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.

Another “Short Ride” On Health Care From Holy Joe

I guess it had been waay too long since what passes for our political discourse was fouled once more by the whining, sniveling sanctimony of the “Independent Democratic” U.S. Senator from Connecticut, but alas, The Last Honest Man was granted a forum to pontificate on one of the Sunday morning gab fests, and he did so, true to form (here)…

“Great changes in our country often have come in steps. The Civil Rights movement occurred, changes occurred in steps,” he argued. Lieberman added that Congress should address the nearly 50 million uninsured at some point down the road:

LIEBERMAN: Morally, everyone of us would like to cover every American with health insurance but that’s where you spend most of the trillion dollars plus, or a little less that is estimated, the estimate said this health care plan will cost. And I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy is out of recession. There’s no reason we have to do it all now.

As you can read from healthreform.gov here, what follows are issues pertaining to health care in Connecticut and how the Obama Administration is trying to help address them (of course, it would be nice if DINO Joe felt compelled to actually do something about this also)…

Right now, providers in Connecticut lose over $383 million 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 34 hospitals2 and the 15,257 physicians3 in Connecticut to better care for their patients.

Premiums for residents of Connecticut have risen 98% since 2000.4 Through health insurance reform, 274,200 to 332,600 middle class Connecticut residents will be eligible for premium credits to ease the burden of these high costs.5

56,659 employers in Connecticut 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.

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 36,400 households in Connecticut struggling under the burden of high health care expenses.7

There’s a host of other good information available from the healthreform.gov site for all fifty states; just click on the interactive map for more information.

And by the way, I’m having a hard time trying to stomach this particular moment of sanctimony from Lieberman seeing as how he chose to try and establish a false equivalency here with the civil rights movement…I would say that Lieberman left those days behind long ago (here is a rather shameful chronology, and I really didn’t care much one way or the other in the matter of actor Alec Baldwin contemplating a run against Lieberman, as noted here).

But as we know, this is par for the course when it comes to a guy who was on the short list for VP with John McCain at the head of the ticket last year (here – at least Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin was a whole lot more entertaining) and who supported the right of hospitals not to provide contraceptives for rape victims because “In Connecticut, it shouldn’t take more than a short ride to get to another hospital,” as noted here.

I know Chris Dodd (Connecticut’s other U.S. Senator, of course) is a bit too cozy with some bigwigs in the financial services racket, but as far as I’m concerned, there are a multitude of other reasons to support him; it’s beyond pathetic to me that Lieberman faces better election prospects than the “Nutmeg State’s“ legitimate Democratic senator.

Male Bashing At The Inky? “Y” Not?

Yes, this actually appeared on the pages of Philadelphia’s newspaper conservative house organ of record today (from here)…

Guys, if you are between 18 and 50 and work in finance, do your country a favor: Get a handle on the potential economy-killer that’s running through your veins, and have yourself tested.

We need to know if you’re a carrier of toxic testosterone.

Not all of you are financial accidents waiting to happen. But some of you are operating at levels that require serious adult supervision.

We know how you hate pain, so let me assure you that it won’t hurt. Just a simple saliva test, and we can tell if you are high-risk. I can even recommend a doctor.

See, the author is arguing here that “toxic testosterone” is behind the near-ruin of our financial markets.

Gee, silly me; I thought it was due to lax-to-non-existent government oversight, continued inflation of the housing bubble long beyond the point where any life form with more than a single cell of brain matter knew it would burst (advocated notably by our supposed financial geniuses including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan), and buyers either obtaining home mortgages without even the slightest qualifications or borrowing relentlessly against the ever-shrinking equity of their property.

But it’s all the fault of males only because of that dreaded testosterone! A-HA!

Given that supposed revelation, I hate to break the news to Susan Antilla of Bloomberg, but here it is; women are guilty of financial indiscretions also.

As noted here, former John McCain campaign adviser (and retired eBay Executive) Meg Whitman “received a ‘package’ worth $10 million in 2007, including $787,936 for personal air travel, and still draws $1.2 million a year as a ‘special adviser’.”

OK, I’ll grant you that that doesn’t exactly qualify as a financial “indiscretion.” However, does anyone think Whitman rates a package like that given the fact that, while with eBay, she bought the Internet calling service Skype for $2.6 billion, and Skype has only made back $551 million as a result (noted here)?

The link above to the prior post concerning Whitman also tells us the tale of Carly Fiorina, another former McCain adviser and former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, whose compensation was slashed from $10 million in 2002 to $6 million in 2003 due to “poor performance,” though she still walked away with a $42 million severance package in 2005.

And this tells us of former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who was elected in 1992 with the help of “voter suppression tactics” admitted by Ed Rollins, her campaign manager at the time. She also cut the workforce of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, resulting in Whitman earning a grade of “c minus” from “a coalition of environmental and public-policy groups” for her handling of environmental issues.

Also, upon completion of her term as governor, she formed the Whitman Strategy Group and took the chemical company FMC as her first client, which was responsible for cleaning up arsenic-contaminated soil (FMC was responsible for 136 Superfund sites across the country … and had been subject to 47 EPA enforcement actions, according to Source Watch).

