perpetrated on the Iraqi people by Saddam and his failure to comply with UN resolutions. I do think, however, that the American people were intentionally lied to in order to crete the momentum for the war. I have no problem with the War itself, other than the gross mismanagement of it. Had General Shinseki's plan been used instead and competent leadership overseeing it I feel it would have been greatly sucessful. But I have nothing but distain for the administrations "snakeoil" approach to selling the war, and an equal distain for most of the press who bought into it.

Limited Blogging for next 2 weeks

2007-04-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Will be otherwise occupied during most of my spare time till end of the month.

2007-04-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

MSNBC reports:

Spy chief wants expanded powers

McConnell signals more aggressive posture on surveillance authority

Excerpt

According to officials familiar with the draft changes to FISA, McConnell wants to:

Give the NSA the power to monitor foreigners without seeking FISA court approval, even if the surveillance is conducted by tapping phones and e-mail accounts in the United States. “Determinations about whether a court order is required should be based on considerations about the target of the surveillance, rather than the particular means of communication or the location from which the surveillance is being conducted,” NSA Director Keith Alexander told the Senate last year.

Clarify the standards the FBI and NSA must use to get court orders for basic information about calls and e-mails — such as the number dialed, e-mail address, or time and date of the communications. Civil liberties advocates contend the change will make it too easy for the government to access this information.
Triple the life span of a FISA warrant for a non-U.S. citizen from 120 days to one year, allowing the government to monitor much longer without checking back in with a judge.

Give telecommunications companies immunity from civil liability for their cooperation with Bush’s terrorist surveillance program. Pending lawsuits against companies including Verizon and AT&T allege they violated privacy laws by giving phone records to the NSA for the program.

Extend from 72 hours to one week the amount of time the government can conduct surveillance without a court order in emergencies.

McConnell, Alexander and a senior Justice Department official will appear at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on April 17 to discuss whether to amend the FISA law. Chad Kolton, McConnell’s spokesman, declined to comment on the director’s proposals.

-----------------------------

I say give him what he wants with one caveat. The laws need to be clarified and written in stone. Maybe some of these proposed changes would aid them in their work and help protect citizens.

The one caveat? Have a congressional oversight committee have the very same rights in regard to their offices and homes. If there is the least suspicion they were overstepping their rights, this group could bug their offices, break into their homes and offices and retrieve computer files etc. And use any such evidence for criminal proceedings if they were in violation of the clarified new law. Seems fair.

The 5th and The Truth

2007-04-07T01:38:00.000-07:00

The NYT reports on Monica Goodling's resignation

Excerpt:

Democrats had hoped that Ms. Goodling would provide details about the role of Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to President Bush, in the firings of the prosecutors. After refusing to testify, she also declined a Democratic invitation to answer questions in a private interview.

“Attorney General Gonzales’s hold on the department gets more tenuous each day,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a member of the judiciary panel, said this afternoon. He has been among the most persistent critics of Mr. Gonzales.

---------------------

Maybe it was the pressure she didn't want to deal with, maybe she was hiding something, or maybe it was the asking of whether she would also take the Fifth regarding the internal Justice Department investigation.

Remember the comment of Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School:

"It's a very clever question, because if she does not invoke the Fifth [for the internal Justice Department investigation], then she obviously has a fundamental contradiction in her legal position. She would basically be saying that despite having a high-ranking position in the Justice Department, she will not cooperate with a coequal branch... Congress has oversight responsibiilty over the Justice Department, over Monica Goodling. It would be an obvious contradiction with her job description."

Maybe that's why this has never happened before. "I believe she might be the first sitting Justice Department official in history to invoke the Fifth." Normally, he said, "the price of invoking the Fifth in this context would have been to end her career in government service."

That seems the most likely to me, but it could well be either of the other two individually or in conjunction with this third reason. One thing is certain, and that is finding out her version of events will likely prove more difficult if not impossible. As long as she is on firm legal ground I can't fault her for taking the 5th, it is her undeniable right, it just doesn't help the image of the department, or the American people's trust in our justice system.

Unfortunately, if she is innocent of wrongdoing there could well be a temptation of anyone who did act improperly to blame it on her, a price I guess she is prepared to pay. They say the Truth will set you free", but in the case of politics that seems not to apply according to Goodling's lawyer, I'm not convinced.

I still think that if her testimony becomes needed, the Congress should offer her immunity and ask her to testify, she could still refuse but her motives would become even more suspect if she did.

Bush Outfoxes Congress....or Not

2007-04-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

More partisan maneuvering *sigh*

From Mary Ann Akers at the Washington post on the President's recess appointment of Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium.

Excerpt:

To fight the Fox appointment, Democrats are questioning the Bush administration's plan to have Fox serve in a voluntary capacity -- receiving no pay for his duties as ambassador. This is an important legal technicality, as federal law prohibits "payment of services" for certain recess appointments. However, if the recess appointee in question agrees that he or she will take an unpaid position and not sue the government at a later date for compensation, then the appointment can go forward, at least as the White House sees it.

So as long as Fox -- a multi-millionaire -- agreed not to sue the Bush administration later for not paying him, the White House would be comfortable with giving him an unpaid, "voluntary service" recess appointment as ambassador to Belgium.

But here's the rub that makes Democrats view Bush's recess appointment of Fox as a major-league no-no: Federal law prohibits "voluntary service" in cases where the position in question has a fixed rate of pay, as an ambassadorship does. That's how the Government Accountability Office, an arm of the Democratic-controlled Congress, interprets the law.

