Sweeping More “Turd Blossom” BS Under The “Afghan Rug”

“Bush’s Brain” opined as follows in the Murdoch Street Journal yesterday…

In an interview with CNN’s John King on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said President Obama is now asking tough questions about Afghanistan “that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side and the strategic side.” It was a not so subtle dig at Mr. Obama’s predecessor and was meant to distract from the White House’s mishandling of the war.

The Bush administration did in fact conduct a top-to-bottom strategic review of Afghanistan in 2008. That review was provoked by two developments.

The first was that Pakistan’s government wobbled starting in 2006. It cut deals with tribes that created safe havens for the Taliban and al Qaeda and then became distracted from fighting terrorism as President Pervez Musharraf was pressured to leave office and replaced by a new democratic government. The second was al Qaeda’s decision to refocus its efforts on Afghanistan after having been driven from Iraq.

In response, I’d like to provide this link that tells us that, while the threat of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq was quite real, to say nothing of the suicide attacks, “Pentagon documents leaked to the Washington Post (around April 2006) regarding Zarqawi have revealed that Al Qaeda in Iraq is fabricated.” And just to refresh our memories, this McClatchy story tells us the pains the Bushco regime went through to try and fabricate a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

And as far as the Obama White House’s supposed “mishandling of the war,” Cenk Uygur “keeps his eye on the ball,” so to speak, by telling us the following (here)…

Right now, there is a debate as to what President Obama should do in Afghanistan. As there should be. Should he send in more troops? Does it make sense to escalate the war without a viable partner in the Afghan government? Will this be his Vietnam? Woh, woh, woh … whose Vietnam?

What is not being talked about enough is the disastrous situation George Bush left for Obama in Afghanistan (as he did in just about every aspect of government). What the hell did Bush do in Afghanistan for over seven years? Apparently, not a damn thing.

Do you know how many troops Bush had in Afghanistan in early 2008? He had an unbelievably small contingent of 26,000 troops in the whole country. At the same time, he had 160,000 troops in Iraq. I don’t know if you know this, but Iraq did not attack us. The people who did attack us on 9/11 lived in … Afghanistan.

So Bush had 26K troops in Afghanistan, and we’re debating about whether or not we should have almost four times that amount now.

And before any of this occurred, Afghanistan had been our radar, as it were, since the Soviets were driven out of the country, mainly for the following reason (as noted here)…

The strategic location of Afghanistan can scarcely be overstated. The Caspian Basin contains up to $16 trillion worth of oil and gas resources, and the most direct pipeline route to the richest markets is through Afghanistan.

The Alternet article discusses in length how the American company Unocal (aided by an Arabian company, Delta Oil) fought Bridas, an Argentine energy company, who had leases to drill for oil in the region…

…and by November of 1996 (Bridas) had signed an agreement with General Dostum of the Northern Alliance and with the Taliban to build a pipeline across Afghanistan.

…

Unocal wanted exclusive control of the trans-Afghan pipeline and hired a number of consultants in its conflict with Bridas: Henry Kissinger, Richard Armitage (now Deputy Secretary of State in the Bush Administration), Zalmay Khalilzad (a signer of the PNAC letter to President Clinton) and Hamid Karzai.

Unocal wooed Taliban leaders at its headquarters in Texas, and hosted them in meetings with federal officials in Washington, D.C.

Unocal and the Clinton Administration hoped to have the Taliban cancel the Bridas contract, but were getting nowhere. Finally, Mr. John J. Maresca, a Unocal Vice President, testified to a House Committee of International Relations on February 12, 1998, asking politely to have the Taliban removed and a stable government inserted. His discomfort was well placed.

Six months later terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and two weeks after that President Clinton launched a cruise missile attack into Afghanistan. Clinton issued an executive order on July 4, 1999, freezing the Taliban’s U.S.-held assets and prohibiting further trade transactions with the Taliban.

Mr. Maresca could count that as progress. More would follow.

Immediately upon taking office, the new Bush Administration actively took up negotiating with the Taliban once more, seeking still to have the Bridas contract vacated, in exchange for a tidy package of foreign aid. The parties met three times, in Washington, Berlin, and Islamablad, but the Taliban wouldn’t budge.

Behind the negotiations, however, planning was underway to take military action if necessary. In the spring of 2001 the State Department sought and gained concurrence from both India and Pakistan to do so, and in July of 2001, American officials met with Pakistani and Russian intelligence agents to inform them of planned military strikes against Afghanistan the following October. A British newspaper told of the U.S. threatening both the Taliban and Osama bin Laden — two months before 9/11 — with military strikes.

According to an article in the UK Guardian, State Department official Christina Rocca told the Taliban at their last pipeline negotiation in August of 2001, just five weeks before 9/11, “Accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”

And Think Progress tells us of the following from here, as the Iraq war and the neglected Afghanistan war dragged on…

JANUARY 24, 2006: Army has become “thin green line”
Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a “thin green line” that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon. [AP, 1/24/06]

OCTOBER 4, 2006: Iraq and Afghanistan war vets say military is overstretched, underequipped. 63 percent of all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans believe the Army and Marine Corps are overextended. 67 percent of Army and Marine veterans believe their forces are overextended. [VoteVets Action Fund, 10/4/2006]

OCTOBER 19, 2006: Staff on the House Veterans Affairs Committee report that the “number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have sought help for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) doubled — from nearly 4,500 to more than 9,000 — from October 2005 through June 2006.” [McClatchy, 10/18/2006]

And Bush’s “boy genius” tells us more…

There is also the heavy whiff of politics in the administration’s war deliberations. The president’s senior political adviser, David Axelrod, apparently attends war cabinet meetings—something I did not do as President Bush’s senior political adviser.

For Rove to imply that he separated the wars from politics is laughable in the extreme; here is another reminder…

Implying that Democratic Party liberals were little better than traitors, Rove continued, “Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.”

Yep, I would call that an example of the “heavy whiff” of something, but not politics (certainly befitting of Rove’s nickname, though).

“Decisive support” of a new Afghan strategy is certainly required, though (one to help remedy the failures of the old strategy, or what passed for one, by Rove and the rest of the disreputable Bushco bunch).

Update 10/25/09: I guess it shouldn’t at this point any more, but it continually astonishes me how much our lapdog press seems to crave pro-Bushco BS like this (a “secret plan,” huh?).

Update 10/27/09: And silly me for thinking that Rove was telling the truth about supposedly not participating in “war cabinet meetings”; maybe he didn’t, but he’s a liar for saying that he never participated in high-level national security meetings, as noted here.

R.T. For Two (A Musical Interlude)

Yep, he put on a great show at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ last night, opening with “Misunderstood,” which he performs here, as well as the second number, “Time’s Gonna Break You”…

…a song about this guy.

