Day: May 26, 2006

Nixon’s Curse on America: the Bush Political Dynasty

Jon Ponder
Somewhere in hell, Nixon is laughing his ass off.

In the 1970s, George Bush I was one of the few Republican politicians of any consequence in Texas, if you can believe that. And the state was so heavily weighted to the Dems that the transplanted Connecticut Yankee couldn’t get elected to save his life. But in this anecdote, we learn how an off-the-cuff decision by President Nixon rescued George Sr. from near-certain obscurity — and saddled the nation with the Bushes for now and, probably, forever:

Ex-TX LG/Austin lobbyist/ ’04 WH campaign bit player/new author Ben Barnes (D) guested on one of the Post’s online chats:

Q: I glanced at your book in a bookstore the other day, and according to the flap, John Connally supposedly saved George Bush Sr.’s career. I never heard of that — it seems unlikely. What’s that about?

Ben Barnes: I was present when Richard Nixon called John Connally in 1970 to offer him the Secretary of the Treasury position. Bush had just lost his second campaign for US Senate, and was still the most visible Republican in Texas. Connally was a Democrat, and he told Nixon it would be a mistake to appoint him to a high position unless he appointed Bush to something first. Nixon called back and said he’d appoint Bush to be the UN ambassador. That revitalized Bush’s political career, and he went on to move up in the political world.

Somewhere in hell, Nixon is laughing his ass off.

Get Ready for Post-Hurricane Military Dictatorship

Buck Banks

When the power’s out, the power grab’s on: Tucked away in an obscure article on GovExec.com today was a disturbing little aside that bodes ill for state and local officials trying to deal with the aftermath of a hurricane. As if it weren’t bad enough that the National Secret Agency is spying on American citizens and the Federal Bureau of Invasion has commandeered the offices of the House of Representatives and the Whitewash House thinks the Constitution is something that applies to everybody but the president, we’re now looking at threats to “federalize” disaster response in the event that some local or state yahoo thinks the gubmint should butt out of hurricane recovery efforts until it’s actually needed.

Local opposition can lawfully be overcome by the White House’s “federalizing” National Guard units and, if necessary, by invoking the Insurrection Act to extend federal authority.

The article reports on a hearing held Thursday where federal officials were encouraged to issue emergency declarations faster this hurricane season to give military, homeland security and state and local response authorities more time to mobilize. The Defense and Homeland Security departments indicated they would like to have as much as a week to prepare for a hurricane. Of course, some bright light reminded the benighted bureacrats that at a week out, forecasts of possible landfall could cover hundreds or thousands of miles, leading to pointless and useless evacuations, and the staging of ice-filled semis in Quebec.

Then the discussion turned ominously creepy or creepily ominous:

One lawmaker expressed concern about federal authority to trump local and state mandates. In a discussion of how federal officials would deal with a local or state official who becomes unmanageable or recalcitrant, subcommittee member Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Mich., said federal officials may have to prove that they have the authority to override an individual.

[Paul McHale, the Defense Department’s assistant homeland defense secretary] told him “local opposition can lawfully [be] overcome” by the White House’s “federalizing” National Guard units and, if necessary, by invoking the Insurrection Act to extend federal authority.

Posse comitatus? We don’t need no stinkin’ posse comitatus! That, you will recall, is the provision that prevents the president from using the military for police activities. But, if you invoke the Insurrection Act, all bets are off and it’s up against the wall local redneck emergency managers and balky mayors and troublesome governors, and hello martial law.

At least this year the federal government has a plan — subjugate the populace using military force. Should be an interesting hurricane season ….

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Democracy is the worst form of government. It is the most inefficient, the most clumsy, the most impractical. It reduces wisdom to impotence and secures the triumph of folly, ignorance, clap-trap and demagogy. Yet democracy is the only form of social order admissable because it is the only one consistent with justice.

— Robert Briffault (1876-1948), British surgeon, anthropologist, novelist

Fed Phone Tax Give-Back A Sure Sign It’s An Election Year

Buck Banks

Much ado about not much: Republicons in Congress are crowing today about the “massive” give-back of $13 billion in federal taxes on mobile phone calls announced yesterday. But it adds up to less than it appears, and it appears to be just another election-year gimmick intended to make conservatives seem compassionate.