In other words, according to senior Democratic Senate aides, the salary is a "statutory entitlement" and cannot be waived. While Fox would not be receiving a salary, he would still be entitled to live in government-owned housing and receive other benefits due any ambassador.

"How to reconcile this clear conflict between the pay restriction, which says that Fox cannot be paid, with the voluntary services provision, which says that the State Department cannot accept voluntary services from Fox?" queried one senior Democratic aide who asked for anonymity to speak frankly about the matter.

"That is the $64,000 question," he added.

---------------------

At a time when America could use some good willed bipartisanship, the administration continues to antagnonize the Democrats, and while I respect their desire to fight back over this, I just have to wonder is it really worth the fight this time? It isn't like the Ambassador to Belgium is likely to make a huge impact in the next year an a half.

Accountabilty is Due

2007-04-04T02:24:00.000-07:00

George W. Bush VFW Speech - August 21, 2000

“The facts are stark and the facts are real. . . Our men and women in uniform love their country more than their comfort. They have never failed us, and we must not fail them. But the best intentions and the highest morale are undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness.”

". . .these are signs of a military in decline and we must do something about it. The reasons are clear. Lack of equipment and material. Undermaning of units. Overdeployment. Not enough time for family. Soldiers who are on food stamps, and soldiers who are poorly housed. Dick Cheney and I have a simple message today for our men and women in uniform, their parents, their loved ones, their supporters: Help is on the way!"

"A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam. When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming."

"To build morale in today’s United States military we must keep faith with those who have worn the uniform in the past. We must keep faith with America’s veterans. . . And keeping faith also means giving our veterans first-rate health care and treating the veterans with dignity. . . So chaotic is the process there is now a backlog of nearly one half-million claims. This is no way to treat any citizen, much less a veteran of our armed forces. The veterans health-care system and the claims process will be modernized, so that claims are handled in a fair and friendly way."

"In my Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs will act as an advocate for veterans seeking benefit claims, not act as an adversary. Veterans who once stood in the line of fire to protect our freedom should not have to stand in the line of a bureaucracy that is unwilling to help them in their claims."

—George W. Bush VFW Speech - August 21, 2000
----------------------

His own words, he must be held accountable

hattip Bushfailed

3 cheers for Coburn, 3 Boos for Coleman, Lott and McConnell

2007-04-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Robert Novak reports

GOP Switchers

GOP switchers The Senate's top two Republicans, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip Trent Lott, voted against their GOP colleagues Wednesday on a motion to cut extraneous spending from the Iraq emergency appropriations bill. They did so to help Sen. Norm Coleman, who faces a tough run for re-election from Minnesota next year.

The motion by reform Sen. Tom Coburn would have eliminated $100 million to provide security for the 2008 national party conventions. With Republicans meeting in Minneapolis, Coleman (a former mayor of St. Paul) made a strong pitch to retain the money.

The Coburn amendment was supported by 37 of the 49 Republican senators. But McConnell and Lott opposed it for Coleman's sake. It lost, 51-45.

Nothing Creates Bi-Partisanship Like Corruption

2007-04-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reposts on some unusual support for Congressman Willian Jefferson.

Excerpt:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), former House minority leader Robert
Michel (R-Ill.) and Scott Palmer, former chief of staff for Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), are among those who have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, backing Jefferson's argument that the controversial FBI raid on his office last May was unconstitutional.

Gingrich was forced to resign over ethics issues, and Palmer got ousted over the Mark Foley cover-up, is it any wonder these guys can identify with "Dollar Bill" Jefferson? At least Michel seems to have a less suspect motivation.

Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes

2007-04-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

From the Museuem of Hoaxes:

Here is an example:

.#20: 15th Annual New York City April Fool’s Day ParadeIn 2000 a news release was sent to the media stating that the 15th annual New York City April Fool's Day Parade was scheduled to begin at noon on 59th Street and would proceed down to Fifth Avenue. According to the release, floats in the parade would include a "Beat 'em, Bust 'em, Book 'em" float created by the New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle police departments. This float would portray "themes of brutality, corruption and incompetence." A "Where's Mars?" float, reportedly built at a cost of $10 billion, would portray missed Mars missions. Finally, the "Atlanta Braves Baseball Tribute to Racism" float would feature John Rocker who would be "spewing racial epithets at the crowd." CNN and the Fox affiliate WNYW sent television news crews to cover the parade. They arrived at 59th Street at noon only to discover that there was no sign of a parade, at which point the reporters realized they had been hoaxed. The prank was the handiwork of Joey Skaggs, an experienced hoaxer. Skaggs had been issuing press releases advertising the nonexistent parade every April Fool's Day since 1986.

New Google TiSP

2007-04-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

Free Broadband like you never imagined. Check out Google TiSP.

The South Could Sing A Different Note

2007-03-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

MSNBC reports on the issue of whether or not the 1956 Disney film "Song of the South should be re-released.

Excerpt:

But the movie remains hidden in the Disney archives — never released on video in the United States and criticized as racist for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. The film’s 60th anniversary passed last year without a whisper of official rerelease, which is unusual for Disney, but President and CEO Bob Iger recently said the company was reconsidering. The film’s reissue would surely spark debate, but it could also sell big. Nearly 115,000 people have signed an online petition urging Disney to make the movie available, and out-of-print international copies routinely sell online for $50 to $90, some even more than $100.

I grew up in the South and saw this film as a young child, seeing nothing wrong with it at that early age and not reconizing the signifigance of the issue involved at that time. Now, however I see how it could be taken in a negative sense, with its depictation of african-americans as happy servants and such. That being said, I see no reason to hide from history and try to pretend that it never happened, these things need to be brought out into the open to be seen and to be discussed. If "political correctness" is used to stifle discussion then the open mindedness that the PC movements wish to cultivate is swept under the rug with everything else.

