Is the Republican party becoming the party that cries victimization?

October 30, 2008 at 11:14 pm (2008 Presidential Candidates)
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The more I listen to the talking points coming out of the Republican party, the more it seems that they cry foul at any perceived slight, or sometimes even pre-empt slights.  Usually this is directed at the supposed liberal media and its unfair treatment of conservatives.

You may remember back during the Republican National Convention, that right wing pundits were on message complaining about the sexist critical coverage of who the heck is this new political person on the national scene, Sarah Palin.  I mean I didn’t know much about her, so it makes sense that the news organizations would go looking and let the public know about her.

Not exactly consistent on their opinion of the media’s treatment of female candidates.  But hey, why let consistency stop you from calling foul, crying that the big bad liberal media is being unfair to conservatives when it allows you to intimidate that media to treat you more favorably due to your whining.

More recently we have the conservatives complaining that the LA Times won’t release a videotape of a party for Rashid Khalidi that Obama attended.  As the AP reports,

Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin accused the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday of protecting Barack Obama by withholding a videotape of the Democrat attending a 2003 party for a Palestinian-American professor and critic of Israel. The paper said it had written about the event in April and would not release the tape because of a promise to the source who provided it.

McCain and Palin called Rashid Khalidi a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, a characterization Khalidi has denied in the past. Both candidates said guests at the party made critical comments about Israel.

So that is the situation, this is the whining that is going on,

McCain and Palin cited the paper’s position as evidence of media bias. The Times has endorsed Obama.

“If there was a tape of John McCain in a neo-Nazi outfit, I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different,” McCain said in an interview with Hispanic radio stations.

Palin said the Times should win a Pulitzer Prize for “kowtowing.”

“It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking out for their best interests like that. Politicians would love to have a pet newspaper of their very own,” she said.

Apparently Republicans are a little forgetful of the withholding of a story that can only have helped their candidate in 2004.  As a blog on Wired pointed out,

The tale is an odd one. There seems to have been at least two meetings between the Times and the White House about the story, but Lichtblau’s Slate excerpt confusingly jumps between the two.

He also doesn’t explain who at the Times was persuaded in 2004, at the tail end of a presidential election, to withhold a bombshell story about the president secretly wiretapping inside the United States in plain contravention of federal law.

His book, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice, comes out Tuesday, April 1.

Here’s hoping that the book explains much more about the 13-month hold on one of the most important stories of the post-9/11 era, instead of skimming over embarrassing details and relying on passive constructions (“It was a difficult decision for everyone.”).

The sentence “The editors were not persuaded we had enough for a story” is not enlightening nor does it ring true.  Nor does it explain at all how the nation’s most respected newspaper nearly spiked, for eternity, the warrantless wiretapping program story.

Why should the debate at the Times over the NSA’s warrantless targeting of Americans be more of a secret than the spying?

In the world of unintended consequences, the push to find out about Rashid Khalidi shows that McCain may have more extensive ties to the professor as the AP reports.

Khalidi is a professor of Middle East Studies at Columbia University and a longtime friend of Obama’s. Khalidi has publicly criticized Israel, but he and Obama have both said they hold very different opinions on Israeli issues.

McCain also has ties to Khalidi through a group Khalidi helped found 15 years ago. The Center for Palestine Research and Studies received at least $448,000 from an organization McCain chairs.

If Khalidi is so bad, so anti Israeli, why did an organization McCain chairs give him $448,000?  Think Progress has a great write up on this embarassing (well if you weren’t a rampant hypocrite) situation for McCain.

It would be nice if the Republicans didn’t cry foul at every perceived slight in the media, and learned to show a little spine.  Sadly the mainstream media more often than not enables this behavior, as I personally think that the suppression of the warrantless wiretapping demonstrates.  It is as bad as professional athletes taking dives in games to get a foul called.

-Josh

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Will there ever be accountability in the Department of Defense?

July 20, 2008 at 11:05 am (Military)
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Accountability is something that gets thrown around by conservatives on a regular basis to serve their ideology.  No Child Left Behind, well I personally think this law is a high stakes testing program which serves the ideology of trying to hold unionized teachers “accountable” because they are the problem with education.

But when it comes to the military, our Department of Defense (DOD) the word accountability comes as easily as the Fonz saying he was wrong.  You just never hear it.

