Category: Presidential Campaign

Looters Gotta Loot

And, since the days of GHW Bush’s father Prescott laundering Nazi money, the Bush family has been at the top of the looting pyramid:

Jeb Bush had just completed his successful campaign for re-election and now confronted a second term as governor of Florida. Seeking to shape his immediate agenda, he solicited advice from one of his most trusted advisors: David Rancourt, his former deputy chief of staff, who had since become a corporate lobbyist at one of the most powerful firms in the state, the Southern Strategy Group.

“If you were governor, what would you be focusing on for the next two or three years,” Bush wrote Rancourt in an email dated Aug. 13, 2003. “What initiatives do you think we should pursue? How do you think we should do it?”

Two days after sending that note, Bush effectively delivered on one of Southern Strategy Group’s key aims: He signed legislation limiting the dollar value of damages that hospitals and insurance companies could be forced to pay to resolve instances of medical malpractice. The Florida Supreme Court would eventually overturn the bill, arguing that it effectively punished victims of mistreatment in hospitals. But at least for the moment, the governor’s signature handed a victory to Rancourt’s firm, which represented a major association of hospitals. It added to the cachet of the Southern Strategy Group, whose leadership was drawn heavily from the ranks of former Bush staff members and trusted associates.

………

According to IBTimes’ review of email correspondence between Jeb Bush, his top aides and Southern Strategy Group lobbyists, the firm frequently engineered meetings with the governor for its clients. A lobbyist at the firm helped write two of his major speeches. In some instances, Bush sought the direct input of Southern Strategy lobbyists as he crafted his legislative agenda, and he gave them private glimpses of public policy as they represented the corporate interests that had a financial stake in his decisions.

The Bush family has a long history of enriching themselves, and themselves through their political clout.  (Look at the deal that with the Texas Rangers Baseball Team that made George W. Bush’s fortune)

Corruption and self dealing?  It’s a family tradition.

Sanders Faces a Rat F%$#ing in the New York Primary

Ballot access laws for candidates are among the most restrictive in the nation, and it appears that Bernie Sanders could be kept off the ballot in New York State:

Senator Bernie Sanders, who is challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, will face a significant legal barrier if he attempts to run in next year’s New York primary while remaining unaffiliated with a party.

A section of state election law commonly known as Wilson-Pakula prohibits candidates from appearing on the ballot in a party’s primary unless they are either enrolled members or receive the approval of the party’s committee.

Sanders, of Vermont, is an independent and so would need the approval of the state’s Democrats to get his name on the ballot. But the state’s two major parties have historically granted Wilson-Pakulas only in rare circumstances. Several longtime political observers contacted by Capital could not recall a single instance in which either party has granted one to a candidate in a statewide race. Clinton’s deep political connections to New York make the likelihood of them doing so even less.

“Hadn’t thought about it, but my initial answer would be no,” Assemblyman Keith Wright said when asked if he thought Sanders should be allowed on the ballot for New York’s Democratic primary.

Let’s be clear here.  This is a classical rat f%$#ing, to paraphrase former Nixon dirty trickster Roger Stone. though it is not one directly tied to the 2016 campaign.

New York has been rat f%$#ing the electoral process with Wilson-Pakula for almost 70 years.

It was intended to keep communists and socialists off the ballot, and was a product of red scare hysteria.

I Just Had an Epiphany

I was talking with my wife, and she asked how many people were running for the Republican Presidential nomination, so we went to the Wiki, and we came up with a count, 16, possibly as many as 19. (List with status key after the break)

She then asked how many Democrats are running, and I said 3, Clinton, Sanders, and O’Malley.

She jokingly suggested that I change parties to Republican, because I had more charges, and I replied, “Nope.  I want to vote against Hillary Clinton. ……… No, that’s not actually true. I want to vote for Bernie Sanders.”

And then it hit me:  I actually want to vote for Bernie Sanders.

This is the first time that I’ve actually wanted to vote for a Presidential candidate in at least a dozen years.

It’s a strange feeling. ……… It’s a good feeling, but it’s a strange feeling.

List of ‘Phant candidates.

