What body parts would MSNBC producers sell for the audio?
Forget the Bush administration's bungling in Pakistan or their pending war against Iran ... Barack Obama called Bill Clinton today (by phone)! And having told the Democratic nominee to "kiss his ass," according to "sources," you've got to figure that convo had a lot of pauses ...
Okay, here's my transcript:
OBAMA: Hey, Bubba...
BIG BILL: Hey.
OBAMA: So ... what's goin' on?
BIG BILL: ... nothin' ... what's up with you?
OBAMA: Oh, nothing ... just, trying to get into the White House.
BIG BILL: Yeah ... I've heard. So what's up?
OBAMA: Uh... nothing much ... just wanted to see how it's going...
BIG BILL: It's going... gonna make Hillary the VP?
OBAMA: Well ...
BIG BILL: You don't have to answer that.
OBAMA: Thanks... so ... we cool?
BIG BILL: Yeah, we cool... but I want my pimp card back.
OBAMA: Oh, no doubt. It's all you, Bubba. And you can keep Bob Johnson, too.
Barack Obama takes a (not that big) step away from General Clark ... and John McCain goes to, of all people, a former member of the ironically-named "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth" to carry his response water. Huh??? Day, on a conference call today for McCain's new "military service truth squad," wasted no time doing what he does best: denigrating the service of a fellow Vietnam vet:
Defending McCain's service, Day was quick to personalize his remarks.
"Things were very difficult for [McCain]," he said. "He was horribly wounded in his extremities, and it was questionable if he would survive his experience. He set a high standard for himself because the Vietnamese tried to release him and he showed courage by refusing that to come about. We had an opportunity to watch a president in office, a Democrat who was extremely ineffective during those years. [McCain] learned an awful lot from that... General Clark spent a month in Vietnam, got badly wounded and was evacuated, that was his experience. I say let's hold the two of them up and compare them."
That Day would politicize Vietnam in his defense of McCain is not surprising. During the 2004 campaign, he said of Kerry: "My view is he basically will go down in history sometime as the Benedict Arnold of 1971." And after appearing in a national advertisement for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, Day formed the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, an extension of the Swift Boat effort.
Obama's chief spokesman, Bill Burton, meanwhile, issued the following statement about Clark's comments:
"As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark."
Yeah, except that Clark didn't smear John McCain, and what he said is accurate -- simply being a combat veteran, or even a war hero, doesn't qualify you to be president. Nor does it predispose the public to choose you as their commander in chief. Just ask Bob Dole, or George McGovern, whose war service was of no practicable use to them in getting elected. Besides, for all of Bud Day's politicking, Wes Clark spent 34 years in the U.S. military, commanding men and women in the field, in wartime. I think I trust his assessment on this one over a slimeball like Bud Day's. Translation: don't mess with the General.
Related: Any former fellow Clarkies out there, give me an email holla!
Gen. Wes Clark's comments on CBS over the weekend about John McCain's lack of combat experience is getting a lot of media play. During an interview with Bob Schieffer, Clark said of McCain:
“Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,” Clark replied.
For all the sturm and drang over those comments, all Clark was saying is that McCain, though a war hero, has no actual command or executive experience. The full context, from the show transcript:
SCHIEFFER: ... General. You heard what Senator Lieberman said. He said that Barack Obama is simply more ready to be president than Barack Obama.
General WESLEY CLARK (Retired; Obama Supporter): Well, I think--I think Joe has it exactly backwards here. I think being president is about having good judgment, it's about the ability to communicate. As one of the great presidential historians, Richard Neustadt, said, `The greatest power of the presidency is the power to persuade.' And what Barack Obama brings is incredible communication skills, proven judgment. You look at his meteoric rise in politics and you see a guy who deals with people well, who understands issues, who brings people together and who has good judgment in moving forward. And I think what we need to do, Bob, is we need to stop talking about the old politics of left and right and we need to pull together and move the country forward. And I think that's what Barack Obama will do for America.
SCHIEFFER: Well, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, "untested and untried." And I must say, I had to read that twice, because you're talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war, he was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy, he's been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is untested and untried, General?
Gen. CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk, it's a matter of gauging your opponents and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, `I don't know whether we're going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly?'
SCHIEFFER: Well...
Gen. CLARK: He hasn't made those calls, Bob. So...
SCHIEFFER: Well, General, maybe--could I just interrupt you?
Gen. CLARK: Sure.
SCHIEFFER: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean...
Gen. CLARK: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.
Clark knows of what he speaks. He HAS had command experience -- he commanded NATO for god's sakes. I think he's qualified to make the comment. Even more context: Clark's interview followed on in which the odious Joe Lieberman predicted a 2009 terror attack.
A nearly 700-page study released Sunday by the Army found that "in the euphoria of early 2003," U.S.-based commanders prematurely believed their goals in Iraq had been reached and did not send enough troops to handle the occupation.
President George W. Bush's statement on May 1, 2003, that major combat operations were over reinforced that view, the study said.
It was written by Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese of the Combat Operations Study Team at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., who said that planners who requested more troops were ignored and that commanders in Baghdad were replaced without enough of a transition and lacked enough staff.
... The report said that the civilian and military planning for a post-Saddam Iraq was inadequate, and that the Army should have pushed the Joint Chiefs of Staff for better planning and preparation. Retired military leaders, members of Congress, think tanks and others have already concluded that the occupation was understaffed.
The U.S. combat death toll so far: 4,113. This story, combined with the New York Times piece on the Bush administration's failures in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, should combine for a powerful critique of the Bush foreign policy doctrine -- one which John McCain is pushing to extend. McCain has surrounded himself with the same neocon advisors who pushed for the Iraq invasion, and who underestimated its difficulty (as did the candidate himself.) Not a good look.
Back to the U.S. military, and its superb penchant for introspection, as pointed out by the Times article. That introspection also extended to the issue of torture, where we pick things up with Salon.com:
The former Air Force general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, helped quash dissent from across the U.S. military as the Bush administration first set up a brutal interrogation regime for terrorism suspects, according to newly public documents and testimony from an ongoing Senate probe.
In late 2002, documents show, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all complained that harsh interrogation tactics under consideration for use at the prison in Guantánamo Bay might be against the law. Those military officials called for further legal scrutiny of the tactics. The chief of the Army's international law division, for example, said in a memo that some of the tactics, such as stress positions and sensory deprivation, "cross the line of 'humane treatment'" and "may violate the torture statute."
Myers, however, agreed to scuttle a plan for further legal review of the tactics, in response to pressure from a top Pentagon attorney helping to set up the interrogation program for then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Ah yes, torture. Another thing John McCain used to be against... A bit more on Myers' role:
"He is rarely referenced as one of the usual suspects," noted Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School who is following the continuing Senate investigation. "He did play a much more central role" than previously known, Turley said. "The minute the military lawyers expressed concern, they were shut down."
The chain of events involving Myers began in late 2002. Rumsfeld was considering the approval of three categories of interrogation techniques for use at Guantaánamo. The list included some brutal tactics, including stress positions, exploitation of phobias, forced nudity, hooding, isolation, sensory deprivation, exposure to cold and waterboarding, or simulated drowning.
According to written correspondence that came to light during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17, various military leaders balked at the plans in a series of memos produced during the first week of November 2002. In addition to the criticisms raised by the Army, the Air Force leadership cited "serious concerns regarding the legality" of the list of proposed techniques. The Navy also called for further legal review, and the Marine Corps stated that the techniques "arguably violate federal law."
Dick Myers was already on the line, as far as I'm concerned for his part in transporting torture techniques from Gitmo to Iraq, and retired Gen. Rick Sanchez has previously pointed out the administration's incompetence in a war his book dubs "the strategic blunder of all time." These new accounts just add more texture to the case.
Intelligence reports for more than a year had been streaming in about Osama bin Laden’s terrorism network rebuilding in the Pakistani tribal areas, a problem that had been exacerbated by years of missteps in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, sharp policy disagreements, and turf battles between American counterterrorism agencies.
The new plan, outlined in a highly classified Pentagon order, was intended to eliminate some of those battles. And it was meant to pave a smoother path into the tribal areas for American commandos, who for years have bristled at what they see as Washington’s risk-averse attitude toward Special Operations missions inside Pakistan. They also argue that catching Mr. bin Laden will come only by capturing some of his senior lieutenants alive.
But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was “mounting frustration” in the Pentagon at the continued delay.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.
And:
The story of how Al Qaeda, whose name is Arabic for “the base,” has gained a new haven is in part a story of American accommodation to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, whose advisers played down the terrorist threat. It is also a story of how the White House shifted its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.
Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States. Officials say the new camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001. However, despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one retired C.I.A. officer estimated that the makeshift training compounds now have as many as 2,000 local and foreign militants, up from several hundred three years ago.
Heck of a job, Bushie. The piece goes on to describe bitter turf battles between the White House and CIA over how to conduct the hunt for bin Laden, and the supposedly cowboy-led Bush administration's reticence to launch actual raids, which would logically yield the best results. It's almost as if they don't want to a) offend Pervez Musharraf, or worse, b) find Osama bin Laden...
It's customary in pundit circles to state that Michelle Obama is a potentially problematic spouse in need of a media makeover. But consider Cindy McCain's circus tent full of mishaps, from pilfered cookie recipes (why not just admit that you're rich, so you don't bake?) to ... four years of unpaid back taxes???
NEWSWEEK - When you're poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you're rich, it's hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It's a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. Mrs. McCain is a beer heiress with an estimated $100 million fortune and, along with her husband, she owns at least seven properties, including condos in California and Arizona.
San Diego County officials, it turns out, have been sending out tax notices on the La Jolla property, an oceanfront condo, for four years without receiving a response. County records show the bills, which were mailed to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain's trust, were returned by the post office. According to a McCain campaign aide, who requested anonymity when discussing a private matter, an elderly aunt of Mrs. McCain's lives in the condo, and the bank that manages the trust has not been receiving tax bills on the property. Shortly after NEWSWEEK inquired about the matter, the McCain aide e-mailed a receipt dated Friday, June 27, confirming payment by the trust to San Diego County in the amount of $6,744.42. County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: "The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due."
Robert Mugabe retains power, dodges the Hague ... plus other morning news
Swiftboat veterans seek to reclaim the dignity of the name from the sleazeballs who attacked John Kerry's service in Vietnam in 2004. Meanwhile, T. Boone Pickens is a phony and a liar, just like the attack group he funded...
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.
In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said.
And why would they do such a thing?
Though enriched by high prices, the companies are starved for new oil fields. The United States government, too, has eagerly encouraged investment anywhere in the world that could provide new oil to alleviate the exceptionally tight global supply, which is a cause of high prices.
Iraq is particularly attractive in that light, because in addition to its vast reserves, it has the potential to bring new sources of oil onto the market relatively cheaply.
As sabotage on oil export pipelines has declined with improved security, this potential is closer to being realized. American military officials say the pipelines now have excess capacity, waiting for output to increase at the fields.
Ah yes, the oil. The oil!
“We pretend it is not a centerpiece of our motivation, yet we keep confirming that it is,” Frederick D. Barton, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “And we undermine our own veracity by citing issues like sovereignty, when we have our hands right in the middle of it.”
And the story wouldn't be complete without a completely contradictory comment from Condi Rice:
Criticism like that has prompted objections by the Bush administration and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who say the deals are purely commercial matters. Ms. Rice, speaking on Fox News this month, said: “The United States government has stayed out of the matter of awarding the Iraq oil contracts. It’s a private sector matter.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has a wrenching, first-person account of treating PTSD among our troops returning from the dual war zones.
The soldier from Ohio studied the wall carefully. It was amazing, he said, how much the layout of those picture frames resembled the layout of the street in Tikrit that was seared in his memory; the similarity had leapt out at him the first time he came in for a session. He traced the linear space between the frames, showing me where his Humvee had turned and traveled down the block, and where the two Iraqi men had been standing, close -- too close -- to the road.
"I knew immediately something was wrong," he said. The explosion threw him out of the vehicle, with his comrades trapped inside, screaming. Lying on the ground, he returned fire until he drove off the insurgents. His fellow soldiers survived, but nearly four years later, their screams still haunted him. "I couldn't go to them," he told me, overwhelmed with guilt and imagined failure. "I couldn't help them."
That soldier from Ohio is one of the nearly 40,000 U.S. troops diagnosed by the military with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 to 2007; the number of diagnoses increased nearly 50 percent in 2007 over the previous year, the military said this spring. I saw a number of soldiers with war trauma while working as a psychologist for the U.S. Army. In 2006, I went to Fort Dix as a civilian contractor to treat soldiers on their way to and return from those wars. I was drawn by the immediacy of the work and the opportunity to make a difference. What the raw numbers on war trauma can't show is what I saw every day in my office: the individual stories of men and women who have sustained emotional trauma as well as physical injury, people who are still fighting an arduous postwar battle to heal, to understand a mysterious psychological condition and re-enter civilian life. As I think about the soldiers who will be rotating back home from Iraq this summer as part of the "pause" in the "surge," as well as those who will stay behind, I remember some of the people I met on their long journey back from the war. ...
"We've had a lot of people inquiring," Metta said. "What's happening now is a huge history maker."
He said his best-selling handguns are Glocks, Berettas and Rugers, which cost $350 to $700. People usually say they want them for self-defense, or sometimes as collector's items, he said.
...or just to generally, you know, blow someone away...
So now we know: Michelle Obama shops at Target, hates pantyhose ("painful") and made the "fist pump" cool.
And Cindy McCain does lots of under-the-radar charity work, favors Oscar de la Renta and has a credit card bill that's been somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 this year.
But rest assured, America: With a major female presidential candidate no longer in the running, there's plenty more we'll learn about the stylistic, literary, grooming and culinary penchants of the two women who aspire to be first lady of the United States.
In the Financial Times, John McCain gets the cold shoulder from workers at a GM plant in Ohio:
Three hours after John McCain’s campaign bus left General Motors’ plant in Lordstown, Ohio, workers started streaming in and out of the factory’s gates for the mid-afternoon shift change.
Only a fraction had caught a glimpse of the Republican presidential candidate when he toured the production line and still fewer attended the meeting he held in an adjacent conference room. “Management invited him,” said 38-year-old Tim Niles. “It had nothing to do with us. We’re with Obama.”
Mr Niles, a white, working-class Democrat who wears a “Bubba’s Army” T-shirt, is exactly the kind of voter Mr McCain was courting on his trip to northern Ohio on Friday. On the day Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton staged their first joint rally, Mr McCain was trying to undermine their reconciliation by wooing Mrs Clinton’s blue-collar base.
His efforts appeared wasted on many. “We’re a working-class factory,” said 49-year-old Greg George. “McCain calls himself moderate, but his party has been a disaster for working people over the past eight years.”
And the U.S. warns that Mexico's battle against powerful drug cartels is threatening to escalate into a crippling, all-out war.
L ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.
The Washington Post takes a fascinating look at the economic up-trends and down-trends for two states; Virginia and West Virginia, and plumbs the ramifications for Democrats and Republicans:
... "Democratic areas are sopping up people with BA degrees; Republican areas are sopping up white people without degrees. Church membership is declining in Democratic areas and increasing in red counties," said Bill Bishop, author of "The Big Sort." "There are all these things telling people they should be around people like themselves. And every four years, this has political consequences."
Overall, the most wealthy are still more likely to vote for GOP candidates, particularly in red states, where it is the rich, not the working class, who are most reliably Republican. The split is more evident in education and vocation, with professionals and voters with post-graduate degrees trending Democratic.
But in general, where economic dynamism is concentrated, Democrats are gaining. Bishop found that Gore and Kerry did much better in the 21 metro areas that produced the most new patents than in less tech-oriented cities. Virginia Tech demographer Robert E. Lang found that Kerry did better in the 20 metro areas most linked to the global economy -- based on business networks, shipping and airport activity -- than in metro areas as a whole.
Thomas Franks' next book could well be called, "What's the matter with West Virginia..." Also, Frank Rich of the New York Times, wonders who really would benefit if a terror attack were to occur before the election, starting with a deconstruction of McCain's top strategist, Charlie "a terror attack would help us out" Black:
In private, he is surely gaming this out further, George Carlin-style. What would be the optimum timing, from the campaign’s perspective, for this terrorist attack — before or after the convention? Would the attack be most useful if it took place in a red state, blue state or swing state? How much would it “help” if the next assassinated foreign leader had a higher name recognition in American households than Benazir Bhutto?
Rich goes on to critique the "terror = M-c-win" strategery of Karl Rove, saying that should the unthinkable occur:
... voters might take a hard look at the antiterrorism warriors of the McCain campaign (and of a potential McCain administration). This is the band of advisers and surrogates that surfaced to attack Mr. Obama two weeks ago for being “naïve” and “delusional” and guilty of a “Sept. 10th mind-set” after he had the gall to agree with the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo detainees. The McCain team’s track record is hardly sterling. It might make America more vulnerable to terrorist attack, not less, were it in power.
Take — please! — the McCain foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann. He was the executive director of the so-called Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, formed in 2002 (with Mr. McCain on board) to gin up the war that diverted American resources from fighting those who attacked us on 9/11 to invading a nation that did not. Thanks to that strategic blunder, a 2008 Qaeda attack could well originate from Pakistan or Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden’s progeny, liberated by our liberation of Iraq, have been regrouping ever since. On Friday the Pentagon declared that the Taliban has once more “coalesced into a resilient insurgency.” Attacks in eastern Afghanistan are up 40 percent from this time last year, according to the American commander of NATO forces in the region.
Another dubious McCain terror expert is the former C.I.A. director James Woolsey. He (like Charles Black) was a cheerleader for Ahmad Chalabi, the exiled Iraqi leader who helped promote phony Iraqi W.M.D. intelligence in 2002 and who is persona non grata to American officials in Iraq today because of his ties to Iran. Mr. Woolsey, who accuses Mr. Obama of harboring “extremely dangerous” views on terrorism, has demonstrated his own expertise by supporting crackpot theories linking Iraq to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and 1993 World Trade Center bombing. On 9/11 and 9/12 he circulated on the three major networks to float the idea that Saddam rather than bin Laden might have ordered the attacks.
Then there is the McCain camp’s star fearmonger, Rudy Giuliani, who has lately taken to railing about Mr. Obama’s supposed failure to learn the lessons of the first twin towers bombing. The lesson America’s Mayor took away from that 1993 attack was to insist that New York City’s emergency command center be located in the World Trade Center. No less an authority than John Lehman, a 9/11 commission member who also serves on the McCain team, has mocked New York’s pre-9/11 emergency plans as “not worthy of the Boy Scouts.”
If there’s another 9/11, it’s hard to argue that this gang could have prevented it.
"The company you keep" will be a theme this year, and not just for Barack Obama... Back at the WaPo, an article that breaks no news, but which states an obvious conclusion that will have major implications for the campaign: a McCain win could push the Supreme Court to the right. Say it isn't so!
Proving the age-old chestnut that racists can't spell to be entirely true, vandals spray misspelled insults targeting Barack Obama on city vehicles in Orlando, then damn Hillary Clinton with likely ungrammatical faint praise.
Phrases including “Obmama smokes crack” and others phrases with racial slurs were written in blue spray paint on the white city cars and trucks.Other vehicles appeared to have had their gas tanks tampered with.Along with the paint, hundreds of business cards were left on windshields.The cards contain criticism of Obama on one side, and support for Hillary Clinton and her family on the other side. The same cards were left on channel nine vehicles in Daytona Beach several weeks ago.
The vandalism happened the same night the Obama campaign kicked off its Florida organization with parties across the state.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that 24 vehicles were damaged in all, including 23 owned by the city. The vandals did about $10,000 worth of damage, added some new catch phrases to the American lexicon, and according to the paper, for once, John McCain was not ignored.
According to pictures from the scene, the vandals tagged notes such as "Obama smokes crack." They left business card-sized notes that disparaged Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama on one side, while supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton on the other.
The cards also included statements like "Legalize Marijuana/Stop Building Prisons," "Ladies I'm Single Some Girl Step Up" and "How About Them Gators." They were signed by "CR."
I hereby accuse Karl Rove's cleverly disguised alter ego: "Carl" Rove. Here's some video of the vandals' work, for you to enjoy.
The mainstream media, which now includes the major blogs, has a way of taking a meme and running with it, particularly, it seems, when the meme originates on the right, or somehow damages Democrats (I think it's a "former Democratic staffer turned journalist" self-hatred thing.) There's a method to turning a political figure into a caricature that's easily digested on a one-hour cable news show with a brightly-lit set and busy theme music, and the MSM can use the meme to build a candidate up, or bring him down to size. [Much ado about Obama's "brand."... At left: limited edition Obama poster, "Change," by artist Shepard Fairey. Available here.]
Take for instance the notion that Barack Obama, by not accepting campaign finance reform, and by committing various other illiberal sins in the upper chamber of Congress, is "damaging his brand." I've started hearing the phrase used in heavy rotation since GOP strategist Matthew Dowd used it to tisk-tisk Obama on campaign financing last Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." He elaborated on the ABC News blog the following day:
Obama's brand is new to the political marketplace and it is especially in need of protection by him and his campaign.
What is his brand?
From my perspective it is something that involves a new kind of politics, something that doesn't involve political expediency, something that gets past the spin of Washington, something that involves truth and inspiration in order to get the job done.
That is why I believe Obama and his campaign made a blunder flip flopping on public campaign finance for the general election.
Obama had said for many months he would abide by public financing in the fall and now has decided against doing just that. As Liz Sidoti of Associated Press wrote, "Barack Obama chose winning over his word."
Not a good thing at all for his brand. Is it lethal? Probably not, but it's a mistake.
Dowd is just one of the seemingly endless throng of media types who have gone over the moon over the way Obama has chosen to finance his campaign (who knew public financing was such a cherished item among the media elite?) But as a communications pro, he is also a student of the idea of "moving the zeitgeist" -- tapping the collective subconscious of the media elite, which shapes what they report, what they harp on (particularly on TV), what they ignore, and how they treat a particular candidate.
