Category: Politics

Edwards condemns NAFTA

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His point is not that trade deals are bad, but that bad trade deals are bad. This is how he couches his condmenation:

“NAFTA was sold to the American people with promises that it would grow the economy and create millions of new jobs. But today, we know those promises were empty,” he said in remarks prepared for delivery at a town hall forum in Derry. “In all three countries, it has hurt workers and families while helping corporate insiders.”

…….

“The folks in Washington say that trade is good for the economy, even if it hurts a few ‘losers,'” he said. “That’s the word they use, losers, and it tells you something about how they see regular American workers and families who are struggling to compete.”

This attitude on trade deals ties into an attitude of, “What’s good for Wall Street is good for the country,” which the has led to many of the problems we see now (housing crash, credit crunch, etc.)

The Buzzy and Cookie Show Has Been Canceled

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Howard J. “Cookie” Krongard is resigning from his position as Inspector General for the State Department.

You may recall that his brother, Alvin B. “Buzzy” Krongard, gave an interview saying thaat “Cookie” was lying about conflicts of interest, (They must really love each other) and that a congressional committee was looking into whether he perjured himself.

So, we will not see the spectacle of the “Buzzy” and “Cookie” show, with frick and frack testifying against one another.

Peggy Noonan Blast Talibaptists

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Really. I mean it. Former Reagan speechwriter, and erstwhile dolphin trainer* Peggy Noonan, a right winger through and through, just called the religious right a bunch of idiots.

She was writing about Romney’s “Mormon” speech, and talks about “a particular fundamentalist strain within evangelical Protestantism”, and she finishes with this:

There was one significant mistake in the speech. I do not know why Romney did not include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. We were founded by believing Christians†, but soon enough Jeremiah Johnson, and the old proud agnostic mountain men, and the village atheist, and the Brahmin doubter, were there, and they too are part of us, part of this wonderful thing we have. Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote.

My feeling is we’ve bowed too far to the idiots. This is true in politics, journalism, and just about everything else.

Emphasis mine.

This, I think is illustrative of the divide between the Wall Street Republicans and the Talibaptists.

They don’t like each other. They don’t support each other. They just find the other side useful, and Noonan illustrates, as does the Club for Growth going after Huckabee, that there are strains in this relationship.

*She once wrote that Elian Gonzalez was saved from drowning by divinely inspired porpoises.
†Actually, not true, and many of the founding fathers would have been offended by this. They considered themselves spiritual, not religious. Many were deists, and a number, John Adams comes to mind, found religion to be an affront to what they saw as the divine. They thought that it was a con game, used to enrich and empower the falsely pious.

Mitch McConnel Hates Our Troops

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In an interview with the Grayson County News-Gazette, he said the following:

“I won’t tell you everything is great in Iraq; it is not. But we want to keep a steady flow of funds so that we don’t disrupt the military,” said McConnell. “Unfortunately, most of our friends on the other isle are having a hard time admitting things are getting better; some days I almost think the critics of this war don’t want us to win. Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers.

Gee…So I guess he thinks that “full-time professional soldiers” don’t have parents, or wives, or Fiancées, or children, or girl friends.

Or maybe he’s trying to say that it was OK for him, as a draftee in the late 1960s, do give another soldier a hand job in the shower to get out, because he was a draftee, nto a “full-time professional soldier”.

Oh, well.

Senate Folds on AMT to Republicans

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Let’s be clear about this, the Alternative Minimum Tax is just a flat tax. You compute the regular, and the AMT taxes owed, and choose the higher. For all the talk of millions of people being hit, it’s not a big deal.

Most of these people, will pay a few hundred bucks more than they would have otherwise.

When the House passed this bill, they closed loopholes for oil companies and phony capital gains for hedge fund managers to pay for it.

There were the votes to do that in the Senate, but not the votes to overturn a filibuster, so the Senate caved, and passed AMT relief without paying for it, violating pay-go.

At the very least, Reid could have insisted that the Republicans talk. We need a real filibuster, not one of these 24 hour talk fests, but one where you take a vote when the guy stops talking.

So far this year, the Republicans have filibustered more times than during any session ever, and each session covers two years.

Enough is enough. If the Republicans want to filibuster, make them filibuster.

Hate Crime Expansion Defeated in Senate

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Basically, it was attached to an emergency spending bill funding Iraq, could not get the votes in the house, because about 30 Dems would not vote for a war funding bill under any circumstances.

This means that the bill is dead for this year, though I think that it will come up again next year.

I can’t help but think that this is a shot across the bow of Pelosi, who has been rather timid compared to Reid on challenging Bush on Iraq.

Expanding the law to cover hate crimes against gays has to be a huge issue in her district, and it being pulled is going to result in her office catching hell from her constituents.

Honestly, I think the that Bush will veto anything that this is attached to anyway, so we need to wait for a Dem president, so the anti-war congressmen have made the right decision.