What is needed is the re-release of this historic film, but it not need be released as is, this is a perfect opportunity to put it in its historic context. Imagine an opening commentary by a well respected black history specialist or a leader from the NAACP who could point out the good and questionable qualities of the film. Such an opportunity would be very informative and when placed along with the film itself provide a context that could easily be viewed. Instead of criticism of such a release, black leaders should work with Disney to capitalize on the opportunity and make the movie sing an all new tune in harmony with modern times.

But such commentary should not merely denounce any racist undertones of the film, but should also point out the films merits. The stories told for example were not the invention of slave owners, but of the slaves and former slaves themselves, and are as much a part of black history and heritage as the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and should be embraced as such, rather than being attacked as racist expressions. Yes "tar baby" can be incredibly racist and insensitive, but it is not such of its own accord, just by its usage. So when Uncle Remus tells his tales in the movie, he is not promoting racism, but instead demonstrating how intelligence can overcome a difficult problem as in the case of the briar patch as opposed to how unthinking reaction will get you deeper into trouble as in the part about of the tar baby, lessons that trancend the rascist backdrop of the era.

We must take the good and seperate it from the bad in our own minds, and use the thoughful commentary of experts to aid in this. Should we sweep everything under the rug, we lose much history and heritage and lose the chance to learn from the past, as a lesson is to be learned from both its good and bad points.

The 5th Labor

2007-03-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan report on Political profiling and partisanship.

Excerpt:

Data* indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops.

The Bush administration has put a cloud of doubt over the Justice Department that will take years to dispel. Given the importance of the Rule of Law to our way of government, this greatly tarnishes our society as a whole. The only way to revive the confidence of the American people will be non-partisan investigations with full cooperation and tranparency from government officials. Anything less will do little to restore the lost faith of Americans in government anytime soon.

I am reminded of the 5th labor of Hercules,to clean the Augean stables in a single day. The amount of dirt and filth amassed in the uncleaned stables made the task surely impossible. However, Heracles succeeded by rerouting the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash out the filth.

We need a Herculean effort, and shovels wont do to clean out the filth in government, we need to start diverting rivers and clean out the mess in one big rush, if we try to do it piecemeal it will only, like the stables, recreate itself.

Hypocracy

2007-03-31T04:48:00.000-07:00

The White House is at the partisan game yet again, Think Progress repost on Republican trips to Syria that have recieved no White House criticisms.

Excerpt:

Here’s what the White House isn’t talking about:
Republican Reps. Aderholt and Wolf are currently visiting Syria. According to a congressional official on Rep. Robert Aderholt’s (R-AL) staff, Aderholt and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) are currently visiting Israel and Syria.

Republican Rep. Hobson accompanying Pelosi on Syria visit. Speaker Pelosi will be traveling with a contingent of members of Congress to Syria. The delegation includes Reps. David Hobson (R-OH), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Tom Lantos (D-CA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Nick Rahall (D-WV)

Moreover, as the AP reports, “Earlier this month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey held talks with a senior Syrian diplomat on how Damascus was coping with a flood of Iraqi refugees, the first such talks in the Syrian capital for more than two years.”

Do they really think that they can get away with such blatant hypocracy and not be called about it? If his approval rating was 60% he might....maybe.

The Daily Dish Out

2007-03-30T05:56:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan lays into David Brook's NYT column at his bolg at the Daily Dish. This is pure gold so no short excerpts this time but a full posting of Sullivan:

Fisking Brooks

It's been a while since I did a good fisking, but David Brooks' column today angered up the blood. He's a friend. I mean no personal animus. He's a good guy. But I think he is deeply, deeply wrong about what ails conservatism. David's column is in italics. (Sullivan's are in bold, my addition for easier reading) My responses aren't:

There is an argument floating around Republican circles that in order to win again, the G.O.P. has to reconnect with the truths of its Goldwater-Reagan glory days. It has to once again be the minimal-government party, the maximal-freedom party, the party of rugged individualism and states' rights. This is folly. It's the wrong diagnosis of current realities and so the wrong prescription for the future.

So far, nothing but rhetoric and cliches from David. "Rugged individualism"? Why the "rugged"? Why not just freedom to live one's life as one chooses, as opposed to the way in which David's allies in the religious and authoritarian right want to boss us around?

Back in the 1970s, when Reaganism became popular, top tax rates were in the 70s, growth was stagnant and inflation was high. Federal regulation stifled competition. Government welfare policies enabled a culture of dependency. Socialism was still a coherent creed, and many believed the capitalist world was headed toward a Swedish welfare model.

In short, in the 1970s, normal, nonideological people were right to think that their future prospects might be dimmed by a stultifying state. People were right to believe that government was undermining personal responsibility. People were right to have what Tyler Cowen, in a brilliant essay in Cato Unbound, calls the 'liberty vs. power' paradigm burned into their minds — the idea that big government means less personal liberty.

But bigger government always means less personal liberty. This is simply a fact, not an opinion. The trade-off is always there. It may be worth it in some instances - which is why I'm not a libertarian. But it is simply true that every dollar taken by the government is one dollar less for you and me to spend on what we decide is best; every freedom removed or infringed by the government is one less for you and me to enjoy. You can defend the trade-off, and should at times, but please don't pretend it isn't there.