Gore got slapped upside the head by the media zeitgeist in 2000, when the herd decided that his meme would be "phony, effete guy who isn't comfortable in his own skin" (Google the phrase "Gore and 'comfortable in his own skin'" and see just how much you get...) Once the meme took hold, Gore was derided, falsely, for claiming he invented the Internet, for his clothes, or his tan, and on and on. That same year, John McCain was given the incredibly positive meme: "maverick." It has stuck for eight years, and MSM types continue to resist giving it up, even after McCain has shed every principle he held in and before 2000 in his desperate hunt for the White House, and long after voters no longer hold the term operative for the Senator from Arizona. Bill Clinton's media meme from day one was "slick. He'll say and do whatever it takes to win." Unfortunately for Hillary, she inherited that mantle in 2008.
For Obama, the meme started as "movement, change and phenomenon," but has begun to migrate downward, ever since "Saturday Night Live" made the press corps feel bad about themselves for liking him. (It's always deadly to make the media feel bad about themselves.) Wore, his team has repeatedly snubbed, been "cool" toward, and outsmarted the Washington press corps, giving the David Gregories of the world added impetus to smack him down. Now that he has committed campaign finance apostasy, finally discover the issue that strikes at the heart of every Washington reporter, Obama risks being tagged with the negative meme of "the guy who damaged his brand."
Which is why the phrase "damaged his brand," or the idea of it, has been repeated over and over again since last week, in the Los Angeles Times, in the Washington Post, by Arianna Huffington (this morning on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," and on and on and on, not to mention by the vacuous day shift girls on the cable news anchor desks. From there, the meme makes its way to the left- and the right wing blogosphere, and presto! It's in the zeitgeist. The "damaging his brand" meme has been fueled by a much linked column by WaPo's David Broder, which essentially cedes the moral high ground on just about anything to John McCain, simply by virtue of his long service in Washington, and prior service in the military (Broder is highly influential among the punditocracy, by virtue of his long service in Washington, as this devotional post by Chris Cillizza illustrates.) So kids, the phrase of the week is "damaging his brand."
Still, the good news for Barack is that he has defied the punditocracy before. In fact, he was issued a stern warning last October by John Dickerson of Slate for criticizing Hillary Clinton's truthfulness during the debates. The risk to Obama, in Dickerson's mind? He might damage his brand.
Related: for a piece on the "Obama brand" that won't make you hurl, check out this smart piece by political strategist Patrick Ruffini, from February. |
One of the saddest outcomes of the scorched earth Hillary Clinton for President campaign has been the impact it has had on her husband, former President Bill Clinton. For years, Clinton occupied rarefied air inside Democratic circles -- a president who remained popular, even through impeachment, and who became even more so after he left office. Bill Clinton was so beloved by Black Democrats (even was benighted "the first Black president for a time,) he could waltz into any Black church, even into the funeral for the late Coretta Scott King, and chastise the crowd for being discourteous to George Bush.
Clinton's presidency was looked upon, by all but the most liberal Democrats, as a good time in America -- imperfect, and certainly not free of scandal -- but also full of opportunity and possibility, fueled by the explosion of the Internet, a strong and growing economy, and, say it with me, "22 million new jobs." It was good to be Bill.
Now, in part by his own heavy hand (in South Carolina), and as his wife's burning ambition, which failed to make her the Democratic nominee, has nonetheless led the mainstream media to crown her the new "feminist hero" -- Bill Clinton is shrinking. The all-out war to defeat Barack Obama took him from rock star ex-president to red-faced husband almost overnight, and from philanthropic juggernaut to common political attack dog. Worse, his efforts, and those of the team he bequeathed on Hillary (Mark Penn, Terry McAuliffe, Harold Ickes and others,) bloodied Obama but ultimately failed, leaving most of the stains on Bill. Because while all Hillary lost was the nomination, Bill Clinton lost something that it turns out, seems to have meant much more to him -- he lost the love.
The shrinking of the president has been a sad spectacle for those of us who supported him, even during the dark days of impeachment, and who continued to look upon "Big Bill" with favor: he was the white guy with the "Black passport" -- they guy who works in Harlem -- someone so likable, even women would give him a pass to on "the Monica thing."
For black America, the fall has been especially steep. His once bulletproof approval ratings with African-Americans have now dropped so much, they have helped pull his overall approval rating among Democrats into the negative for the first time, according a March NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Bill's negative rating in the current survey: 45 percent. His positive number: 42.
Clinton's response to the decline has been to get mad. According to press reports, he's mad at Barack Obama, whose campaign he is sure "slimed him," and falsely tagged him and his wife as racists. He's mad at the winning Democratic campaign which he apparently believes, was run largely as a repudiation of his eight years in office. Tom Edsall of the Huffington Post writes:
Some say Bill Clinton not only wants Obama to reach out to him, but to also promise to lift the cloud of alleged racism -- an accusation that continues to eat at the man once dubbed the nation's "first black president." Clinton, these folks suggest, wants Obama to publicly exonerate him of the charge that he played the race card in the primaries.
Beyond that, some associates say, Bill Clinton wants Obama to reach out to him as a mentor, a guide who can lead Obama through the labyrinth of a tough presidential election. "Bill wants to be honored, to return to the role of Democratic elder statesman, and get rid of this image of him as a pol willing to do anything to win," said one associate.
"He is still bruised from the trail, really hurt about the racist charges leveled against him, and convinced the Obama campaign fomented it," said another source familiar with the former president's attitude. "What he would really like is for Obama to apologize, but on one level he knows that is never going to happen," a third source said.
But for all the blame game, the people Bill Clinton may, secretly, be most angry at, should be himself, his wife, and his wife's campaign. After all, it was the former president who so damaged himself by appearing to dismiss Obama's South Carolina primary win with the nonsequitor, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."
It was Hillary who chose to shade the fact that she knows darned well that Obama, her Senate colleague, is no Muslim, Hillary who declared that the "hard working, white voters" of West Virginia were in her pocket, and Hillary who made that horrifying reference about the assassination of RFK in explaining why she was staying in the race until June.
It was Bill Clinton's political attack dogs, on loan to Hillary, who implemented the now notorious "kitchen sink" strategy against Obama, a man more similar to the Bill Clinton of 1992 ("the man from Hope," no less,) than Bill might want to admit. And it was Howard Wolfson and company's bully-boy tactics with the press that ramped up the adversarial relationship the president and his family remembered all too well from the 90s. And it was Clinton supporters who raised the ugly specter of race as a reason to oppose Obama's candidacy, or to diminish it, from Geraldine Ferraro to the 2 in 10 Democratic voters in some primary states who stated openly that they would not vote for a black candidate, to Harriet Christian, the ignorant woman fron New York who derided Obama as an affirmative action hire, or an "inadequate black man."
It wouldn't be surprising, given all of this, that the Obama camp might be reluctant to give Bill Clinton the public embrace he seems to crave (and I have no reporting to suggest that such reluctance exists.) But the embrace will come anyway, mark my words. There is too much at stake for the Obama team to leave even a single vote on the table, and bringing Clinton supporters into the fold will prove to be a higher priority than nursing resentments against the former first lady, much less the lone two-term Democratic president in many of our lifetimes.
So Bill will get his rehab, probably in the form of a "Clinton night" during the Denver convention, and strategic appearances with Obama, at which the latter pours on the praise for the 1990s, and publicly seeks Clinton's council (maybe even accompanying him to a black church, or to the "Tom Joyner Morning Show," where both men have a friend in the host.) Still, many black voters I've talked to are hard-pressed to forgive, at least for now. And during the campaign, Bill Clinton's role will likely be limited to wooing rural and southern white voters -- the ones he and Hillary bonded with during the campaign. The real turnaround for Bill Clinton will come after the election, when he goes back to the good works that he has been doing through his Clinton Global Initiative; when his focus is off politics, and back on his impressive humanitarian projects and outreach to the world.
The good news for the Clintons is that if Obama wins the White House in November, all will be forgiven (except Bob Johnson -- he's good and done.) Things could get more complicated if Obama falls short in November, and his supporters blame the bruising primary, or some outgrowth of it that McCain or the GOP figure out how to successfully exploit. In that case, we could see a real fracture in the Democratic Party, which unfortunately, will be generational, income based, and and least partly down to race.
UPDATE: Bill Clinton says Barack can "kiss his ass???" ... Seriously???
Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States." -- Joe Lieberman, August, 2002
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." -- From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998
“The so-called Duelfer Report, which a lot of people read to say there were no weapons of mass destruction - concluded that Saddam continued to have very low level of chemical and biological programs. ... [Saddam] was trying to break out of the U.N. sanctions by going back into rapid redevelopment of chemical and biological and probably nuclear [weapons]. -- Joe Lieberman in interview with ABC Radio host Sean Hannity, November 30, 2005
"I have no regrets [that the U.S. toppled Saddam.] ... I think we can finish are job there, and as part of it - really transform the Arab-Islamic world." -- from the same Hannity interview
Lieberman and McCain have had long friendship with then Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, who drummed up bogus WMD claims and helped lead the United States into war, going all the way back to 1991.
It’s worth remembering that it was Lieberman, along with Trent Lott, who led the effort in the Senate to fund Chalabi and the Iraq National Congress through passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998, and it was Lieberman and McCain who served as the two “honorary co-chairmen” of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), the elite group that was put together by the administration and Chalabi’s pals at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), to lobby for invading Iraq in the fall of 2002.
That post prompted me to do a Google search of "Joe Lieberman, Ahmad Chalabi," which turned up this detailed post on the Cooperative Research History Commons site. We'll pick things up after swindler-turned-liar-turned Iranian spy Ahmad Chalabi's failed 1995 coup attempt, against Saddam Hussein, which was first backed, and then abandoned, by the CIA (a message delivered by now-author Robert Baer.) The scheme was supposed to sweep Chalabi into power in Iraq, his family having been ejected from the country in the late 1950s. A year later, Chalabi moved from sipping tea in London to sipping coffee in D.C., where he made nice with neocon "intellectuals," a live-in lobbyists named Francis Brooke, and members of Congress -- mostly Republicans, including Trent Lott and John McCain, but also some Democrats, including former Sen. Bob Kerrey, and a certain now-former Democrat named Joseph Lieberman.
More from the Commons:
Ahmed Chalabi and Francis Brooke find allies in the US Senate’s Republican leadership. They provide the Republicans with details about the events surrounding the INC-CIA’s 1995 failed plot against Saddam Hussein (see March 1995) and Iraq’s subsequent incursion into Kurdish territory (see August 1996) which the Republican senators use against the Clinton White House and the CIA. “Clinton gave us a huge opportunity,” Brooke later recalls. “We took a Republican Congress and pitted it against a Democratic White House. We really hurt and embarrassed the president.” The Republican leadership in Congress, he acknowledges, “didn’t care that much about the ammunition. They just wanted to beat up the president.” Senior Republican senators, according to Brooke, are “very receptive, right away” to Chalabi and Brooke’s information, and Chalabi is soon on a first-name basis with 30 members of Congress, including senators Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, and Newt Gingrich. [Alternet, 21 May 2004.')" New Yorker, 7 June 2004.)
Then in May, 1998, the Project for a New American Century, which has formed to advance the neoconservative worldview in Washington, sends a letter addressed to Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, calling on them to pressure the White House to change U.S. policy toward Iraq:
... The letter argues that the Clinton administration has capitulated to Saddam Hussein and calls on the two legislators to lead Congress to “establish and maintain a strong US military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect [US] vital interests in the Gulf—and, if necessary, to help removed Saddam from power.” [Century, 5/29/1998]
On September 1998, the PNAC got their way in Congress, as the Iraq Liberation Act was introduced, first in the House as HR 4655, and then, on September 29th, in the Senate. The Act clears the way for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress to receive more than $17 million to gather information about the Saddam Hussein regime (almost all of which will be a) shared with members of the U.S. media including the New York Times' Judith Miller, and b) flat out wrong, made up, or otherwise completely useless.
Those who were surprised by Lieberman's determination to stay in the Senate at all costs, and his zeal to back John McCain, even if it costs him his chairmanship and seniority in the Senate, should take a close look at this history. Joe Lieberman isn't backing John McCain simply because they are friends. He is backing John McCain because the Iraq policy that McCain promises to continue indefinitely isn't just the project of a "new century," it isn't just a project of the neocons (of which Lieberman is clearly one); it isn't even just a policy of the Bush administration. It's a McCain-Lieberman policy, which they helped to craft, to germinate, and to push into both the congressional and executive branches.
In short, John McCain and Joe Lieberman are fighting this election in order to continue their war.
Take action: Visit LiebermanMustGo.com to sign the petition calling on the Senate Democratic leadership to strip Lieberman of his committee chairmanship.
There was a time when it was cool for a man to make jokes about beating his wife. That time was about 30, 40 years ago. Somebody please tell Grandpa John McCain...
The newest celebrity couple make their long-awaited joint appearance in Unity, New Hampshire. MSNBC is DOING IT LIVE!
Meanwhile, Howard Fineman says that behind the scenes, with the top fundraisers in both camps, it's more like Guy Ritchie and Madonna than like Angelina Jolie and the man she stole from Jennifer Aniston...
One major Clinton donor described it this way: "This felt like when your mom forces you to go visit your Aunt Ida and she has to pinch your cheeks and you're sitting there in an uncomfortable suit and you can't wait to leave."
Yikes!
No sign of that now, though, as Hillary gives a quite gracious speech in Unity, and she and Barack score with the press on "body language." For god sakes, Margaret Carlson almost smiled...
Also at Politico, which has taken down its curiously symmetrical anti-Obama headlines this morning ... hmmm... Ben Smith says the Obama team is struggling with what to do with the legacy of former President Clinton...
Obama: Change agent goes conventional By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 6/26/08 8:06 PM Faced with tough choices on a range of fronts, Barack Obama (D-Ill.) passed up opportunities to take bold stands.
Step 1: media describes politician's narrative Step 2: media adopts and advances politician's narrative
And the MSM is especially susceptible when the politician is John McCain (just as it used to be with the Bush administration, pre-Katrina, David Gregory's protestations aside.) This cycle, the media's zeal to capture Obama's flag is, I think, fueled by two things: their need for the race to be a "horse race," rather than a boring, ratings-unfriendly blowout; and this almost obsessive umbrage at Obama's decision not to accept public campaign financing -- a vestige of the "liberal" media mindset, I suppose, but not an obsession shared by the vast majority of Americans. But there you go.
He no longer has his Republican human shields in Congress. With dicey re-elections looming, it's every GOPer for him/herself. And with Bush's new tack to the center (which appears for all the world to be a mad dash for some shred of a legacy beyond Iraq,) combined with his dismal polling, Bush has become the guy nobody invited to the party, but who showed up anyway. (Hell, the POTUS can't even get a porch wave...) Quite a fall from the hero worship and almost cultish support he enjoyed from the FReeperati for years after 9/11 (remember the days when you would get banned for criticizing "The President?" or when the Free Republic had a gauzy, nauseating daily thread called "pray for the president"? Gonzo.)
So now, Dubya is in trubya with his former winger friends, over turning North Korea into a one-country "Axis of not-so-evil." Observe:
Several prominent House Republicans blasted the White House Thursday for removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as some of President Bush’s staunchest supporters in the war on terror publicly lambasted him for engaging the country once famously branded as part of the "axis of evil."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed her “profound disappointment” over the decision, while Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, also expressed his outrage.
“Lifting sanctions and removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism flies in the face of history and rewards its brutal dictator for shallow gestures,” said Hoekstra, who has not shied away from criticizing the White House in recent years.
“Just as the Clinton administration was fooled by the Kim Jong-Il regime, time will soon tell if the Bush administration will fall for the same bait,” he added.
...“The administration’s call for North Korea to be removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list is cause for profound concern,” said Ros-Lehtinen. “Serious verification questions linger, and I would have hoped that the administration would have shown more caution, and less haste, on a matter of this gravity.”
Let's face it. Ileana's got a tough re-election fight for the first time in her career, and distancing herself from Bush at a time when many Cuban-American voters are jumping the GOP ship (no pun intended) is good politics. And with winger voters, it never hurts to make ominous noises in the general direction of foreign countries...
Talk about the courts inventing new rights never before seen in the Constitution ... turns out each of us has the right to a bazooka..!
The truly insane Wayne LaPierre was on "Hardball" tonight confirming press accounts about his next plan, post D.C. v. Heller: they're going to start suing other cities to take down their gun restriction laws. And the first case? The NRA will soon, perhaps even starting tomorrow, seek to "rearm Chicago," and overturn a San Francisco law banning people living in public housing projects from owning firearms. Say the NRA's ironically named chief lobbyist, Chris Cox:
"When the Supreme Court says 'all Americans,' it includes those who aren't fortunate enough to afford a 24/7 security detail like Barack Obama," Cox said, working in a dig at the Democratic nominee. Obama's campaign today backed away from a previous statement, made last year by an aide, that Obama supported D.C.'s ban.
Now, I don't know how many projects Chris has been to, but let's assume San Francisco's are much like many in other cities, including here in South Florida -- sometimes calm, if hard-scrabble, but too often run down and dangerous. So raise your hand if you think it's a good idea to bring more guns into, say, Dunbar Village , where the teens who assaulted a young mother and her son last year could theoretically have found a gun to steal, along with that family's innocence. [And before the gun nuts start braying that had the mother in Dunbar had a gun, she could have shot her assailants, I cede the point. However, keep in mind that the teens who attacked her lured her outside, leaving no way for her to get her hands on a gun. Perhaps they'd prefer that her 12-year-old son grabbed the gun, and maybe shot ... whom? Statistics suggest his only victim would have been himself or his mom.]
And surely LaPierre and company would like to see more states pass laws like Florida's "castle doctrine," which lets members of the "well armed militia" that now apparently includes us all, shoot first and ask questions later (gun nuts seem to love the idea of "good citizens shooting the bad guys dead, and not waiting around for the cops," though most of them are at best, armchair cowboys, and most "good citizens" don't have the training that police do ... hence ... the fact that they're the police...) Maybe, now that we're all living in Wayne's world, we could all get guns and go back to settling our disputes like they did in the Wild West. Maybe crazy Zell Miller has gotten his wish, and we now live in a time when you can challenge a man to a duel... Or perhaps we could all buy rocket launchers or tommy guns and parade them in the streets. That'd show the criminals! Wouldn't it? And how should law enforcement react to the notion that the NRA would like to see a gun in every American home, car, workplace and even church? Sure makes traffic stops or responses to domestic incidents more "interesting..."
Truly, there will be blood on the hands of five Supreme Court justices, the NRA and their gun nut supporters, if, as in the case of the late assault weapons ban, their advocacy puts more guns, and more death, on the streets.
And make no mistake, now that the gun lobbyists have found five jurists filled with enough NRA Kool-Aid to turn the entire nation into a militia, you'd better believe they're looking to strip away the "well regulated" part of the Late, Great, United States Constitution, next... (may it rest in peace.)
Who dies in greater numbers from firearms, police in the line of duty or preschoolers?
The answer — contained in a searing new report by the Children's Defense Fund — is surprising and disturbing. In 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, guns killed 69 preschoolers, compared with 53 law enforcement officers.
That's just one of the alarming facts in the Washington-based child advocacy group's "Protect Children, Not Guns" report. Among the others:
• Since 1979, gun violence has taken the lives of 104,419 children and teens.
• A black male has a one-in-72 chance of being killed by a firearm before age 30; a while male has a one-in-344 chance.
• While black children are more likely to be victims of firearm homicides, whites are more likely to use a gun to commit suicide. Eight times as many white kids committed suicide by gun as blacks.
The danger posed by guns to America's youth is on the rise. In 2005, 3,006 children and teens died from firearms, compared with 2,825 in 2004. That's the first increase in gun deaths among children since 1994 and since the longstanding assault weapons ban expired in 2004.
The children lost to guns in 2005 would fill 120 public school classrooms. Despite the bloodshed, the issue of gun safety has not become a focal point in the 2008 presidential race. And hardly anyone running for office in Georgia — where it becomes legal next month for permit-holders to carry firearms in restaurants and on MARTA — mentions guns except to eagerly note that they own them.
The silence speaks to the sway of a gun lobby that fights any regulation, even modest laws designed to keep weapons away from children. And that silence is deadly, contributing to the ease with which guns are finding their way into the hands of kids and teens, with fatal consequences.
"Imagine a tragedy like the Virginia Tech shooting occurring every four days, or a Northern Illinois shooting happening every 15 hours," said Children's Defense Fund president and founder Marian Wright Edelman. Last year's Virginia Tech massacre left 32 people dead, while five students died when a gunman opened fire at Northern Illinois University in February. ...
... Opponents of gun laws argue that it's America's culture of violence that necessitates the need for unfettered access to firearms. They argue that widespread gun ownership and quick access to firearms keeps communities safe and violence at bay.
If that's true, why does the United States lead the developed world in gun deaths? Why do more 10- to 19-year-olds in America die from gunshot wounds than any other cause except car accidents?
If guns equal safety, shouldn't the U.S. have fewer casualties and injuries, since our society is so well-armed? That's a calculus problem that the gun lobby refuses to tackle, because it fears the answer: More guns on the streets doesn't lead to greater safety. It leads only to more gun violence.
A 2002 study on firearm deaths by the Harvard School of Public Health showed that children ages 5 to 14 died at higher rates in states with more guns. The study found that children in the five states with the highest levels of gun ownership — Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia — were 16 times more likely to die from unintentional firearm injury, seven times more likely to die from firearm suicide and three times more likely to die from firearm homicide than children in the five states with the lowest levels of ownership, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.
Consider, too, that while 11,344 Americans were murdered with a firearm in 2004, Australia suffered only 56 gun homicides and England and Wales had 73.
