Year: 2005

New Hampshire Republicans Declining the Kool-Aid

Trish

Boston Globe:

Republican senators and congressmen are trying to distance themselves from an increasingly unpopular national GOP

…the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation is becoming increasingly at odds with the national Republican Party in a state that was long a GOP bellwether, according to an analysis of votes and other actions in Congress over the past year.

Congressmen Jeb Bradley and Charles Bass voted for expanded stem cell research and opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and Bradley notably declined to endorse Bush’s Social Security plan.

Senator John E. Sununu opposed Bush’s plan for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, joined a filibuster to insert civil liberties protections into the USA Patriot Act, and voted against his party leadership on several major spending bills.

Even the state’s senior senator, Judd Gregg, who is a member of the GOP leadership and generally backs the party’s priorities, voted against the transportation bill and the massive energy bill that grew out of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force.

The senators and congressmen say they are acting in the tradition of the state’s libertarian brand of conservatism, even if the national GOP moves in a different direction. But Democrats and some independent observers, pointing to the fact that Senator John F. Kerry beat President Bush in New Hampshire, and that Governor John Lynch , a Democrat, is the most popular official in the state, say the Republican senators and congressmen are trying to distance themselves from an increasingly unpopular national GOP.

GAO Wants Bush Administration to Wake Up to Economic Problems

Trish

Forget those ill-fated “listening tours” from Karen Hughes. The man who sued Dick Cheney for information about his so-called energy task force is on a wake-up tour.

For the ninth straight year, the GAO said it couldn’t certify the government’s financial statements.

David Walker, 54, U.S. comptroller general and head of the Government Accounting Office, sees nothing but gray skies ahead for the American economy. And while his doomsday scenario might be too centered on entitlements, he makes some important points.

Earlier this month, he released the GAO’s annual statement on the accounting of the U.S. government. For the ninth straight year, the GAO said it couldn’t certify the government’s financial statements. For the second year, Walker emphasized the nation’s long-term financial risk.

He wrote that the nation is $46 trillion in debt, and social insurance promises and fiscal exposures were four times the current gross domestic product as baby boomers approach 2008, when they begin to become eligible for early retirement.

Walker, who has switched back and forth between the two major parties, was a Republican when Pres. Clinton accepted his nomination to the 15-year GAO post.

…as the choice of the Republican-led Senate in 1998, Walker was seen as a GOP man. Few accuse him of that now.

The position, created by Congress in 1921, is a 15-year appointment, and the comptroller general cannot be removed except by impeachment.

That fact came in handy in 2002, when Walker felt he had no choice but to sue Dick Cheney in the case later appealed to the Supreme Court. […]

GOP Investigated Pres. Clinton’s Cat But Only Plans ‘Oversight’ on Pres. Bush’s Admitted Illegal Spying

Jon Ponder

Compare and contrast:

  • 1995: Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), then chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, investigated whether taxpayers were footing the cost of stationery and postage for the fan club dedicated to President Clinton’s cat, Socks. (They were not – and it turns out Barbara Bush’s dog Millie had a fan club too.)
  • 2005: Two weeks ago, President Bush admitted he willfully flouted a law that requires him to get warrants before wiretapping U.S. citizens. His justification for ignoring the law appears to be LÉtat, c’est moi. In reaction, Republicans in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Friday that they are planning “oversight” hearings into the matter.

The president has admitted he broke the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) hundreds of times. Isn’t it a bit late for “oversight?”

Governor’s Failures Put Spotlight on CA Dems

Jon Ponder

Rough sledding ahead : Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably happy to see 2005 coming to an end. But after the trouncing his initiatives received in November’s special election, he enters 2006 in a much weakened position. The question now is, will the Democrats who control the Legislature step up to the plate:

If this stalemate plays out, leaving Arnold hamstrung and unable to get his way, it’s hard to see why he would chose to follow through on his run for re-election next year.

“The power has shifted back to the Legislature,” said Assembly Majority Leader Dario Frommer (D-Glendale). “I think the Democrats are in the driver’s seat.”

Much of the core of the Democratic Party is disinclined to give the Republican governor any political victories that might help get him reelected next year, lawmakers and lobbyists say.

Labor unions, which have substantial influence over the Democratic majorities in the Assembly and Senate, are still furious with the governor for trying to weaken their benefits and political influence. Emboldened by their success in leading the fight against Schwarzenegger’s four initiatives last month, they are expected to adopt an even more aggressive posture when lawmakers return to Sacramento on Jan. 3.