  1. Jeb Bush*
  2. Ben Carson*
  3. Ted Cruz*
  4. Carly Fiorina*
  5. Lindsey Graham*
  6. Mike Huckabee*
  7. George Pataki*
  8. Rand Paul*
  9. Rick Perry*
  10. Marco Rubio*
  11. Rick Santorum*
  12. Donald Trump*
  13. Bobby Jindal
  14. Scott Walker
  15. Chris Christie
  16. John Kasich
  17. Bob “Badhair” Ehrlich
  18. Jim Gilmore
  19. Peter King

* = Officially running
† = To make it official shortly.
‡ = Formed a PAC or a 529, so basically running, if not for President, then for Veep.
€ = Made noises, but nothing official.

Another Clown Exits the Republican Presidential Primary Car

I am referring, of course, to John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, who has finally made his run for the Presidency official.

While many in the Republican Party see him as a potential respite from the clown car, the fact that his staff is suggesting that they should go all “Pickett’s Charge” on his opponents, which I guess means slowly marching ¾ of a mile against an entrenched opponent backed up by artillery that is both copious and highly competent:

………

Mr. Diaz, who seared John Kerry in 2004 and Mitt Romney in 2007 with charges of flip-flopping on issues, and other Bush aides are determined to develop new lines of attack against Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, the two Republicans who represent the greatest threats to Mr. Bush’s nomination, according to his advisers and allies.

The Bush campaign sees Mr. Rubio as vulnerable on his Senate record, which is short on legislative success and includes shifts on immigration, and on his history of managing his finances. And they regard Mr. Walker, too, as susceptible to attack on issues on which he has changed his positions, according to the advisers. By hiring Mr. Diaz, Mr. Bush wanted to send a clear signal that “the culture of the Bush operation will now be a Pickett’s Charge engagement campaign with his main opponents,” according to one Bush ally.

(emphasis mine)

So, yeah, they are clown car too, though what is likely the biggest clown in the 2016 Republican Presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, looks to be announcing his candidacy tomorrow.

I cannot believe that we will have a more absurd candidate than “The Donald”, but if one turns up, I will be there, staring at the spectacle with a stunned look on my face that will resemble that of a cow that has just stepped on its own udder.

(H/T Paul Krugman for that quote.)

Headline of the Day

In this article, Emil Mella argues that Sanders positions, and the response to the campaign, make him a far more credible candidate than the mainstream press and mainstream political establishment would lead you to believe:

Okay, sorry, America. That title was a bit rude. And crass. And uncalled for. I’ll admit it.

But please just do the entire world a favor now, and just gently pull with your neck, softly now, easy does it, so that perhaps your collective head is not as far inside of your rectum as it currently is, and kindly make sure that said head is on top of your shoulders, where it belongs, you know, thinking, and stuff.

Thanks.

 Read the rest.

If you are such a delicate flower that you need a version that is safe for radio:

EDIT: As many people have now pointed out, this article is fairly vulgar and crass, and can really seem to alienate a lot of people with my often off-color brand of humor. For that, I apologize. Here is a much calmer version of this same article, that doesn’t involve me cursing like a sailor or referencing heads and buttocks linking in any way.

Personally, I think that the profane version is a better read.

Journalistic Wank of the Day

I do understand how it is necessary to investigate candidates, particularly Presidential candidates, but a whole article on the traffic tickets of Marco and Jeanette Rubio is an exercise of the highest wankitude:

Senator Marco Rubio has been in a hurry to get to the top, rising from state legislator to United States senator in the span of a decade and now running for president at age 44.

But politics is not the only area where Mr. Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has an affinity for the fast track. He and his wife, Jeanette, have also shown a tendency to be in a rush on the road.

According to a search of the Miami-Dade and Duval County court dockets, the Rubios have been cited for numerous infractions over the years for incidents that included speeding, driving through red lights and careless driving. A review of records dating back to 1997 shows that the couple had a combined 17 citations: Mr. Rubio with four and his wife with 13. On four separate occasions they agreed to attend remedial driving school after a violation.

Mr. Rubio’s troubles behind the wheel predate his days in politics. In 1997, when he was cited for careless driving by a Florida Highway Patrol officer, he was fined and took voluntary driving classes. A dozen years later, in 2009, he was ticketed for speeding on a highway in Duval County and found himself back in driver improvement school.