Chuck Hagel and Collin Powell at the Vietnam Veterans' memorial in D.C., photo from Reuters Pictures
The two that really worry the McCain team are Chuck Hagel and Collin Powell, who could provide Barack Obama with an October surprise of his own, by endorsing him, according to the Prince of Darkness, Robert Novak. He also adds a few nice broadsides at the prez:
Powell, Hagel and lesser-known Obamacons harbor no animosity toward McCain. Nor do they show much affection for the rigidly liberal Obama. The Obamacon syndrome is based on hostility to Bush and his administration and on revulsion over today's Republican Party. The danger for McCain is that desire for a therapeutic electoral bloodbath could get out of control.
That danger was highlighted in a June New Republic article on "The rise of the Obamacons" by supply-side economist Bruce Bartlett, who was a middle-level official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He expressed "disgust with a Republican Party that still does not see how badly George W. Bush has misgoverned this country" -- echoing his scathing 2006 book, "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." While Bartlett says "I'm not ready to join the other side," his anti-Bush furor characterizes the Obamacons.
The prototypal Obamacon may be Larry Hunter, recognized inside the Beltway as an ardent supply-sider. When it became known recently that Hunter supports Obama, fellow conservatives were stunned. Hunter was fired as U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief economist in 1993 when he would not swallow Clinton administration policy, and he later joined Jack Kemp at Empower America (ghostwriting Kemp's column). Explaining his support for the uncompromisingly liberal Obama, Hunter blogged on June 6: "The Republican Party is a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of 'Weekend With Bernie,' handcuffed to a corpse."
An emerging Democratic coalition of women, minorities and younger voters is propelling Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to leads of five to 17 percentage points over Arizona Sen. John McCain among likely voters in the battleground states of Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to four simultaneous Quinnipiac University polls, conducted in partnership with The Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com and released today.
Sen. McCain's lead among white voters in Colorado and Michigan cuts the gap to single digits, but doesn't offset Sen. Obama's strength among other groups. The Democrat also leads by eight to 21 percentage points among independent voters in each state. Overall results show:
Colorado: Obama leads McCain 49 - 44 percent, including 51 - 39 percent among independent voters;
Michigan: Obama tops McCain 48 - 42 percent, with 46 - 38 percent among independents;
Minnesota: Obama buries McCain 54 - 37 percent, and 54 - 33 percent with independents;
Wisconsin: Obama leads McCain 52 - 39 percent, and 50 - 37 percent with independents.
Obama is losing white men by just 5 points in Colorado, and splitting whites 46 to McCain's 47 in my former state, while creaming McCain with Hispanics, 62-36.
He's winning all age groups in Michigan, including a 3-point edge with voters over 55 (he's down by 6 points with white men. Meanwhile,
Obama tops McCain 58 - 32 percent with women and 49 - 42 percent among men. White voters support Obama 51 - 39 percent. The Democrat leads 63 - 33 percent among voters 18 to 34 years old, 52 - 39 percent among voters 35 to 54 and 49 - 38 percent with voters over 55.
Obama gets a 59 - 22 percent favorability, to 46 - 32 percent for McCain.
Meanwhile in Minnesota, there's good news for Barack, bad news for Al Franken, and Tim Pawlenty news for John McCain:
"Sen. Obama sweeps nearly every demographic group in Minnesota, including whites and blue collar workers, to lead by 17 points, the biggest lead in the four states surveyed. At the same time, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, with overwhelming support among men and a tie among women, has a 10-point overall lead over comedian Al Franken, the Democratic challenger," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"Most voters say it would not make any difference in their vote if Gov. Tim Pawlenty is McCain's running mate," Richards added. Wisconsin
Not what the McCain team wants to hear, I suspect.
Last but not least:
Wisconsin women likely voters back Obama 53 - 37 percent while men back the Democrat 51 - 40 percent. White voters back Obama 49 - 42 percent. He leads 61 - 35 percent among voters 18 to 34 years old, 52 - 39 percent among voters 35 to 54 years old and 47 - 41 percent among voters over 55.
Obama's favorability is 54 - 27 percent, with 48 - 30 percent for McCain.
And the main issue for all comers: the economy, stupid. It's no wonder that:
"November can't get here soon enough for Sen. Barack Obama. He has a lead everywhere, and if nothing changes between now and November he will make history," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
With those numbers? Hell yes. Now, for the very early, and very theoretical, Electoral College count:
Give all 46 of those EVs to Obama, and he's got 221 electoral votes, without including Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico, Missouri, Virginia, Iowa, North Carolina or Virginia. He would need another 49 EVs, McCain would need 96. That leaves Obama a number of combinations to win it. Give him the three previous QPac swing states that he's winning: Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, and Obama is at 289, enough to win it all. Add Iowa and New Mexico -- two states he will almost certainly win -- and he's over 300. It's a tantalizing possibility, but again, it's still early, and we don't know what the Bushies' "October surprise" will be yet...
To have fun with the delegate math your damn self, go to 270towin.com. Just look busy so your boss thinks you're working...
Bang! The right is overjoyed as Tony Scalia pens an ode to the gatt
The right is over the moon over the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling striking down D.C.'s gun ban (Cheney is probably strapping up and scoping out his next victim's face as we speak...) though a few cooler heads, even at RedState, point out that the court didn't ratify a right to own any weapon you like (military weapons, tanks, etc., which the truly insane gun nuts think they have a right to.) Scalia, of course, wrote the opinion. The WaPo explains:
The Supreme Court, splitting along ideological lines, today declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns for self-defense, striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handgun ownership as unconstitutional.
The 5 to 4 decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia represented a monumental change in federal jurisprudence and went beyond what the Bush administration had counseled. It said that the government may impose some restrictions on gun ownership, but that the District's strictest-in-the-nation ban went too far under any interpretation.
Scalia wrote that the Constitution leaves the District a number of options for combating the problem of handgun violence, "including some measures regulating handguns."
"But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table," he continued. "These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."
The court also held unconstitutional the requirement that shotguns and rifles be kept disassembled or unloaded or outfitted with a trigger lock. The court called it a "prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."
Scalia was joined by the most consistently conservative justices -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Justice John Paul Stevens spoke from the bench to denounce the decision, which he said violated the court's precedent that the Second Amendment refers to a right to bear arms only for military purposes.
He spoke dismissively of the court's "newly discovered right" and said decisions about gun control should be made by legislatures.
"This court should stay out of that political thicket," he said. Stevens was joined in dissent by the court's most consistent liberals: David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
In announcing the opinion, Scalia specifically mentioned that some restrictions on owning and carrying a gun are valid, such as denying the sale to felons or the mentally ill, or restricting the possession of guns in "sensitive places," such as schools.
But he acknowledged that the majority opinion was not setting standards that might be easily apparent to governments deciding how to restrict gun rights. As a result, Scalia said the ruling will probably result in more litigation.
The political responses:
President Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, said in a statement that "the President strongly agrees with the Supreme Court's historic decision today that the Second Amendment protects the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms. This has been the Administration's long-held view. The President is also pleased that the Court concluded that the DC firearm laws violate that right."
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee quickly put out a statement endorsing the decision, calling it a "landmark victory" for Second Amendment rights. "Today's ruling . . . makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans," McCain said.
Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democrats' all but certain nominee, also issued a statement saying that "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures.
"The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe."
In just two years, 320 Democratic, Republican, and independent mayors have come together to support the common sense goal of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. From the beginning, we have said that fighting illegal guns has nothing to do with the Second Amendment rights of Americans. Today’s decision by the Supreme Court upholding those rights will benefit our coalition by finally putting to rest the ideological debates that have for too long obscured an obvious fact: criminals, who have no right to purchase or possess guns, nevertheless have easy access to them. Mayors and police chiefs have a responsibility to crack down on illegal guns and punish gun criminals, and it is encouraging that the Supreme Court recognizes the constitutionality of reasonable regulations that allow for us to carry out those responsibilities.(New York City filed an amicus brief for the District of Columbia.)
In a news conference two hours after the court overturned the city's ban on handguns, Fenty (D) said that he will work with the D.C. Council and police department on what happens next.
The mayor added that he believes he speaks for District residents in saying, "We are disappointed in the ruling. We wish it had gone the other way, but we respect the court's" decision.
The District now must create new regulations detailing the process for registering handguns, which the Supreme Court said can be kept in homes for self-defense. The city has regulations already on the books, which have been largely moot because of the gun ban, but those rules likely will be updated and revised, officials said.
Meanwhile, the WaPo's Colbert King speaks for the neighborhoods, and the future victims of gun violence who will rue this day:
The record will show that our home-grown shooters have blown through the city's so-called strict handgun ban like John Riggins going up the middle. Over the past 20 years, there have been more than 6,500 homicides in the nation's capital, most committed with firearms, predominantly handguns. In 1976, the year the ban was put in place, the District had 135 gun-related murders, according to CNN. Last year, the number reached 143. Thus far this year, we've had 85 murders.
You thought D.C. stands for "District of Columbia? "Dodge City" is more like it.
If D.C. street thugs are pleased by anything, it's probably the fact that five of the justices -- a slim majority, but that's all it takes to win -- have come around to seeing things their way.
And he has a few choice words for Scalia:
Writing for the majority, Scalia said that the Constitution doesn't allow "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." Folks have a right to keep and bear arms -- and, by golly, a right to use 'em, too, if necessary.
Scalia also wrote this hymn to the handgun: "The American people consider the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon." He went on to argue: "There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: it is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long rifle; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police. Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid."
And if machine guns one day should become the weapon of choice for home protection -- what say ye then, Justice Scalia? With the exception of that reference to dialing the police, D.C. street thugs' response to Scalia's ode to the handgun was undoubtedly, "Hear, hear!"
King adds that the NRA, fueled by this "victory," will now go after the gun laws in San Francisco and Chicago. Why not head down here to Miami, guys? We've got plenty of AK-47s on the streets for you to deregulate, and a whole lotta killings, too! Yeehaw!
One more gasp of optimism, also courtesy of the WaPo:
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group favoring tighter firearms controls, said that the ruling was "quite clearly" a defeat for the organization's legal position. But, he said, there was a silver lining. Although the majority opinion says that handguns can't be banned, it does allow governments to impose restrictions on ownership, Helmke said. He contended that the decision carved out the extremes in the debate over gun rights.
"This takes off the idea that you can have a near-total ban on guns, especially guns for self-defense," Helmke said. "We haven't really pushed that . . . The gun lobby, however, has been trying to say that any step in the common sense direction is part of the slippery slope toward confiscation. In effect, [the Supreme Court] has taken that slippery slope away, and that's where the ruling actually could be a benefit politically to folks who are fighting for common sense gun control."
Besides the fact that North Korea gets to put off detailing its nuclear weapons holdings, today's agreement, which is largely drawing muted cheers, also leaves Japan in the lurch. The Asia Times' Ralph Cossa explained the Japanese dilemma just yesterday:
Intertwined in all the above is the North Korea-Japan normalization process, which both are committed to making "sincere efforts" to address. A dispute over "full accounting" regarding Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s has resulted in a bilateral stalemate.
Pyongyang acknowledged the kidnappings in 2002 but then claimed the issue was "settled" (with the return of five abductees and the announcement that eight others had died). Tokyo disagrees: it refutes both the accounting of how the eight died and believes there are more abductees still not acknowledged or accounted for. More importantly for Washington, Tokyo believes it has a commitment from Bush that the US will not remove North Korea from the terrorist sponsors list until there has been "progress" in resolving this dispute. Suspicions in Japan about Washington's perceived over-eagerness to accommodate Pyongyang continue to make this a sensitive alliance issue.
As a result, the agreement in early June 2008 by Pyongyang to "reinvestigate the abduction issue" is seen as a major step forward (and a diplomatic victory of sorts for Hill), even if it comes with no promise of actually providing more information, much less more abductees.
The mere fact that Pyongyang has reopened discussions constitutes some form of "progress", thus allowing Japan to begrudgingly endorse the removal of Pyongyang from the state sponsors list, provided there really is a "complete and correct declaration".
Of course, the reporter underestimated the desperation of the Bushies to get a deal, and the power of China to force one. Thus, as the New York Times explains today:
Japanese politicians like former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe complained this week that the United States should not remove North Korea from the terrorism list until there is a full accounting of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970’s. Doing so would harm relations between Tokyo and Washington, Mr. Abe warned.
On Wednesday, President Bush talked to Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda by telephone and assured him that he had not forgotten about the abductees. And in a nod to Japan in his comments Thursday, Mr. Bush said the United States would “never forget” the abductions of Japanese citizens.
On Thursday, Mr. Fukuda, a moderate, rejected criticism inside Japan that Tokyo now had little leverage over Pyongyang because of its removal from the terrorism list. He said working with the United States “will be really necessary to realize the denuclearization and, at the same time, pave the way for solving the abduction issue, which is a major task for our country.”
And Mr. Bush said in his brief presser today:
The other thing I want to assure our friends in Japan is that this process will not leave behind -- leave them behind on the abduction issue. The United States takes the abduction issue very seriously. We expect the North Koreans to solve this issue in a positive way for the Japanese. There's a lot of folks in Japan that are deeply concerned about what took place. I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office. It was a heart-wrenching moment to listen to the mother talk about what it was like to lose her daughter. And it is important for the Japanese people to know that the United States will not abandon our strong ally and friend when it comes to helping resolve that issue.
in other words, the U.S. and Japan both caved on key issues in order to get a deal, which is of questionable value from the standpoint of what's supposedly the most important issue: nuclear weapons. Confused yet?
Q Mr. President, what do you say to critics who claim that you've accepted a watered-down declaration just to get something done before you leave office? I mean, you said that it doesn't address the uranium enrichment issue, and, of course, it doesn't address what North Korea might have done to help Syria build its reactor.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, let me review where we have been. In the past, we would provide benefits to the North Koreans in the hope that they would fulfill a vague promise. In other words, that's the way it was before I came into office.
Everybody was concerned about North Korea possessing a nuclear weapon; everybody was concerned about the proliferation activities. And yet the policy in the past was, here are some benefits for you, and we hope that you respond. And, of course, we found they weren't responding. And so our policy has changed, that says, in return for positive action, in return for verifiable steps, we will reduce penalties. And there are plenty of restrictions still on North Korea.
And so my point is this, is that -- we'll see. They said they're going to destroy parts of their plant in Yongbyon. That's a very positive step -- after all, it's the plant that made plutonium. They have said in their declarations, if you read their declarations of September last year, they have said specifically what they will do. And our policy, and the statement today, makes it clear we will hold them to account for their promises. And when they fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be eased. If they don't fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them. This is action for action. This is we will trust you only to the extent that you fulfill your promises.
So I'm pleased with the progress. I'm under no illusions that this is the first step; this isn't the end of the process, this is the beginning of the process of action for action. And the point I want to make to our fellow citizens is that we have worked hard to put multilateral diplomacy in place, because the United States sitting down with Kim Jong-il didn't work in the past. Sitting alone at the table just didn't work.
Now, as I mentioned in my statement, there's a lot more verification that needs to be done. I mentioned our concerns about enrichment. We expect the North Korean regime to be forthcoming about their programs. We talked about proliferation. We expect them to be forthcoming about their proliferation activities and cease such activities. I mentioned the fact that we're beginning to take inventory, because of our access to the Yongbyon plant, about what they have produced, and we expect them to be forthcoming with what they have produced and the material itself.
Uh-huh... you expect them to be forthcoming... or what?
The WaPo's top story has the Bush administration preparing to give North Korea a "get out of the Axis of Evil free" card as the "six party talks" regarding its nuclear programs bear limited fruit. Note the lead country in making the deal: China.
KYOTO, Japan, June 26 -- Nearly seven years after President Bush described it as part of "an axis of evil" and less than two years after it stunned the world by exploding a small nuclear device, Kim Jong Il's Stalinist dictatorship in North Korea appears on the brink of emerging from decades of diplomatic isolation.
North Korea on Thursday handed over to Chinese diplomats here a long-awaited declaration detailing its rogue nuclear program, clearing the way for an increase in international aid and removal of the country from a U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. The Bush administration has announced that when the declaration is handed over, it will start a process of removing North Korea from the list.
The president is scheduled to speak about North Korea this morning.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that following receipt of the document "the United States will implement its obligations to remove the designation of (North Korea) as a state sponsor of terrorism and to terminate applications of the Trading with the Enemy Act."
NoKo's declaration will not even be "complete." The Bush administration is in such a rush to wring at least one success out of the last eight, miserable years, its willing to pull the plug on NOKO's terror designation without actually finding out what nuclear weapons it has, or whether it has transferred nuclear technology to other countries, including Syria. Huh??? The announcement left poor Condi Rice explaining that what the Six Parties will get -- an accounting of how much plutonium North Korea has produced over the years -- will give us "the upper hand" in understanding Kim's nuke program. Whatever helps you sleep at night, mama. As the Asia Times' Donald Kirk points out:
The declaration contains no clues about the caves and redoubts, the laboratories and production facilities where North Korean scientists are believed to have begun to learn how to fabricate a warhead from highly enriched uranium. It does not admit acquisition of centrifuges from the disgraced Pakistan physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and it says nothing about acquiring from his network the technology if not the materiel or the training and experience needed to go the final steps to production of a uranium bomb.
Nor does the declaration reveal anything about proliferation of North Korea's nuclear materiel, technology, training and expertise to other countries, notably to Syria, where the Israelis bombed a facility to oblivion in September. Similarly, it maintains silence on North Korea's history of nuclear exchanges with other Middle Eastern countries, notably Iran, which has long boasted of using highly enriched uranium for electrical power while denying any military purposes.
Equally important, the declaration leaves out the question of what North Korea has done with all the plutonium produced for warheads at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang. There's no word on how many warheads it has there, leaving intelligence analysts to repeat longstanding estimates of anywhere from six to a dozen.
After having insisted repeatedly that North Korea had to "come clean" on its uranium program and proliferation, and also account for all the plutonium warheads, the US decided to forsake that approach in the interests of advancing the protracted process of getting North Korea finally to abandon the entire program.
Which is kind of strange, since the U.S. insisted -- to the point of invasion -- that Saddam Hussein "come clean" and bear his complete soul regarding his nuclear "programs." Bush was not satisfied with Saddam's declaration of how much nuclear material it had, and what it destroyed. But with North Korea, lack of detail is no impediment to making a deal. Meanwhile, we await a similar softening when it comes to Iran, which has repeatedly insisted (with back-up from the IAEA,) that it has no nuclear weapons program. Ironic, ain't it?
But hey, today's momentous announcement won't be all for naught. There will be "good explosion video!"
(Washington Post) -- North Korea has said it will follow up on the release of the declaration by blowing up, as early as Friday, the cooling tower of its Yongbyon nuclear facility. It has invited some Western media to televise the largely symbolic event at the plant, which U.S. inspectors say has been substantially dismantled over the past year.
Alright!!!
Meanwhile, Steve Clemons is much less cynical than I am, and he makes a good point about the dissymmetry between the U.S. postures on North Korea and Iran:
This is huge news -- and is a giant step in putting US-North Korea relations on a new and more constructive track. This is a success for the Bush administration -- and more importantly for Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacfic Affairs Christopher Hill who has been a punching bag for former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who has been spitting on Hill's deal-making for the last year.
There are still a lot of questions ranging from the interesting issue of North Korea cooperation with Syria's alleged nuclear facility that was destroyed by Israel and other issues -- but when President Bush gave Colin Powell the positive nod in the first week of April 2003 to proceed with the Six Party Talks, Bush and Cheney ignored Iran's offer of a structure for normalized US-Iran relations the very same week in 2003.
The contrast in circumstances between where America is today with North Korea and where we are with Iran is vital to note. We 'engaged' North Korea and blew it with Iran.
Clemons also makes the point that the agreement could not have been reached without China, which was the lead negotiator in the talks that finally brought Kim around. And he says there's good news in the deal for Barack Obama:
Barack Obama's inclination towards engagement with problematic leaders around the world now is now buttressed by an experience of the George W. Bush administration.
We await John McCain's statement about how we didn't so much "talk" to North Korea as we invaded them psychologically ... for 100 years... oh my damn...
Meanwhile, an interesting op-ed in the WaPo this morning raises the question of whether the same "pressure principles" -- talking and not threatening to invade -- might apply to the arguably wicked Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Swaminathan S. Anklesaria, an editor at the Economic Times, (and who also writes a terrifically titled column in the Times of India called "Swaminomics," gotta love that... argues there is no moral ground to oust Mugabe, despite his sins.
Also in the Post, something for the bitter gun clingers: the Supreme Court will rule on the D.C. gun ban today. (Politico's Ben Smith says the Obama camp is bracing for the ruling, too, and getting their politics in order.)
On the Hill, a GOP Senator holds up housing reform, demanding that Democrats put more money into renewable energy! ... is it just me, or is that kind of counterintuitive... this guy must be in one hell of a tight re-election race...
The Los Angeles Times reveals more bad news for the GOP from its poll with Bloomberg. According to the poll, 75% of Americans blame President Bush for the lousy economic times:
Nine percent of respondents said the country's economic condition had improved since Bush became president, compared with 75% who said conditions had worsened. Among Republicans, 42% said the country was worse off, while 26% said it was about the same, and 22% thought economic conditions had improved.
Phillip Thies, a registered Republican and clothing-store owner in Cedar, Mich., who was one of those polled, said the president was doing an able job through the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but "right after that, it was steadily, steadily downhill."
"There has been a lack of leadership and a lack of timeliness of leadership, of not being conscious of the magnitude of the problems," Thies said of Bush in a follow-up interview. "He's always a day late and a dollar short."
And McCain wants to continue Bush's policies? Not smart, John. Not smart.
Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press has a sort of pathetic story about President Bush and his McCain-sized crowd of 300 fans, who helped him raise a whopping $500,000 for Republican candidates -- a lot of money, to be sure, but rather puny for a sitting president, don't you think?