(Yes, I know we’re here to talk about financial indiscretions, and these don’t directly qualify. However, I think it shows that high-profile women know how to use and abuse power at least as well as men.)

And last but certainly least, this tells us how former Bushco Interior Secretary Gale Norton bailed as soon as her financial exposure to a certain Jack Abramoff was revealed in the cold light of day.

Oh, and did I mention that, in the article, Antilla appears to endorse the idea of men taking female hormones “to tone down…aggression”?

Perhaps a bit of “toxic testosterone” was at work in some of the money market machinations Antilla is talking about. But only a bit.

Besides, toxic punditry beats that by a mile.

More Taxing Punditry From Greg “Gas N’ Go” Mankiw

(Note: The title is a nod to this prior post in which the author joined the chorus of those advocating a “gasoline tax” to punish those wasteful drivers; sorry, but I’m not real big on social engineering at someone else’s expense, and I’m certainly not big on that when it comes to my own – make cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars and give employers greater tax incentives to support telecommuting first, to say nothing of increased mass transit funding, OK?).

The New York Times today published a list of questions that financial industry experts would like to ask Treasury Secretary Designate Timothy Geithner today (Geithner’s confirmation hearing was today, as noted here).

And one of the Times’ questioners was a certain N. Gregory Mankiw, who posed the following…

1. The income tax code favors those with employer-provided health insurance over those who buy their own health insurance or pay medical bills out of pocket. It also favors homeowners over renters, through the mortgage interest deduction. Is this tax treatment efficient or fair? Might you favor a more level playing field?

Yes and No, people – we’re done with this, OK?

Don’t screw around with my mortgage interest deduction! Also…

2. President Obama supports the estate tax. Why should a person who leaves his money to his children pay more in taxes than another person with the same lifetime income who spends all his money on himself?

Ah yes, a common Mankiw theme returns once more, namely, that of taxation versus his “willingness to work,” or, at least, engage in some other honorable venture such as investing wisely (he also harped on that in this post, where he believes his hypothetical earning of a dollar will yield his kids $4.81 under John McCain, had he won in November, but only $1.95 under Barack Obama; I am hardly an econ expert, but as I read through the comments to Mankiw’s post, I’m starting to wonder if he is either).

And of course, Mankiw is one of the gaggle of pundits who sat on his hands doing nothing while all econ indicators in this country pointed towards disaster, as noted here (actually, on second thought, that’s not correct; they did do something…and that was to ridicule other industry professionals such as Paul Krugman who turned out to be right all along!).

Stop Hiding The Cost

This Think Progress post tells us that New York Times conservative quota hire Bill Kristol recently had a verbal spat with columnist and author Pete Hamill about whether or not Americans have seen “plenty of coffins” from the Iraq war, with Kristol arguing in a typically nonsensical manner that we have.

Think Progress does a good job of noting that the Bushco ban on the coffin photos was backed by the 108th Republican Congress in June 2004, with John McCain voting against the ban in one of his final moments of genuine maverickyness before he became a bona fide wingnut wannabe.

I’m not going to waste time pointing out the obvious facts that Bill Kristol is a liar and an idiot (and how funny is it that he’s “ambivalent” about staying at the Times, noted here; every day he picks up a paycheck from them, it’s an act of theft). I only wish to request here that the incoming Obama administration rescind the Bushco gag rule on the coffin photos at its earliest opportunity, or if it does not somehow, then the incoming 111th Congress should act to do so themselves.

Some Smells That Sell (Maybe)

This Murdoch Street Journal story tells us the following…

When he launches a new men’s fragrance next month, Sean “Diddy” Combs, the hip hop impresario turned marketing mogul, hopes his sales pitch will resonate with the same consumers who voted for Barack Obama.

The story also tells us…

“When you see Barack Obama, you see a strong, elegant black man and when people see my ad, it’s almost like that’s the trend,” (Combs) said.

The black-and-white ad, which will appear in magazines and on billboards stating in December, features Mr. Combs clad in a white dinner jacket. The fragrance will be sold at Macy’s, Inc. stores for the holidays.

(OK, I cheated with those two paragraphs; you have to subscribe to the Journal in order to read that and the rest of the story…my bad).

And this got me to thinking about a new way certain political figures could cash in here, and with that in mind, I’d like to propose the following…

“Coot” McCain – Hot and musty like the perspiration in the Arizona heat you work up after visiting your 12 homes, all you need to do is slap a dash or two of this across your face, and you’ll be spewing profanity at a beer heiress in no time. Look for the little lime-green bottle.

Perfectly Palin – The wink invites you to “come on over,” and after a whiff of this alluring, intoxicating fragrance, you’ll buy her a “bridge to nowhere” and $150,000 worth of men’s, women’s, and children’s apparel and accessories faster than Vlad Putin can stick his head into your airspace (warning: keep out of reach of NHL hockey players – here).

Can’t wait for the “proof of concept” on the ad campaign for these two – can you?

Try Applying The “Kerry Rules” To McCain, OK?

There are a bunch of reasons why Deborah Howell, the Washington Post ombudsman (person?) is a joke as far as I’m concerned, but this is just the latest bit of fuel for that fire, if you will (nothing against Greg Mitchell, by the way).