Things got more complicated in 2011 when Mr. Rubio was alerted to the fact that his license was facing suspension after a traffic camera caught him failing to stop at a red light in his beige Buick. His lawyer, Alex Hanna, paid a $16 fee to delay the suspension and eventually it was dismissed.

So, Marco has gotten a traffic ticket about once every 4 years, and his wife has gotten one about once every 1½ years.

This is news? In the f%$#ing New York Times?

Puhlease.

The coverage of the 2016 campaign is going to be a horror show.

Draft Warren Throws in the Towel

The group “Run Warren Run” has shut its doors:

After a half year of circulating petitions, staging rallies, opening offices in states with early presidential contests and gathering 365,000 signatures, Run Warren Run is acknowledging what’s been clear to others for a while: Elizabeth Warren isn’t running for president.

And now, it’s closing up shop.

Run Warren Run, the effort jointly operated by the liberal groups Democracy for America and MoveOn, will shut down Monday after delivering its final petition to Warren’s Senate office. Warren, the bank antagonist and liberal hero who has said from the start that she has no plans to run for president in a field that now includes Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, hasn’t budged.

The organization’s recognition that the Massachusetts senator truly won’t run is a significant shift in the Democratic presidential contest, in which Warren has been a shadow candidate even as she has repeatedly insisted she would not pursue the White House. But the prime driver of pro-Warren enthusiasm is acknowledging that its time and resources would be better spent influencing the national discussion in another way entirely, while Sanders builds grass-roots momentum and O’Malley ratchets up his campaign by targeting liberals.

This has been clear to all but the dead enders since at least the new year, but it’s nice that they are joining the reality based community.

As an aside this does clear the decks for Bernie Sanders, which is also a good thing.

Bloated Billionaire Bellyaching Bitch Bleats Bogus Beef*

It appears that yet another hedge fund billionaire is upset that politicians don’t fawn over him like the people he employs:

“I don’t need anybody crapping all over what I do for a living,” Cooperman told CNNMoney’s Cristina Alesci Monday.

Cooperman is the founder of hedge fund Omega Advisors, which has about $9 billion in assets.

He thinks Clinton is a hypocrite for painting a nasty picture of hedge fund managers and then asking them for money and trying to befriend them.

“[She] hangs out with all these people in Martha’s Vineyard and in the Hamptons and then the very first thing she has to say is to criticize hedge funds,” Cooperman, said.

Cooperman, 72, said he isn’t looking for praise, but declares he’s the living embodiment of the American Dream.

“I have nothing to apologize for. I’ve made a lot of money. I’m giving it all back to society,” he says, emphasizing his large donations to places such as Hunter College in New York, Columbia University and Saint Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey.

You are not the embodiment of the American dream, motherf%$#er, you are a parasite who got particularly lucky.

You poor delicate little flower.

How about you take your billions of dollars and a nice warm warm cup of shut the f%$# up.

*Yes, the fact that I could use this amusingly alliterative title was one of the reasons that I Posted this.
Yes, I did spend more time on the hed than I did on the article. I’m kind of lame that way.

O’Malley is In

Martin O’Malley has officially announced that he is running for President:

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley blasted social injustice and Wall Street excesses as he launched a White House bid on Saturday, casting himself as a younger, more liberal alternative to Democratic Party frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

“Powerful, wealthy special interests here at home have used our government to create, in our own country, an economy that is leaving a majority of our people behind,” said O’Malley, opening his 2016 presidential campaign with a rally at a waterfront park in downtown Baltimore.

O’Malley, who has aggressively courted his party’s liberal wing, began his political career in Baltimore, first as a member of city council and then as mayor.

Decrying big banks as having been behind the financial crisis of 2008, O’Malley singled out Goldman Sachs for particular criticism. He said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein recently told his employees that “he’d be just fine” with either Republican Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton as president after the November 2016 election.

“Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street,” O’Malley said. “The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.”

Hillary Clinton is the wife of former President Bill Clinton while Jeb Bush, who has not yet formally announced his candidacy but is already considered a leading contender among Republican hopefuls, is son and brother of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Signs at O’Malley’s rally promised he would provide “new leadership,” but in fact he faces an uphill battle against former secretary of state Clinton, who consistently tops opinion polls to be the party’s nominee, and who enjoys national name recognition.