Across the pond, the Guardian reports on Nelson Mandela's criticism of Mugabe (Bill Clinton is in the U.K. attending Mandela's birthday party...) and Mugabe's push-back. And if you think race relations are sticky here in the U.S., check out this story about a BBC executive's big complaint: "too many black faces on TV." Seriously.
And the Independent doesn't disappoint with three intriguing stories on its website:
First, the U.S. isn't the only place where the defense industry has invaded government. In the UK, the paper tells of the arms dealer who used what amounts to a ringer, to gain access to MPs.
Okay, before I go, here's a quick round of "questions I personally don't need the answer to, but will have to endure hearing on cable news":
1. Is Bill Clinton still mad at Barack Obama? 2. Why did Don Imus say something inflammatory again? 3. Will the netroots stay mad at Barack? (The answer is either "no," or "yes, but they'll vote for him in huge numbers anyway.")
Supreme Court rejects death penalty for child rape
The 5-4 decision is reverberating around the country. At issue was a Louisiana case and law, one of just five such state laws in the U.S. More on the Kennedy case:
Patrick Kennedy was convicted in 2003 of raping his stepdaughter at their home in Harvey, La., outside New Orleans. The girl initially told police she was sorting Girl Scout cookies in the garage when two boys assaulted her.
Police arrested Kennedy a couple of weeks after the March 1998 rape, but more than 20 months passed before the girl identified him as her attacker.
His defense attorney at the time argued that blood testing was inconclusive and that the victim was pressured to change her story.
The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the sentence, saying that "short of first-degree murder, we can think of no other non-homicide crime more deserving" of the death penalty. State Chief Justice Pascal Calogero noted in dissent that the U.S. high court already had made clear that capital punishment could not be imposed without the death of the victim, except possibly for espionage or treason.
A second Louisiana man, Richard Davis was sentenced to death in December for repeatedly raping a 5-year-old girl in Caddo Parish, which includes Shreveport. Local prosecutor Lea Hall told jurors: "Execute this man. Justice has a sword and this sword needs to swing today."
The high court's decision leaves intact Kennedy's conviction, but will lead to a new sentence.
The case is Kennedy v. Louisiana, 07-343.
This one's a tough one. Even those of us who oppose the death penalty flinch on the issue when it comes to sexual attacks on children. I assume this will gin up fresh attacks on the Court by the right.
Obama gets the cover (with no captions, no less) ... McCain gets the business (from Matt Taibi.) Also, the magazine takes a listen to Obama's iPod. And no, there's no ABBA...
Charlie Crist is all over the place. He's for offshore drilling, now that he's no longer against, it, he's green, green, GREEN-ish! ... and he's going to single-handedly save the Everglades. Huh?
Two sides that rarely agree on anything celebrated Tuesday a ''monumental'' but still tentative $1.7 billion buyout that would put the nation's largest sugar grower out of business in six years but fill a gaping hole in Florida's long-stalled Everglades restoration.
The deal, expected to be final by Nov. 30, is good for the environment -- the nearly 300 square miles of sugar land is ''the holy grail,'' one Everglades advocate said. And it's good for U.S. Sugar Corp., which will get $1.7 billion and six years of rent-free operations with the state as its landlord.
In return, Florida gets a chance to reinvigorate the stalled restoration of the Everglades, end years of bickering over pollution by ''Big Sugar'' and -- years from now -- get more much-needed clean water flowing into the River of Grass.
''I can envision no better gift to the Everglades, or the people of Florida, than to place in public ownership this missing link that represents the key to true restoration,'' Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday, likening the announcement to the creation of America's first national park, Yellowstone.
Now, skeptics will say that Charlie is just covering his backside, which he has been waving in the general direction of John McCain lately, in hopes of becoming his running-mate. But the Herald says the deal has been in the works for months. Environmentalists are thrilled, though Democrats are still throwing rocks. If you're very quiet, you can almost hear them plunking into Lake Okeechobee...
(Palm Beach Post) ... Crist, a Republican, said it was "just a coincidence" that news of the state's pending purchase of U.S. Sugar came a week after he shook a political powder keg by announcing his willingness to reexamine the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling.
But the timing produced a mix of reactions from Democrats and environmentalists Tuesday.
House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach called Crist's announcement "potentially historic." The Florida Democratic Party, meanwhile, issued a news release asking whether Crist wanted to buy 300 square miles in the Everglades to open it up for drilling.
"After last week, any environmental initiative pitched by Crist now must be received with guarded skepticism," party spokesman Mark Bubriski wrote.
Last week, Crist said he supported a plan from Republican presidential candidate John McCain to let states decide whether to lift the offshore drilling moratorium.
He said studying the Everglades for drilling is not an option.
But if he has switched positions on offshore drilling because he said it might help cut gas prices, could pressure at the pump reach such a point that drilling the Everglades would be viable?
"I'm not willing to go there," Crist said Tuesday. "I think we took a pretty bold step last week. Let's go one week at a time here.
Yeah, don't go there, governor...
Back to the proposal, and the Miami Herald:
Under the proposal, U.S. Sugar would sell its 187,000 acres of sugar fields to the South Florida Water Management District but continue farming for another six years, or possibly more if both sides agree, before shutting down.
The purchase also covers 200 miles of railroad, two refineries and literally all company assests, Buker said. ``It includes the half-eaten pastrami sandwich in the refrigerator.''
The district, which oversees Everglades restoration for the state, then hopes to swap tracts with other growers to create a massive swath south of Lake Okeechobee that wouldn't necessarily recreate a natural ''flow way'' to marshes but could target restoration's two biggest problems: There isn't water to revive the parched River of Grass, and what there is remains too polluted.
No one has drawn up specific plans yet, but a likely scenario involves massively expanding reservoirs and the 44,000 acres of treatment marshes that the state is building, at a cost of more than $1.2 billion.
Where's the money coming from? Most of it already resides in the Water Management District, as part of what was supposed to be a 50/50 partnership with the Bush administration. Shockingly, the feds have so far failed to pay their share. Bastards.
For U.S. Sugar Corp., the deal with the state of Florida to relinquish an 80-year-old business and give up the world's largest sugar mill was too sweet to rebuff. When the sale of U.S. Sugar's holdings to the South Florida Water Management District closes in November, the sugar and citrus company will pocket $1.75 billion to pay down debt and other obligations and to pay out about $700 million to shareholders.
But equally important, the company will also be able to operate on a rent-free basis for an estimated six years.
As part of an Everglades restoration plan, the Clewiston-headquartered company will sell 187,000 acres of land to the water management district.
Included in the sale are: a newly completed sugar mill, the largest in the world; the company's Southern Gardens Citrus Processing Plant, the largest bulk citrus processor in the United States; and railroads and other buildings.
Property taxes will go away also.
When the sale is complete, the land will be off the tax rolls. Then the Water Management District will begin making payments to the counties with the most significant tax impact, to ease the loss of tax revenue, said Randy Smith, a district spokesman. If the price was right, the time was right, too.
Sugar prices have been recovering in recent weeks. A new five-year farm bill promises to stabilize sugar prices by setting aside any surplus sugar imports for ethanol programs.
''Right now, the outlook for the industry is more upbeat than it has been for a number of years,'' said Jack Roney, director of economics and policy analysis for the American Sugar Alliance in Arlington, Va. Sugar is not the only concern for a company long known as Big Sugar.
Citrus prices have slumped in an industry fearful that Brazilian imports can crush state producers.
''The decision here was based upon the right circumstances at the right time,'' said Robert Coker, a senior vice president at U.S. Sugar. ``This was not driven by economic or environmental concerns.''
The closely held U.S. Sugar does not release financial information.
The company is controlled by foundations and the descendants of the founder, Charles Stewart Mott, who made a fortune in the auto industry and purchased the sugar grower in the 1920s.
About 35 percent of the shares are owned by current and former employees under the U.S. Sugar Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
Coker said there were some two million shares and under terms of the sale, shareholders will receive $350 per share.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports, former Bush spokesguy Scott McClellan is considering jumping off the GOP ship:
Scott McClellan - the longtime supporter of President Bush who served as his White House press secretary for nearly three years - said Tuesday he hasn't ruled out registering as a Democrat or voting Democratic for president this year.
"I haven't made any long-term decisions," McClellan said after an address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, where he received a warm reception from an audience numbering in the hundreds at the Fairmont Hotel.
Hey, you go where it's friendly. Meanwhile, Scotty reveals a serious lack of love for Dick Cheney:
McClellan pointedly warned both campaigns to be particularly attuned to a crucial decision, one that had a huge impact in his former boss' administration: picking a vice presidential candidate. Vice President Dick Cheney, he said, "had a terribly negative influence over this president ... and was shown too much deference" on major decisions, including Iraq. ...
... McClellan who is clear that he has no great admiration for Cheney, joked to the audience that his national book tour has given him some ideas for book titles Cheney might consider: "The Lies I Told," or "I Upped Halliburton's Income - So Up Yours." He also said that during his two terms, Cheney has increased the power of the vice presidency, which was "one of the vice president's pet projects."
McClellan painted a painful portrait of Bush, whom it's clear he still has affection for, as a man surrounded by sharks (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Condi Rice,) who would have gone into Iraq even knowing what we all know now. The president, he thinks, would not, if he could have foreseen the casualties and calamities (somehow, given his animal- and pledge-torturing history, I doubt that, but Scott's entitled to his affections...)
Lots going on this morning, starting with a blast from the values voter past:
From ABC News, a pastor who defended Barack Obama yesterday against James Dobson's "fruitcake" tirade says he will press the candidate to insert an abortion-reduction plank into the Democratic Party platform headed for Denver. Says the Rev. Jim Wallis:
"Taking abortion seriously as a moral issue would help Democrats a great deal with a constituency that is already leaning in their direction on poverty and the environment," said Wallis. "There are literally millions of votes at stake."
He's right, and it's probably a very good idea.
Also on ABC, an exclusive report about still more funny money coming out of the Bush administration, this time of the "faith-based" kind...
A former top official in the White House's faith-based office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant under pressure from two senior Bush administration appointees, according to current and former DOJ staff members and a review of internal DOJ documents and emails.
The $1.2 million grant was jointly awarded to a consulting firm run by Lisa Trevino Cummins who previously headed Hispanic outreach efforts for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and a California evangelical group, Victory Outreach.
The grant was awarded over the strong objections of career DOJ staff who did not believe that Victory Outreach was qualified for the grant and that too great an amount of the funds was going to Cummins' consulting company instead of being spent on services for children.
Cummins' company, Urban Strategies LLC, was slated to get one third of the money for helping the self-described "evangelizing" Victory Outreach use the rest of the funds.
The investigation is part of a DOJ probe into "irregular contracting practices" within its ranks.
And speaking of "irregular," what does it take to get an internship or entry level job in the Bush Justice Department? Good, solid right wing credentials, apparently. From the Seattle Times:
Justice Department officials illegally used "political or ideological" factors in elite recruiting programs in recent years, tapping law-school graduates with conservative credentials over more qualified candidates with liberal-sounding résumés, an internal report found Tuesday.
The report, prepared by the Justice Department's own inspector general and its ethics office, tells how senior department screeners weeded out candidates for career positions whom they considered "leftists," using Internet search engines to look for incriminating information or evidence of possible liberal bias.
One rejected candidate from Harvard Law School worked for Planned Parenthood. Another wrote opinion pieces critical of the USA Patriot Act and the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. A third applicant worked for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and posted an unflattering cartoon of President Bush on his MySpace page.
The report is the first to come after the department's controversial 2006 firings of nine U.S. attorneys, including Seattle's John McKay.
Investigators are also looking into whether those firings were prompted by partisan political reasons, whether former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his aides misled Congress, and whether civil-rights and voting-rights cases were politicized. Those studies could be issued soon, according to lawyers following the issues.
Tuesday's report singled out Michael Elston, the former chief of staff to former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and Esther McDonald, a former department lawyer, as violating anti-discrimination and hiring laws.
While Inspector General Glenn Fine said he wasn't able to prove officials intentionally singled out applicants, he said his investigators had found enough of a pattern to indicate that political or ideological affiliations were being weighed in 2002 and 2006. As a result of actions by Elston and McDonald in 2006, "many qualified candidates" were weeded out, he said. Fine concluded that the pair had committed misconduct, but he didn't find any violation of criminal law. Attorneys for Elston and McDonald didn't immediately return calls requesting comment. Both resigned last year.
As Johnathan Turley pointed out last night on "Countdown," this is an unheard of practice, and is sending chills through Washington's legal community. He also says that Ms. McDonald may find it difficult to find a job that has any relationship to law, since the Gonzales-era politicking has even offended conservative attorneys.
In interviews at West Point, seven cadets, two officers and a former chaplain said that religion, especially evangelical Christianity, was a constant at the academy. They said that until recently, cadets who did not attend religious services during basic training were sometimes referred to as “heathens.” They said mandatory banquets begin with prayer, including a reading from the Bible at a recent gala.
But most of their complaints center on Maj. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, until recently the academy’s top military leader and, since early May, the commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. The cadets and staff said General Caslen, as commandant of cadets at West Point, routinely brought up God in speeches at events cadets were required to attend.
Also in the Times, Congress nears a deal on a sweeping overhaul of the broken mortgage industry:
The centerpiece of the Senate package is a rescue-refinancing plan aimed at stemming the tide of more than 8,000 new foreclosures a day that lenders are filing across the country. The plan would allow distressed borrowers and their lenders to stem losses by allowing qualified owners to refinance into more affordable, 30-year fixed-rate loans with a federal guarantee.
The legislation would also provide benefits for first-time buyers, who would receive a refundable tax credit of up to $8,000, or 10 percent of the value of a home, on purchases of unoccupied housing.
As part of a regulatory overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants, the bill would permanently increase to $625,000, from $417,000, the limit on loans they can purchase from lenders in expensive housing markets, making it easier for borrowers to obtain mortgages at discounted rates. Despite a presidential veto threat, the package received overwhelming bipartisan support, clearing by 83 to 9 a crucial procedural vote in the Senate on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, over at the Wall Street Journal, lawsuits! One involving an anti-trust case that will reap big payments to American Express, (go back to the NY Times to read more, without paying for a WSJ subscription,) and the other, a planned investigation and lawsuit by the Illinois attorney general's office, against notorious mortgage lender Countrywide.
In a draft of the complaint, Illinois alleges that the company engaged in "unfair and deceptive practices" in the sale of mortgage loans. The 78-page document says the company loosened its underwriting standards, structured loans with "risky features" and engaged in "marketing and sales techniques" that incentivized employees and mortgage brokers to push loans whether or not homeowners had the ability to repay them.
The complaint says the company's actions were driven by its desire to boost market share and to satisfy Wall Street's appetite for mortgage securities. "Investor demand and secondary market valuation...became the primary concern when determining what kinds of loans to market and sell and at what price, rather than the consumers' ability to repay the loans," said the complaint.
And the Washington Post indulges its McCain crush with a story about his "plan for greener government." (Does that include bathing Florida and California beaches with sweet, wonderful oil slick?)
Poor pundits. Most have been pooh-poohing the latest Newsweek poll showing a double digit lead for Barack Obama over John McCain, nationally. Is it still considered an outlier if another poll comes out that's just like it? LAT/Bloomberg's latest:
In a two-man race between the major party candidates, registered voters chose Obama over McCain by 49% to 37% in the national poll conducted last weekend.
On a four-man ballot including independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by an even larger margin, 48% to 33%.
So to paraphrase and reverse Pat Buchanan, what's wrong with McCain? In a word: enthusiasm...
McCain suffers from a pronounced "enthusiasm gap," especially among the conservatives who usually give Republican candidates a reliable base of support. Among voters who describe themselves as conservative, only 58% say they will vote for McCain; 15% say they will vote for Obama, 14% say they will vote for someone else, and 13% say they are undecided.
By contrast, 79% of voters who describe themselves as liberal say they plan to vote for Obama.
Even among voters who say they do plan to vote for McCain, more than half say they are "not enthusiastic" about their chosen candidate; only 45% say they are enthusiastic. By contrast, 81% of Obama voters say they are enthusiastic, and almost half call themselves "very enthusiastic," a level of zeal that only 13% of McCain's supporters display.
Say it isn't so, John! What about Barack, and all his problems with white and women voters?
Meanwhile, Obama is doing well among a broad range of voters," she said. "He's running ahead among women, black voters and other minorities. He's running roughly even among white voters and independents."
Among white voters, Obama and McCain are dead even at 39% each, the poll found. Earlier this year, when Obama ran behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) among white voters in some primary elections, analysts questioned whether the African American senator could win white voters in the general election.
But the great majority of Clinton voters have transferred their allegiance to Obama, the poll found. Only 11% of Clinton voters have defected to McCain.
They key in this poll and the Newsweek and other recent surveys is that despite McCain's best efforts, his signature issues, terrorism and the war in Iraq, don't rank high on the priority lists of most Americans. Maybe that's why Camp McCain is not-so-secretly hoping for a terror attack, bin Laden video or handy assassination of a foreign leader just before the election...
Meanwhile, a new Zogby poll shows Obama with a 16-point lead in South Florida. He's leading McCain 46-30% in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beaches combined, according to the relatively small sample poll, which also shows Obama with a 40-35% lead among Hispanic voters in the tri-county area. Early, but interesting...
Tonight on the floor of the Senate, Chris Dodd delivered a genuinely wonderful speech on civil liberties, capping his long battle against the FISA "reforms" tossed to the Senate by the House, at the behest of the Bush administration. Below is a transcript (which took a lot of pausing the TiVo. Hopefully, somebody else whose willing to admit to watching C-SPAN will post the video on Youtube.)
Dodd began by quoting the Church Committee, which investigated civil liberties abuses by the Nixon administration:
"Listen to their words of three decades ago ... and I quote: "The view that the traditional American principles of justice and fair play have no place in our struggle against the enemies of freedom, that view created the Nixonian secrecy of the 1970s." And the Church Committee wrote those words in part, as a rebuke to our predecessors in this chamber, who for years allowed secrecy, and executive abuses to slide. But today those words take on new meaning. Today, they rebuke us in a way. Today they shame us for our lack of faith that we cannot at the same time keep our country safe, and our Constitution whole.
As I said before, when the 21st century version of the Church Committee convenes to investigate the abuses of the past years, how will we be judged? When it reads through the records of our debates, not "if" Mr. President, but "when," what will they find? When the president asked us to repudiate the Geneva Conventions, and strip away the right of habeas corpus, how did we respond? How was our Congress? What did we say about that? When stories about secret prisons, outsourced torture, became impossible to deny, what did that Congress do, in 2008, and 2007? And in June of 2008, when were were asked to put corporations explicitly outside the law, and accept at face value the argument that some are literally too rich to be sued, how did that Congress, how did that Senate vote on that matter? All of these questions are coming for us, Mr. President, all of that and more. And in the quiet of his or her conscience, each Senator knows what the answers are. Remember, this is about than a few telephone calls, a few companies or a few lawsuits. If the supporters of retroactive immunity keep this argument a technical argument, then they will win. The technical argument obscures the defining question: the rule of law, or the rule of men. that question never goes away, as long there are free societies, generations and leaders who are struggling mightily to answer, and each generation must assert an answer for itself. just because our founders answered it correctl, doesn't mean we are bound by their choice. In that, as with all decisions, we are entirely free, the burden falls not on history, but on us, on each one of us. the 100 of us iwho serve n this remarkable chamber.
But we can take council. We can listen to those who came before us, who made the right choices, even when our nation's very survival was at risk. They knew that the rule of law was far more rooted in our character, than any one man's lawlessness. And from the beginning, they advised us to fight that lawlessness, whenever we found it. At the Constitutional Convention, James Madison said, and I quote him, "the means of defense against foreign danger, historically, have become the instruments of tyranny at home." He also said, and I quote, 'I beleve that there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by tose in power, than by violent and sudden usuprtions," end of quote. As long as we are temporary custodians of the Constitution, as we are, we have a duty to guard against those gradual, and silent encroachments. And that's exactly what these are; gradual and silent encroachments. ..."
Dodd went on to say that the founders can warn and council, but "they cannot act for us," and called upon his colleagues to provide the answer "to them, and to generatons to come."
The FISA/telecom immunity debate going on right now in the U.S. Senate is in many ways a classic Democrat-Republican argument. On one side, you have a vigorous defense of corporations (in this case, the phone companies who complied with the Bush administration's requests to pass along the private communications of Americans) by Republicans, and a repudiation of "trial lawyers" who would damage their businesses and ruin their profits with "excessive lawsuits." On the other, Democrats defend the trial system, arguing that people's right to sue should be preserved. Of course, there's more to it than that. As Sen. Chris Dodd is very effectively arguing right now, there is also the issue of standing up to the Bush administration (at last,) and "standing up for the rule of law," and for the premise that no man, no president, and no company is above it, versus the continuing Republican push to emasculate the courts,and so to make the executive branch practically untouchable, even if it breaks the law (so long as the executive is a Republican.) But underlying the arguments, are those age-old tensions between the two parties and two of their leading interest groups: corporations for the GOP and attorneys for the Dems.
That said, Sen. Barack Obama could, in my opinion, vigorously oppose, even fillibuster, the FISA bill so long as it contains immunity for the telecoms, with very little downside. The most obvious downside would be that right wing groups would accuse him of caving to Moveon.org, which apparently doesn't understand the concept of letting the candidate control the message (hence, that baby ad, and the present FISA demands.) Obama could make a very strong argument beyond the civil liberties issues, which sadly, many Americans are willing to look past in the quest for security. He could argue, very simply, that "in securing America, the Congress of the United States should not be in the business of protecting big business from ordinary Americans."
If accused of trying to weaken national security by taking away the incentive for "good, patriotic corporations" to help the government monitor "the terrorists," he could simply reply, "I don't think the Republican Party, which misdirected us into a war with Iraq, and which can't seem to locate Osama bin Laden even with wiretaps on every phone and email account in America and abroad, is in a position to lecture me."