I'm a small government Goldwater conservative, but I think compulsory high school education is worth the trade-off of freedom. I think universal healthcare insurance is an infringement of liberty, but since we have committed to providing emergency healthcare for all, it's a trade-off worth making for fiscal and moral reasons. Small government conservatives don't want to abandon government. We want it small - but strong and focused on what government really ought to do. And we have learned from experience that the bigger government is, the less effective it often is; and the more confusing and massive it is, the less accountable it is.

We currently have a government planning to go to Mars, heal broken marriages, and build bridges to nowhere - and also one that cannot wage a war competently, cannot respond to a hurricane adequately, and cannot enforce borders. Is it too much to ask that it get the basic things right before embarking on grandiose schemes to make us all feel more secure in amorphous ways? The lesson of our time is the utter incompetence and dysfunction of government at all levels. The solution to this is not to enlarge government, but to remove from it what it shouldn't be doing, and focus like a laser beam on getting it to work right on the essential tasks no private entity can do.

But today, many of those old problems have receded or been addressed. Today the big threats to people's future prospects come from complex, decentralized phenomena: Islamic extremism, failed states, global competition, global warming, nuclear proliferation, a skills-based economy, economic and social segmentation.

And more government is the answer to all this? "Complex, decentralized phenomena" require clumsy, bureaucratic big government to solve them? When did David Brooks become a closet liberal? (Answer: in the 1990s.) What we desperately need is smaller, better government: a more effective use of military and intelligence to contain and deter Islamist terror, freer trade, effective education (which is best innovated at a local not federal level), a simple, serious carbon tax to foment private sector innovation in new energy technology, and shrewder diplomacy. This isn't big government. A Reaganite government could do all these things, after tackling the middle class welfare state that is slowly strangling the capacity of government to operate solvently at all.

Normal, nonideological people ...

Please. This is a straw man. Everyone who differs from David is ideological and abnormal?

... are less concerned about the threat to their freedom from an overweening state than from the threats posed by these amorphous yet pervasive phenomena. The 'liberty vs. power' paradigm is less germane. It's been replaced in the public consciousness with a 'security leads to freedom' paradigm. People with a secure base are more free to take risks and explore the possibilities of their world.

I'm sorry, but the security-before-freedom is and has always been central to small government conservatism, not the Christianist-dominated welfare state Bush has created and Brooks helped defend. None of us who believe in maximal freedom and minimum government believe the government should not be dedicated to security. In fact, it's the over-extension of government that has helped take its focus off security. I'd love to end farm subsidies, pork, the mortgage deduction, and to means-test social security - and spend the money saved on securing our ports and borders, rebuilding hollowed out necessities like FEMA, increasing the size of the military, and providing universal health coverage through the private sector. And all of that is compatible with small government conservatism.

People with secure health care can switch jobs more easily. People who feel free from terror can live their lives more loosely. People who come from stable homes and pass through engaged schools are free to choose from a wider range of opportunities.

But government has no business and no competence in creating "stable homes". That's the role of families, churches, local leaders, relatives, synagogues, mosques and all the institutions of civil society that David seems to want to be replaced or guided by government. Brooks "national greatness" isn't conservatism; and it never was. It's statism, overlayed with religious sanctimony and imperial ambitions.

The 'security leads to freedom' paradigm is a fundamental principle of child psychology, but conservative think tankers and activists have been slow to recognize the change in their historical circumstance. All their intellectual training has been oriented by the 'liberty vs. power' paradigm. (Postwar planning in Iraq was so poor because many in the G.O.P. were not really alive to the truth that security is a precondition for freedom.)

Well yes on the latter. But providing basic law and order is not what we are discussing in America. I might add I find it amazing that in an era when habeas corpus has been suspended for many, when the government is wire-tapping phones without a warrant, when U.S. citizens are "disappeared" without charges for several years, and when torture has been introduced as a legal government tool, David is actually charging that the problem with the liberty vs power paradigm is that it is outdated?? It has never been more relevant. It is Brooks who is stuck in the past - some time in the late 1990s when the intellectual experiment that created the Bush administration was in its infancy. The authors of that experiment should, to my mind, be leery of venturing out in public, not defending "no U-turns" in Bush conservatism.

The general public, which is less invested in abstract principles, has been quicker to grope its way toward the new mental framework. As a Pew poll released last week indicated, the public has not lost its suspicion of big government. Most Americans believe government regulation does more harm than good. But they do think government should be more active in redressing segmentation and inequality. Almost all corporations, including Wal-Mart, have extraordinarily high approval ratings. But voters are clearly anxious about globalization.

The Republican Party, which still talks as if government were the biggest threat to choice, has lost touch with independent voters. Offered a choice between stale Democrats and stale Republicans, voters now choose Democrats, who at least talk about economic and domestic security.

Hmmm. I wonder why many Independents have become turned off by the GOP? Could it be that David's project of bringing in a cohort of religious zealots has tarred the GOP as a bunch of intolerant, bossy bigots? Could it be that the massive spending, debt and entitlement splurge has alienated fiscal conservatives in the Perot mode? Nah. It's the libertarians fault, isn't it? In my view, the obvious reason voters now pick Democrats is the astonishingly awful legacy - foreign and domestic - of Republican power under the aegis of Brooks's philosophy. If you have to choose between two big government parties, dedicated to taking care of everyone, why not pick the brand that knows how to do it and actually believes in it? And the one that isn't patently mean-spirited toward gays, immigrants, and non-evangelicals?

The Bush Republicans, following David's advice, have exploded spending, loaded massive debt onto the next generation, taken pork to record levels, and passed a biggest new entitlement since the Great Society. They've increased spending faster than anyone since FDR. Meanwhile their actual effective governance has been a shambles. Of course voters prefer Democrats when they have to pick between fundamentalist, insolvent, incompetent big government and secular, solvent big government. I sure would.