“There’s going to be a lot of pressure not to do anything with the guy,” Frommer said. “You have a Legislature that, quite frankly, is not too happy with him. And you’ve got a Democratic Party and a lot of the constituencies that are pushing hard to keep the governor on the mat in order to set the stage for whomever the Democratic nominee is next year.”

He’s not too popular in his party, either. And this does not bode well:

Most GOP lawmakers are more conservative than Schwarzenegger, but he needs their support because two-thirds of the Legislature is required to pass the state budget and to put measures on the statewide ballot.

“The reality is, nothing gets done unless Arnold Schwarzenegger can persuade at least six Republicans in the Assembly and two in the Senate to go along,” said Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Studies at Cal State Sacramento.

Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said his members “think they will have a bigger say than they have had in the past, because the bigger issues that are going to hit this year are all two-thirds votes.”

If this stalemate plays out, leaving Arnold hamstrung and unable to get his way, it’s hard to see why he would chose to follow through on his run for re-election next year. After all, being a movie star is a whole lot easier and more fun than politics – not to mention a lot more lucrative.

Fixing Elections for Fun and Profit

Jon Ponder

Datamation:

Two counties in Florida have terminated their use of Diebold computerized voting equipment after computer experts showed that vote totals could be changed by a single individual in a way that would be undetectable later.

The county commission of Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, voted on Dec. 13 to scrap its Diebold equipment and switch to a different manufacturer, at an estimated cost of $1.3 million. Three days later, the county council of Volusia County (Daytona Beach) approved a similar change. The switch will cost that jurisdiction at least $2.5 million, county officials said.

These actions, and the events that led up to them, can teach us a great deal about our dependence on computer procedures that are developed by flawed human beings.

Via Buzzflash.

Debating Iraq: Ritter Vs. Hitchens in Tarrytown

Jon Ponder

War lies: Bob Geiger at the Yellow Dog Blog was on hand when former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter debated the formerly liberal Christopher Hitchens about the war in Iraq. The event was held at the Tarrytown Music Hall near New York City and was moderated by talk-show host Jay Diamond. Based on Bob’s report, Ritter won the debate quite handily:

“[We] cannot solve Iraq until we get some answers about the war’s foundation. And, I’ll tell you right now, it’s the most corrupt foundation imaginable.”
— Scott Ritter

“I am as opposed to this war as strongly as one can possibly be against this war,” said Ritter firmly. “I cannot come up with one justification worthy of a single American life for why we’re in Iraq…”

Hitchens, the acerbic British author and Vanity Fair contributor is a self-described “proponent of the Iraq war,” and, while sometimes hard to pin down on his overall political views, clearly came to this event prepared to defend George W. Bush and the Iraq war.

“Another confrontation with Saddam Hussein was inevitable,” said Hitchens in defending the Iraq invasion. “Who should have determined the timing of that confrontation? Saddam Hussein? Or the U.S. and other democratic nations?”

When asked point-blank by the moderator whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had the credible capability of harming the U.S. at the time of the invasion, Hitchens, who was in no position to challenge Ritter’s expertise on the subject, stuck to vague GOP talking points.

“As long as Saddam Hussein was in power, it was not possible for the U.S. to ever relax,” Hitchens said.

Ritter, whose last role at the U.N. was as chief of the “Counter-Concealment Team,” fired back at Hitchens.

“The Iraq Survey Group, headed by David Kay, found [in post-invasion Iraq] that Iraq had destroyed the totality of its nuclear weapons program and confirmed what the CIA had already said about them having destroyed it as far back as the summer of 1991.”

In 2002, I spent an hour or so driving west from Palm Springs listening to Ritter making some of the same points about Iraq in a taped speech on Pacifica Radio. He introduced himself as a lifelong Republican who had voted for Bush in 2000, and then he proceeded to tear apart the Bushists’ phoney rationale for war.

That trip through the desert was a tipping point. Ritter confirmed what I suspected: We were being lied to about the reasons for war. I had supported ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban, but there was no way I could get behind a war that was being cooked up for obscure reasons by a failed Texas oilman and the former CEO of Halliburton, both of whom had axes to grind with Saddam that had nothing to do with national security.

Scott has been right about Iraq from the beginning, so I found this statement in the Yellow Dog’s report very telling:

Impeachment Goes Mainstream

Jon Ponder

Who’s scoffing now: As constant readers of these pages know, we have been advocating impeaching President Bush since before the fall of Iraq. (Shorter: The promotion of the war was either based on lies or the grossest case of official negligence and incompetence in the history of modern warfare. Either option represents a threat to our national security and urgently requires corrective measures – even more urgently than, say, punishing a president for lying about sex. )

“Impeachment would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law.”
— Barrons

Until recently, our clamor to impeach President Bush has been greeted with eye-rolling, nervous titters, groans and name calling – including being pegged as “liberal extremists” by an odd little troll.