Monday Mashup (10/5/09)

I have to tell you that I, for one, am already sick of this narrative that “ooh, Obama suffered such a loss of prestige over visiting Copenhagen to lobby on behalf of Chicago for the 2016 Olympics, only to see Chicago eliminated in the first round” (and this reads like it was dictated directly from the RNC…why don’t you try commenting on some of this instead?).

As noted here, “Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Spanish King Juan Carlos (also came) to support Rio de Janeiro and Madrid” in their bids for the Games, with da Silva eventually winning the Rio bid.

Which, to me, begs the following question: I wonder if King Juan Carlos suffered a “loss of prestige” over the elimination of Madrid?

And as Think Progress notes here, the tourist Visa policies instituted by Dubya and his pals may have had more than a bit to do with the “Windy City’s” early elimination, though I’m sure you won’t hear a word of that from our beloved corporate media (more related commentary from Paul Krugman appears here, in which he quite rightly compares the Repugs to “bratty 13-year-olds” on this and other matters).

Update: And it will be interesting to see how our corporate media spins this against Obama, though they will try of course.

This Pew study tells us what we already knew, and it is that most stories having to do with everyday Americans were absent from the coverage of the economic crisis (and by the way, speaking of strange media coverage, can anyone hazard a guess as to why the Inky decided to publish a column by former sports columnist Bill Lyon about former Phillies closer Brad Lidge in its “Currents” section yesterday, which is supposed to pass for Sunday Review and Opinion?).

I just have three words to say in response to this: pot, meet kettle.

Another point over which Obama has been beaten up lately is the supposed controversy over speaking directly with Gen. Stanley McChrystal “only once since June” (not counting recently), reiterated by Turd Blossom here as part of Obama’s alleged “hands off” style (yes, I know this is about what we can expect from the supposed political genius whose fingerprints are all over our current foreign policy and domestic miseries).

(By the way, let’s not forget that McChrystal is Number 47 on this list.)

Of course, being a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, I would consider President Obama’s interactions with his generals as nothing more than following the chain of command. But what do I know?

You want a portrayal of “hands-off style,” Karl? Here it is, you dirtbag (based on this, and we know what happened a month after this photo was taken – your good buddy decided to go “clear brush” for awhile and then go and sit dumbfounded in a Florida classroom while this country burned).

And comparing Obama to his predecessor once more, it should be noted that (from here), our current president has chosen not to meet with the Dalai Lama, a move intended to avert the rage of our “good friends” the Chinese.

However, Obama’s predecessor did decide to meet with the Tibetan leader, as noted here. And before you think to yourself that, “gee, Bush actually had a spine on this while the ‘aloof’ Obama…another pointless editorial slam disguised as news aimed at Number 44…didn’t,” consider that Bush had to more or less make amends with the country holding the vast majority of our debt by attending the Olympic games in Beijing last year in the face of protests from other countries over China’s atrocious record on human rights.

You tell me who made the right moves here and who didn’t.

Wednesday Mashup (9/23/09)

Someone named Iain Murray at Irrational Spew Online has criticized President Obama for using the term “carbon pollution” instead of “greenhouse gases” in recent speeches here, as follows…

I am proud to say that the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history. . . . We’re investing billions to capture carbon pollution so that we can clean up our coal plants.

This supposed catch is attributed to a reporter named Lauren Morello from openmarket.org, who noticed this “shift in the vocabulary (of) U.S. officials.”

I would think that conservatives should be the last people in the world decrying a “shift in the vocabulary” or the employment of likely-marketing-tested wording to help sell a policy on behalf of the current administration.

For you see, Bushco was proficient in selling any policy it wanted to achieve its nefarious ends, twisting words and meaning whenever it suited its foul purposes (of course, more and more people became wise to their con over time, but not soon enough).

For me, the phrase “return on success,” as it allegedly pertained to the Iraq war, was a particularly galling example.

As Think Progress told us here, “return on success” was Bushco-ese for “some of our troops are leaving Iraq, but most are staying behind.”

And as Salon.com’s Alex Koppleman tells us here…

…the withdrawal of these forces isn’t tied to success in the way the president pretends. In fact, he had little choice but to begin these drawdowns, and his top generals — including Gen. David Petraeus — have not made a secret of that.

In July 2007, Petraeus appeared on Good Morning America, where he said, “We know that the surge has to come to an end … General Odierno and I have — are on the record telling our soldiers that we will not ask for any extension certainly beyond 15 months.”

Also, as a Think Progress commenter noted…

“Return on Success” is actually a play on the business term: “Return on Investment.” Looked at from that angle, it’s been a huge loss of investment in both lives and treasure for the American public. If this war/occupation was a stock offered in the financial markets, it would be worth about $-0.2. The only profitability has been for the war profiteers and stock holders in THOSE criminal corporations.

So given all of this, I believe that using the phrase “carbon pollution” instead of “greenhouse gases” isn’t anything to get hot and bothered about (unless you’re thinking of replacing the phrase “return on success” with “return on failure” to describe the foul, fetid Bushco reign, in which case you would be substantively correct).

And by the way, anyone who had Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy secretary for the office of Safe & Drug Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education, as the next person on the list “Cracker Nation” (as Bill Maher calls them) would get into a tizzy over automatically wins first prize (wonder what it would be – a collage of “family values” Republicans such as Jesse Helms, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Mark Foley and Mark Sanford, maybe?).

As noted here, Jennings’ “crime” is “aiming to prevent gender- and sexual orientation-related bullying in schools,” (wingnuttia reigns in this excerpt)…

Jennings has spent decades actively and successfully promoting myths about homosexuality to schoolchildren as founder of the radical Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GSLEN). Van Jones was done in by two key charges and one taped quote; FRC documented at least seven outrageous facts about Jennings and five inflammatory quotes in documents we released in June (see www.stopjennings.org).

Unfortunately, Jennings has now taken his office at the Education Department-where he will be charged with implementing laws like the “Safe Schools Improvement Act,” introduced as H.R. 2262. This bill to combat “bullying” and “harassment” is like a “hate crimes” law for schools-but without being limited to actual violence. Cutting down on bullying and harassment of anyone is a worthy goal, but naming “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected categories makes this bill more about advancing the homosexual agenda than keeping schools safe.

Ah yes, the dreaded “homosexual agenda.” I know it’s permeating every aspect of my life whenever I feel an unmanly urge to watch “Project Runway,” read The Bell Jar or wear Mrs. Doomsy’s beige pumps.

(…give me a frackin’ break, people!!…)

As we learn from Pam’s House Blend here, charges that Jennings “hates Christians,” “is teaching children nasty sexual behavior through the group GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network),” and “covered up the sexual abuse of an underaged child” have all been refuted.