If accused again, he could simply state that "besides, my goal is to do what's right for good, patriotic Americans. Republicans have been helping out the corporatioons long enough."
Or as Chris Dodd just put it, "the world is not going to collapse, the sky is not gonna fall, if a few companies have to explain to their customers why they vacuumed up their personal information."
Dodd could have been one hell of a communications guy.
UPDATE: Chris Dodd may have just made some news. It sounded like he just said he would fillibuster the FISA bill tomorrow, or prevent other legislation, on housing, from coming to the floor.
If and when the vote happens, you've got to wonder whether close proximity to the telecom industry will affect individual Senators' votes. And guess who is, by far, the leading recipient of telecom industry money? According to OpenSecrets.org, it's John McCain. (Logically, since they were the presidential front runners, McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama form the top three, with Obama lagging well behind the other two...) Dodd is showing some courage tonight, given that he also makes the top 20 (rounding it out at number 20.)
Top 20 Senators (donatons from telephone utilities) Rank Candidate Amount
1 McCain, John (R) $332,795 2 Clinton, Hillary (D) $223,092 3 Obama, Barack (D) $185,898 4 Rockefeller, Jay (D-WV) $48,000 5 Stevens, Ted (R-AK) $33,450 6 Graham, Lindsey (R-SC) $31,100 7 Pryor, Mark (D-AR) $29,950 8 Collins, Susan M (R-ME) $29,850 9 Baucus, Max (D-MT) $28,000 10 Lautenberg, Frank R (D-NJ) $23,800 11 Sununu, John E (R-NH) $22,600 12 Durbin, Dick (D-IL) $20,850 13 McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $18,750 14 Wicker, Roger (R-MS) $18,000 15 Smith, Gordon H (R-OR) $16,750 16 Brownback, Sam (R-KS) $14,200 17 Landrieu, Mary L (D-LA) $13,750 18 Roberts, Pat (R-KS) $13,250 18 Dorgan, Byron L (D-ND) $13,250 20 Dodd, Christopher J (D-CT) $13,000
The Associated Press reports that Dr. James Dobson is bringing down the wrath of ... Dobson ... on Barack Obama today on his radio show, accusing Obama of "distorting scripture." Wait for it. This one's all about abortion... But first, Dobson, in a pre-taped 18-minute sermon for which Focus on the Family's PAC bought time, attacks a speech Obama gave in 2006 before a liberal Christian group, Call to Renewal:
"Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?" Obama said. "Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?" referring to the civil rights leader.
Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."
"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said. Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament. "I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said. "... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."
Then, he gets down to business:
Dobson reserved some of his harshest criticism for Obama's argument that the religiously motivated must frame debates over issues like abortion not just in their own religion's terms but in arguments accessible to all people. He said Obama, who supports abortion rights, is trying to govern by the "lowest common denominator of morality," labeling it "a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."
"Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?" Dobson said. "What he's trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe."
Meanwhile, over to the Denver Post, where a new Pew survey suggests that while most Americans believe in God, most do NOT believe in Dr. James Dobson ...
Most of the faithful, 70 percent, think there are paths to eternal life other than the one prescribed by their own religion. And 68 percent think there is "more than one true way" to interpret the teachings of their religion.
"That's higher than I would have intuitively thought," said Jacob Kinnard, an associate professor at the University of Denver's Iliff School of Theology. "But this has been a pluralistic country for a long time. People are much more exposed to religions other than their own."
Only Mormons (57 percent) and Jehovah's Witnesses (80 percent) have majorities who say that only their religion is the "one true faith leading to eternal life," the survey found.
About 57 percent of Evangelical Protestants and 56 percent of Muslims think many religions can lead to eternal salvation — a view also held by 89 percent of Hindus, 83 percent of mainline Protestants, 82 percent of Jews and 79 percent of Catholics. "One of the things that would be surprising to Americans is how Muslims answered," said Kinnard, referring to the fact that more than half of Muslims surveyed think many religions can lead to eternal salvation.
Sorry, Dr. Dobson.
The cable chat shows will be focusing on a New York Times story today about Muslim-Americans feeling snubbed by Obama. Congressman Keith Ellison is quoted in the story as saying that he too, got the cold shoulder from the Obama campaign. Ironically, the same cable shows that will harp on this story today have been central to whipping up Americans' anti-Muslim hysteria, "war on terror" mythology, and even questions about Obama's faith. As Chuck Todd just said on MSNBC, apparently paraphrasing Mike Barnacle, imagine how the mainstream media would erupt if Obama did visit a mosque. Just close your eyes and imagine the Fox News coverage alone...
Also in the Times, Zimbabwe continues to ride the handbasket to hell, with the opposition candidate for president taking refuge in the Dutch embassy, and the U.N. doing what it does: calling for all parties to stop the violence. Thanks, Ban Ki Moon.
WASHINGTON — An American ambassador helped cover up the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition that a Pentagon contractor bought to supply Afghan security forces, according to testimony gathered by Congressional investigators.
A military attaché has told the investigators that the United States ambassador to Albania endorsed a plan by the Albanian defense minister to hide several boxes of Chinese ammunition from a visiting reporter. The ammunition was being repackaged to disguise its origins and shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a Miami Beach arms-dealing company.
The ambassador, John L. Withers II, met with the defense minister, Fatmir Mediu, hours before a reporter for The New York Times was to visit the American contractor’s operations in Tirana, the Albanian capital, according to the testimony. The company, under an Army contract, bought the ammunition to supply Afghan security forces although American law prohibits trading in Chinese arms.
The attaché, Maj. Larry D. Harrison II of the Army, was one of the aides attending the late-night meeting, on Nov. 19, 2007. He told House investigators that Mr. Mediu asked Ambassador Withers for help, saying he was concerned that the reporter would reveal that he had been accused of profiting from selling arms. The minister said that because he had gone out of his way to help the United States, a close ally, “the U.S. owed him something,” according to Major Harrison.
Mr. Mediu ordered the commanding general of Albania’s armed forces to remove all boxes of Chinese ammunition from a site the reporter was to visit, and “the ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing,” Major Harrison said, according to his testimony.
Investigators interviewed Major Harrison by telephone on June 9, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee made excerpts of the transcript public on Monday.
At the time of the meeting, the company, AEY Inc., was under investigation for illegal arms trafficking involving Chinese ammunition.
AEY is an interesting company. It's CEO is just 22 years old. The leg work on the case was done by the great Henry Waxman, who "invited" the young CEO to testify before the House Government Oversight Committee back in April. (Little Efraim Diveroli's Army contract was suspended a month before the hearings.) So how does a 22-year-old get a $300 million defense contract? His dad:
AEY Inc. was founded in 1999 by Michael Diveroli, Efram's father. Michael Diveroli now operates a police supply company down the street from AEY's office.
More on Little Efraim, and his interesting history (and rap sheet) from TPM Muckraker back in March. Apparently, Michael has a new company now, Worldwide Tactical, which sells police and military uniforms, and which is registered with the federal government as "minority owned..." Apparently, the father is continuing the practices of his "former" company, falsely labeling his companies as "small disadvantaged businesses" to gain more contracting opportunities.
Over to the Washington Post, where the paper's top story online is the four Americans killed in a Sadr City explosion in Iraq.
A bombing inside a local government office in Baghdad killed two American soldiers and two civilians on Tuesday, the second attack in a week that the U.S. military has blamed on rogue Shiite "special groups" linked to Iran.
The blast, inside a district council office in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, also killed six Iraqis and wounded ten others, according to preliminary reports.
In an initial news release, U.S. officials did not provide details about the two civilians who were killed. The Reuters and Associated Press news agencies, attributing the information to an official at the U.S. embassy in Iraq, said that one of the civilians worked for the State Department and the other for the Defense Department.
They were attending a meeting of the local District Advisory Council in a section of Sadr City that was brought under U.S. and Iraqi military control after sometimes intense fighting earlier this year. The councils are part of a U.S. campaign to build the authority of local government throughout the country, an effort that has accelerated in other parts of Iraq as violence has ebbed.
The Bush administration's reaction should set at least some of your hair on fire, because they appear to be systematically laying the groundwork for an attack on Iran, which they hope to be able to label as "retaliation":
The release also made clear who the U.S. feels is responsible -- one of the Iranian-backed Shiite "special groups" that some officials consider a significant long term threat to Iraq's stability.
Except that Iran and Iraq are now friendlier than they have ever been, and friendlier than either country is with us...
The WaPo also reports on the upcoming meeting in Unity, New Hampshire between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and on Obama's moves to court women voters (whom he's already winning in most polls, but no matter! The story must go on!)
The Wall Street Journal's Susan Davis reports on Barack's tack to the center, which is irritating some left-leaning groups, like MoveOn.org. Could such a fight help Obama in the swing states? Writes Davis:
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, conducted in early June, showed that 58% of voters perceive Sen. Obama as a liberal and 24% view him as a moderate. In contrast, 34% view Sen. McCain as a moderate and 48% see him as a conservative.
To be sure, the predominant view among party leaders is that a turn toward the center is smart politics, and that Sen. Obama's willingness to buck the left wing on issues such as the spy bill signals he is maneuvering to fight Sen. McCain directly for voters in the middle of the political spectrum.
"I applaud it," a senior Democratic lawmaker said. "By standing up to MoveOn.org and the ACLU, he's showing, I think, maybe the first example of demonstrating his ability to move to the center. He's got to make the center comfortable with him. He can't win if the center isn't comfortable."
On national security McCain wins. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy - this according to McCain's chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.
"I cannot imagine why he would say it; it's not true," the Arizona senator said. "I've worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent anther attack on the United States of America. My record is very clear."
Citing his work to establish a commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States, as well as his membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain added: "I cannot imagine it, and so, if he said that _ and I don't know the context _ I strenuously disagree."
Black, interviewed by reporters as he stood outside McCain's fundraiser, said: "I deeply regret the comments. They were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration."
Will Black hang on? I suspect so. They've got pretty loose standards over there at Camp McCain...
In case you missed it: the not ready for prime time player
While you were out getting drenched covering the anti-mayors convention protesters ... Joy Reid ... Florida Politics was reminding me why I didn't like Charlie Crist during the gubernatorial campaign, especially during the debates. In short: he's an empty sun-tan:
After all those years of receiving a pass from Florida's compliant newspaper company employees, Charlie wilts before a less than difficult crowd.
"The first reviews are in on Charlie Crist's performance as a high-profile stump speaker on the Republican circuit. It ain't pretty, and it's why the Veep-O-Meter swings backward this week."
The speech by John McCain's potential running mate to Orange County, Calif., Republicans last weekend really helped his party. "By showing unequivocally he would be a complete disaster for the GOP — the worst running mate since Dan Quayle," Orange County Register columnist Frank Mickadeit wrote in a column headlined "We know who McCain shouldn't pick."
"Mr. Crist looks great: … silver hair, warm smile, great tan, perfectly tailored suit of clothes, decent teeth. It's when he uses his facial musculature to try and form cogent sound that he falls apart."
"The columnist said that in just nine minutes, Crist wrongly declared that Ronald Reagan hailed from Orange County and drew audible groans when he saluted Arnold Schwarzenegger — a moderate hardly loved in that bastion of conservatism."
"I would say he was stunned and distracted for minutes, as he absorbed the lack of popularity in this room for the governor," one Republican activist, Jon Fleischman, wrote on a California political Web site.
Crist's support for McCain's new proposal to allow drilling off Florida, may endear him to McCain, but it's not helping Crist's national image. The political Web site the Hotline even suggested it may have sunk Crist's veep prospects if Florida voters recoil: If "taking one for the team" compromises your home-state standing, doesn't that make you less helpful to the party?
Imagine Charlie in a "debate" with, say ... Hillary Clinton, Jim Webb, Bill Richardson, Tom Daschle, Sam Nunn, Ed Rendell or any of the others in the Obama Veepstakes. I'd pay for one of them tickets
Me too! Did I mention that Miss Charlie also won't be on the ticket because he's gay? And how would John McCain explain THAT to Dr. Dobson?
Can Barack Obama win the off-and-on red state of Florida? To paraphrase the candidate, "yes he can." But he'll need record black voter turnout (even higher than the high water marks of 1996 and 2000) to get it done. This year, he may get it (hat tip to Marlon Hill). First, some history:
About 12 percent of the Florida electorate is black, but black turnout is inconsistent. In 2000, when Al Gore barely lost the state and the White House, black voters accounted for 15 percent of the overall vote. In 2004, when John Kerry lost Florida by 5 percentage points, that number was 12 percent.
Despite a massive mobilization effort by political groups working independently of the Kerry-Edwards campaign but in hopes of helping the ticket, black turnout in Florida was just 61 percent. Overall turnout was 74 percent.
I remember it well -- I was working for one of those groups... and now the bottom line:
Florida is just starting to get to know Obama, as he and Hillary Rodham Clinton avoided campaigning in the state's unsanctioned Jan. 29 primary. But in the 16 contested Democratic primaries with significant black populations, the black turnout jumped 115 percent. Overwhelmingly, those votes went to Obama.
"I have no doubt he will significantly increase black turnout across the country. It was 60 percent in 2004, and I would expect it to be 72 percent this year," said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic studies, one of the country's foremost experts on black voting trends.
"In most cases, that's not necessarily enough for him to carry a state, but Florida is one of those places that a big black turnout certainly has the potential to put him over the top," said Bositis, putting Virginia and North Carolina in the same category.
That alone can't deliver Florida, but if Obama continues to run strong or competitively among Hispanic and independent voters, black turnout could give him a pivotal edge.
Meanwhile, Obama could also be helped, inadvertently, by eager McCain suitor Charlie Crist, who made good on a campaign promise to ease the transition of former felons to full membership in civic society, including restoring the right to vote (or at least making the process a little simpler.) That change alone could in theory put nearly 950,000 ex-felons (and people mistaken for felons by Kathy Harris' Dickensian system,) back on the rolls, or 9 percent of the state's voting age population (Florida has more disenfranchised felons than any other state, and surprise, surprise, a disproportionate number of them are African-American, Latino or lower income white. And though these are voters who haven't been able to participate, most researchers believe that the disenfranchised would overwhelmingly vote Democrat.) If the Obama campaign and other groups can get to these voters -- even half of them would erase George W. Bush's 380,000 vote margin in 2004.
Sidebar: I can attest anecdotally that at nearly every event we did at my prior radio station in the black community, we had people coming to us or calling in to ask how they could get their rights restored. From the jobs standpoint, as well as from a voter participation standpoint, this is a very big deal...
If you want to get a glimpse of the sheer psychosis of the right wing mind, click here to read the ravings of a particularly alarmist winger who predicts that if Barack Obama becomes president, literally, all hell will break loose. Note that he includes "high gas prices" as one of the calamities. Clearly, this guy is a bicycler... What's really scary, is that he is not at all unusual.
Excuse my French, but these people are NUTS!
To be fair, many on the right are simply frustrated that Obama simply will not fade away. Few actually like John McCain, but their only hope of shoe horning him into the White House is for the mainstream media to take Obama down ... hard. That's not happening as yet, so they're down to attacking his new political director (Patrick Gaspard, with whom I worked back in my ACT days, and who, contrary to RedState, really isn't all that scary, and who as field director ... and I'll go slowlhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gify for the wingers, didn't direct or implement financial policy for ACT ...), sputtering on about "victory in Iraq," whining that the media are turning Obama into an icon, and writhing in agony as once again, the popular culture trends against them. This video has got to be particularly galling:
Ironically, neither the press nor the Obama campaign find their relationship quite so cozy. In fact, quite the opposite. And yet, the myth persists with righties, who apparently haven't noticed their candidate's eight-year media free ride.
By the way, not ONE pro-McCain article today on RedState. Very sad, but proof that the GOP will make the election all about Barack, with John McCain merely along for the ride.
I got pretty sick of MSNBC and the other cable nets harping on this supposed "teen pregnancy pact" story that originated in TIME Magazine. Well ... turns out it might not actually be true (surprise, surprise...)
(CBS/AP) School counselors, teachers and families of students the principal said made a pact to get pregnant and have babies together have no information to back the claim, the mayor of Gloucester said Sunday.
Mayor Carolyn Kirk plans to meet Monday with school, health and other local officials after Gloucester High School Principal Joseph Sullivan was quoted by Time magazine saying the girls made such a pact.
The meeting will discuss the alarming rate of teen pregnancy. Seventeen girls in the high school became pregnant this year - four times the usual number. The girls are all 16 or younger, and nearly all of them sophomores.
Kirk told The Associated Press that Sullivan has told officials in this hard-luck New England fishing town that he can't remember his source of information.
"The high school principal is the one who initially said it, and no one else has said it," Kirk said. "None of the counselors at the school, none of the teachers who know these children and none of the families have spoken about it.
"So, my position is that it has not been confirmed," she said.
Another day of wasted media time, that could have been devoted to reports about Iraq, Afghanistan, FISA, the economy, gas prices, joblessness, and you know ... news. And meanwhile, shouldn't TIME's reporter have corroborated the story before it went to print?
Obamilan (adj.) - 'oh-BAH-mi-lan.' -- An Italian fashion trend inspired by Barack Obama and first created by designer Donatella Versace, who this past weekend dedicated her Spring/Summer 2009 collection to the candidate. The collection is designed for what Versace describes as "a relaxed man who doesn't need to flex muscles to show he has power."
Meaning that the independent candidates take about 3 points from Obama, 2 points from McCain and nothing from undecided.
Republicans appear to be genuinely worried about Barr, much more so than Dems are paying attention to Ralph Whats-his-name. Especially after a June 18 Insider Advantage poll showed Barr narrowing McCain's Georgia margin to the lowest possible single digit:
McCain: 44% Obama: 43% Barr: 6% Undecided: 7%
The pollsters point out that Barr's main strength is also McCain's: senior voters. Uh-oh...
One more piece of polling interest, from the WaPo pol:Voters were asked, regardless of who they support, which candidate:
Is the stronger leader? Obama: 46% McCain: 46% (McCain had a 4 point advantage in May)
Would do more to bring needed change to Washington? Obama: 60% McCain: 22%
Better represents your own personal value? Obama: 51% McCain: 38%
Better understands the problems of people like you? Obama: 53% McCain: 35%
Would do more to stand up to lobbyists and special interest groups? Obama: 51% McCain: 36%
So much for Pat Buchanan's "what's wrong with this guy?" routine...
Voters were also asked who they trust more on a variety of issues. Here's how the two candidates scored:
Obama was trusted more on:
the economy (52/36)
women's issues (58/26)
gas prices (50/30)
global warming/environmental issues (55/28)
taxes (48/40)
healthcare (53/33)
energy (51/36)
appointments to the Supreme Court (45/53)
McCain was trusted more on:
international affairs (49/43)
the war in Iraq (47/46) -- a statistical tie
the "U.S. campaign against terrorism" (53/39 -- McCain's only big lead)
Trying out a new feature for the blog, which will make morning blogging more efficient on my end, and hopefully provide a jumpstart to your morning read. Enjoy!
This morning...
The New York Times hits Barack Obama with a story about Obama advisers Tom Daschle and Jason Grumet's ethanol ties (forecast: Obama favors subsidies, wins Iowa in November. All politics is "economically local"...) On this one, I think McCain may be right about one thing: the U.S. should stop tariffing sugar ethanol out of the market. It's cheaper, produces more energy, and in Brazil at least, it's working ... Still, Obama is probably right on the politics, as this statement from the campaign makes clear:
“It does not serve our national and economic security to replace imported oil with Brazilian ethanol,” he argued.
It's the domestic production and jobs, stupid, though once he's in office, hopefully Obama will broaden his view. Sugarcane ethanol imports could not only help Brazil, it could be a lifeline for another country where sugar grows: Haiti.
The Washington Postfollows up last night's damning "60 Minutes" piece on America's Middle East TV network, al-Hurra, one of many disastrous Bush administration attempts to "win the hearts and minds" of Muslims around the world.
Also in the Post, Obama seeks to close the Phil Gramm/Enron loophole, and while the rest of the nation squeals in pain, Houston laps up the benefits of $4.10 a gallon gas. But the story the cable chatters will probably spend most of their time on today will be yet another Obama reinvention story, this time by Dan Balz and Ann Kornblut.
The Boston Globe reports on John McCain's $300 million prize for whoever can build a better car battery. One question: where in the world are we getting the $300 million in a recession? And it wouldn't be a McCain plan without money for Big Bizness:
In addition, a so-called Clean Car Challenge would provide U.S. automakers with a $5,000 tax credit for every zero-carbon emissions car they develop and sell.
And there you go. Meanwhile, the Globe proffers a long puff piece by Sasha Issenberg on John McCain's war experience and how it shaped his present views. The piece skims past his contentious relations with POW/MIA groups who believed that U.S. troops remained alive in Vietnam, even skipping a notorious episode in which McCain reduced a mother of an MIA soldier to tears during televised hearings in which he lived up to his Academy nickname, "McNasty." The Globe also fails to mention the ambivalence, and even downright hostility, that some Vietnam vets continue to feel about McCain (yes, there is an anti-McCain 527.) I doubt such information would have been left out of an article on John Kerry, and I doubt that the press will pursue the issue, given the media's reluctance to replay the Swift Boat episode from 2004 and general reverence for McCain's war service (as should be afforded any veteran.)
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has a piece about the Obama campaign's careful targeting of black voters -- emphasizing the tightrope Obama has to walk between courting a needed base, and not turning off certain white voters.
And across the pond, the Guardian reports that as the recent Mideast oil summit fails to halt rising oil prices, a leading climate scientist will go before Congress today and call for top oil executives to be put on trial. And last but not least, if you think politics is toxic in the States, try Zimbabwe.