The Democrats have a 15 point advantage in voter identification. Voters prefer Democratic economic policies by 14 points, Democratic tax policies by 15 points, Democratic health care policies by 24 points and Democratic energy policies by 20 points. If this is a country that wants to return to Barry Goldwater, it is showing it by supporting the policies of Dick Durbin.

No, they're simply registering that the Brooks experiment in turning the GOP into a religious, statist party for cronies and incompetents has been a disaster for Republicanism and a catastrophe for conservatism. Given no true conservative alternative, voters have gone back to the Dems. Brooks was an intellectual architect of both visions - massive intervention abroad, and warmed-over socialism at home. No wonder the conservative coalition has fallen apart, and people are now backing Democrats.

The sad thing is that President Bush sensed this shift in public consciousness back in 1999. Compassionate conservatism was an attempt to move beyond the 'liberty vs. power' paradigm. But because it was never fleshed out and because the Congressional G.O.P. rejected the implant, a new Republican governing philosophy did not emerge.

The classic dodge: national greatness conservatism - big spending at home, big wars abroad - wasn't tried and therefore didn't fail. Please. It was tried, David, with bells on, and it has failed so spectacularly you need glasses with neocon thickness not to see it. In fact, its manifest failure may consign conservatism to the political wilderness for a generation - and has deeply increased the security dangers America now faces.

The party is going to have to make another run at it. As it does, it will have to shift mentalities. The 'security leads to freedom' paradigm doesn't end debate between left and right, it just engages on different ground. It is oriented less toward negative liberty (How can I get the government off my back?) and more toward positive liberty (Can I choose how to lead my life?).

Goldwater and Reagan were important leaders, but they're not models for the future.

And Bush and Cheney are? I know who I'd pick. Until the GOP thoroughly purges itself of the impulses of the Bush era - impulses enabled and supported by Brooks - they're finished. And they deserve to be.

---------------------------
Andrew, you can be one of my 300 Spartans anyday, you've definately got the warrior spirit and a distain for partisanship. A well done frisking of a well deserving piece. I share your view of Conservatism and mourn for the direction that my party has taken since the days of Goldwater and Reagan.

Should Churches Be Taxed?

2007-03-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

While looking into this issue a bit I can across an interesting idea at Blogcritics Magazine on the subject from back in 2004:

Excerpt:

I believe that the tax-exempt status of a religious institution should be proportional to its nondenominational charitable activities.

For example, a church that spends money on fancy cars for its preacher should be taxed on those expenses. A church that runs a soup kitchen but requires its beneficiaries to pray for their supper should have to pay tax on the portion of its income used to run that soup kitchen. A church that owns its building and uses the facility for both worship services and charitable deeds should be taxed according to a formula, the same way a person can deduct home office expenses from his income taxes. Better financial minds than mine could come up with the formula.

I like this idea as it does not punish purely non-profit activities, but requires that the profitable ones take up their fair share of the tax burden that the rest of us share. Like the writer I don't profess to be a great financial mind, but I don't think I'd be taxing any soup kitichens just because they charged money. After all they could charge money in these cases and still not be making any profits, and in many cases actually losing money. I would have no problem, however, in taxing them on profits made on such activities after a certain profit margin was reached.

The New International Face Of America

2007-03-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

Michael Young at Reason Magazine profiles of next United Nations Ambassador.

Excerpt:

Describing Khalilzad as a "neoconservative" may be simplistic. In an interview published on Monday to mark Khalilzad's departure from Iraq, the New York Times used the term unhesitatingly. But then one remembers what Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, had to say about the man with whom he worked closely in supporting the Afghan mujahideen between 1979 and 1980: "He is a broad-minded pragmatist and an insightful strategist."

Personally I think he will do a good job. He has a demonstrated record of accomplishment in Afganistan and Iraq under the toughest of conditions. I'm no fan of Neoconservatism, and I don't think Khalilzad really fits into the mold as precisely as some would like to suggest, since he seemed to put reality above idealology in his middle east assignments. Perhaps he is a Neocon mugged by reality. His quiet backroom arm-twisting is what as needed rather than Bolton's abbrassive in your face style. We definately need a bit more arm twisting in that organization given recent developements

The Greatest Show On Earth? No, But I'll Take It.

2007-03-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and Dahlia Lithwick of Slate magazine have upgraded the chances of Attorney general Alberto Gonzales losing his job.

You can read about it here:

Gonzo-MeterAlberto Gonzales, like cheese, stands alone.

Excerpt:

So, it looks like Bob Novak was right when he said that Gonzales stands alone. Oh wait, maybe Bush is still standing behind him—but that doesn't help him all that much, because it seems the president stands alone, too. So there you have it. Two lonely guys and a flushing sound.

You know its bad when the National Review Online tells a Republican appointee that it is Time To Go
Excerpt:

What little credibility Gonzales had is gone. All that now keeps him in office, save the friendship of the president, is the conviction of many Republicans that removing him would embolden the Democrats. It is an overblown fear. The Democrats will pursue scandals, real or invented, whether or not Gonzales stays. But they have an especially inviting target in Gonzales. He cannot defend the administration and its policies even when they deserve defense. Alberto Gonzales should resign. The Justice Department needs a fresh start.

It will be interesting to see what course this scandal runs, and there seems to be question about if it will run or not. Partick Leahy pretty much assured us of that with his announcement yesterday.