However…

The newest “controversy” is that Jennings gave a speech in 1995 explaining how to introduce lgbt supportive groups in schools:

In 1995, he gave a speech in which he described how he has used the concept of “safety” in schools to promote homosexual advocacy in public schools in Massachusetts. He gave a speech called “Winning the Culture War” at the Human Rights Campaign Fund Leadership Conference on March 5 of that year.

Excerpts have been posted on the website of MassResistance, where chief Brian Camenker has worked to oppose the demands of homosexual activists.

In the speech, Jennings described how he was concerned about being described as promoting homosexuality, so he chose to campaign on the idea of “safety” instead.

“If the radical right can succeed in portraying us as preying on children, we will lose. Their language – ‘promoting homosexuality’ is one example – is laced with subtle and not-so-subtle innuendo that we are ‘after their kids,’” he told the conference. . . “

Actually there is nothing wrong with the speech. In fact, it’s a very good speech which should be remembered.

Again, we have here another example of conservatives twisting words to suit their ends.

As for Jennings himself, this tells us the following…

Prior to his tenure at GLSEN, Jennings served as History Department chair and a history teacher at Concord Academy in Massachusetts and before that as a history teacher at Moses Brown School in Rhode Island. Jennings has also authored six books including Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son: A Memoir which was named a 2007 Book of Honor by the American Library Association and Telling Tales Out of School which was the winner of the 1998 Lambda Literary Award. Jennings received an A.B. in history from Harvard, an M.A. from the Columbia University Teachers College and an M.B.A. from NYU’s Stern School of Business.

Besides, the prior regime employed a gay man named Mark Dybul at the State Department as Bushco’s “global AIDS coordinator,” as we learn here, and I don’t recall hearing any howls of protest from the FRC (or Fix Noise, for that matter – no surprise – as noted here).

Update 9/25/09: More from Media Matters here…

And finally, did you know that the pay of bank CEOs in this country “dwarfs” that of the rest of the world, as noted here?

As Sarah Anderson, a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies, tells us…

“(U.S. bank CEOs) have claimed it is impossible to recruit people without paying such compensation. Yet, if you look at the pay levels in Europe and in a lot of Asian countries, somehow they manage to find people who can run major global firms while making a fraction of what they make in the U.S.,” she said.

And so what exactly do we get for all that extra dough?

Well…

Bank of America and Citigroup (I’ll be nice here and not use the scatological names) are alleged to have funded Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan national at the center of a reputed Al Qaeda terror cell probe, according to the New York Daily News here (as the post asks, “What kind of banks lend tens of thousands of dollars unsecured to 20-year-old coffee cart vendor / shuttle bus driver foreigners with no assets?”).

The banks bailed out by TARP “stuffed” CEOs with stock when the market was down, and now these CEOs are making out all over again now that the market is returning to reasonable health, as noted here.

As noted here in this story telling us that even token regulation of bank products was defeated, Barney Frank tells us that the banks generally “regard consumer affairs as a kind of nuisance.”

Meanwhile, Dem Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota continues to be absolutely correct in the matter of bank regulation, as noted here from last March.

Update: Oh, and, by the way…

Some Monday “Byko” Blather on Carter and Race

Stu (“I’m Thinking Another 9/11 Would Help America,” here) Bykofsky really should have just gulped down a fistful of Xanax and gone over to lie down in a corner instead of spitting out his utter dreck of a column today, but he concocted his idiotic screed anyway.

See, “Byko” is in a lather over President Carter’s recent comment that the anti-Obama sentiment in this country is race-based, something which I think is pretty evident based on this.

So he thusly piled on (I could take time to refute all of it, but this sampling is pretty indicative – and by the way, he makes it sound like Carter and Muammar Qadhafi were buds, but it was Dubya who signed an executive order restoring the Libyan government’s immunity from terror-related lawsuits and dismissing all of the pending compensation cases in the US, not Carter, as noted here – also, if there’s one person Carter would not be friends with, it is Fidel Castro, since the latter played the former like a fiddle in the matter of the Mariel Boat Lift)…

(Carter’s) remark paralleled the equally hair-trigger opinion of the Philadelphians who hung the “racist” tag on anyone who objected to the Eagles’ hiring of Michael Vick.

Uh, I objected to the Eagles’ signing of Vick (here), and I didn’t get any comments branding me a racist (and I most definitely support President Carter in this matter).

Also…

In his latest ramble, Old Mushmouth said the “overwhelming portion” of those loudly opposing President Obama are racists.

He hasn’t created so many waves since he was in a waterborne battle with an enraged swamp rabbit.

…

In reality, there’s a racial strain in most national discussions involving Obama, but it is irrational to think r-a-c-e is animating all, or even most, of the animosity.

See the prior post on Noel Sheppard for proof that Carter is right, “Byko” (and by the way, I don’t know what the hell “Byko” is talking about with that comment about a “racial strain” that somehow isn’t “animating…the animosity”; “Byko” also introduces more faux equivalency between those who opposed Clinton over a blow job and those who opposed Dubya for lying us into war with an enemy that had nothing to do with 9/11, expanding our country’s policy of rendition beyond all reason or adherence to the law, trashing the environment and civil liberties, staffing his administration with hacks and flunkies in charge of government agencies, acting as if he actually cared about those “values voters” his party plays for fools every four years, etc.)…

Also…

Predictably, anyone disagreeing with Carter was immediately tarred as a racist. That’s what MSNBC’s semi-rational ranter Keith Olbermann bayed last Wednesday. If you diss Carter, he suggested, you are a racist and a right-wing nutjob.

From this transcript (and I hate to admit that “Byko” is partly correct, even though Olbermann was dead-on, but “Byko” left out the rant of a certain Flush Limbore)…

OLBERMANN: Carter and courage: The former president elaborates on his comments about racism being at the core of some of the rage against the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: There is an inherent feeling among many people in this country that an African-American ought not to be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: And he gets the “all too predictable” reactionary blowback from the racists he‘s talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO HOST: Jimmy Carter is the nation‘s hemorrhoid folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Well, I got to defer to him here, the nation‘s (BLEEP) hole would know about the nation‘s hemorrhoid.

Oh, and by the way, Byko, when you decide to actually provide meaningful, factual information to support your ridiculous claim that that “individual rights (are) being usurped by a federal government growing like kudzu,” let me know, OK?

Meanwhile, I’ll breathlessly await word on how much money Philadelphia Newspapers lost this week, or how their brilliant plan to have one group of rich Philadelphians headed by Bruce Toll bail out another group of rich Philadelphians headed by Bruce Toll is progressing.

Thursday Mashup (9/17/09)

Congratulations to President Obama for abandoning the idiotic, let’s-just-light-some-money-on-fire-since-it-would-accomplish-the-same-thing concept of strategic missile defense, as noted here (and somehow, I never understood how getting Russia POed at the expense of some enthusiasm from the Czechs and some half-hearted cooperation from Poland, as noted here, was beneficial to this country).