The nickel tour of Martin O’Malley:

  • I met him once, and he is VERY charismatic.
  • He has never really run on ideology, instead presenting himself as a pragmatist.
  • As chief executive, both as Mayor of Baltimore and as Governor of Maryland, he got high marks as a manager.
  • He abolished the death penalty, got gay marriage passed, and he has been strong on protecting the Chesapeake Bay.
  • He’s the youngest Democrat in the race by at least 15 years
  • He is less tightly tied to Wall Street than Clinton (not hard)

I think that the biggest impact on the Democratic nomination processes will be to give the press to further curtail their already meager (and dismissive) coverage of Bernie Sanders.

I prefer him to Clinton, but I prefer Sanders to O’Malley.

Ignore Last Time, I Was a Junkie: Worst Presidential Campaign Slogan Ever

Rick Perry is now saying that the reason that he was so stupid in his 2012 run for President was because he was jacked up on pain pills:

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) offered a critical assessment of some of the problems with his last presidential run.

“I wasn’t healthy. You all know the health stories — it was what it was,” Perry said in front of reporters in Souix City, Iowa, according to an NPR report published on Tuesday. Perry has taken steps toward running for the White House again and is expected to formally jump into the race on June 4 in Dallas.

During a 2012 GOP debate in Rochester, Michigan, Perry struggled to name the three federal agencies he would cut if elected president.

“The third agency of government I would do away with —the Education, the uh, the Commerce, and let’s see. I can’t find the third one. I can’t,” Perry said during the debate. “Sorry, oops.”

Later in the cycle, aides to Perry said that the governor suffered from severe back pains and depended on painkillers to make it through the debates, which seemed to have affected his debate performances.

Seriously?  You are suggesting that unwise use of painkillers made you behave erratically, and it’s all better now?

This is the worst bit of stupidity by a Presidential candidate since ……… Ummmmm ……… Sorry, oops.

Shoot Me Now

Caribou Barbie, aka Sarah Palin has said that she is seriously interested in running for President in 2016:

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016.

“You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid.

My brain hurts.

This is bad for the Republicans, and bad for the country.

The only people to benefit by this are political satirists.

We Need to Put This on a T-Shirt, and Have People Wear It Whenever Jeb Speaks

Less than a week ago, Jeb Bush called his brother, George W., one of his closest foreign policy advisers, and said that he would have invaded Iraq in 2003 as well.

Today, he was giving a speech at a small gathering, and Ivy Ziedrich, who appears to be very sharp said “Your Brother Created ISIS.”

The whole exchange is telling:

“Your brother created ISIS,” the young woman told Jeb Bush. And with that, Ivy Ziedrich, a 19-year-old college student, created the kind of confrontational moment here on Wednesday morning that presidential candidates dread.

Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, had just concluded a town-hall-style meeting when Ms. Ziedrich demanded to be heard. “Governor Bush,” she shouted as audience members asked him for his autograph. “Would you take a student question?”

Mr. Bush whirled around and looked at Ms. Ziedrich, who identified herself as a political science major and a college Democrat at the University of Nevada.

She had heard Mr. Bush argue, a few moments before, that America’s retreat from the Middle East under President Obama had contributed to the growing power of the Islamic State. She told the former governor that he was wrong, and made the case that blame lay with the decision by the administration of his brother George W. Bush to disband the Iraqi Army.

“It was when 30,000 individuals who were part of the Iraqi military were forced out — they had no employment, they had no income, and they were left with access to all of the same arms and weapons,” Ms. Ziedrich said.

She added: “Your brother created ISIS.”

Mr. Bush interjected. “All right. Is that a question?”

Ms. Ziedrich was not finished. “You don’t need to be pedantic to me, sir.”

“Pedantic? Wow,” Mr. Bush replied.

Then Ms. Ziedrich asked: “Why are you saying that ISIS was created by us not having a presence in the Middle East when it’s pointless wars where we send young American men to die for the idea of American exceptionalism? Why are you spouting nationalist rhetoric to get us involved in more wars?”