What has changed regarding impeachment lately, of course, is the fact that Mr. Bush has openly admitted that he committed an impeachable offense. He chose to break a law that prevented him from spying on U.S. citizens, and not just once – Mr. Bush has confessed to violating the Foriegn Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) hundreds of times.

As a result, no less than Barrons magazine (via Echidne of the Snakes) is discussing the “I word” —

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law.

Bush Sees No Difference Between Real Crises And Political Problems

Jon Ponder

Up until now this president’s solution to everything has been to stare into the cameras, lie and keep on lying until such time as the political problem disappears. And now, unable to comprehend that while political crises may wilt in the face of such tactics, real crises do not, he and his team are responding to this first serious feet-to-the-fire Iraq emergency in the same way they always have — with a fusillade of silly, easily disprovable bullshit. Bush and his mouthpieces continue to try to obfuscate and cloud the issue of why we’re in Iraq, and they do so not only selectively but constantly, compulsively, like mental patients who can’t stop jacking off in public. They don’t know the difference between a real problem and a political problem, because to them, there is no difference. What could possibly be worse than bad poll numbers?

— Matt Taibi, Rolling Stone, via Firedoglake

Chris Matthews, ‘Misinformer of the Year’

Jon Ponder

I’m a long-time “Hardball” viewer, and after all these years, I’m still not sure what to think about Chris Matthews.

Before he got his own slot on MSNBC, Matthews was a center-left newspaper columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He moved to television just in time for the Clinton wars, when, like a lot of other DC Kool Kids – Maureen Dowd, Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, to name a few – he apparently took the Clintons’ flaws and foibles as a personal betrayal.

Today, five years on, he is still mad at them – spittle flies anytime Hillary’s name comes up.

Matthews was idealistic in his youth. He joined the Peace Corps and was a speechwriter for Pres. Carter and a staff member for House Speaker Tip O’Neill. Now he treats his early resume as a liability. Like the class brainiac who plays dumb so he can hang out with the jocks, he over-compensates for his liberal past by toadying up to Republicans, and regularly spouts their propaganda and talking points as fact.

Making nice with rightwingers is a smart career move. He obviously sees himself as next in line to host NBC’s once-vaunted “Meet the Press” on Sunday mornings. The show’s reputation has been so compromised by Tim Russert – another journo with a liberal background who is overweaningly pliable to the right – that replacing Russert with Matthews would be, at best, a lateral move.

Whatever happens with MTP, Chris Matthews’ GOP butt-kissing has already won him at least one accolade. Media Matters, the left’s leading news-bias watchdog organization, has named him “Misinformer of the Year.” (Last year’s winner was Bill O’Reilly.)

There is a thorough list of his mis-statements at Media Matters, but here are Matthews’ recent statements about Dear Leader that could have been scripted by Karl Rove:

[…]

Gay-Haters in California Miss Deadline to Put Anti-Marriage Initiative on June Ballot

Jon Ponder

Not enough haters: Several California groups are working hard to overturn the state’s marriage-like civil unions laws for gay people. They have been talking up plans to put draconian initiatves on the ballot that would make it illegal for same-sex couples to receive any of the benefits granted to mixed-gender relationships.

This would seem like a good time for the California Legislature to pass another the gay marriage law. I’ll bet Das Guber would be a lot less inclined to veto it this time.

But now the first of these propositions has failed to meet its first test. Its proponents were unable to collect enough signatures to get it on the June ballot, according to 365gay.com, via Pam’s House Blend:

A group trying to get a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage put to voters in California has failed to collect enough names to put the issue on the June 2006 ballot and may not make it in November.

The amendment would not only prevent gay marriages but also void the state’s landmark domestic partner registry and all benefits for same-sex couples.

Randy Thomasson, the president of Campaign for Children and Families said he is not giving up. “Whether it be November 2006 or sometime in 2008, it doesn’t matter,” he said Wednesday. In the meantime, he said, the organization will continue to fight in the courts.

Another group collecting names for a second ballot measure also says it has not collected as many signatures as it had hoped. ProtectMarriage says it is now aiming for an April 13 deadline to make on November’s ballot.

Both groups say they are far behind LGBT rights group Equality California in fundraising and organization.

This would seem like a good time for the California Legislature to pass another the gay marriage law. I’ll bet Gov. Schwarzenegger would be a lot less inclined to veto it this time.