See, Howell and many other of our corporate media types believe that the Repug nominee for president and his running mate received unfair treatment (I got into some of this nonsense here a week ago).

This is all particularly amusing to your humble narrator seeing as how I don’t recall that there was one speck of self-recrimination this time four years ago, when all the networks with initials for names were claiming a “mandate” for Dubya, even though Obama won with more votes cast and a higher margin of victory than Commander Codpiece (here).

I would say the opposite is true, actually – and if I may, I’d like to refresh our memories as follows (this is going to get real deep real fast)…

Quite simply, the Swift Boat Liars were never properly held to account (here).

Kerry supposedly cried tears of regret when he bowed out of the ’08 presidential contest, which did not happen (here).

Kerry was depicted as a “windsurfing flip-flopper” here (the windsurfing part was true, but so what?).

Our beloved corporate media cousins jumped all over Kerry’s botched joke but failed to report Dubya’s claim that a Democratic victory means “the terrorists win and America loses” (here – 69 days to go, people…we’re getting there).

Brendan Miniter of the Murdoch Street Journal slams both Kerry AND former Georgia senator and decorated Vietnam vet Max Cleland here (falsely, of course).

Kerry was depicted as “pos(ing) with guns,” though both Dubya and Cheney’s supposed hunting “bona fides” were trumpeted (and by the way, Kerry has hunted since he was about 12 years old – noted here).

Various right-wing bottom feeders, taking their lead from Flush Limbore, Sean Inanity and professional Kerry attacker John O’Neill, claimed the senator called U.S. troops “terrorists” here.

Bill Sammon of Fox Noise revived the unfounded claim that a pre-election bin Laden tape was meant to help Kerry here.

James Taranto of the Murdoch Street Journal said Kerry based his electoral fraud claims on jokes here (typical – takes one to know one).

“The American Enterprise” continued to peddle John O’Neill’s Swift Boat claims against Kerry as fact here.

Inanity, Cheney and Gingrich ridiculed Kerry’s call for a “more sensitive” war on terror (as if they would actually know about combat, here).

Tweety alleges that a Kerry campaign ad was made by “Hitler’s filmmaker” Leni Riefenstahl (nice, here).

Oliver North: “Every terrorist” wants Kerry to win (here).

Sean Inanity: “God is no Democrat” – Dennis Miller: “Jesus ‘prefers Bush to Kerry’” (here).

I believe that about covers it (I know this was noxious, but I hope it wasn’t too overpowering).

So if Deborah Howell or anyone else can prove to me that John McCain received anything close to the media abuse in the campaign that just ended that John Kerry received when he ran for the White House four or more years ago, then I’ll be receptive to their argument.

Otherwise, shut up and go away.

Almost There

Hat tip to The Daily Kos for these reminders…

It’s Peanut Butter And Jelly Time, Indeed

Barack Obama predicts John W. McBush’s next line of attack…

Three Funny Numbers For John W. McBush

This New York Times story today profiled Iraq war veterans and their influence on the 2008 campaign, on either side. And that would include supporting Tom Manion, as noted below…

Three hours north and a few days later, another group of young Iraq veterans gathered at a bar in Philadelphia to help raise money for Tom Manion, a Republican Congressional candidate.

David Bellavia, 33, founded Vets for Freedom, a “pro-victory” group that has spent $6 million on television advertisements this year. Pete Hegseth, 28, is the group’s executive director. They both served in Iraq, and as is the case for many young veterans, loyalty to fallen comrades is the dominant force behind their decision to become politically involved.

When asked what motivated them, they spoke less of policy than people. “We lost 37 men in my unit,” Mr. Bellavia said, his voice rising with emotion. “That sacrifice is holy to me. All of them I knew and I loved.”

Tom Manion nodded with understanding. He is running against Patrick J. Murphy, a Democrat and the only Iraq veteran in Congress — one of the 30 or so who are pursuing seats in the House this year, up from about a dozen in 2006.

Mr. Manion has attracted Vets for Freedom partly because he shares the group’s “pro-mission” viewpoint. He is also a retired marine colonel, and the father of Travis Manion, a marine and Naval Academy graduate who was killed last April in an ambush in Iraq’s western province of Anbar.

Mr. Manion said he never would have become politically active were it not for his son’s death. “It made me realize that if I wanted to make a difference, it wasn’t enough to sit on the sidelines,” he said.

The last thing I intend to do here is give precious free space to Tom Manion, but I just wanted to note that, for someone selling himself as a Washington “outsider,” he seems pretty comfortable with the support of a “527” group (which is what Vets for Freedom is in the final analysis, a group that dovetails nicely with the human stains of Freedom’s Watch, as noted here; perfectly legal for Manion as far as I can determine, though).

And while I don’t recall any pledges from Manion about 527s, Oliver Willis notes here that a certain Republican presidential candidate rallied with Vets for Freedom, though he once vowed to get the FEC to “crack down” on 527 groups.

This is another reason why McBush needs to act on the advice John Kerry gave him here, though to be honest, it’s probably too late for that now anyway.