And I’m sure Edward Teller is doing disapproving somersaults in Gehenna, where he no doubt resides at this moment.

The Murdoch Street Journal allowed “Bush’s Brain” to spew more bilious nonsense today (from here)…

On Friday, I was at DePauw University in Indiana debating former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. It was two days after Barack Obama’s big speech before a joint session of Congress and Mr. Dean is a strong advocate for his party’s agenda and a medical doctor, so I expected him to defend the president’s idea of adding a “trigger” to health-care reform to ease its passage and thereby guarantee a government takeover of our health-care system.

But Mr. Dean turned out to be tougher on triggers than I was. He called them a “terrible” idea.

It’s now becoming clear that Mr. Obama’s speech failed to rally voters and failed to inspire Democrats to follow their president’s lead.

Nice try, Turd Blossom.

As noted here, the reason Dr. Dean opposes “triggers” (en route to a “government takeover of our health care system” – waaay too funny) is because they’re “a means by which politicians kick the policy can down the road—maybe forever, and end up, ultimately doing nothing” (actually, David Sirota points that out here). It’s not because Dean opposes health care reform – quite the opposite, actually.

And as far as whether or not Obama’s speech was a failure, this Gallup poll from today tells us that “Obama’s approval ratings on the economy (46%) and healthcare (43%) are holding steady over the last two months.”

And if you want to read something REALLY funny, check this out…

Those Democrats will soon notice that seniors are worried about Mr. Obama’s proposed Medicare cuts and that Hispanics–the fastest growing part of the electorate–are slipping away from the president. Gallup polls reveal his support among Hispanics fell 14 points to 67% over the summer.

And now, for the reality point of view (here)…

The Latino vote comprised 9 percent of the electorate nationwide in 2008, a figure that totals over 11 million voters. This turnout represents a jump of over 3 million voters since 2004, when 7.6 million Latinos cast ballots, and is approximately double the Latino turnout of 2000. Ominously for Republicans, the Latino vote broke overwhelmingly Democratic in 2008. After supporting Democratic candidate John Kerry by a 56-44 percent margin against George W. Bush in 2004, Latinos gave Democratic candidate Barack Obama their support at a 67-31 percent margin against John McCain. As the New York Times showed, Latinos’ movement towards Democrats was one of the biggest demographic shifts from 2004 to 2008.

The reason behind this shift, according to political pundits and strategists of both parties, was the Republicans’ tarnished brand related to the issue of immigration. As Latino polling expert Sergio Bendixen stated, “the debate over immigration started driving Hispanic voters toward the Democratic party, and the economic black hole clinched it.”

Can the Dems take any voting bloc for granted, particularly for next year and 2012? Of course not (and though I’m glad to see Obama step up immigration enforcement among employers hiring illegals, that could have a “blowback” if not combined with some common-sense immigration reform, a subject upon which the Repugs also played “kick the can” when they were in charge).

But any non-partisan individual would have to be muay loco to think that addressing health care reform would be negative in any way towards Hispanics in particular (of course, Rove doesn’t have a non-partisan molecule in his body).

I came across the following post from author Thomas Frank (What’s The Matter with Kansas?) at The Huffington Post today, and I thought he made some good points…

There are few things in politics more annoying than the right’s utter conviction that it owns the patent on the word “freedom” that when its leaders stand up for the rights of banks to be unregulated or capital gains to be untaxed, that it is actually and obviously standing up for human liberty, the noblest cause of them all.

Equally annoying is the silence of Democratic Party leaders on the subject. They spend their careers hearing this fatuous argument from the other side, but challenging conservatism’s claim to freedom seems to be beyond their powers. Or beneath their dignity. Or something.

Today they’re paying for that high-mindedness. While Democrats fussed with the details of health care reforms, conservatives spent months telling the nation that the real issue is freedom, that what’s on the line is American liberty itself.

Any increase in the size or duties of government, the right tells us, necessarily subtracts from our freedom. Government is, by its very nature, a destroyer of liberties; the Obama administration, specifically, is promising to interfere with the economy and the health care system so profoundly that Washington will soon have us all in chains.

With that in mind, I’d like to propose some of my own personal “freedoms” that, I think, coincide with much of what I try to do here online and elsewhere to support the Democratic Party and promote reasoned, informed discourse:

I have the freedom to speak out against right-wing (and occasionally left-wing) demagoguery masquerading as fact, whose sole purpose is to obfuscate, misinform and/or propagandize, in as respectful a manner as I can (though the occasional bad word may slip through – I should allow some “wiggle room” here).

I have the freedom to do this at social networking sites such as this one, as well as through any other means of electronic communication using the most up-to-date technological tools at my disposal (I’m not real big on the idea of Twitter, for example, but I suppose I’ll have to “get with it” at some point). Pursuant to that, I have the freedom to disregard comments expressed in response to my stated opinion that only serve to denigrate me personally, as well as comments that do not apply to my stated position and only serve to obfuscate, misinform and/or propagandize on an unrelated topic.

I also have the freedom to communicate my point of view in print media and also in conversations with others in an attempt to inform and possibly influence their opinion.

I also have the freedom to venture to other online sites or forums where opinions contrary to my own are expressed in an attempt to inform others, in the hope of influencing their opinions as well.

In the event that the exercise stated above leads to personal attacks, I have the freedom to thoroughly defend myself against any aggressive act which results from respectfully voicing my opinion.

I also have the freedom to listen to respectful voices of dissent and allow for the possibility that my own opinion may be influenced by the reasoned attempt of others to do the same as I would do.

I can’t think of any others at the moment. If anybody else wants to chime in, feel free to do so.

A Double-Barreled Dubya Disgrace

Via HuffPo, this article from The Atlantic last Friday tells us the following…

(Last) Thursday’s annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau’s principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.

It’s not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially.

…

Bush’s record on poverty is equally bleak. When Clinton left office in 2000, the Census counted almost 31.6 million Americans living in poverty. When Bush left office in 2008, the number of poor Americans had jumped to 39.8 million (the largest number in absolute terms since 1960.) Under Bush, the number of people in poverty increased by over 8.2 million, or 26.1 per cent. Over two-thirds of that increase occurred before the economic collapse of 2008.

The trends were comparably daunting for children in poverty. When Clinton left office nearly 11.6 million children lived in poverty, according to the Census. When Bush left office that number had swelled to just under 14.1 million, an increase of more than 21 per cent.

The story is similar again for access to health care. When Clinton left office, the number of uninsured Americans stood at 38.4 million. By the time Bush left office that number had grown to just over 46.3 million, an increase of nearly 8 million or 20.6 per cent.