"In case anybody's thinking of shortchanging it that way, I have a message for them: We'll finish this investigation before we'll have any confirmation hearings for a new attorney general,"

With the FBI scandal, the GSA slideshow affair, and this scandal going, looks like Congress is running a three ring circus, We will just have to wait and see how talented the animal trainers are, and how many end up getting out of the clown car. I'd really enjoy seeing the administration have to jump through some oversite hoops for a change. Personally I think we may be in for a good performance.

When the Circus comes to town usually there is an elephant walk to start off and draw more viewers, this time is not an exception. I've got my Craker Jack ready and am ready to applaud.

The Ugly Face of Partisanship

2007-03-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

Disgraceful

The place where I first saw this story,TPM Muckraker has more

Political Extremism According to Richard Jeni

2007-03-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

Richard Jeni passed away on March 10th, he will be missed, but he still gives us laughs.

He spares neither the left, the right, or the center. I like it!

Neoconservative Honesty

2007-03-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

A reader of Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish writes:

Excerpt:

However, the biggest single mistake neoconservatives made was that we placed our faith in the abilities of what has turned out to be a singularly incompetent administration. In the mission's basic planning, forecasting, and execution, this administration has almost uniformly made the wrong choices for Iraq's stabilization and progress. What the leftist and media critics get wrong about Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush is that they screwed up by going in halfhearted and without demanding real sacrifice upfront from the American people. Rumsfeld sacked the Chairman of the JCS for speaking honestly and saying correctly that it would take hundreds of thousands of troops over several years to truly "win" Iraq. That should have been a red flag to us all. But conservatives and a lot of moderates rallied around Bush and Co. because of the unfair attacks from the left and the media, whose objectivity was never in evidence, and in doing so we ratified and enabled every bad decision Bush and Co. made in Iraq.

This is nearly identical to what I feel about the situation, and Sullivan says the same. I disagree with the writer on one point, that of an unfair attacks by the left and the media coverage. The coverage was generally supportive of the administration initially, and shifted over time as blunder after blunder was made. If I have one criticism for the press, it was that they were too supportive early on and that a bit more critical reporting post 9-11, pre invasion might have better served the public. The press is biased of course whether your talking CBS or Fox, but there is nothing unfair about them being critical, that is the job of the "watchdog" of government.

But we are in in now, and we need to fix the mess we created, so I'm against a pullout before the job is complete. I don't excuse the administration for getting us into a bad situation, but I don't think the Democrats have the right plan either. I think what we need is not the Democratic solution or the administration (Republican) solution, but something in between, involving no timeline but a set of performance standards that are linked to funding. in all areas except those which relate to protection and care for our soldiers.

The movie 300, the PG version

2007-03-28T03:20:00.000-07:00

I know its a bit silly, but it fits the theme.

The Road Less Traveled

2007-03-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

The NYT reports on the failure of the Senate GOP to have a time line for withdraw attached the the war funding bill

Senate Backs a Pullout Date in Iraq War Bill

A few observations:

The votes of Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith crossing over to the Democratic Party side more than mitigated the departure of Joe Lieberman's crossing to the right side of the aisle. After the election in 2006 many saw Lieberman as being in the driver's seat and playing the role of Kingmaker for legislation. This it turns out is not really the case. His vote on many issues still may well be the pivotal one, but he doesn't occupy that seat alone sharing it for the moment with the two aforementioned GOP senators and Democrat Ben Nelson who had voted against the withdrawal just two weeks ago.

It will be interesting to see if Chuck Hagel is afforded the same warmth from the left that Lieberman has received from the right. Conservatives will surely pile on their criticisms of Hagel, just as Liberals had demonized Lieberman prior to the 2006 election for his stance on the War in Iraq. Additionally it will be interesting to see if right-wing supporters will propose giving Hagel whatever he wants like they claimed the left would have to do for Lieberman's vote.

Finally, will there be a recognition that there is a viable center position that desires a compromise and doesn't see the issue in black and white that most have tried to portray it as and has led to this legislation. If the administration had put in place a little more performance standards for continued funding of some projects, had been less resistant to oversight, or had been a little more up front about the situation from the beginning perhaps that may have been recognized, but now that it has come down to such bitter confrontation will any be able to look past and see the middle course and realize that it is not always a medicine that is reluctantly taken, but the better cure.

The President will most certainly veto any time line bill that reaches his desk, the response of Congress to this will be a lot of finger pointing and accusations, but after that it is uncertain what will occur. Will the White house be willing to compromise to the middle ground, reaching out to the opposition and offering some concessions? Will the Congress offer to remove the time line in exchange for some other concession? I doubt it, but there is always hope.

Robert Frost wrote of the road less traveled:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

The two roads that lie before us are not that of "Stay the Course" and "Cut and Run" they are the roads of "Partisanship" and "Cooperation", and should the one less traveled by be taken, it may well make all the difference.