What Ms. Ziedrich said both true and a devastating indictment of Jeb’s and Dubyah’s foreign policy chops.

It’s not just the family thing here.  Jeb Bush described his brother as his most important foreign policy adviser, and he has said, even knowing what we know now, he would have invaded Iraq.

This man should not be a pastry chef.

The Coveted “Biggest Asshole in Silicon Valley” Endorsement., Marco Rubio Haz It

I am referring, of course, to Larry Ellison, even if one ignores the persistent rumors of sexual harassment at Oracle, who will be hosting a fundraiser for Marco Rubio’s Presidential campaign.

Rubio is, “Not a mindful human being,” to borrow Ron Reagan Jr.’s phrase,* which is why he accepts Ellison’s money with such equanimity.

Of course, for a Republican Party candidate for President, being a, “Mindful human being,” is a luxury that he cannot afford.

Just look at the amount of fellating that is directed toward Sheldon Adelson by various Republicans, where recent news strongly implies strong ties to Chinese mobsters.

We need real campaign finance reform, if just so that Republicans can tell people like Ellison and Adelson to shut the f%$# up.

*RRJ said about Dick Cheney, “I don’t think he’s a mindful human being. That’s probably the nicest way I can put it,” when describing Cheney’s behavior toward his mom, Nancy Reagan at his Dad’s funeral.
The Link is here. The Cliff Notes version is that Dick Cheney escorted her to Reagan’s casket, and he stopped at the bottom of some stairs, and allowed an 80 year old woman with glaucoma to flounder her way up the stairs. (Really classy)

$82,000 on Snacks? What the F%$# Are You Eating?

Somehow or other, Chris Christie managed to spend $82,000.00 of state money on snacks at football games:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spent more than $80,000 of taxpayer money on snacks at NFL games between 2010 and 2011, according to a report from New Jersey Watchdog. Christie used his government debit card 58 times at MetLife Stadium, and his office “did not provide any receipts, business reasons or names of individuals entertained, but defended the expense.”

Christie’s office has defended his use of the expense account, but were clearly embarrassed by the revelation that the governor was expensing quite a few beers while watching the Giants and Jets play because it reimbursed the costs associated with the games.

My first response was shock, of course. Christie averaged $1,500 in concessions at each game and didn’t bother keeping receipts to explain the expenses. But my second response was total envy. Spending $82,000 on snacks is an actual dream of mine. I mean, not the exact amount but the idea of spending the cost of a down payment on a home on queso and hot dogs has always been very appealing to me.

That $82,000.00 is only what he spent at the Meadowlands Stadium for football games, if you read the full report, the total spending on comestibles by Jabba the Governor is actually a bit more than $360,000.00, but that can include things like (for example) state dinners, and other public events.

Spending $1500.00 at a football game though is clearly excessive.

It should be noted that Christie has a long history of being profligate with taxpayer money in order to enhance his own comfort.  When he was US Attorney for New Jersey, he was cited for similar behavior:

When he was a top federal prosecutor, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey routinely billed taxpayers for hotel stays whose cost exceeded government guidelines, according to a report the Justice Department released on Monday.

The report, by the department’s inspector general, examined travel expenses for all 208 people who served as a United States attorney from 2007 to 2009. It spoke of five who “exhibited a noteworthy pattern of exceeding the government rate and whose travel documentation provided insufficient, inaccurate or no justification for the higher lodging rates.”

While the report did not identify any prosecutors by name, the travel patterns of an official called “U.S. Attorney C” — the one “who most often exceeded the government rate without adequate justification” in terms of percentage of travel — match records about Mr. Christie that were released in the 2009 campaign for governor by his Democratic opponent, the incumbent, Jon S. Corzine.

As governor, Mr. Christie, who was the United States attorney for New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, has pushed to cut government spending and waste, making him a rising star in the Republican Party.

………

The report also noted the reimbursements Mr. Christie received for airport transportation costs. Rather than taking a taxi for the four-mile trip between his hotel and the Boston airport, he took a car service costing $236. A similar arrangement for a London trip cost $562.

I really hope that someone in oppo research is paying attention to this stuff, because it’s not going to play well in either Iowa or New Hampshire.