For example, during the November 6, 2003 Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) highlight this in his opening comments (PDF).

An investigation recently completed by the General Accounting Office found that almost three-quarters of DOD’s first and business class airline travel was improper. This accounts for tens of millions of taxpayer dollars inappropriately spent by DOD. In fiscal years 2001 and 2002, DOD spent almost $124 million on over 68,000 premium airline tickets. Among DOD’s 28 most frequent first and business class flyers, GAO found problems with almost all of the justifications for premium class travel. This lack of accountability cannot be tolerated. Under government travel regulations, government employees are also allowed to upgrade their accommodations by using their frequent flyer miles or paying the difference themselves.

Let me outline some of the most egregious and outrageous abuses of the system. A DOD employee flew first class on a roundtrip ticket from Los Angeles to Washington, DC, for $3,253, compliments of the Federal Government. A coach fare for the same trip would have cost $238, a difference of $3,015.

Another employee flew business class on a round-trip ticket from Washington, DC, to Taiwan for $4,319 when a coach fare ticket for the same trip would have cost $1,450, a difference of $2,869.

A family of four relocated from London and Honolulu and flew first and business class nonstop at a cost to the taxpayers of $20,943. Had they simply made the effort to reduce costs and follow travel procedures, they would have saved the taxpayers $18,443.

Other cases involved a traveler who took 14 trips at a cost of $88,000 to taxpayers [average of $6285.71 per trip] because he inappropriately claimed that he needed to be upgraded to first class and business class because of a medical condition.

In each of these and dozens of other cases, it appears that travel orders were either not authorized or not justified and premium class tickets should not have been issued.

It is amazing that the GAO could even document this waste, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported in May 2003 that the DOD Inspector General couldn’t account for $1 trillion, yes that is a “t” not a “b”.

Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon’s money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department’s inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn’t properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

And I thought it was pretty funny last week when my co-worker said she lost her sewing machine, not exactly a small object, but quite a bit smaller than a tank or airplane.  Guess it wasn’t that funny in comparison.

Maybe we need to start with penalties, a sort of accountability, to make the DOD get it’s financial house in order.  As these quotes from an article in the Defense Industry Daily point out, there really is now way but up to go for DOD and accounting.

Rep. Todd Platts [R-PA] was quoted as saying that

“The [US Department of Defense] for more than five decades has just kind of layered system on top of system on top of system, and not been serious until recent years that this is not an efficient way to protect against waste, fraud and abuse or in assuring the most effective and efficient systems are in place for those serving in harm’s way.”

That is a Republican saying that.

As Winslow T. Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information, puts it:

“It’s not that DOD flunks audits, it’s that DOD’s books cannot be audited. DOD aspires for the position where it flunks an audit.”

Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations, oh wait that is just for schools.  I mean an improvement would be having a sufficient financial system that could be audited, and failure would still be fine because they would have something that could be audited.

I guess looking at the inability to account for money or equipment should have prepared us for the waste and undocumented expenditures in Iraq as reported in the Christian Science Monitor in March 2007.

Overall, the Defense Contract Audit Agency has found $4.9 billion in overpricing and waste in Iraq contracts since 2003. US auditors have identified another $5.1 billion in expenses charged without documentation.

It is time to hold the military spending accountable.  Actions or inactions should have consequences, and the military should not be exempt from them.  Any penalty should shift the appropriated funds to social services funds that have been cut.

-Josh

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Would Obama increase taxes on those who make less than $250,000?

July 20, 2008 at 8:23 am (2008 Presidential Candidates, Economic policy)
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That is a claim he made in June and just thinking about the payroll tax had me wondering how he could manage that. In 2008, the payroll tax cap on Social Security is set at $102,000, so that any amount of earned income above that is not subject to the Social Security payroll tax.

So his statement that those whose income is under $250,000 won’t have an increase their payroll taxes can only be wrong. Maybe he is trying to say that he has other tax cuts that will offset the increases to the payroll tax, but I haven’t seen or heard that nuance.

Here is what Factcheck.org reports on his overall plan and those that will see increases:

Obama (June 12, 2008):”If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, my plan will not raise your taxes. Period. Not income tax, not payroll tax, not capital gains tax, not any of your taxes. And chances are you will get a tax cut.”