Partisanship starts with "P", so does "Pork"

2007-03-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

Partisan politics and Pork spending are all tied up together, both based around the need to get elected. Here is a Prime example of a pork laden bill courtesy of Liz Mair at GOP Progress

Liz writes:

What the hell all of this is doing in a defense bill, I have no idea:

$24 million for funding for sugar beets.
$3 million for funding for sugar cane (goes to one Hawaiian co-op).
$20 million for insect infestation damage reimbursements in Nevada, Idaho, and Utah.
$2.1 billion for crop production losses
$1.5 billion for livestock production losses.
$100 million for Dairy Production Losses.
$13 million for Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program.
$32 million for Livestock Indemnity Program.
$40 million for the Tree Assistance Program.
$100 million for Small Agricultural Dependent Businesses.
$6 million for North Dakota flooded crop land.
$35 million for emergency conservation program.
$50 million for the emergency watershed program.
$115 million for the conservation security program.
$18 million for drought assistance in upper Great Plains/South West.
Provision that extends the availability by a year $3.5 million in funding for guided tours of the Capitol. Also a provision allows transfer of funds from holiday ornament sales in the Senate gift shop.
$165.9 million for fisheries disaster relief, funded through NOAA (including $60.4 million for salmon fisheries in the Klamath Basin region).
$12 million for forest service money (requested by the president in the non-emergency FY2008 budget).
$425 million for education grants for rural areas (Secure Rural Schools program).
$640 million for LIHEAP.
$25 million for asbestos abatement at the Capitol Power Plant.
$388.9 million for funding for backlog of old Department of Transportation projects.
$22.8 million for geothermal research and development.
$500 million for wildland fire management.
$13 million for mine safety technology research.
$31 million for one month extension of Milk Income Loss Contract program (MILC)
$50 million for fisheries disaster mitigation fund.
$100 million for security at the Presidential Candidate Nominating Conventions
$2 million for the University of Vermont

Thanks, Democrats...

Liz is right, none of this belongs in a defense bill, the practice of loading bills full of unrelated items to garner support is probably one of the greatest contributors towards partisanship and bad government. Even provisions of bills that wouldn't stand a chance of being passed by themselves suddenly manage to make it through the process and often the Congress has little idea what they are actually voting into law as the smaller items get easily lost in the monsterous mass of documents that such bills end up becoming.

But the blame doesn't go solely to the Democrats, Republicans have been practicing pork for a long time as well. It is just fashionable to hypocritically attack the opposition and hope that the public's memory can't go back a few mere months.

Conservative Land of the Lost

2007-03-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

From Neil Boortz :

WHY PEOPLE THINK CONSERVATIVES ARE IDIOTS

Sorry .. it's true. Liberals love to paint conservatives as being ignorant, stupid, obtuse, mindless, irrational and, on occasion, retarded. For the most part leftists use this "stupid" tactic in order to avoid actually having to intellectually engage with someone who thinks differently than they. After all ... you really don't have to consider the opinions offered by someone who disagrees with you if you can successfully and falsely brand them as ignorant.

Sadly ... many conservatives seem to have dedicated their lives to lending credence to the left's "conservatives are idiots" claim. You will remember several weeks ago I told you about one Georgia Republican (former Democrat) legislator whose campaign chairman sent out some memos and letters promoting legislation to outlaw the teaching of evolution in government schools. The letter referred the reader to the website of "The Fair Education Foundation, Inc." In this website --- and I'm not kidding you here --- you will learn that the Earth stands still in space ... not even rotating ... while the Sun and everything in the universe rotates around the earth every 24 hours. Think I'm kidding? Check it our for yourself.

Well .. there's more. Sunday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells us about another website, this one run by Andrew Schlafly, the son of Phyllis Schlafly. Conservapedia pushes the creationism theme with revelations that dinosaurs and humans roamed the Earth at the same time. You'll also learn that atheism has led to a large increase in bestiality. But once again you'll learn that not only is the Earth standing still, but it's actually flat ... and sitting still in space while everything revolves around it.

Tell me .. how do you counter the "conservatives are ignorant" argument, and how do you manage to recruit more people to the cause of lower taxes, less government and more individual responsibility when you have people running around loose calling themselves conservatives, getting elected to office as conservatives, and running websites as conservatives all the while telling us that the earth does not spin on its axis and does not revolve around the Sun .. and that everything in the known universe revolves around the Earth?

If true conservatives really want to expand their philosophy and mount a sustained movement that just might save individualism, freedom and economic liberty --- they had better jettison these zealot nut-cases .... and FAST.

This all sure makes me glad to be a Libertarian.

Neil is correct, both Liberals and Conservatives love to paint their political opponents in simplistic terms that don't come close to being applicable, but its also the duty of these groups to jettison the members of their group who do fit the description. Maybe with the most extreme of the "moonbats" and "wingnuts" gone from the discussion, a true discourse focusing on open debate and atmosphere of mutual respect and a commitment to get things done can start to become a reality.

There are few Ideas in Idealogues

2007-03-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

The L.A. Times reports on Republicans and global warming, and how the GOP seeks to stifle the debate.

Excerpt:

Meanwhile, Republicans who do believe in global warming get shunted aside. Nicole Gaudiano of Gannett News Service recently reported that Rep. Wayne Gilchrest asked to be on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio refused to allow it unless Gilchrest would say that humans have not contributed to global warming. The Maryland Republican refused and was denied a seat.

Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.), both research scientists, also were denied seats on the committee. Normally, relevant expertise would be considered an advantage. In this case, it was a disqualification; if the GOP allowed Republican researchers who accept the scientific consensus to sit on a global warming panel, it would kill the party's strategy of making global warming seem to be the pet obsession of Democrats and Hollywood lefties.

There you have it, expertise and dissent are pushed aside for ideologues without credentials, and for partisan politics and pandering. The debate on global warming is far from decided, but do we really serve anyones interest by supressing a candid debate.

This also reminds me about the Nancy Pelosi treatment of Jane Harmon regarding the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, where partisanship trumped expertise in a vital area.

Then again supression of ideas is what the partisan politics of the far-left and far-right are all about, why should we be surprised?

Stonewalling

2007-03-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

Gonzales Aide to Invoke Fifth Amendment

Excerpt:

."I have decided to follow my lawyer's advice and respectfully invoke my constitutional right," Monica Goodling, Gonzales' counsel and White House liaison, said in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Looks like someone in the Bush administration has at long last recognized Constitutional Rights.