John McCain isn't having a good week. Polls show him behind in key swing states, including Florida, his big issue this past week is whether or not Barack Obama is accepting public financing so taxpayers can fund his campaign .... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... The Chris Matthews Show unearthed a creepy performance from 2005 on "Saturday Night Live" in which he channels Norman Bates, which is sure to up his already high creepiness quotient, and now, his reputation for "straight talk" and "maverick" behavior is running smack into a giant, French-built refeuling tanker. Newsweek explains:
One of John McCain's most celebrated achievements in recent years was his crusade to block a Pentagon contract with Boeing for a new fleet of midair refueling tankers. Incensed over what he denounced as a taxpayer "rip-off," McCain launched a Senate probe that uncovered cozy relations between top Air Force officials and Boeing execs. A top Air Force officer and Boeing's CFO ended up in prison. Most significantly, the Air Force was forced to cancel the contract—saving taxpayers more than $6 billion, McCain asserted.
But last week, McCain's subsequent effort to redo the tanker deal was dealt a setback. Government auditors ruled that the Air Force made "significant errors" when it rebid the contract and awarded the $35 billion project to Boeing's chief rival, partners European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (or EADS) and Northrop Grumman. It's likely the Air Force will have to redo the bid yet again, which analysts say will delay the replacement of the fleet's 1950s-era refueling tankers. The auditors' ruling has also cast light on an overlooked aspect of McCain's crusade: five of his campaign's top advisers and fund-raisers—including Tom Loeffler, who resigned last month as his finance co-chairman, and Susan Nelson, his finance director—were registered lobbyists for EADS. ...
That's what you might call "bad symmetry..." The Newsweek article goes on:
Critics, including some at the Pentagon, cite in particular two tough letters McCain wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England in 2006 and another to Robert Gates, just prior to his confirmation as Defense secretary. In the first letter, dated Sept. 8, 2006, McCain wrote of hearing from "third parties" that the Air Force was about to redo the tanker competition by factoring in European government subsidies to EADS—a condition that could have seriously hurt the EADS bid. McCain urged that the Pentagon drop the subsidy factor and posed a series of technical questions about the Air Force's process. "He was trying to jam us and bully us to make sure there was competition by giving EADS an advantage," said one senior Pentagon official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a politically sensitive matter. The assumption within the Pentagon, the official added, was that McCain's letters were drafted by EADS lobbyists. "There was no one else that would have had that level of detail," the official said. (A Loeffler associate noted that he and Nelson were retained by EADS after the letters were drafted.)
Damnit, there are letters??? Not good. The Boeing-EADS isue was already hurting McCain in the heartland, where his love of free trade and vigorous support for NAFTA "as-is," support which Miss Lindsey Graham generously remminded blue collar voters of today (decrying unions in the process, thank you,) isn't doing him any favors in America's dying industrial base (hello, this guy hopes to WIN Michigan and Pennsylvania???) Now, there's a new narrative to add to McCain's woes: the Maverick is lashed to big, special interest insiders who are using their influence with him to screw over American workers and ship their jobs ... to France.
Joe Biden's only good line on "Meet the Press" this morning (have I panned him enough yet?) was when he said that John McCain appears to be running to be commander in chief of Iraq, rather than president of the United States (his point: it's time for an American president to put American interests first.) In his column today, Frank Rich does even greater damage to McCain's "stay if we lose, stay if we win" strategy for creating an eternal U.S. military presence in the Iraq of his dreams:
... Should voters tune in, they’ll also discover that the McCain policy is nonsensical on its face. If “we are winning” and the surge is a “success,” then what is the rationale for keeping American forces bogged down there while the Taliban regroups ominously in Afghanistan? Why, if this is victory, does Mr. McCain keep threatening that “chaos and genocide” will follow our departure? And why should we take the word of a prophet who failed to anticipate the chaos and ethnic cleansing that would greet our occupation?
And exactly how, as Mr. McCain keeps claiming, is an indefinite American occupation akin to our long-term military role in South Korea? The diminution of violence notwithstanding, Iraq is an active war zone. And unlike South Korea, it isn’t asking America to remain to protect it from a threatening neighbor. Iraq’s most malevolent neighbor, Iran, is arguably Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s closest ally. In the most recent survey, in February, only 27 percent of Iraqis said the American presence is improving their country’s security. Far from begging us to stay, some Iraqi politicians, including Mr. Maliki, have been pandering to their own election-year voters by threatening to throw the Yankees out.
Mr. McCain’s sorest Achilles’ heel, of course, is his role in facilitating the fiasco in the first place. Someone in his campaign has figured this out. Go to JohnMcCain.com and, hilariously enough, you’ll find a “McCain on Iraq Timeline” that conveniently begins in August 2003, months after “Mission Accomplished.” Vanished into the memory hole are such earlier examples of the McCain Iraq wisdom as “the end is very much in sight” (April 9, 2003) and “there’s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shiites” (later that same month).
To finesse this embarrassing record, Mr. McCain asks us to believe that the only judgment that matters is who was “right” about the surge, not who was right about our reckless plunge into war. That’s like saying he deserves credit for tossing life preservers to the survivors after encouraging the captain of the Titanic to plow full speed ahead into the iceberg.
Read the entire column here. It ends with a pretty good prescriptiono for curing poor John McCain's Vietnam-inspired obsession with staying in Iraq "until we win" (or to prevent us from losing after we win... or ... oh, never mind, here's the clip:)
Our best hope for a bipartisan resolution of this disaster may be for a President Obama to appoint Mr. McCain as a special envoy to Baghdad, where he can stay for as long as he needs to administer our withdrawal or 100 years, whichever comes first.
John McCain and his friends in the mainstream media are having a field day criticizing Barack Obama for opting out of the public financing system, something I continue to believe the public cares nothing about. But the media obsession with it this week all-but guarantees that McCain will be successful in keeping this alive as an issue, at least until Michelle Obama wears another really spectacular dress, or Cindy McCain poaches another cookie recipe. What the televised media has so far failed to do, is delve much into John McCain's history on this same issue. So far, only "Countdown" on MSNBC has cared much about it, but if we're going to whack Obama, and be forced to watch McCain moan about Barack "breaking his word," shouldn't we at least know what McCain has been up to?
Well while Johnny Mac calls Obama's decision a "big deal," (we'll get to his actual quote later in the post,) his team (and Brian Williams, sitting on on today's "Meet the Press") fail constantly, to remind the public about McCain's own public financing "big deal." From TPM Muckraker back in Feburary:
As The Washington Post reported on Saturday, John McCain's campaign struck a canny deal with a bank in December. If his campaign tanked, public funds would be there to bail him out. But if he emerged as the nominee, there'd be no need for public financing, since the contributions would come flowing.
It's an arrangement that no one has ever tried before. And it appears that McCain, who has built his reputation on campaign finance reform, was gaming the system. Or as a campaign finance expert who preferred to remain anonymous told me, referring to the prominent role that lobbyists have as advisers to his campaign, "This places McCain’s grandstanding on public financing in a new light. True reformers believe public financing is a way to replace the lobbyists’ influence, not a slush fund that the lobbyists use to pay off campaign debts."
Here's the back story. As of December, McCain was still enrolled in the public financing system, but had yet to actually receive any public matching funds. The Federal Election Commission had certified that the campaign would be receiving $5.8 million in public funds. But they wouldn't get that money for a couple more months. In need of even more cash beyond the $3 million loan he'd already secured from a Maryland bank (he'd taken out a life insurance policy as collateral), the McCain campaign was stuck in a bind. They needed more money, but the bank needed collateral.The promise of those public matching funds (to the tune of more than $5 million) was the only collateral the campaign could offer. But there was a problem with that. Using that promised money as collateral would have bound McCain to the public financing system, according to FEC rules. And the McCain camp wanted to avoid that, because the system limits campaigns to spending $54 million in the primary (through August). That would mean McCain would get seriously outspent by the Democratic nominee through the summer. (McCain has separately pledged to enroll in the system for the general election; that would give him $85 million in taxpayer funds for use after the party convention through Election Day but bar other contributions.)
So here's what the McCain campaign did. They struck a deal with the bank that simultaneously allowed his campaign to secure public funds if necessary, but did not compel his campaign to stay in the public system if fundraising went well (i.e. if he won the nomination). As McCain's lawyer told the Post, "We very carefully did not do that." He was not promising to remain in the system -- he was promising to drop out of the system, and then opt back in if things went poorly. In that event, the $5.8 million would still be waiting for him. And he'd just hang around to collect it, even if he'd gotten drubbed in New Hampshire and the following states.
You can see the agreement here. The relevant paragraph is on page two.
McCain's bank deal stunk so much, the Democratic National Committee actually sued them. The suit was thrown out last month, but in doing so, the judge never addressed the substance of the claim. Instead, the dismissal was all about timing:
Judge John Bates wrote in a five-page decision that the case is the FEC's to decide, and even though the commission has been unable to obtain a quorum for several months, the matter still remains in their jurisdiction. Federal law requires a party to file a complaint with the FEC and then wait 120 days before filing suit, Bates, an appointee of President Bush, pointed out in his ruling. The DNC complaint, which asks for investigation of a bank loan agreement the McCain campaign entered into with Fidelity and Trust Bank of Bethesda, was filed in April. Before the FEC's quorum troubles, the panel asked the McCain campaign to explain the agreement.
Meaning that the FEC, if it can get a quorum, could yet decide that John McCain violated campaign finance laws that have his name on them -- somethng that would truly be unprecedented in American history, even in Bush-era politics.
The larger point here is that right up until the moment Barack Obama opted out of public financing, the McCain campaign has been trying in every way possible, legal and possibly "extra-legal," to get out of public financing as well. The difference is, Obama did so straight up, while Camp McCain has been trying to have it both ways -- in the system for the purposes of securing a loan -- out of the system once they thought the money was about to roll in.
Now, let's have Johnny Mac's quote from this past week, which you can now consider in context:
“This election is about a lot of things but it’s also about trust. It’s also about whether you can take people’s word,”
At least he didn't add, "and then take it to the bank."
UPDATE: Signs last week seemed to indicate that Team Obama would begin taking the gloves off if McCain continues to try and peddle public financing as a campaign issue (though inexplicably, they didn't prep Joe Biden to do so on "MTP" this morning.) The Politico reported early last week: that the Obama communications director, Bill Burton, was circulating the Washington Post story in an email with the subject line, "McCain Got Loan by Pledging to Seek Federal Funds."
Burton wrote:
The below Washington Post story outlines how John McCain substituted a special deal for straight talk, telling the voters one thing and his bank another. The bank wanted to be sure it would get paid: the taxpayers were used as the guarantee while he was publicly denying that he had taken their money.
He didn't say anything about the current back-and-forth, but that seems to be where this is going. [Emphasis added]
Well it's not going that way yet, but we'll see if it does going forward.
I was all prepared to give Brian Williams a chance as the temporary moderator of MTP, which has been part of the Sunday staple in our house for a decade, any my life for long before that. The guests promised to be interesting: Miss Lindsey Graham vs. one of my favorite presidential contenders, Joe Biden. Well ... in two words... it sucked.
Perhaps Biden wasn't properly prepared, but he seemed completely unable to coherently defend Barack Obama's decision to opt out of public financing, even conceding that Obama's decision probably contributes to breaking the system. Putting aside, if I can, the fact that Williams spent at least 20 minutes on this subject, much more time than it deserves, why didn't Biden simply turn to McCain's smirkly little defedress, and tell her the following:
"First of all, Lindsey, I can guarantee you that the moms and dads watching us today who are worrying about how they'll aford the mortgage or where they're gonna get $100 to fill up their gas tanks next week aren't too worried about the fact that Barack Obama isn't gonna use their tax money to run his campaign."
"Second, John McCain is hardly in a position to lecture Barack Obama about keeping his word when he has flip-flopped on everything he used to say he believed in, whether it's tax breaks for the rich, torture, or offshore oil drilling."
"And third, Brian, wasn't it David Shuster at your network who reported that John McCain has jumped in and out of the campaign finance system himself, first using a promise to stay in the system to get a loan, then trying to wriggle out of public financing when he thought he'd raise more money? Brian and Lindsey, you both know that the Democratic National Committee even filed a lawsuit against my friend John McCain's campaign, precisely because he has broken his word repeatedly on this issue."
See how easy that was? Three simple freaking talking points, none of which was uttered by Joe Biden, who has been so spectacular in responding to everything from Rudy "noun, verb and 9/11" Giuliani, to the McCain stance on Iraq.
It was an unfortunate miss by Biden, but an even greater one by the once crack researchers of "Meet the Press," who apparently spent the week digging only for quotes that would make Obama look like a flip-flopper, rather than information about the public financing stances of both sides.
Luckily, as I have been hoping, Tom Brokaw will take over hosting duties on MTP, at least through election day. Brokaw is clearly the only person at NBC with the stature to assume Russert's seat. Temporarily suspending his retirement, he starts his new gig next week.
Why did the Democrats capitulate on FISA? Was it cowardice? Election year politics? Or as Keith Olberman puts it, not FISA but CYSA?
Back in 2001, with 9/11 fresh in the minds of Americans, many Congressional Democrats decided it was better to switch than to fight the administration of George W. Bush. Karl Rove did his job, frightening both the country and the Congress into handing over to Mr. Bush extraordinary powers the likes of which this country hasn't seen since it divorced George III.
Now, seven years later, Democrats control the Congress, even if barely in the Senate. Bush is a lame duck and by almost everyone's calculation, a failure as president. One of his many illegal acts and outrages upon the Constitution -- the warrantless wiretapping of Americans -- comes before the Congress, mainly because they choose to bring it t the floor, and rather than allow the Constitution to prevail, House Democrats cave to a president they no longer have to fear, by retroactively legalizing the wiretapping, and granting immunity to the telecom companies who participated, illegally, in it.
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation that would continue a controversial surveillance program at the U.S. National Security Agency with limited court oversight, while likely ending lawsuits against telecommunications carriers that participated in the program.
The House on Friday voted 293 to 129 to approve a bill that was a compromise between congressional Democrats and U.S. President George Bush.
The bill would extend the NSA surveillance of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the U.S., while giving the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) an opportunity to review Bush administration requests for wide-ranging surveillance powers. The bill, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act, allows the NSA to receive blanket surveillance orders covering multiple suspects of terrorism and other crimes.
The compromise also sends the dozens of outstanding lawsuits against telecom carriers for their alleged participation in the NSA program to a district court, which will review whether they should be dismissed. The lawsuits would be thrown out if telecom companies can show that the U.S. government issued them orders for the surveillance that were presented as lawful.
U.S. President George Bush has pushed for the legislation, saying it's needed to protect U.S. residents from terrorism. For nearly a year, the Bush administration has called on Congress to pass long-term changes to the nation's surveillance laws. Congress passed temporary surveillance legislation, called the Protect America Act, in August 2007, but its provisions expired in February.
February ... and what was the urgency of passing hurry-up protection for the administration today? Nancy Pelosi pushed for this bill -- the same Nancy Pelosi who was "read into" the spying program, along with other intelligence chairs and ranking members, including Senator Diane Feinstein. (Pelosi's number two, Steny Hoyer, crafted the compromise bill, and is now being derided as "the new Joe Lieberman.") Could it be that Pelosi and other Dems are exercising the art of self protection?
Senator Russ Feingold called today's vote what it is:
“The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’s illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home. Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the court to grant immunity. And under this bill, the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power. Instead of cutting bad deals on both FISA and funding for the war in Iraq, Democrats should be standing up to the flawed and dangerous policies of this administration.”
Let's hope he's ready with a Senate fillibuster.
The big loser today was the Fourth Amendment, which is essentially gone now. The winners: the telcos:
"Congress seems to be on the verge of negotiating away our basic constitutional protections," Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington, D.C., legislative office, said during a press conference on Wednesday.
The compromise will give Bush "pretty much unfettered authority to engage in surveillance of Americans," Fredrickson added. "The bill still allows mass, untargeted surveillance of Americans by permitting the government to gather all calls and e-mails coming into and out of the country."
The compromise provides little additional oversight of the surveillance program, Fredrickson said. If there's any delay in the FISA court's approval of a government surveillance request, the NSA can move ahead of surveillance without court oversight, she said.
There are 47 outstanding lawsuits related to the surveillance program and 35 lawsuits with telecoms including AT&T, Verizon Communications and Sprint Nextel as defendants, Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said at the same press conference.
"Congress appears poised to needlessly toss the rule of law out the window and deprive millions of ordinary Americans their day in court," said Bankston, one of the lead attorneys in a class-action lawsuit against AT&T for its alleged participation in the NSA program.
You can find out how your member of Congress voted by clicking here.
On "Elevating the Dialogue" this morning, Congressman Alcee Hastings (FL) told us that he was leaning toward voting yes because Barack Obama was for the bill, and House Democrats "needed to give him some political cover." I'm not sure that's true. Politico reported today that Harry Reid is looking to strip the telecom immunity out of the bill to give cover to Senators who, like Obama, could support the FISA updates, but "loathe the telecom immunity." That's a bit vague, and its not at all clear that Republicans wouldn't stand squarely in the way of separating the bill in two.
While we were on the air, Hastings voted for the bill, which is unfortunate in my opinion. To their credit, Kendrick Meek, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Robert Wexler voted no. Maybe Wexler can convince Obama to reject it when it reaches the Senate.
Democrats including Hoyer sought to put the best spin on the vote today, with Hoyer calling it the best bill they could get. What an endorsement. No wonder Americans' confidence in Congress is at an all-time low... Best quote of the day, courtesy of Politico:
“Let me remind you, that July 4, 1776 was pre 9/11,” said Rep Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) who indicated he would not support the bill because it infringed on Americans civil liberties.
“Heaven help us if those values were shucked aside in fear.”
Things that should never be said on your behalf, if you're John McCain
"The true test of a candidate for President is whether he will stand on principle and keep his word to the American people."
-- Jill Hazelbaker, the McCain campaign’s communications director, reacting to Barack Obama's decision not to take public financing.
She might want to avoid the following topics in the next 24 hours or so: Bush tax cuts, torture, offshore drilling, ethanol, the religious right, immigration and well... whatever else McCain used to believe, or not believe in that he has completely reversed himself on now.
Will voters care that Barack Obama isn't taking public financing?
My guess would be that for most people, the answer is "no." Most Americans don't pay nearly as much attention to the minutae of politics as cable news talk show hosts, New York Times reporters and assorted political junkies do, and so probably don't quite know the difference. Even those who do, probably could really give a damn whether Obama takes public financing. I know I don't. And yet, this is one of the three or four stories playing on a loop on MSNBC today (the others being the woman in the Muslim headscarf who wasn't allowed to appear behind Barack in Michigan, Cindy McCain dissing Michelle Obama over pride in country, and Michelle co-hosting "The View." So much for the Russert news legacy...) So since every blogger apparently must, let's grab a slice of the New York Times front pager (which at least does not contain the word "makeover..."):
WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he would not participate in the public financing system for presidential campaigns. He argued that the system had collapsed, and would put him at a disadvantage running against Senator John McCain, his likely Republican opponent.
With his decision, Mr. Obama became the first candidate of a major party to decline public financing — and the spending limits that go with it — since the system was created in 1976, after the Watergate scandals.
Mr. Obama made his announcement in a video message sent to supporters and posted on the Internet. While it was not a surprise — his aides have been hinting that he would take this step for two months — it represented a turnabout from his strong earlier suggestion that he would join the system. Mr. McCain has been a champion of public financing of campaign throughout his career.
“The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system,” he said. “John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.”
Mr. Obama had pledged to meet with Mr. McCain following the primaries to attempt to work out an agreement on financing. That meeting never took place, aides to Mr. Obama said, because a meeting between lawyers for the two sides was not fruitful. “It became clear to me that there wasn’t any basis for future discussion,” said Robert Bauer, the general counsel for Mr. Obama’s campaign. ...
The important point here is that Obama's earlier pledge was not to accept public financing, but rather to meet with the McCain campaign to try and work out a deal. The deal didn't work out. And frankly, he doesn't need the money.
Besides, it should be noted that Obama is able to make this move precisely because his campaign has raised its multi-millions mostly from small donors -- ordinary Americans whose numbers are so large, they make his campaign the de facto equivalent of a publicly financed campaign. You can quibble over who the "public" in question is, but you can't argue with the fact that with millions of small donors, Obama hasn't lived up to the spirit of the law.
The pundits will have a field day with his "reversal," but, as with the unadvisability of ever asking Rudy Giuliani to shill for you on the subject of national security (you remember Rudy -- the guy who put the terrorism response command center INSIDE the World Trade Center after the 1993 WTC bombing, and whose claims to fame on the security front including presiding over the murder of wallet-wielding immigrants by police and having NYPD cops shuttle his mistress around town while she walked her dog...) just as you don't ever use Mr. "noun, verb and 9/11" to rebut ANYTHING, John "Flipper" McCain ought to hold his horses before considering charging Obama with felonious changing of the mind...
For reactions to the Obama decision, head over to the HuffPo.
This week on the radio: Rep. Hastings will appear on "Elevating the Dialogue" with Elgin, Barbara and me tomorrow (Friday) morning, to talk about the Florida delegate situation, his switch from Clinton to Obama, and why he's not attending the Denver convention. Tune in at 10 a.m. on 1470 a.m., or online on WNN's website (or sfltimes.com) |
With big ups to the Miami-Dade Dems. What the Obama campaign might suggest you should know about Barack Obama:
... Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.
Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." Click here for video of Obama quietly mouthing the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in his sleep.
A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.
Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.
Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.
Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It's upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.
There's only one artist on Barack Obama's iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.
Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.
Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.
Barack Obama's new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.
Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.
Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.
Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.
The great crhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifude runoff
Some states vow to stop Big Oil from plundering their shorelines, with the governors of California, North Carolina and New Jersey standing fast, while others pledge to throw open their shores to drilling: flip-flopper Charlie Crist of Florida, and the governors of South Carolina and Virginia. The ban is not likely to be lifted by the current Congress ... emphasis on likely ... but if it were to happen, could the tourism wars be next? (I can just see the ads now: "Come to North Carolina, avoid the Florida oil slick...")