Bernie Sanders Is More Serious than the Media Thinks

 And I am not just saying this because the famously curmudgeonly Matt Taibbi  wrote him a political love letter.

In the US, the lifeblood of politics is money, and the fact that the Sanders for President campaign raised $1.5 million dollars in the first 24 hours after his announcement, and raised $3 million in the first 4 days.

Needless to say, unlike most modern candidates on both sides of the aisle, these were small individual donations, not Wall Street and other big donors.  (About ½ of Obama campaign funds came from big donors in 2008)

I think that it is highly unlikely that he can wing the primary, and if he did, we would see the Blue Dog and New Dem wings of the party surreptitiously campaigning against him, much like Henry “Scoop” Jackson and his ilk did in 1972 to George McGovern.

The Clown Car Gets Even More Full


The Abridged version of CarlyFiorina.org.


Her campaign forgot to register it.


This is unsurprising, seeing as how in her last campaign, she put out the notorious: 


Demon Sheep Ad (Not a parody, really)

Carly Fiorina has formally announced that she is running for President.

In what is an amazing amount of hubris, even by the standards of a Presidential campaign, she will be running on her record as CEO of Hewlett Packard:

Carly Fiorina became the second woman and the first former chief executive to enter the 2016 presidential campaign when she announced on Monday that her private-sector background and conservative credentials made her best positioned to capture the Republican nomination and take on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ms. Fiorina’s long-shot campaign — polls show only a sliver of Republicans would support her at this stage — has nevertheless attracted the attention of conservatives in early nominating states, largely because of her increasingly pointed attacks on Mrs. Clinton and her impassioned anti-abortion position. (“Liberals believe that flies are worth protecting but that the life of an unborn child is not,” she said in January.)

“I think I’m the best person for the job because I understand how the economy actually works,” Ms. Fiorina told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on Monday. “I understand executive decision-making, which is making a tough call in a tough time with high stakes.”

Her record is that she nearly destroyed HP.

Employees began spontaneously singing, “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” at multiple HP sites when the news of her firing broke.


She also approved Lucent’s infamous “Brown Ring of Ambivalence” Logo

Before that, she was the,  president consumer products and later also the president for the global service provider business at Lucent, where she oversaw financing deals that essentially had Lucent paying money to customers to buy their gear:

Dig under the surface, however, and the story grows more complicated and less flattering. The Lucent that Fiorina walked away from, taking with her $65 million in performance-linked pay, was not at all what it appeared. Nor were several of her division’s biggest sales, including the giant PathNet deal.

The Lucent-Fiorina story starts in 1995, when AT&T began to consider selling one of its crown jewels, its equipment-making division. The group had $21 billion in annual revenue and housed the famed Bell Labs, birthplace of the transistor and corporate America’s preeminent research outfit.

Spinning off the equipment group into a separate company had instant appeal. As a separate company, Lucent could sell gear to AT&T’s competitors on an even footing with Nortel, Cisco and others. The timing was also perfect. In the late 1990s companies like Worldcom, Qwest and Global Crossing were laying fiber optic cables around the country and the world. Start-ups like Winstar were spending billions on new-fangled wireless networks. Dozens of small companies including PathNet came up with designs for other types of telecom networks.

………

In the giant PathNet deal that Fiorina oversaw, Lucent agreed to fund more than 100% of the company’s equipment purchases, meaning the small company would get both Lucent gear at no money down and extra cash to boot. Yet how could such a loan to PathNet make sense for Lucent, even based on the world as it appeared in the heady days of 1999? The smaller company had barely $100 million in equity (and that’s based on generous accounting assumptions) on top of which it had already balanced $350 million in junk bonds paying 12.25% interest. Adding $440 million in loans from Lucent to this already debt-heavy capital structure would jack the company’s leverage up to 8 to 1, and potentially even higher as they drew more of the loan.

Fiorina says in her autobiography that she pushed back against the pressure for short-term growth at any cost, and two former Lucent collegues with whom she remains friendly back her up. On the other hand, this 2001 Fortune story, which described Lucent’s irresponsible growth habits, cites sources saying Fiorina made it known that Wall Street would generously reward companies that emphasized and delivered robust revenue growth. And an executive who sat across the table from Fiorina in a big vendor financing negotiation, when asked this week about what he remembers of the bargaining, described Fiorina as being dead set on chalking up a huge sale. He adds: “The press release was always very important to her.”