What’s the Deal With the So-Called Mortgage Bailout

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To paraphrase Atrios:

To qualify:

  • have an income and live in their homes
  • are currently making their payments on time
  • would default if their interest went up
  • ARM mortgage has to have been taken between 1/05 and 7/7
  • Has a rate reset between 1/8-1/10

The following rules you out:

  • have missed payment
  • can afford mortgage rate increase
  • don’t have an income
  • own homes which are worth less than their mortgage

So, if you are poor, you are more likely to have missed a payment, and more likely not to have put anything down, and so be under water. As Duncan Black puts it:

I became increasingly skeptical that such a broad-based bailout would be workable for various reasons, but as is usually the case with anything the Bush administration gets involved in, they aren’t even really trying.

As Kevin Drum puts it:

The lower your income, the more likely you are to have missed a payment already, and the lower your income the more likely you are to have been sold a no-down loan that’s already left you underwater due to falling housing prices. Net result: no help for low-income folks.

Like Atrios, I’ve become increasingly unsure that any kind of broad-based bailout plan can work — or work well, in any case — but if you’re going to do it everyone ought to have a shot at getting help. Bush’s plan, conversely, pretty transparently doesn’t care about anyone with a modest income. Not part of his base, I guess.

My assesment is less charitable. He does not want to do anything but score political points.

Clinton Aids Hired to Break Writers’ Strike

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Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has hired Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane to hit back on PR against the writers. Yep….While working for Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination, a party that is supposed to be pro labor, they are working to crush labor in Hollywood.

Seriously, Hillary Clinton makes my head hurt. Her campaign has amazing message discipline, they keep the press in line (they got Bob Novak to back down), and she actually votes when something controversial hits the floor, unlike the distinguished gentleman from Illinois.

And then she goes and surrounds herself to people who whore themselves out to strike breakers, and management in labor disputes.

Pat Leahy Moves on Rove Contempt Citation

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I hope this happens.

Leahy Moves on Rove Contempt Citation
By Paul Kiel – December 5, 2007, 3:06PM

Karl Rove is gone, but not forgotten.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has scheduled a vote tomorrow on whether to issue contempt citations to Rove and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten for ignoring Congressional subpoenas from the U.S. attorneys investigation. Of course, Republicans might defer the vote for another week. But at the latest, the citations would be sent to the Senate floor next Thursday.

The interesting thing is that congress does actually have its own jail in the basement, and the President cannot pardon contempt of congress, because it is an offense against the congress, not the Republic.

Obama and Abortion: Profile in Cowardice

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It turns out that when Barack Obama had the opportunity to take a stand on abortion rights, in the state senate, when called to make a vote on the proposed ban on the DNX procedure, he voted “present”. (see here,
here, and here)

During Senator Obama’s 2004 senate campaign, the Illinois NOW PAC did not recommend the endorsement of Obama for U.S. Senate because he refused to stand up for a woman’s right to choose and repeatedly voted `present’ on important legislation.

As a State Senator, Barack Obama voted `present’ on seven abortion bills, including a ban on ‘partial birth abortion,’ two parental notification laws and three ‘born alive’ bills. In each case, the right vote was clear, but Senator Obama chose political cover over standing and fighting for his convictions.

“When we needed someone to take a stand, Senator Obama took a pass,” said Grabenhofer. “He wasn’t there for us then and we don’t expect him to be now.”

At the time, Obama represented what was arguably the most liberal senate district in Illinois, so there was no need for him to duck and cover, but duck and cover, he did.

Of course, he did it on the Petraeus/Moveon vote too, he showed up for Barbara Boxer’s amendment, but was not in the hall later that afternoon for the Moveon condemnation.

He’s very well spoken. He’s telegenic.

But it appears that when the going gets tough, and let’s be clear in his Hyde Park senate district, being unapologetically pro choice is actually pretty damn safe, he is AWOL.

His dog whistle gay bashing behavior with his gospel tour appears to be a part of a pattern.

No guts, and the moreI hear him going on using Republican talking points like “hostility to religion” and :social security crisis”, the more he sounds like Joe Lieberman with a better tan.

As to the Presidential race…He’s still ahead of Mike Gravel in my mind, but if push comes to shove, I vote Hillary instead of him*.

*Yuck…I think that I just threw up in my mouth.

Huckabee Pressured Parole Board to Pardon Rapist Who Later Murdered

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This could be compared to Willie Horton, but it’s not.

With Willie Horton, Dukkakis supported a furlough program to rehabilitate people. He had no other connection with the guy. With Wayne Dumond, Mike Huckabee specifically lobbied for his release, because the victim was a relative of Bill Clinton, and the daughter of a Clinton contributor.

According to Murray Waas, who has also been all over the Plame affair, Huckabee went so far as to imply that he would grant clemency if Drumond was not paroled.

Al Wynn: Case in Point of What is Wrong in Washington

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Below, you can see Pelosi’s endorsement of him.

So has the national NARAL, though the Maryland Chapter was so mad about this they were ready to chew glass.

Al Wynn foted for the war in Iraq, he voted for the bankruptcy bill, against Shays-Meehan campaign finance, for interfering in the Schiavo affair, and for the give away to big oil that was the energy bill.

This incumbency protection racket here is insane. This is probably the second most Democratic district in the state, Baltimore City may very well be the most Democratic district on the Eastern seaboard, and the idea that a corrupt right wing liar gets high profile endorsements simply astonishes me. Particularly since his constituent service sucks so much that Chris Van Hollen from the neighboring district has to pick up the slack.