Meanwhile, could offshore rigs be a tempting terrorist target? Let's ask Nigeria, where an oil platform was recently attacked by rebels.
Here in the Sunshine State, Charlie Crist's switcharoo on offshore drilling (just what parts of your soul wouldn't you sell to become the vice presidential nominee, Miss Charlie?) isn't exactly drawing rave reviews from the state's CFO, Democrat Alex Sink. Said Sink:
"He's one person, he's one public official, and I'm another statewide elected official who heard a lot about this when I was out campaigning," Sink said. "This is not the right thing to do in Florida. I don't want those people in Washington to think all of a sudden the people in Florida support oil drilling off our coast."
Sink said she was "stunned" when she heard the news. "The more I thought about it, the angrier I got," said Sink, the only Democrat to sit on Florida's three-person Cabinet.
But that doesn't mean that if they could, lawmakers in Florida and other states won't go for the drills. As one Florida tourism official put it, with gas prices rising, the anti-drilling armor is cracking...
Four oil giants are set to sign no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government, returning them to Iraq's oil ... I mean to the country ... after a 36 year absence.
Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.
The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.
The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.
There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.
Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.
For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.
John McCain, the Enron loophole, and your gas tank
Last night, "Countdown" did an exceptional investigative piece that should be required viewing for any American who wants to know why gas prices are so high. In essence, it isn't simple supply and demand: it's speculation, or in Bushian terms, the enronization of everything. Watch:
Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.
… The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the sec nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (cftc) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century."
It didn't quite work out that way. For starters, the legislation contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)
Of course there are other factors contributing to high energy costs, most notably global demand (see India and China) and the weak U.S. dollar. But regulating speculation is within the direct control of Congress, and the recent slew of media coverage has finally pushed members of Congress, including Sen. Carl Levin (MI) to act, including putting a provision closing the Enron loophole into the recently passed farm bill (which is why John McCain voted against it.) That might not be enough, however. This month, former CFTC Trading and Markets Division head Michael Greenberger testified on the Hill about speculation's role in boosting energy prices, and stated that closing the Enron loophole could reduce gas prices dramatically -- perhaps by 25% overnight:
Michael Greenberger, the former head of the CFTC's Division of Trading and Markets, testified yesterday before the Senate Commerce Committee on the topic of Energy Market Manipulation. He stated that the investment banks, namely Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), control the price of oil and natural gas through the ICE futures market. He cited that Morgan Stanley currently owns 27% of the natural gas futures.
He stated that former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas sneaked the Enron loophole through a large piece of insignificant legislation years ago: the result was that regulations upon the futures industry were abandoned. This loophole eventually allowed the current CDO-subprime crisis, and the current energy market crisis because regulations, which once protected the market from manipulation, are no longer enforcable.
Greenberger suggested that the current attempt of closing the Enron loophole by Senator Levin through the Farm Bill, would not work - as it would leave the government with the constant burden of proof to prove manipulation was occurring. Also it would only be enforcable on domestic market manipulators and not international ones. ...
Wall Street is lobbying hard to prevent Congress from taking further action (surprise, surprise.)
The Mississippi River has topped 19 levees in the American midwest. The flooding is shaping up to be a crisis of Katrina-like proportions ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The swollen Mississippi River has flowed over the top of 19 levees in Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, and another 29 levees are at risk, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Wednesday.
The river overtopped at least nine levees overnight as water levels rose in the Midwest's worst flooding in 15 years. The river was cresting in Burlington, Iowa, but has yet to reach its peak in many areas where the levees have already failed.
The compromised levees stretch from Dubuque, Iowa, to St. Louis and protect hundreds of thousands of acres of homes and farmland.
Record flooding in the Midwest has killed dozens of people since March, and has left scores of homes literally under water. And there's another outcome you might not have considered:
FORT MADISON, Iowa (Reuters) - The Mississippi River surged up through storm drains and flooded part of an eastern Iowa river town on Tuesday as the worst Midwest floods in 15 years ruined cropland and drove up world food prices.
"There is nowhere for the water to go, so it's flooding these areas," said Lee County official Steve Cirinna, pointing to pools forming amid historic red-brick houses in Fort Madison.
Volunteers and National Guard troops helped reinforce or raise levees on both sides of the river seeking to protect low-lying businesses, water supplies, and prime farmland planted with increasingly valuable crops.
Across the river from nearby Burlington, Iowa, a levee broke in Gulfport, Illinois, sending muddy waters cascading onto nearby farmland and a few homes. Although sandbagging was going on, no one was injured. Authorities closed the river bridge and road.
Corn and soybean prices closed near record highs after millions of acres of U.S. cropland were lost or damaged in the heart of the world's largest grain exporter. Cattle and hog futures prices also hit new highs, with soaring feed costs expected to prompt farmers to cull livestock numbers.
As ThinkProgress points out, the call is a flip-flop for Dubya, too -- he opposed offshore drilling when he ran for president on a "humble" America platform back in 2000. Now, Bush II is calling for drilling in so-called "deep water" wells, and he calls such drilling environmentally friendly, to boot! Bush and his friends on the right see an opening with ordinary Americans, whereby skyrocketing gas prices -- which were produced by the oil companies themselves, and by Bush's other close friends: Wall Street speculators -- could break down Americans' resistance to handing over our coastlines and Alaskan wilderness to Big Oil; something they have sought for decades. The hostage-taking aspect of this scenario (we're going to raise your gas prices to the point of recession unless you hand over the leases) is lost on many cable TV pundits, but not on those of us who have been in the business of reporting crime...
Meanwhile, the new right wing talking point: gas prices are high because the Democrats won't let the oil companies drill here at home, has taken hold across the wingerweb, (though even Michelle Malkin has noted Johnny Mac's flip-floppery) and within the McFlip campaign itself, so much so that he has converted former opponents among Florida's elected Republicans, at least one of whom apparently hopes to be paid for his apostasy in vice presidential chits...
So if the righties are right, how do they explain the fact that not since the Teapot Dome scandals of the early 20th century has the federal government opened so much American land to an oil industry that accepts billions of dollars in federal subsidies, but refuses to drill on that land? Check this out: According to a study by the Environmental Working Group a couple of years ago...
The federal government has offered 229 million acres of public and private land in 12 western states for oil and gas drilling, an area greater than the combined size of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, according to an EWG analysis of land use records maintained by the federal government from 1982 to the present. This acreage represents the sum of total land actively leased in 1982 and land newly offered from 1982 through 2004.
Despite access to more than 200 million acres of public land over the past 15 years (1989-2003), the oil and gas industry has produced enough energy from this land to satisfy only 53 days of U.S. oil consumption and 221 days of natural gas consumption, according to EWG's analysis of well-by-well oil and gas production records obtained August 16 2004 via a Freedom of Information Act Request. This rate of production amounts to an average of 3.6 days per year of oil and 14.8 days per year of natural gas (MMS 2004, EIA Petroleum Review 2004, EIA Natural Gas Review 2004).
As these small production figures suggest, drilling on federal lands in the West has done nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign energy. In fact, since 1982, our dependence on foreign oil has doubled and our dependence on foreign natural gas has tripled (EIA Petroleum Review 2004, EIA Natural Gas Review 2004). A recent government estimate found that the five most oil- and gas-rich basins in the western U.S. contain about a 280-day supply of oil and an 8-year supply of natural gas at current rates of consumption -- an analysis that likely overstates the amount of energy that is economically available (Energy Inventory 2003).
Despite the relatively small amounts of energy in the West, the Bush administration has removed barriers to drilling on a net 45 million acres in 12 western states and has lifted environmental protections and emphasized drilling on lands already open to oil and gas development.
Again, we're talking about 229 MILLION acres leased to the oil companies since the Reagan administration. And how much of that land has the present Bush administration made available? 65 million acres, including more than 5 million acres located in national parks:
Bush Administration Removes Protections From 45 Million Acres in 12 Western States
Note: Numbers in green represent acres protected. Numbers in (red) inside parentheses represent land where protections against oil and gas drilling were removed.
This table lists major federal designations through which land potentially open to oil and gas was protected from drilling and land previously closed to oil and gas was opened to potential drilling during the past two administrations. A small portion of the land listed as protected in 1993-2000 was previously protected under other administrations.
And yet, the oil companies are producing almost nothing on that land. And when they do drill, they create more methane-rich, undrinkable, contaminated water than either oil or natural gas.
So what are the oil companies doing, if not drilling for oil? Well one thing they're not doing is building refineries. While the Saudis and the Dutch are putting up new refineries in Texas, our domestic companies all but refuse to do so, even as they go to their friends in Washington and blame insufficient refinery capacity for their giant profits ... I mean ... our high gas prices. The oil industry's lackeys on the Hill even push for legislation that allows Big Oil to build refineries only if they have a guarantee of never being sued for any environmental damage they might cause. Even with the help of their Republican friends, U.S. oil companies have broken ground on exactly one oil refinery in 30 years. Not that they need them. American oil companies today exist to reap record profits from speculation-driven, overpriced oil from foreign countries, and they have zero incentive to pump more oil at home.
Why? Just to be fair and balanced, let's go to the right for the answer, specifically, the CATO Institute:
The case for oil subsidies is laughably thin. Proponents argue that the more you subsidize oil production, the more oil you'll get, and that, after all, is a good thing for consumers when gasoline prices are around $2.25 a gallon. Unfortunately, there's simply not enough unexploited oil in the United States that might be exploited as a consequence of those subsidies to greatly affect world crude oil prices. Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf, for instance, demonstrates that even if domestic production subsidies were worth 10 percent of the current price of oil (and they are worth no more than about 3 percent today), the increased production that might result would only reduce oil prices by 0.4 percent. Even if reducing foreign oil dependence is the main objective, Metcalf shows that domestic production would only increase by a trivial 0.2 percent were domestic subsidies to increase threefold-above current levels.
Some on the Right, of course, would argue that any taxation of corporate activity is counterproductive in that it unfairly taxes earnings twice (once when booked by corporate accountants and then again when those earnings are disbursed to stockholders). From this perspective, tax breaks simply allow companies to keep what is best left to them in the first place and should not be thought of as a subsidy. A variation of this argument holds that the less government takes in the better, so all tax breaks (and tax cuts, for that matter) are worth embracing.
While there is something to be said for both arguments, they ignore the fact that targeted tax breaks and preferences distort the economy by making some investments artificially more attractive than others. The end result is that some sectors are starved of funds while other sectors are awash with more money than they can efficiently use...
But apparently, not more than they can possibly covet.
The latest Quinnipiac swing state polls have bad news for Pat Buchanan and other political analysts who have created a mini cottage industry out of Barack Obama's supposed inability to win over women and blue collar voters in the traditional battleground states, the way Hillary Clinton did.
Not only does Barack Obama lead John McCain in three crucial battleground states -- Ohio, Pennsylvania, and for the first time this political season, Florida -- his lead in PA is the largest of them all. I guess those "real Americans" in Appalachia are closet Adlai Stevenson fans? The numbers:
Florida: Obama edges McCain 47 - 43 percent;
Ohio: Obama tops McCain 48 - 42 percent;
Pennsylvania: Obama leads McCain 52 - 40 percen
The poll also reveals ongoing demographic challenges for John McCain:
In the three states, Obama leads McCain 10 to 23 percentage points among women, while men are too close to call. The Democrat trails among white voters in Florida and Ohio, but gets more than 90 percent of black voters in each state. He also has double-digit leads among young voters in each state.
And as to the idea of Hillary Clinton on the ticket, even in Clinton Country (Florida and Pennsylvania,) the idea leaves crucial independent voters cold:
Florida: Democrats want Clinton on the ticket 57 - 33 percent while Republicans are opposed 59 - 17 percent and independents oppose it 46 - 37 percent;
Ohio: Democrats want Clinton for Vice President 58 - 31 percent, but Republicans say no 60 - 19 percent and independents turn thumbs down 47 - 31 percent;
Pennsylvania: Democrats say yes to Clinton 60 - 31 percent, while Republicans say no 63 - 20 percent and independents nix the idea 49 - 36 percent.
"If Sen. Obama seriously is thinking about picking Sen. Clinton as his running mate, these numbers might cause him to reconsider. The people who really matter come November - independent voters - turn thumbs down on the idea. And, many say they are less likely to vote for him if he puts her on the ticket," Brown added.
The crucial finding here is that women are quickly consolidating behind the Obama candidacy, or against McCain, however you choose to spin it. As McCain's views become more widely known, he will become even more difficult to market to women, and to younger voters, for whom issues like the environment, ending the Iraq war, holding the Supreme Court and ridding the country of Bush era policies are paramount, and for whom McCain's very real sacrifices in war, frankly, age him all the more because they stem from a war younger voters only know as the father of unnecessary wars like Iraq. Add McCain's newfound zeal for offshore drilling, and you can imagine his stance helping him close the gap somewhat in Pennsylvania, but widening it in the Sunshine State.
By the way, the other problem with McDrilling is that the notion of despoiling Florida's coastline will, as Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times put it on MSNBC this morning, instantly activate a legion of environmental groups like the League of Conservation Voters, who might otherwise have been less exercised by the McCain candidacy. These groups have lists, and they consist of mainly older, supervoters. If McCain's new stance touches off a very real push for drilling in Florida, his stance could fuel increased coordination by environmental groups and perhaps elements of the tourism industry, not only against his candidacy, but against other vulnerable Republicans in November.
I dig deeper into the Florida numbers on the Flapolitics blog, here.
I've been saying it for months, and frankly, I can't say it enough: Barack Obama should choose Chuck Hagel to be his running-mate.
Hagel has the tough guy, military credentials to cancel John McCain's advantage on foreign policy and national security (without talking as much or being as gaffe-ready as the otherwise wonderful Joe Biden,) he holds numerous combat decorations from his service in Vietnam, sits on key committees including foreign affairs and is a former Veterans Affairs deputy administrator (who resigned during the Reagan administration over threatened cuts to vets' benefits and disputes over veterans' exposure to Agent Orange); he backs up Obama's get out of Iraq with honor, no more torture, back to the Constitution stances, he's a "regular guy" who can walk Obama into those diners Chris Matthews is so obsessed with, and most importantly, he's a Republican who changed his mind on the war, handing Obama the double whammy of true bipartisanship (reaching across the aisle to find your running mate? Priceless...) and symmetry on the issue of Iraq. He's better than a general, because he has Beltway experience, but he's not your typical Washingtonian. He's got no known scandals, no drama, and damned if he isn't qualified to be president -- the most important criterion for picking a running mate.
What's not to like? (Well ... we'll get to that in a minute...)
The lifelong conservative -- who nearly ran for the GOP nomination himself before deciding, instead, to retire from the Senate -- is getting some buzz among Democratic activists and Beltwaypundits as a possible running mate for Barack Obama. (Once again, a reminder that this is shaping up to be an unusual election.) Hagel gets touted as a moderate Republican who's wise on foreign affairs and ready to reach across the aisle to help the country get back on track, as well as help win independent voters for the ticket.
Hagel's wife, Lilibet, gave Obama $500 in February, and Hagel himself has pointedly declined to endorse McCain. Last month on CNN, Hagel ducked a question about the vice-presidency, passing up the chance to give a robust, Shermanesque "no." (His office declined to comment for this story.)
Selecting a prominent Republican war critic -- and one given to pronouncements like, "I sometimes question whether I'm in the same party I started off in" -- might be the way for Obama to make good on his post-partisan rhetoric. But is the Democratic Party -- let alone the country -- ready for a so-called national unity ticket? ...
... Hagel would also bring some strong credentials, says former Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Democrat and fellow Nebraskan, who ran for president himself in 1992. "He's fun to hang out with, he's got terrific knowledge of foreign policy and national security, and he enjoys the work," Kerrey said.
On foreign policy, Hagel could help Obama disarm McCain's charge that Obama is inexperienced, and Hagel's Army service in Vietnam might counterbalance McCain's playing up his own Navy career. Domestically, Hagel has a record of aiming for the same kinds of fiscal restraint and limited-government conservatism that McCain touts -- he opposes earmarks, thought No Child Left Behind was a mistake, and opposed a recent farm bill, despite his home state's agricultural interests, because it cost too much. He joined with Democrats and other Republicans, including both Obama and McCain, to sponsor immigration reform legislation, and he mostly stays away from fights over wedge issues when they make their way to the Senate floor.
Okay, now for the stuff that for some Democrats, is "not to like ..."
For Obama to get Hagel past the Denver convention crowd, which will include Hillary Clinton supporters who still want her on the ticket (not gonna happen, ladies...) the base would have to get over the fact that Hagel is what he's advertised to be: a conservative Republican -- the old fashioned kind, who believes in small government and avoiding foreign entanglements. More from the Salon piece:
"Chuck is, I would say, a movement conservative," [Former Senator Bob] Kerrey, who considers Hagel a friend, said. The American Conservative Union says Hagel has voted the way it wants on nearly 85 percent of what it considers key votes over his career. Getting him nominated at a convention that may already be somewhat fractious after the long primary battle would be tough. "It's hard to imagine that (delegates) are going to vote on someone at the Democratic Convention who's anti-choice, anti-civil rights for gays and anti-gun control," Kerrey said. "It's not impossible, but it's bumping right up on the edge."
Ever since Bill Clinton picked another moderate Southern baby boomer to run with him 16 years ago, the old conventional wisdom about vice presidents -- that you need a candidate to give you regional and political balance -- has been crumbling. That doesn't mean all the rules have gone out the window, though. "If they go the real unconventional route of choosing someone of the other party or someone who's independent, they better make damn sure that their base will see the need of selecting that person," Brazile said. "They better make sure that person is someone who can rise above the divisions."
In other words, unless a Republican running mate would virtually guarantee Obama a win in November, it's probably not worth the risk of angering Democrats to pick one. Chances are, this is one part of the old politics that Obama won't be willing to mess with.
Perhaps not, and then there are ultra-lefties, including radio talk host Thom Hartmann, who believe Hagel has some sort of conspiratorial relationship with voting machine manufacturer ES&S Systems... Hartmann wrote in 2003:
The respected Washington, DC publication The Hill has confirmed that former conservative radio talk-show host and now Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel was the head of, and continues to own part interest in, the company that owns the company that installed, programmed, and largely ran the voting machines that were used by most of the citizens of Nebraska.
Back when Hagel first ran there for the U.S. Senate in 1996, his company's computer-controlled voting machines showed he'd won stunning upsets in both the primaries and the general election. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely Black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska.
Six years later Hagel ran again, this time against Democrat Charlie Matulka in 2002, and won in a landslide. As his hagel.senate.gov website says, Hagel "was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate on November 5, 2002 with 83% of the vote. That represents the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska."
What Hagel's website fails to disclose is that about 80 percent of those votes were counted by computer-controlled voting machines put in place by the company affiliated with Hagel. Built by that company. Programmed by that company.
"This is a big story, bigger than Watergate ever was," said Hagel's Democratic opponent in the 2002 Senate race, Charlie Matulka. "They say Hagel shocked the world, but he didn't shock me."
Is Matulka the sore loser the Hagel campaign paints him as, or is he democracy's proverbial canary in the mineshaft?
I'm not buying the conspiracy theory, but then again, I heart Hagel.
If Barack were to pick him, it would be a supreme test of his political skill and ability to persuade his party to follow his lead, even in an unusual direction. I still hold out hope that it will happen, and that Democrats will understand that sometimes, you can't think outside of the box -- as my mentor James T says, you have to be wise enough to figure out that there is no box.
Updated: the new veepstakes Top Five:
Chuck Hagel (for all the reasons stated above.)
Wesley Clark (of all the generals, he's the only one who has gone through a presidential primary, and so he'd be more prepared to take the stage than other military picks.
Joe Biden (provides the foreign policy credentials and knows his way around Washington. But watch for verbal gaffe eruptions...)
Ted Strickland (Ohio, Ohio, Ohio! But the downside is the $10 million you'd have to spend raising his name recognition in non-Ohio states...)
Kathleen Sebelius (I doubt a woman will be picked this go-round, because of the Hillary followers' unique sensitivities, but if Obama does go femme, she's the top pick.)
Who's been downgraded?
Jim Webb -- Too many "sexism" problems in his past to fly with Democratic women
John Edwards - Doesn't pass the fictional, yet media-friendly, "commander in chief test" even though his wife would be a hit with women voters
Bill Richardson -- The racists out there are going bat-crap crazy over a black man at the top of the ticket. Add an Hispanic and you might see mass head explosions, though he sure seems to be trying to land the job.
Mark Warner -- He seems genuinely not to want the job. Plus, we need him in the Senate.
Evan Bayh -- Together, they'd be Obamabayh. Not cute. Plus, he's got this major charisma problem...
Ed Rendell -- If Barack can't win Pennsylvania without him, he's in the kind of trouble we're not seeing in the polls.
Outside chances?
Roy Romer. Colorado will be crucial -- and winnable this time -- he has no national profile, but he could be built into a winner, if he's interested in returning to politics.
Charlie Crist with John McCain. ... Oh, what a man wouldn't do to be v.p. ...
First, John McCain reverses his decades-old stance on off-shore oil drilling, to cater to the Fox News set. Now, it's Sideshow Mel's turn, just days after his rebuke of Dick Cheney and George Will's Chinese-Cuban oil derrick fantasy. Meet the new Mel (courtesy of the Miami Herald's Naked Politics blog):
Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, once "joined at the hip" with Sen. Bill Nelson when it comes to opposing offshore oil drilling, told reporters at the Capitol today he's inclined to support John McCain's bid to lift the decades-old coastline drilling ban.
He said that if McCain's plan embraces the 2006 compromise that he and Nelson struck -- giving Florida a 125-mile buffer -- "the rest of it is something I can probably live with...I think it's about providing enough resources where the states want to do it and permit it."