(emphasis mine)

And she thinks that she can run for President, or more likely, she thinks that the Presidential run will set the table for another future Senate bid.

It appears that she has learned nothing from her shellacking by Barbara Boxer. (10% in 2010, which was a Republican wave election)

Another Reason to Love Bernie

Senator Sanders (D-VT) is very dubious of the arguments put forward by the advocates of the H-1B immigrant visa:

The H-1B visa issue rarely surfaces during presidential races, and that’s what makes the entrance by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) into the 2016 presidential race so interesting.

As a senator, Sanders does not have a lot of political clout. He’s an independent socialist whose major campaign contributors are unions. But Sanders this week announced he’s running for the Democratic nomination for president, a move that could raise the visibility of the H-1B visa as a national issue.

Sanders is very skeptical of the H-1B program, and has lambasted tech firms for hiring visa workers at the same time they’re cutting staff. He’s especially critical of the visa’s use in offshore outsourcing.

“Last year, the top 10 employers of H-1B guest workers were all offshore outsourcing companies,” Sanders said in a Senate speech in 2013. “These firms are responsible for shipping large numbers of American information technology jobs to India and other countries.”

The points raised by Sanders echo those made by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who chairs the Senate’s Immigration subcommittee. In fact, Sanders was one of 10 senators who signed a recent letter by Sessions and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to several federal departments seeking an investigation into H-1B use.

Sanders does accept, with limitations, high-tech industry arguments “that they need the H-1B program so they can hire the best and the brightest science, technology, engineering, and math workers in the world, and that there are not enough qualified American workers in these fields. In some cases — let me be very honest — I think that is true.”

There are some companies “in some parts of the country that are unable to attract American workers to do the jobs that are needed,” said Sanders. But he also cites a Government Accountability Office report that said just over half of the H-1B workers are employed in entry-level jobs. He cites other studies that suggest H-1B workers are paid less than similarly employed U.S. workers.

95%+ of the H-1B (and L-1) visas out there are about cheap (and captive) labor, not essential talent.

Not only are they more poorly paid, they serve to depress the wages of citizens and green card holders.

Set a limited number of visas, and let employers bid against each other for them.

Suddenly it becomes a higher cost option, which weeds out the people who are looking for cheap labor.

The Clown Show Abides

Surgeon, and right wing nut-job Ben Carson has announced that he is running for President:

Ben Carson confirmed on Sunday that he will be announcing his presidential bid on Monday.

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, made the announcement in a television interview with Sinclair Broadcasting ahead of his formal campaign kickoff event, still scheduled for Monday in Detroit . Carson suggested to POLITICO the interview was a pre-interview to be released around the time of the announcement but said in it: “I’m willing to be a part of the equation, and, therefore, I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”
Carson later acknowledged that he did informally disclose his candidacy. His comments came at the Detroit Music Hall, where he was preparing to rehearse for his announcement.

So many Republican candidates, and most of them are walking advertisements for psychotropic medication.

I Have an Endorsement for Democratic Presidential Nominee

And it ain’t Hillary, it’s Bernie:

Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, announced Thursday that he was running for president as a Democrat, injecting a progressive voice into the contest and providing Hillary Rodham Clinton with her first official rival for the party’s nomination.

Avoiding the fanfare that several Republicans have chosen so far when announcing their candidacies, Mr. Sanders issued a statement to supporters that laid out his goals for reducing income inequality, addressing climate change and scaling back the influence of money in politics.

“After a year of travel, discussion and dialogue, I have decided to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president,” Mr. Sanders said in an email early Thursday.

Mr. Sanders’s bid is considered a long shot, but his unflinching commitment to stances popular with the left — such as opposing foreign military interventions and reining in big banks — could force Mrs. Clinton to address these issues more deeply.

It won’t force Clinton to address these issues, it will force her to pay lip service to her campaign.

I’m a bit starry eyed, but I want Sanders to win, so I have added him to Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.

Of course, I would expect a lot of establishment Dems to do whatever they can to subvert his campaign. (See McGovern in 1972)