Edwards is on my Act Blue page (right hand column for link).

Krugman Nails the Root Cause of the Liquididy/Insolvency Crisis

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Basically, he sees the cause as being the free market fundamentalism that is practiced by regulators, brokers, and politicians. I wholeheartedly agree.

This time, market players seem truly horrified — because they’ve suddenly realized that they don’t understand the complex financial system they created.

This is, of course, a symptom, not the cause, but he does see the cause too.

How did things get so opaque? The answer is “financial innovation” — two words that should, from now on, strike fear into investors’ hearts.

O.K., to be fair, some kinds of financial innovation are good. I don’t want to go back to the days when checking accounts didn’t pay interest and you couldn’t withdraw cash on weekends.

But the innovations of recent years — the alphabet soup of C.D.O.’s and S.I.V.’s, R.M.B.S. and A.B.C.P. — were sold on false pretenses. They were promoted as ways to spread risk, making investment safer. What they did instead — aside from making their creators a lot of money, which they didn’t have to repay when it all went bust — was to spread confusion, luring investors into taking on more risk than they realized.

Why was this allowed to happen? At a deep level, I believe that the problem was ideological: policy makers, committed to the view that the market is always right, simply ignored the warning signs. We know, in particular, that Alan Greenspan brushed aside warnings from Edward Gramlich, who was a member of the Federal Reserve Board, about a potential subprime crisis.

(emphasis mine)

So, when does he get his Nobel?

Go and read the whole thing

Schadenfreude: Mo Larry Craig Edition

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More gay men describe sexual encounters with U.S. Sen. Craig.

Four men have been willing to go on the record.

I’m sure that Larry Craig does not believe that he is gay….In fact, if you hooked him up to a polygraph, it would probably show truth, but he is gay, and he has sex with other men.

I cannot understand how someone can do this. It is a denial of ones core self.

The closet is an awful place.

Bush and His Evil Minions™ Claiming Secrecy Needs for Details on Abramoff Visits

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You have GOT to be kidding me. Just when I thought that this group of criminals have gotten me so jaded about their venality and corruption that they can no longer shock me, they do something like claiming that details about Abramoff’s visits to the White House are somehow deep state secrets that must never be revealed.

This is even more transparent than the Libby pardon.

Elections in Russia and Venezuela

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Well, Putin won, and Chavez lost.

The former was a forgone conclusion, while the latter was a close thing, as evidenced by the 60%+ vote in Russia, and the 50-49 vote in Venezuela.

Despite the claims or organizations like the OECD that Putin’s election was unprecedented in its anti-Democratic nature, it was pretty typical of elections since the fall of the USSR.

The balloting was reasonably fraud free, but the campaign neither free nor fair.

This pretty much reflects what happened under Yeltsin too. There were suspicious deaths of reporters in both regimes, the state had near absolute control over the mass media and the economy (through cronyism with Yeltsin, and more directly by the state with Putin), dissidents were harassed (Yeltsin with his staging an armed assault on the legislature was worse here), and so generally the results have never met Western standards.

The big difference, and the reason that the support for Putin is to a large degree real, is that people are getting paid for the work that they do, they are getting their pensions, and the rampant corruption has been reduced.

The so-called reformers instituted a system of klepto-capitalism following the fall of the Soviet Union. They believed, largely as a result of Western economic theory that shock therapy transition to free trade would benefit everyone, which did not work in Chile in the 1970s under Pinochet, in Russia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today.

Notwithstanding the generally anti-democratic bent of Putin and his allies, the vote does actually reflect what the Russian people want, or at least what the ethnic Russians, want right now.

Hugo Chavez’s loss is I think generally good news.

While I think that he is better than the alternative, the ruling classes in Venezuela whose real differences come down to which side gets to loot the country on any given year, the idea that he the electorate, albeit by a slim margin, has told him that term limits will apply to him is a good thing.

Among other things, this will provide more impetus for him to spend more time on real changes to make Venezuela a more egalitarian country, and less or rhetoric, as his rule now has an expiration date, even if he, as is likely, remains the power behind whoever succeeds him as president.

This also gives us an opportunity to see how profoundly anti-democratic Chavez is. While it’s clear that he is not what one would call a small-d democrat in Western society, this will give us an opportunity to see how far removed from this he actually is.

My guess is that he is somewhere between Bush and His Evil Minions™ and Howard Dean.

Word Up….Politics Good

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Dave Roberts of the Gristmill gets it right. At a meeting on environmental policy, he made the point that Republicans really don’t have detailed or credible global warming ideas, and someone scolded him for, “making it a political issue.”

His response is spot on:

It’s something I hear a lot, and I remain utterly baffled by it. The assumption seems to be that politics is bad and that the ideal state would be unity. That’s just … creepy. This is an enormously significant policy challenge facing a democracy, where different citizens and groups have different assessments of the problem and different proposals for solving it, arising from different interests. In other words, it is political. Politics is the means by which people resolve their disputes. The only practical way of achieving unity is by suppressing dissent.