The trends look the same when examining shares of the population that are poor or uninsured, rather than the absolute numbers in those groups. When Clinton left office in 2000 13.7 per cent of Americans were uninsured; when Bush left that number stood at 15.4 per cent. (Under Bush, the share of Americans who received health insurance through their employer declined every year of his presidency-from 64.2 per cent in 2000 to 58.5 per cent in 2008.)

When Clinton left the number of Americans in poverty stood at 11.3 per cent; when Bush left that had increased to 13.2 per cent. The poverty rate for children jumped from 16.2 per cent when Clinton left office to 19 per cent when Bush stepped down.

…

So the summary page on the economic experience of average Americans under the past two presidents would look like this:

Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent.

Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent.

Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent.

Under Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it increased by 20.6 per cent.

The article also provides comparative information on the presidencies of Poppy Bush and The Sainted Ronnie R, though I would argue that that doesn’t help Dubya at all (I have to admit that I was surprised to learn that real income grew under Reagan, though so did both childhood and adult poverty).

Also, the New York Times published an extensive feature article yesterday on water pollution focusing on Charleston, West Virginia, though a series of articles will follow this one focusing on other states…

Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.

In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.

Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.

“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state’s largest banks.

She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.

“How is this still happening today?” she asked.

An excellent question – basically, what we learn from the article is that we’d made a lot of progress in water cleanup efforts until about the last ten years or so, when everything started to slide backwards (we also learn about how politicians have taken their marching orders from the polluters to fire inspectors for trying to do their jobs; the story tells us about a man named Matthew Crum who suffered this fate – as far as I’m concerned, Crum is a great American).

And a big reason why we’ve fallen down on water safety is as follows (you knew what was coming, didn’t you?)…

Enforcement lapses were particularly bad under the administration of President George W. Bush, (E.P.A.) employees say. “For the last eight years, my hands have been tied,” said one E.P.A. official who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. “We were told to take our clean water and clean air cases, put them in a box, and lock it shut. Everyone knew polluters were getting away with murder. But these polluters are some of the biggest campaign contributors in town, so no one really cared if they were dumping poisons into streams.”

The E.P.A. administrators during the last eight years — Christine Todd Whitman, Michael O. Leavitt and Stephen L. Johnson — all declined to comment.

Of course – however, the following should also be noted…

In statements, E.P.A. officials noted that from 2006 to 2008, the agency conducted 11,000 Clean Water Act and 21,000 Safe Drinking Water Act inspections, and referred 146 cases to the Department of Justice. During the 2007 to 2008 period, officials wrote, 92 percent of the population served by community water systems received water that had no reported health-based violations.

…

The Clean Water Act, (lawmakers and environmentalists say), should be expanded to police other types of pollution — like farm and livestock runoff — that are largely unregulated. And they say Congress should give state agencies more resources, in the same way that federal dollars helped overhaul the nation’s sewage systems in the 1970s.

Some say changes will not occur without public outrage.

“When we started regulating water pollution in the 1970s, there was a huge public outcry because you could see raw sewage flowing into the rivers,” said William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Richard M. Nixon, and then again under President Ronald Reagan.

“Today the violations are much more subtle — pesticides and chemicals you can’t see or smell that are even more dangerous,” he added. “And so a lot of the public pressure on regulatory agencies has ebbed away.”

And as noted here, The Supreme Court of Hangin’ Judge JR has played a particularly nefarious role in all this, especially in the ruling linked to above which overturned a Court of Appeals verdict and allowed 4.5 million tons of lethal mining waste to be dumped into Alaska’s Lower Slate Lake, with the full knowledge that doing so would exterminate all life in the lake (somehow, though, The Supremes, by a 6-3 ruling… Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens dissented…determined that doing this was “less environmentally damaging than other options” – yep, you read that correctly).

Fortunately, the Clean Water Restoration Act was introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold here; no vote has been scheduled yet, but one should be with all speed (so many Bushco screwups to fix, so little time, I know).

Finally, in a Bushco-related matter, The Philadelphia Inquirer decided to give column space to Torture Yoo again today (the appropriate takedown from Will Bunch via Atrios is here).

Bunch takes on the main issue of Yoo’s past culpability head-on, of course (with Yoo weighing in against the upcoming Holder investigation of course – pathetic that the Inky doesn’t realize that they’re allowing Yoo to, in essence, try to obstruct justice), though Yoo pointed out something of lesser significance in his column that I still want to address anyway…

Henry L. Stimson, secretary of state under President Herbert Hoover, once explained the shuttering of the United States’ only code-breaking unit with these words: “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.” Unfortunately, we do not live in a world of gentlemen. Stimson realized this in his next cabinet post, as FDR’s secretary of war on the day of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

In response, I give you the following from this interesting article about U.S. code breakers during World War II…

Fifty years ago–and more than a year before Pearl Harbor–Americans scored one of their most brilliant victories of World War II.

The commander was a Russian immigrant and sometime geneticist named William Frederick Friedman. The nature of the battle might be suggested by Friedman’s intense interest once in the 50,000-word novel “Gadsby,” which Ernest Vincent Wrigh wrote without using the letter “e.” Friedman’s troops were a motley assemblage of academics, math wizards and puzzle freaks. With a left-handed assist from William Shakespeare.

Together, after 18 baffling months of dead-end days and floor-walking nights that temporarily collapsed Friedman into a mental ward, they broke the Japanese diplomatic code.

Their collective genius did not foil, of course, the sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States actively into the war. Crossed and sometimes disconnected wires in American intelligence enabled that. But code breaking by Friedman, et al., laid the groundwork for the pivotal victory of the U.S. fleet at Midway in June, 1942. Indeed, code breaking was an essential ingredient of the Allies’ ultimate triumph.

Yes, the quote from Stimson is accurate, though how Yoo could claim to know what Stimson “realized” 78 years ago is laughable (and assuming some fault lies with Stimson for Pearl Harbor – which, to me, is debatable at best – I cannot think of a word for the egomania of someone criticizing past history who belonged to a regime that had its own problems with “crossed and sometimes disconnected wires in American intelligence,” to the point where the result of that circumstance was observed just about eight years ago today).

Update 9/15/09: Yep, this egotistical jackass would know all about “five-spiral crashes,” wouldn’t he?

Update 9/23/09: Of course…

Friday Mashup Part 1 (9/4/09)

Zachary Roth at TPM Muckraker brings us the following today…

The fallout from Mark Sanford’s Argentinian romance is getting increasingly nasty.

Yesterday, State Senator Jake Knotts, a Republican but a committed Sanford foe, sent a letter to fellow lawmakers, in which he accused unnamed supporters of the bed-hopping chief exec of planting a rumor that Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer — who would become governor if Sanford steps down — is gay.

So what exactly did Knotts have to say in Bauer’s defense?