The most comprehensive nonpartisan analysis of Obama’s tax proposal available is the Tax Policy Center’s comparison of McCain’s and Obama’s economic plans. That analysis mostly supports Obama’s claim that his plan won’t raise taxes, though it says that families earning between $169,480 and $237,040 would see an average tax increase of $486 under Obama’s plan. All those earning less than $169,480 would see tax cuts. In fact, that hypothetical taxpayer with the $32,000 in taxable income would get a $502 tax cut under Obama’s plan. McCain’s plan, by contrast, would leave that person’s taxes unchanged.

So the statement doesn’t hold up. But the analysis shows those earning less that about $170,000 will see cuts, yeah me. And the comparison of the person making $32,000 in taxable income, would only get a cut under Obama, none under McCain. That is a bit of difference in the candidates tax plans. You may want to recall what McCain said from the Senate floor regarding the 2001 tax cuts:

But I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief.

Apparently he has lost his direction as his plan changes NOTHING for that taxpayer with a taxable income of $32,000 while Obama’s has a tax cut for that same taxpayer.

-Josh

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Question of the day – July 10, 2008

July 10, 2008 at 9:33 pm (2008 Presidential Candidates, Question of the Day)
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If Phil Gramm, national co-chair of the McCain campaign, doesn’t speak for McCain when he says we are in a “mental recession” and a “nation of whiners”, how is that Obama can’t disavow General Wesley Clark’s statements questioning McCain’s executive experience, when I can only see Clark referenced as a “surrogate” no official capacity with the campaign?

-Josh

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Who is breaking their word on public financing?

June 22, 2008 at 9:29 am (2008 Presidential Candidates)
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If you listen to all the talking heads, I mean pundits, and representatives for the McCain campaign, Obama’s decision this week to not seek public financing is like killing a baby. He broke his word to the public, he is flip floping, he is full of blind ambition, and doesn’t care about keeping his word.

The supposedly liberal counterpart, Mark Shields, to David Brook on the Newshour said this,

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: Judy, Barack Obama made history this week. He became the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon in 1972 to state that his campaign will be funded totally by private donations with no limits on spending.

Nice smear, equating the forgoing of public financing in the general campaign (not the primary portion) with tricky Dick. But when I look at the Federal Election Commission web site on this topic, this is what I see,

The Federal Election Commission administered the first public funding program in 1976. Eligible Presidential candidates used federal funds in their primary and general election campaigns, and the major parties used public funds to pay for their nominating conventions.

So to talk about the history of the system and go back to Nixon as the last example of a candidate not taking public financing, when the FEC says that the program was first administered post Nixon is an unfair comparison.

Now according to the Wall Street Journal, not exactly your liberal press, this is what they report on this topic,

Both candidates support public financing, and early in the campaign season Obama was a vocal supporter of the system. His campaign, however, has raised unprecedented funds—some $265 million and growing–from a grassroots network of small individual donors.

The Obama campaign argument, in part, is that their campaign is its own version of public financing, since it is built on individual donors and does not accept money from lobbyists or political action committees.

Earlier Obama had pledged that he would sit down with McCain to work out an equitable system if the two candidates were to accept public funds. The Associated Press reported that Obama’s lawyer Robert Bauer said he had met with McCain’s lawyers to discuss terms, but the talks were fruitless.

The decision to opt out of the system will likely set up Obama to have a significant cash advantage over McCain in the general election if the Arizona senator opts in to the system. Even if McCain changes his mind and also opts out, he is unlikely to be able to match Obama’s fund-raising successes.

So Obama is backing out because he is not accepting lobbyist or PAC money, but rather small donations, the net roots. His folks talked with McCain’s folks and they couldn’t iron out an agreement, which it sounds like a condition of his accepting public financing. Also the WSJ suggests McCain might change his mind, which is kind of ironic because he has already done that this election cycle.

As this Washington Post blog covered this March, McCain has already changed his mind on public financing in the primary part of the campaign,

McCain Blows by Public Spending Cap

By Matthew Mosk
Sen. John McCain has officially broken the limits imposed by the presidential public financing system, reports filed last night show.

McCain has now spent $58.4 million on his primary effort. Those who have committed to public financing can spend no more than $54 million on their primary bid.