The Dirty Dozen

2007-03-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

I put up a Roll of Honor earlier to recognize good service, so I figured I'd put up a Dishonor Roll to be its companion. The Roll of Dishonor will focus on those currently serving politicians and officials who really need to go. Since there are so many I decided to only include the top 12. The President and Vice President are exculded from consideration as they were elected by the entire nation.

Roll of Dishonor.

David S. Addington
Kathleen Blanco
Alberto Gonzales
Alcee Hastings
James Inhofe
William Jefferson
Jerry Lewis
Alan Mollohan
Hal Rogers
James Sensenbrenner
Bill Young
Don Young

If you don't know why you should want these people out of office, I wont bother to explain. Just do your own research and come to your own conclusions. You might not agree with all of them, but chances are you will agree with most and want to see at least a couple in jail.

Just say No to the Nanny State

2007-03-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Candy Counter: Georgia Set to Ban Sales of Marijuana-Flavored Lollipops to Kids

Seems incredibly silly to me to outlaw a flavor. The candy does not actually contain any harmful ingredients, so treating it the same as substances that do actually contain items deamed harmful is not a good policy. It should be treated like root beer, another harmless product that simulates drug usage. Don't believe me? just look at all the advertising and the imagery involving foamy mugs of root beer as opposed to glasses of it. No great harm has ever come of this marketing of root beer. Next thing you know a nanny state will seek to ban root beer and toy guns saying that they lead to alcoholism and violent shootings. Barbie will be forced to get breast reduction due to parents being pressured by their teenage daughter that they want breast enhancement surgery. The list could go on and on.

The issue is similar to the complaints about the use of cartoon characters to market to kids. Do kids generally purchase the breakfast cereals on their tables, or the snacks in their lunchboxes? No parents do. The problem isn't with companies advertizing to kids, it with parents who cave into the kids throwing temper tantrums if they can't get the product they want. If parents would actually begin to take responsibility, and take the time to instruct their children about why they do things, lay down the law on who makes the descisions, and discipline the children for improper behavior when they throw tantrums, then and only then will we come anywhere near being able to make a serious impact on these issues.

I don't need the government to protect me from advertising, I'm quite capable of making up my own mind about what I see. Parents should instruct their own kids in morals and good judgement and not rely on the government to do so. They should also be more involved in the lives of their kids and take the time to understand the environment that the kids live in as well as getting together with other parents to collectively address issues in their communities pertaining to the children. There are all sorts of civic and religious groups that can be mobilized for protests and boycotts. If mommy and daddy are too preoccupied with their own lives to do so, they should have thought about that before making babies.

So if your kid buys a pot lollypop and you don't like it, look in the mirror first.

The Honor Roll

2007-03-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

The Honor Roll is a place where I plan to recognize currently serving Politicians and Government officials that I think have done well in serving our nation in one regard or another. The list will likely add and drop members as time goes on.

Being on the list doesn't mean I agree with them on every issue, in fact I oppose some of the views of these folkes passionately, but I think their presence in office has been of great benefit overall. There are sure to be a few on my list that will ruffle anyones feathers no matter what their political orientation, that tells me the list is a good one.

Honor Roll

Robert Byrd
Tom Coburn
Thad Cochran
Kent Conrad
Susan Collins
Russ Feingold
Jeff Flake
Lindsey Graham
Daniel Inouye
Walter Jones
Jon Kyl
Mary Landrieu
Joe Lieberman
Carl Levin
Richard Lugar
John McCain
Ben Nelson
Mark Pryor
Ken Salazar
Olympia Snowe
Arlen Specter
John Warner

D.H. Lawrence on Ben Franklin

2007-03-26T04:50:00.000-07:00

From Michael P.F. van der Galien's blog comes a thought provoking
piece D.H. Lawrence on Benjamin Franklin.

Excerpt:

"The perfectibility of man, dear God! When every man as long as he remains alive is in himself a multitude of conflicting men. Which of these do you choose to perfect, at the expense of every other?"

Just like men, institutions are multitudes of conflicting men. Do the faces which they seek to project really recognize the inner working?

Ranking the Presidents

2007-03-26T03:36:00.000-07:00

John Silveira posted a great article in Backwoods Home Magazine back in 1998 entitled "Who were the best...and worst U.S. Presidents? " which approaches the issue from a different point of view than that of most partisan commentary.

excerpt:

“If you want an activist President, you’re probably a Democrat,” he said, “although you may also be a modern-day Republican. If you want a President who leaves the people alone, you’re probably an old-time Republican, a 19th century Democrat, or—and this is more likely—a modern-day Libertarian.”

"Molon labe !"

2007-03-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

Place: Ancient Greece, the pass of Thermopylae
Time: 480 BC

Situation:

An Army of Persians under Xerxes, king of Persia, seeks to subjudgate all Greece under his rule leading an army over a million strong face off against a force of just over 5,000 Greeks spearheaded by 300 Spartans under Leonidas defending their homeland. Xerxes has just asked the Greeks to give up the fight and surrender their weapons.

Leonidas responds:

Μολὼν λαβέ (Molan labe), "Come and take them!"

Place: The United Stes of America
Time: 2007 AD

Situation:

Partisan politics has taken over good governance with the two major political parties squared off in an adversarial role, each trying the gather as many as possible under their banner to make political war on the other. Those both outside and inside the groups are asked by the warring elements of each to put aside their deeply held convictions and support one side or the other without reservation on all points.

The response is still the same

Μολὼν λαβέ

And thus a blog is born.