“Ain’t a homosexual bone in his body. That boy is a good boy. It’s a just an attempt to prevent Andre from become governor.”

Of course, heaven forbid that Bauer actually had “a homosexual bone” in his body. In that event, I suppose Bauer would automatically plummet in the eyes of residents of the Palmetto State (below Sanford, of course) and no longer be “a good boy.”

Oh, and please tell us when Opie and Aunt Bee return from shopping for a hickory switch and a piece of gingham from the “Piggly Wiggly” in Mount Pilot, OK, Mr. Knotts (any relation to Don)?

And staying below that Mason-Dixon Line, I give you the following from Tennessee Repug U.S. House Rep Marsha Blackburn (here)…

President Obama made a decision very early in the health care debate that doomed the process to failure. He decided to let Congress write the proposed bills, with very little input from the White House. Then he made another decision that just added to the problem. He decided that he wanted health care reform passed before Congress left for the August recess.

Her piece at The Hill’s Congress blog is chock full of this type of unsubstantiated misinformation that I won’t dignify any further. Instead, I’ll present the following from here (I found this from the site’s interactive U.S. map)…

How Health Insurance Reform will Benefit Tennessee

LOWER COSTS FOR RESIDENTS OF TENNESSEE

• Ending the Hidden Tax – Saving You Money: Right now, providers in Tennessee lose over $1.2 billion in bad debt which often gets passed along to families in the form of a hidden premium “tax”.1 Health insurance reform will tackle this financial burden by improving our health care system and covering the uninsured, allowing the 133 hospitals2 and the 18,560 physicians3 in Tennessee to (provide) better care for their patients.

• Health Insurance Premium Relief: Premiums for residents of Tennessee have risen 77% since 2000.4 Through health insurance reform, 817,500 to 937,800 middle class Tennessee residents will be eligible for premium credits to ease the burden of these high costs.5

• Strengthening Small Businesses: 74,592 employers in Tennessee are small businesses.6 With tax credits and a health insurance exchange where they can shop for health plans, insurance coverage will become more affordable for them.

• Reforms that Reduce Your Costs: Under health insurance reform, insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive. Insurance companies will also have to abide by yearly limits on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses, helping 32,900 households in Tennessee struggling under the burden of high health care expenses.7

INCREASE YOUR CHOICES: PROTECTING WHAT WORKS AND FIXING WHAT’S BROKEN

• Insurance Stability and Security: Health insurance reform will strengthen our system of employer-based health insurance, with an additional 56,400 people in Tennessee potentially getting insurance through their work.8 Health insurance reform will also ensure that you will always have guaranteed choices of quality, affordable health insurance if you lose your job, switch jobs, move or get sick.

• Eliminating Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions, Health Status or Gender: 10% of people in Tennessee have diabetes9, and 34% have high blood pressure10 – two conditions that insurance companies could use as a reason to deny you health insurance. Health insurance reform will prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on your health, and it will end discrimination that charges you more if you’re sick or a woman.

• One-Stop Shopping – Putting Families in Charge: With the new health insurance exchange, you can easily and simply compare insurance prices and health plans and decide which quality affordable option is right for you and your family. These proposals will help the 845,700 residents of Tennessee who currently do not have health insurance to obtain needed coverage, and it will also help the 306,700 Tennessee residents who currently purchase insurance in the individual insurance market.11

• Guaranteeing Choices: The largest health insurer in Tennessee holds 45% of the market, which limits the choices that you have for finding coverage.12 With a competitive public insurance option, you will have more choices and increased competition that holds insurance companies accountable.

ASSURE QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICANS

• Preventive Care for Better Health: 41% of Tennessee residents have not had a colorectal cancer screening, and 22% of women have not had a mammogram in the past 2 years.13 By requiring health plans to cover preventive services for everyone, investing in prevention and wellness, and promoting primary care, health insurance reform will work to create a system that prevents illness and disease instead of just treating it when it’s too late and costs more.

• Improving Care for Children and Seniors: 21% of children in Tennessee have not visited a dentist in the past year,14and 30% of seniors did not receive a flu vaccine15. Health reform will ensure coverage for kids’ dental, vision, and hearing needs, and will promote quality coverage for America’s seniors, including recommended immunizations.

Also, a poll from June commissioned by opponents of health care reform finds majority support for a public option across the country (I haven’t been able to find polling numbers for the entire state of Tennessee, though I know it’s favored in the district of “Bush Dog” Jim Cooper).

I suppose, though, that this is about what you would expect from someone who said “we’re not going to cry ‘emergency’ every time we have a ‘Katrina’” (here), even though Blackburn supported the emergency Katrina appropriation all the same (sounds like the “blind squirrel finding the nut” again).

Former Bushie (and Indiana governor) Mitch Daniels (left in the pic) opines as follows in the Murdoch Street Journal today (on the matter of states having to get their fiscal houses in order due to the recession) …

…the political impulse to protect government largess leads many states to aggravate their dilemma. Already more than half have raised taxes, often on businesses, serving only to chase them and their tax payments away and into the open arms of states like Indiana. Our traffic flow of interested investors is as heavy as it was in 2007. Since January we have welcomed the consolidation of more than 30 firms that closed up shop elsewhere and chose us as the low-cost, enterprise-friendly environment among their current locations.

Indiana was near bankruptcy five years ago but is relatively solvent today because we have spent the intervening years making hard choices. We have reformed state procurement, contracted out some jobs, cut costs, and relentlessly scrutinized expenditures in pushing for annual improvement in departments large and small. We’ve also reduced the number of state employees by some 5,000 from the 2004 level.

In contrast to the national pattern, our per capita state spending has cut, on average, 1.4% each of the past five years. Indiana is now the sixth thriftiest state by this measure. And if we Hoosiers are realizing that we need to re-examine what we can afford to have our government do, what must they be thinking in Albany, Lansing or Trenton?

Yep, typical Bushie…never misses an opportunity to score a political point or two against those baad “blue states” (even though Obama won Indiana last year).

To me, this is a case of “right message, wrong messenger.” I’m not going to comment on what may or may not be working in Indiana, since I don’t know enough about the state to say anything. And fiscal prudence is always a good thing wherever you live.

However, Brad DeLong tells us here of a moment when Daniels could have stood up to his White House pals and, as a result, probably relieved some of the burden we currently face (Daniels was Bushco’s OMB director at the time)…

One of the threads of Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty is that Mitch Daniels simply did not do his job as Bush’s OMB Director. The OMB Director is the principal–indeed, the only–voice inside the White House for fiscal prudence, for trying to ensure that the money the government spends is spent well and that the resources the government raises are adequate for the spending plans the White House evolves. While he was Bush OMB Director, Daniels simply did not do his job.