So has McCain broken the law? The answer is far from simple.

It depends on whether he has, in fact, withdrawn from the public matching program. McCain was certified to enter the matching program last year when he was starved for cash. But once he started to win primaries, he decided to step back from it. On Feb. 6, after his Super Tuesday victories, he wrote to the FEC to announce he would withdraw from the program.

McCain’s lawyers said that gave him freedom to spend as much as he wanted — once he announced his intent to withdraw from the system, they say, he was released from the spending caps.

But Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason wrote McCain’s campaign last month to alert him that the commission had not yet granted his Feb. 6 request to withdraw, and that the commission would first need to vote on the matter. A snag: The FEC has four vacancies and therefore lacks a quorum to consider the matter.

There’s little agreement on what the FEC would have done, had they been able to meet. In part, that’s because McCain borrowed $4 million from a commercial bank, and promised to pay the money back through his fundraising efforts. If the campaign went badly, he told the bank, he would use future matching funds to help repay the loan. The rules say that candidates who use matching funds as collateral have to remain within the confines of the system. The Democratic National Committee filed a complaint to the FEC about McCain’s actions, but without that quorum, evaluation of the complaint has been stalled.

Meanwhile, McCain’s fundraising has roared ahead, now that he is the presumptive Republican nominee. His campaign announced yesterday that it repaid the $4 million loan last week, ahead of schedule.

So he used public financing as collateral for a loan to keep the campaign going, but the rules say you cannot later opt out, which is what he says he did by a letter, maybe it was another get out of trouble letter that Republicans have when they do illegal things, like ask telecomms to spy on Americans without a warrant. When you really think about this, it is like he is doing the Hokey-Pokey on public financing, “you put your campaign in, your take your campaign out, then your put campaign in again…..”

So when we look at issues of Obama and McCain’s word, it is hard to see where McCain has any ground to stand on, out of need to to stay in the race, he opt-ed into public finance to guarantee a loan, but when he was doing better, spent past his limits, arguing that his letter to the FEC was enough to withdraw. I don’t know about you, but that is a flip-flop, that is political ambition, doing whatever it takes at the time to become the presidential nominee. It definitely isn’t straight talk.

Of course you don’t hear about this hypocrisy from the talking heads, pundits, because it wouldn’t give them something to be outraged by, they might actually have to discuss the issue. And well, the folks paying them make money on political advertisements.

-Josh

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Fidel is leaving, but our policy remains the same, hypocrisy manifested

February 19, 2008 at 6:32 pm (Foreign Policy)
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So Fidel is resigning, that communist bogeyman in our backyard will no longer be in control.  You might think this would change our policy, end the embargo, but no, that would be requiring us to be consistent in our foreign policy and that won’t happen.  According to the AP we have this from Dubya,

“They’re the ones who suffered under Fidel Castro,” Bush told a news conference in Rwanda. “They’re the ones who were put in prison because of their beliefs. They’re the ones who have been denied their right to live in a free society. So I view this as a period of transition and it should be the beginning of the democratic transition in Cuba.”

“Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections — and I mean free, and I mean fair — not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy,” Bush said. “The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty.”

Shouldn’t free and fair elections be those that represent the people.

  • This could lead to socialist governments like Hugo Chavez, who will remain bogeyman #2 (or he might move up to #1) in Latin America, but didn’t we support a coup attempt against him?
  • Elections could lead to undesirable results like Hamas winning in Palestine, or Hezbollah in Lebanon, our aid to Palestine dried up because we didn’t like the results.
  • Or we could support those non-democratic leaders like Musharraf in Pakistan who became a leader via coup, because he is “helping” us fight the war on terror.
  • Or advocate better trade relations (kind of the opposite of an embargo) with China which has sham elections and is also communist county like Cuba.  And they invaded Tibet, have cracked down on a religion.

It is time for the embargo to end.  This policy is holding our democracy hostage to Cuban Americans hatred of the Cuban government.  If we truly believed that democracy was the ideal result in Cuba, we would tear down this wall that is an embargo and expose the Cuban populace to the advantages of our economic model and our democratic process.

You will hear a lot of reasons for maintaining the embargo and a majority if not all of them will come from Cuban-Americans that lost property when Castro came to power.  They shouldn’t dictate America’s foreign policy.

-Josh

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