Of course, Melly Mel isn't alone in showing off his version of the Florida flip: Miss Charlie, you're up!
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist dropped his long-standing support for the federal government's moratorium on offshore drilling Tuesday and endorsed Sen. John McCain's proposal to let states decide for themselves.
The governor said he reversed his position because of rising fuel prices and states rights.
"I mean, let's face it, the price of gas has gone through the roof, and Florida families are suffering," Crist said. "And my heart bleeds for them."
Yes, I can see it bleeding through your perfectly pressed shirt ... I wonder why Crist the Rock has suddenly become Crist the oil man...
Crist is considered a possible running mate for McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee.
Ah, it all starts making sense. Well, I still have my memories...
Just last year Crist had urged federal lawmakers to reject legislation, which they did, that would have allowed drilling as close as 45 miles off Florida's beaches. He also supported the moratorium during his 2006 campaign for governor.
Most Florida politicians historically have opposed drilling because they fear it would harm the state's beaches that are so vital to its tourism economy.
They also have been worried drilling would interfere with weapons testing and training in and over the Gulf of Mexico by Florida military bases.
And all of this has the Florida Democratic Party breaking out your father's old scold book:
Democrats also argued additional offshore drilling would not affect prices set on the world market.
"It would only increase oil companies' record-breaking profits," said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski.
He compared Crist's reversal to his recent proposal for a temporary reduction of Florida gasoline taxes after McCain made a similar proposal at the national level. Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, criticized it as a campaign gimmick.
"If John McCain jumps off a cliff, will Charlie Crist jump, too?" Bubriski said.
Silly Mark, of COURSE he would ... now ... McCain's just a Senator. But if Mac were to get into the White House, Miss Charlie not only would refrain from jumping after McCain, he'd immediately start planning the state funeral down to the last flamingo-shaped napkin and get his decorator to the West Wing faster than you can say "George Takei!"
How out of touch is John McCain? Apparently, out of touch enough to throw Florida under the bus in order to pander to voters in red states he's likely to win anyway. Because John, the voters you're pandering to ... the wingers who want to drill up, dig up, and strip mine every inch of arable land that doesn't have a depreciating home or a strip mall on it? Those wackos who don't get that America's oil fields are mostly tapped out, that the U.S. has one-tenth the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia, one-fourth that of Venezuela and third that of Russia, and who want to turn the entire coastal plain into a scene out of "There Will be Blood" for a few more drops in the tank? They live in places like Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia ... you know, red states. The wingers who DO live in blue states are so overwhelmed numerically by Democrats, they don't matter. And the ones in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio? Have you taken a look at the voter registration numbers from the primary? They're going to get overwhelmed in November, too, by suburban moderates and urban hardcore Dems who care about the environment and don't cotton to ideas like ... say ... major tax breaks for the oil companies ... you know, stuff you like.
Meanwhile, McCain must think that a four point lead in Florida in a Quinnipiac poll from May translates into a lock on the state in November. That's the only conceivable reason he would do something as politically suicidal for his prospects in Florida as this:
Sen. John McCain called yesterday for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, offering an aggressive response to high gasoline prices and immediately drawing the ire of environmental groups that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has courted for months.
The move is aimed at easing voter anger over rising energy prices by freeing states to open vast stretches of the country's coastline to oil exploration. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly 80 percent said soaring prices at the pump are causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.
"We must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil," McCain told reporters yesterday. In a speech today, he plans to add that "we have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions."
McCain's announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign and a break with environmental activists, even as he attempts to win the support of independents and moderate Democrats. Since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee in March, McCain has presented himself as a friend of the environment by touting his plans to combat global warming and his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Everglades.
A reversal...? From John McCain??? Say it isn't so!
Representatives of several environmental groups criticized him for backing an idea they said would endanger the nation's most environmentally sensitive waters.
"It's disappointing that Senator McCain is clinging to the failed energy policies of the past," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters.
Sierra Club political director Cathy Duvall said McCain "is using the environment as a way to portray himself as being different from George Bush. But the reality is that he isn't." The group began running radio commercials yesterday that criticize McCain's environmental record in the battleground state of Ohio.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama joined the criticism, calling the idea of lifting the ban the wrong answer to out-of-control energy prices. "John McCain's plan to simply drill our way out of our energy crisis is the same misguided approach backed by President Bush that has failed our families for too long and only serves to benefit the big oil companies," Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said.
Interestingly enough, McCain continues to oppose drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a view that allows his to continue pissing off right wingers in his party while his goal of trashing California and Florida helps him to kiss off moderates and independents, too. I think they call it "symmetry..."
McCain's speech today comes just after the candidate's Florida ally, Melly Mel Martinez smacked down Vice Lord Dick Cheney on the Senate floor over the issue of ... wait for it ... drilling off the coast of Florida:
Florida's Mel Martinez took to the Senate floor today to refute Republican assertions that China is drilling off the coast of Cuba.
"Reports to the contrary are simply false," Martinez said. "They are akin to urban legends. China drilling off the coast of Cuba only 60 miles from the Keys, that is not taking place..."
Republicans have pushed the "someone is drilling 60 miles off the Florida coast" for 2 years to back up efforts to open the coastline up to drilling. But experts familiar with the situation say there's no proof.
That's not stopping the story from making the rounds: speaking at the US Chamber of Commerce vice president Dick Cheney today quoted columnist George Will as saying "oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida..."
The spat illustrates the potential minefield McCain is laying for himself on the issue of offshore drilling. No matter what his campaign says, McCain has no shot of winning California (where much of the Naval Petroleum Reserve is located, and mostly now in private hands following a Clinton-era privatization push, but largely undeveloped because at least in parts of California, there are houses and apartment buildings on the land...) But Florida IS in play, and picking a fight with Charlie Crist and Mel Martinez isn't exactly smart politics in a state with 22 percent independent voter registration.
Al Gore will make his Obama endorsement tonight at 8:30 p.m. from a rally in Detroit. The endorsement will be streamed live on BarackObama.com. Gore has already penned a fundraising email for the campaign.
UPDATE: And here it is. It should be added that Gore risked nothing with this post-nomination endorsement, but it's a nice thing for Barack to have, particularly given Gore's popularity with the Democratic base (including here in "Florida, Florida, Florida" -- with props to the late Tim Russert ...) and his credibility on issues like climate change. Besides, by doing the endorsement in Michigan, Gore helped Barack's team collect maybe 20,000 more Michigan names and email addresses for the November ground game. And that's change we can believe in.
Newt Gingrich, the gang at Fox News and the neoconservative wack-jobs who brought us the Iraq war are still going bat-crap crazy over the Supreme Courts "welcome back, habeas corpus" ruling. They're spewing irrationalities every where you turn, and even suggesting that Bush simply ignore the ruling. Yeah. That's not unconstitutional... Even poor old John McCain is doing his part, railing against the Court as only a man who must cast a bewitching spell over the hard right of his own party in order to secure their cooperation in November can. Of course, there's always more to the story, which CBS News' Andrew Cohen spells out nicely:
Following the last Supreme Court ruling on this topic, which also struck down stubborn Administration detainee policies, the Senator (a Vietnam torture victim himself) invested no small amount of his own treasured (and well-earned) historical capital to try to broker a deal on the detainees.
And, in late 2006, he did.
It’s called the Military Commissions Act. It was a terrible idea from the very beginning, and it was one of two federal statutes undercut by the Justices last Thursday. It’s no wonder the nominee is taking the defeat personally.
After first insisting that federal law clearly and unambiguously outlaw “torture,” McCain suddenly caved to White House pressure on the MCA, allowing the Administration to insert into the law a clause that effectively allows (and, indeed, legally buttresses the efforts of) the executive branch to implement torture as a means of interrogation.
Without McCain’s pander, there would have been no bad law for the Court to strike down last week. Without McCain’s grandiloquent appeal to Democrats and moderates during that lame-duck session, there quite possibly might have been a better law that just might have passed its constitutional test this term.
McCain’s sell-out on the torture language is not the reason the Justices declared the MCA unconstitutional. It is not the reason why the detainees now have more access to federal courts than they did before. But it is emblematic of the larger and much more destructive, seven-year-long sell-out of the legislative branch in the legal fight against terrorism.
And that emblem, thanks to the Supreme Court, now has John McCain’s face on it just in time for the run-up to the general election.
Nice work, John.
I suppose it wouldn't move this crowd to find out that some of the people being detained indefinitely by the U.S. aren't actually terrorists...
GARDEZ, Afghanistan — The militants crept up behind Mohammed Akhtiar as he squatted at the spigot to wash his hands before evening prayers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
They shouted "Allahu Akbar" — God is great — as one of them hefted a metal mop squeezer into the air, slammed it into Akhtiar's head and sent thick streams of blood running down his face.
Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst."
But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo's Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn't: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.
"He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government," a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.
An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.
McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.
Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.
While he was held at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base, Akhtiar said, "When I had a dispute with the interrogator, when I asked, 'What is my crime?' the soldiers who took me back to my cell would throw me down the stairs."
The McClatchy reporting also documented how U.S. detention policies fueled support for extremist Islamist groups. For some detainees who went home far more militant than when they arrived, Guantanamo became a school for jihad, or Islamic holy war.
Hm. ... and as for these frightening "terrorists" who are now going to take out an American city (from behind those cage bars in Cuba):
The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren't "the worst of the worst." From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there.
Of the 66 detainees whom McClatchy interviewed, the evidence indicates that 34 of them, about 52 percent, had connections with militant groups or activities. At least 23 of those 34, however, were Taliban foot soldiers, conscripts, low-level volunteers or adventure-seekers who knew nothing about global terrorism.
Only seven of the 66 were in positions to have had any ties to al Qaida's leadership, and it isn't clear that any of them knew any terrorists of consequence.
If the former detainees whom McClatchy interviewed are any indication — and several former high-ranking U.S. administration and defense officials said in interviews that they are — most of the prisoners at Guantanamo weren't terrorist masterminds but men who were of no intelligence value in the war on terrorism.
Feeling safe yet? The truly sad thing about this whole sorry business is that few wingers are likely to care whether the people we're holding at Gitmo, including the children, are terrorists or not. For many on the right, it's enough that they are Muslims, and their president (so long as he is a Republican) should, in the estimation of many of the craziest right wingers (and their talk radio listening robots) be able to grab any Muslim, anywhere, anytime, and hold them forever, "as long as the war on terror goes on." And by the way, it will always "go on."
And the winner is... Steven Schale, formerly the director of the Florida Democratic Party's House Victory committee and the man widely credited with helping Democrats have their best State House election year in a minute. From the Orlando Sentinel blog:
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign this morning announced Steve Schale as its Florida state director. Ashley Walker, who had been the campaign’s political director, will be deputy state director.
The Obama campaign has about 20 paid workers in the state and brought 400 “fellows” in this weekend. The fellows are volunteers who will focus on a voter registration drive in the state for the next six weeks.
As the state party’s House political director, Schale helped lead the 2006 campaign that picked up seven seats in the chamber —- what Democrats call their “most successful year in state party history”
Walker has been with Obama’s campaign since last year. She was a regional desk to states in the Northeast and South and played a senior role in Obama’s win in the Texas caucus. Walker former employers include former Gov. Bob Graham, Congressman Peter Deutsch and State Sen. Jeremy Ring.
Statewide, looks like Democrats may pick up as many as seven state House seats (Dan Gelber and Steve Schale must be smiling wide), and they'll break even on senate seats - Justice beating Berfield in SD 16 and Republican Oelrich beating Democrat Jennings in Rod Smith's SD 14.
Bill Heller comfortably beat Angelo Cappelli in HD 52; Janet Long narrowly beat Dottie Reeder in HD 51. In the Bradenton area HD 69, Democrat Keith Fitzgerald is barely leading Republican Laura Benson; In Orange County's HD 36, Democrat Scott Randolph unseated Republican Sherri McInvale; in Broward's District 97, Democrat Martin Kiar beat Republican Susan Goldstein; in Miami's 107, looks like Democrat Luis Garcia will take Gus Barreiro's seat, and in the Keys Democrat Ron Saunders won HD 120.
And as for that minute:
That's the first time Democrats have picked up state House seats in 16 years and their biggest gain in nearly 30 years.
And as for the scuttle about Team Obama writing off the Sunshine State, Schale says it ain't so:
"When you see us reach our full staff level, you're going to see an operation the size of which this state has never seen before on our side,'' said Schale, lavishing praise on Walker and dismissing talk (see here) about Obama not playing to win in Florida. "I would not take this job if I did not think Sen. Obama was committed to winning this state or didn't think he could win this state."
Once again, the statewide campaign will be run from Tampa, which should tell South Florida loudly and clearly that for Democrats on a national level, the political center of gravity in Florida has officially shifted north. Actually, it did so several cycles ago (remember where the McBride campaign was based? Remember Jim Davis' "I can win the I4" strategy, otherwise known as the "Ahab stalks white whale" gambit?) In short, it has shifted to where the election-by-election turnout percentages are better, including among black voters. (Plus, Tampa's a bigger media market -- more buy for your buck.) If South Florida wants to be in the game going forward, we'd better get our behinds to the polls this election cycle.
In the last ten election cycles, Democratic presidential candidates have won Florida just twice -- okay, three times if you count Al Gore. In fact, Gore's close call in Florida seems to be the only reason the state is considered "swing," rather than a ruby red part of the solid Republican South.
Whenever I say that Florida is a red state (as I did on Nick Bogert's Sunday political show on NBC this spring,) I get a chorus of "nays." But I'm convinced. And this year, I'm equally convinced that Florida will be tough -- though not impossible -- for Barack Obama to win. More to the point, if he doesn't win it, I think Florida's political operative class can count on less money, the state's media outlets will see fewer buys, and its voters less candidate attention going forward. Once a state ceases to be competitive, it turns into West Virginia, seen?
Why so downer, when your name is Joy? Let's review.
John Kerry lost Florida by more than 380,000 votes in 2004 -- a year in which Bush's approval ratings had already begun to fall to earth, his war in Iraq having proven to be a sham. Bill Clinton won the state by 302,000 in 1996, having lost it by about 100,000 votes four years earlier. But what helped Clinton win was the favor he curried with Miami-Dade's Cuban-American community, and two other factors: he was facing Bob Dole, who lacked the Bush-Nixon connection to Cuban exiles (not to mention being seriously charisma challenged -- and crowded out by Ross Perot...) and he was a southerner, like the last Democrat to win the state: Jimmy Carter in 1976. To find another Democratic presidential candidate who won Florida, you have to go back to yet another southerner: LBJ in 1964.
It's no wonder then, that Gore, a Tennesee native, fared well here, and that Kerry, the ultimate northeasterner, did not.
This cycle, there is no southerner on the ticket to help the Democrats win north of Orlando, or in the party's perennial great white whale, the I4 corridor (that could change -- the veeps have yet to be chosen) but Florida is currently polling more than 6 points in John McCain's favor.
For Democrats, past performance may be an indicator that the state is becoming less central to the Democratic strategy for winning the White House. And as the party begins to look West, to the reliably Democratic, non-Cuban Hispanic vote (which unlike CubAms, trends 70-30 D,) and since Florida's black vote has underperformed in every election since 2000, Florida will have to put up or shut up this time around to remain relevant for the next time.
FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Barack Obama's campaign envisions a path to the presidency that could include Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states, but not necessarily the pair of battlegrounds that decided the last two elections — Florida and Ohio.
In a private pitch late last week to donors and former supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe outlined several alternatives to reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of recent elections.
At a fundraiser held at a Washington brewery Friday, Plouffe told a largely young crowd that the electoral map would be fundamentally different from the one in 2004. Wins in Ohio and Florida would guarantee Obama the presidency if he holds onto the states won by Democrat John Kerry, Plouffe said, but those two battlegrounds aren't required for victory.
The presumed Democratic nominee's electoral math counts on holding onto the states Kerry won, among them Michigan (17 electoral votes), where Obama campaigns on Monday and Tuesday. Plouffe said most of the Kerry states should be reliable for Obama, but three currently look relatively competitive with Republican rival John McCain — Pennsylvania, Michigan and particularly New Hampshire.
Asked about his remarks, Plouffe said Ohio and Florida start out very competitive — but he stressed that they are not tougher than other swing states and said Obama will play "extremely hard" for both. But he said the strategy is not reliant on one or two states.
"You have a lot of ways to get to 270," Plouffe said. "Our goal is not to be reliant on one state on November 4th."
Plouffe has been pitching such a new approach to the electoral map in calls and meetings, according to several people who discussed the conversations on the condition of anonymity because they were meant to be private. Plouffe confirmed the descriptions in the interview.
Plouffe and his aides are weighing where to contest, and where chances are too slim to marshal a large effort. A win in Virginia (13 electoral votes) or Georgia (15 votes) could give Obama a shot if he, like Kerry, loses Ohio or Florida.
The strategy could be risky, unless you consider that Colorado and New Mexico went Bush by a margin of 7 percent or less, and that Virginia is actually trending in Barack's direction. If I'm the candidate, damned if I play the Kerry electoral map and gamble it all on Ohio or Florida (and if I do, Ohio actually looks more possible today.)
I'm not saying that Obama shouldn't contest the Sunshine State. He can, and probably should, win it, based on defections by younger Cuban-Americans who favor his more liberal views on family visits to Cuba, and increased black turnout, particularly in northern Florida (especially Jacksonville,) where black precincts have actually begun to outperform majority black precincts in Broward or Dade. I sat in on a conference call for media last week with the party, in which party leaders made it clear that this year, the emphasis will not be on South Florida alone. The I4, Tampa (the state's largest media market), Tallahassee and Orlando will get just as much, if not more, attention.
So for those of us in the formerly crucial southern part of this southern state, it's put up or shut up time. If we want Florida to count, and we do... if we want to swing this state back into the truly "swing" column, and make Florida relevant to future Democratic candidates, let alone helping to elect Barack Obama, we'd better turn out at the polls like we've never turned out before.
If we don't do it this year, next time it may not matter.
Yeah, this is a plug ...! If you're into sports and you're in South Florida, or even if you're not, do check out my BOYS ... the Sports Brothers, Ed (the World Famous) and the big man, Jeff Fox, on 790 The Ticket, Sunday nights from 10 to 11 p.m. Here's the link.
And for those of you in Denver, CO and across the globe, you've GOT TO check out my baby bruh, Oren Lomena, on Denver's The Fan. He's one of The Night Guys, soon to be the morning guys ... but shhh... don't tell nobody... !
Happy Father's Day to all these talented brothers! |
John McCain pictured with the Quaker Oats guy. An endorsement
that's worth a thousand points of political market share (or not)
Oatmeal is a breakfast food that when you were a kid, you actually craved on occasion, and could even get excited about. Especially the flavored kind in the packets. On a cold morning, it could be just as great to wake up and make yourself a bowl of maple swirl or apples and cinnamon oatmeal as it would be to pour yourself some Captain Crunch. Over time, however, oatmeal stopped being exciting. Now that you're an adult, you eat oatmeal because it's part of a "heart healthy diet." You eat it because your doctor says you need to get your cholesterol down. At no time, however, do you leap out of bed, excited to run down the stairs, put on the kettle, and make yourself a heaping bowl of ... oatmeal. You may eat it ... you may even choose it over a big, pancake and egg breakfast (that damned cholesterol...) but you sure as hell aren't excited about it.
That's the challenge for the McCain campaign. In 2000, he was bacon and eggs -- or rather, that turkey bacon and egg panini sandwich at Starbucks -- smells good, tastes good, and you don't really expect it to come from Starbucks. But now, having traded in his Y2K, maverick positions for George W. Bush's policy cast-offs, he's just your run of the mill bowl of plain oatmeal. (Worse, he's oatmeal seven years into an American diet of not just oatmeal, but oatmeal that we've since discovered has been contaminated with dog poop...)
Call it "losing his branding," or whatever you want. That's what the McCain challenge boils down to -- convincing voters to eat oatmeal for another four years when the Democrats are serving wild blueberry pancakes, a side of scrambled egg whites, and a hot cup of vanilla hazelnut coffee from this brand new neighborhood joint that just opened ... and Shaq's at the opening... you get my drift... Independent voters have to decide whether to grab BK with Shaq and their new Democratic friends, or saunter down to the linoleum floored kitchen and whip up a bowl of Quaker freaking Oats...
Damn.
Or...
On a serious note: In politics, the name of the game is turnout, and turnout on Election Day is in large part a function of passion. Who is going to make you want to stand in line and vote? Who makes you want to give money? Volunteer? Back in 2000, both sides came to the election with equal passion: for Republicans, passion to drive out the last vestiges of the Clinton presidency; and for Republicans, passion to prevent a re-crowning of the economy-killing Bushes. In 2004, the Republicans had the surplus of passion, as evangelicals sought to make Bush make good on his promises to turn the judiciary into God's Own Earthly Hand. (They were duped ... you do know that now, right..?)
This year, the passion is all D. Even if lots of GOP and even some Independent voters feel more comfortable with McCain than with the alternative, will Mac be able to generate the passion, either for himself, or against Obama, to fill those long, long lines with his voters in November? Signs point to "no," though it's very early, and the GOP slime machine hasn't kicked into full gear yet...
At the end of the day, the problem McCain will have in matching what will almost certainly be record Democratic turnout, and record Independent identification with Democrats, will be giving his side something to get passionate enough to turn out for. Oatmeal is good for many things, but generating excitement sure as hell ain't one of them.
Related: Historians compare McCain to a different breakfast food: toast.
Today's honor goes to Black Entertainment USA from Friday, regarding the acquittal of R&B singer/composer R. Kelly on child porn charges (a story that got overlooked because of the shocking death of NBC's Tim Russert. The headline?
And for those of you in Denver, CO and across the globe, you've GOT TO check out my baby bruh, 
Damn. It would be perfect except that everybody knows there are no teenaged