Page 219:

Mitch Daniels became agitated. He blurted out, “Well, yes, but if you can’t do the right thing when you’re at 85 percent approval, then when can you do the right thing? I think it’s time to say no.” Everyone looked with surprise at Daniels–he has a way of expressing what others are thinking but don’t say. Often, he’d find himself doubling back when he got an arched brow from Cheney or Rove…

And page 296:

The Commerce Secretary echoed much of what had been said…. As usual, not a real discussion, O’Neill thought as he looked over at [Mitch] Daniels…. He knew Daniels was focused on the perils of rising deficits, but it would take gumption to air those concerns in a room full of tax cut ideologues. “I think we need to balance concerns,” Daniels said…. “You need to be out front on the economy, but I am concerned that this package may not do it. The budget hole is getting deeper… we are projecting deficits all the way to the end of your second term.” From across the table came glares from the entire Bush political team. Daniels paused…. “Ummmm. On balance, then, I think we need to do a [tax cut] package… accelerate the rate cuts and the double taxation of dividends…” O’Neill looked with astonishment at Daniels… turn 180 degrees in midsentence…

And Daniels was just as wrong here on pending cap-and-trade legislation, by the way.

Finally, I give you the comedy stylings of Michael G. Franc and James Sherk of the National Review Online (here)…

Why has teenage unemployment jumped so sharply? In part the deteriorating economy. But also because Congress voted to put teenagers out of work. The August employment report is the first after the minimum wage increase took effect at the end of July. Of course, that is not what Congress said it wanted to do when it raised the minimum from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour.

But no matter what Congress sets the minimum wage at the true minimum wage is always zero. Employers do not have to hire workers, and they will not when hiring an additional worker brings in less money than that workers adds to the company. Consider an unskilled teenage worker whose labor increases a restaurant’s earnings by $7.00 an hour. The restaurant will pay up to $7.00 an hour to hire that worker. But when Congress raises the minimum wage to $7.25 that worker will lose his job. No restaurant will hire workers for a loss. Any business that did so would quickly go bankrupt. By raising the minimum wage Congress voted to lay off every worker who produces less than $7.25 an hour.

I have no word on what formula these two pundits know of or came up with to compute the profit an employee generates for his or her employer and how that determines that person’s wage (sooo…then these two shouldn’t be paid the same amount if their online “hit” count goes down, for example?), but I believe this post from about a year ago debunks the rap that an increase in the minimum wage leads to greater unemployment…

It ascribes a significant part of the problem of high teenage unemployment rates to high state minimum wages (or “maximum folly” according to the editorial). This claim disintegrates, however, under even the most cursory examination. Here’s why. Teenage unemployment rose from 13.1% to 17% between 2000 and 2004. According to the (Wall Street) Journal’s argument, the increases in teen unemployment should have been higher in states with higher minimum wages than in those with low minimum wages. What actually happened was the reverse: Teenage unemployment rose 3.4% in the high minimum wage states, compared to 4.2% in the others.

So in response, I have a question to ask Franc and Sherk (assuming their line of reasoning is applied to themselves and they end up having to seek other employment)…

Can I have fries with that?

Wednesday Mashup (9/2/09)

I happened to stray over to the National Review Online and found that Jonah Goldberg highlighted the above photo of President Obama that appears on the White House site (here – doesn’t say anything about it, but really, does he need to?).

Oh yes, I’m sure an enterprising Obama staffer waited for exactly the right moment for Obama’s head to line up with the light so he could be photographed for that “halo” effect.

Well, shockingly, I must point out that the Obama people were found out (horrors!); this is the pic they intended to publish at the White House site instead.

The “Doughy Pantload” strikes again (idiot).

I should note that I probably wouldn’t even care about the Goldberg thing above were it not for the fact that the wingnutosphere is apoplectic over an upcoming speech to be given by President Obama next Tuesday (Media Matters tells us the following from here – we’re talking full-on Drudge/Malkin umbrage-induced mode, as usual)…

Numerous conservatives have claimed that President Obama’s upcoming September 8 speech about “persisting and succeeding in school,” along with classroom activities about the “importance of education,” will “indoctrinate” and “brainwash” schoolchildren. Conservatives have compared Obama’s address to Chinese communism and the Hitler Youth, while also calling for parents to “keep your kids home” from the “fascist in chief.”

I really can’t think of a word for the gall of anyone who claims this against Obama while they no doubt sat silently while Number 43 proselytized from his White House “bully pulpit” every chance he got, to the point where those “value-voter fundies” out there thought he was something more than he was supposed to be (though, as we know, he was much less than he was alleged).

And a symptom of that mentality was captured in the film “Jesus Camp” (here), in which we learned the following…

(Pentecostal minister Becky) Fischer (who runs the “camp”) and the other ministers often profess their devotion to George W. Bush, because of his supposed born-again Christian beliefs, and at one point bring in a cardboard cutout of the man and encouraging all the children to stretch out their hands toward it and pray for him. The children are also taught that abortion is evil, with tiny dolls that are supposed to be fetuses passed out among them to touch and adore. At another point the entire congregation, including the children, is led in a chant of “Righteous judges!”, repeated until many of them are crying or shaking, and are then told that they have made a sacred covenant with God to pray every day that abortion be outlawed. A third scene shows some of the children at home, being taught by their parents to say an altered version of the Pledge of Allegiance, not to the American flag but to a “Christian flag” that consists of a blue cross on a field of white.

Even now, my words do not do justice to the insidious and vile coercion used against these poor children. The film shows clearly how all of this activity takes place in an atmosphere of extreme emotion and intense peer pressure, the same technique used by many cults to break down people’s resistance and then rebuild them in a way congenial to the cult’s beliefs. The children interviewed for the film appear to be willing subjects who have wholeheartedly internalized the precepts of fundamentalist Christianity, which is not surprising, considering every peer and authority figure in their lives acts likewise and puts them under pressure to behave this way. (Most of these students are homeschooled, of course; one section shows one of them watching a young-earth creationist video and being taught by his mother to say that evolution is “stupid”).

And Jed L. is referring to the latest Glenn Beck insanity with this post title, in a related vein.

On a national level, the Republican Party does not deserve to be taken seriously because it has sold itself lock, stock and barrel to these life forms. And they deserve any and all punishment that ensues as a result.

I can only hope and pray that this thought occurs to the national “leadership” of the Democratic Party, which, despite its flaws, still comprise the only adults in our political discourse.

And one of “high priests” of wingnuttery, Sen. Tom Coburn, wrote the following in the Murdoch Street Journal yesterday…

Let’s save money by spending less. This argument doesn’t require a clever explanation, but it does requiring putting the government in the position where it has to set realistic priorities. Most families realize that they can’t live indefinitely on borrowed money and would be delighted if the government joined them in the real world of tough spending choices.

However, Congress has shown no sign of departing from the status quo. Spending bills continue to grow faster than the rate of inflation as members still earmark funds for special projects for parochial interests. The most recent appropriations bill to pass the Senate, the Agriculture Department bill, included a 15% spending increase over the previous year’s bill, which itself was a 21% spending increase over the preceding year. In today’s economy, such spending increases make Americans realize that the political class isn’t even close to getting it.

Oh, and in the matter of not “getting it,” it should be noted that Coburn voted for the TARP bailout last year (here, but not for assistance to the automakers, of course).

To be fair, I supported TARP also, for all of its flaws. However, I’m not the one who is now masquerading as a political tightwad in the hope that my past profligacy will be forgotten over subsequent news cycles.

And finally, congratulations for former Dem Ohio congressman James Traficant, who recently finished serving his prison sentence for bribery and racketeering (here). I have to admit that it got kind of monotonous with former congressman William Jefferson as the only one-time Dem in our national discourse accused of financial malfeasance (barring the eventual issuance of a House Ethics Committee report on Charlie Rangel, of course, noted here).

The Traficant story also tells us the following…

In Youngstown, former Traficant congressional staff member Linda Kovachik hung yellow ribbons outside her house to welcome Traficant home. She talked Tuesday with Tish Traficant, who indicated that her husband plans a short vacation after his release.

No word on whether or not those ribbons were made by illegal immigrants (Traficant opposed illegal immigration, you see – he was the only Democratic member of Congress who advocated a new election for the seat of Repug Bob Dornan, which was won by Dem Loretta Sanchez, with ol’ Jimbo alleging possible voting in that race by illegal aliens; Sanchez would later introduce a bill expelling Traficant from the House of Representatives…nice touch).

Monday Mashup Part 1 (8/31/09)

I guess you can file this under a new category for this site called “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.”

With all of the back-and-forth from former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge about whether or not he was pressured by Bushco to mess around with the “color-coded alert” system (he admitted he was here, but more recently, he seemed to be “walking back” that one here), I realized that it was incumbent upon yours truly to be more aware of developments concerning this vital function of our government (and I feel much better about the fact that this is now under the control of Janet Napolitano versus Mike “City of Louisiana” Chertoff).

So, to what corporate media outlet should I venture to satisfy my thirst for knowledge? Why, Fix Noise of course!

And as I looked over their site’s special section on Homeland Security, I found the following:

As you can see, they are stuck in a pre-1/21/09 time warp.

And that reminds me of the quote that Jessica Lange, portraying the legendary country music singer Patsy Cline in “Sweet Dreams,” once uttered to her husband Charley Dick, played by Ed Harris: “Well, people in hell want ice water; that don’t mean that they get it.”

And speaking of the Bushes, Michael Barone wrote the following today at creators.com about the Kennedys (there’s a connection I think, and I’ll get to it; the title of Barone’s piece is “The End of America’s Experiment With Royalty”)…

Other political families — the Adamses, the Harrisons, the Tafts — produced multiple generations of national politicians but generated nothing like mass enthusiasm. The sons of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt set out on political careers but never got very far.

The Kennedy boys — John, Robert and Edward — were different. They won three elections to the House, 12 elections to the Senate and one to the presidency. From 1960 to 1980, they were major presences, active or off to the side, in every presidential contest.

…

The next generation of Kennedys has had mostly disappointing political careers. Joe Kennedy and Patrick Kennedy made it to Congress; Kathleen Townsend and Mark Shriver failed to do so; Maria Shriver made it to the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, but Townsend failed to do so in Annapolis; Caroline Kennedy will not follow her father and uncles in the Senate.

I suspect the royal status the Kennedys temporarily achieved in our democratic republic will seem bizarre to future generations. Perhaps it already does even for those of us who can remember the 1960s.

I realize that the whole “royalty” thing concerning the Kennedys is all “sooo sixties,” as Barone observes (as in the “Mad Men” era as opposed to the Woodstock era), but there are some who believe that there is still somewhat of a legend concerning another family that has lived in the presidential spotlight for twelve years, including the last eight. And it’s not as if Barone hasn’t done his part to perpetuate that “dynasty” also.

This tells us of Barone urging Dubya to appoint his brother Jeb as a “special envoy to the Americas” (with Barone channeling Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council for the Americas), and this tells us of Barone urging Florida governor Charlie Crist to appoint Jeb Bush as a senator to fill the seat vacated by Mel Martinez prior to a special election (at least Ted Kennedy won his seat in ‘62 in another special election without benefit of an appointment…I had some thoughts on Jeb Bush also here).

I wonder if the fact that Barone has taken it upon himself to act as the Jeb Bush Employment Agency “will seem bizarre to future generations” also?

And finally, this story tells us that Sen. John McCain…

…(said) his private comments about harsh interrogation methods were misrepresented by the Bush Administration in a recently released legal document intended to justify a six-day course of sleep deprivation for one CIA detainee in November 2007…

The newly declassified memo by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel mentions a secret briefing McCain and other members of Congress received sometime before Oct. 17, 2006. The memo says the lawmakers were told about six CIA interrogation techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation.

The memo recounts McCain’s reaction this way: “[S]everal Members of Congress, including the full memberships of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and Senator McCain, were briefed by General Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, on the six techniques that we discuss herein,” writes Steven G. Bradbury, a deputy assistant attorney general in the July 20, 2007, memo, which cites a CIA summary of the discussions. “In those classified and private conversations, none of the Members expressed the view that the CIA detention and interrogation program should be stopped, or that the techniques at issue were inappropriate.” (See TIME’s photos: “The (Mis)Adventures of the CIA.”)

A spokeswoman for McCain said that contrary to those claims, the Arizona Republican repeatedly raised objections in private meetings, including one with Hayden, about the use of sleep deprivation as an interrogation technique. “Senator McCain clearly made the case that he was opposed to unduly coercive techniques, especially when used in combination or taken too far – including sleep deprivation,” says Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for McCain.

It’s commendable that Sen. McCain voiced his objections to sleep deprivation as a “harsh interrogation method” (again, assuming his spokeswoman is telling us what really happened). However, as noted here from February ’08…

…Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard (for all intelligence agencies also…a standard that bans water boarding, by the way). When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote(d) to preserve water boarding:

I realize our corporate media would collectively wet its metaphorical pants, as it were, as opposed to calling out this man on such inconsistencies (I’d give fluffyhead David Gregory a picture of our 7th president if he ever did that), so it is up to us filthy, unkempt liberal blogger types such as yours truly to do so.

McCain deserves our eternal thanks and gratitude for his sacrifice on behalf of our country. But that doesn’t mean that, when it comes to his votes in public service, the “hero” narrative should obscure some rather craven political calculation that ends up endangering our military, which would be more subject to the “harsh methods” we used on others in defiance of laws we signed ourselves years ago.