CongressDaily reported that Treasury Secretary Snow said yesterday the IRS will stop collecting the 3 percent federal excise tax on long-distance telephone calls on July 31, and will refund to businesses and individual taxpayers all such taxes collected during the past three years.

A sure sign that this was a cynical election-year ploy and not serious politics was Snow’s cute press conference quip: “It’s time to ‘disconnect’ this tax and put it on the permanent ‘do not call’ list.” Urp!

Treasury estimates that taxpayers will receive refunds totaling about $13 billion. They can apply for refunds on their 2006 tax returns. The decision to discontinue the tax was taken after long-distance phone customers successfully challenged the tax in several different federal appeals courts.

“It’s time to ‘disconnect’ this tax and put it on the permanent ‘do not call’ list.”

So what does this give-back mean to the estimated 214 million cell phone users in the United States? About $54 each, or less than 20 gallons of gasoline. Contrast that with the $477 billion in tax breaks the Bush administration has targeted to the richest Americans, which will average $342,000 each over the next 10 years. By 2010, when Bush’s tax cuts hit their stride, of the estimated $234 billion in tax cuts scheduled for that year, $121 billion will go to just 1.4 million taxpayers.

Makes that $54 look pretty puny, don’t it. But Bushco is counting on voters not doing the math, but instead responding like mindless zombies to headlines that tout a $13 billion tax refund on their cell phone calls. That’s a lot cheaper way to buy votes than to provide real tax relief for the middle class or decent health care for all Americans.

CIA Leak: Novak Promised to Shield Rove from Treason Charges for Leaking CIA Agent’s Secret Identity

Jon Ponder

Murry Waas:

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.

Read the rest.

STOP THE PRESSES! BUSH ADMITS VERBAL GAFFES

Jon Ponder

ALSO ADMITS THAT OTHERS MADE MISTAKES IN ABU GRAHIB PRISON SCANDAL

After Bush’s Admissions, Tweety Immediately Confers Sainthood on Dear Leader Once Again

“I think the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq is Abu Ghraib.”
— President Bush

I watched a bit of Chris Matthews’ coverage on MSNBC yesterday of the news conference held by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House. Tweety has been very very disappointed in Dear Leader lately but last night could barely contain his wistful adoration as he piled laurels at the president’s feet for finally admitting a mistake:

Q Mr. President, you spoke about missteps and mistakes in Iraq. Could I ask both of you which missteps and mistakes of your own you most regret?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Sounds like kind of a familiar refrain here — saying “bring it on,” kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner — you know, “wanted dead or alive,” that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted, and so I learned from that. And I think the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq is Abu Ghraib. We’ve been paying for that for a long period of time. And it’s — unlike Iraq, however, under Saddam, the people who committed those acts were brought to justice. They’ve been given a fair trial and tried and convicted.

Meanwhile, back in reality, the list of mistakes regarding his failed adventure in Iraq — not to mention the lies he told — that the president did not cop to are manifold. Just one example: Did he screw up the intelligence about WMD, or was he fully aware Saddam was toothless but lied to us to take the country to war?

Admitting to a couple verbal gaffes is a clever, pre-scripted dodge, and the traditional media fell for it, as the White House knew they would.

Smartest Guys in the Jail

Jon Ponder

Yesterday a jury convicted former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling on all counts related to fraud and dirty dealing in the collapse of Enron corporation, the giant energy corporation that was headquartered in Houston.

Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity in California at a time when Enron was artificially driving up the price of electricity by manipulating supply. Bush’s resistance to price caps bought Enron extra time to gouge hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s consumers.

Just as we started taking bets on the demise of Enron when the lights went out in Beverly Hills back in 2000 while the company was playing the GOP-rigged California energy market like a crooked a slot machine, we’re now accepting wagers on when Bush will pardon his friend and former financial backer, “Kenny-Boy” Lay.

Lay gave Bush $100,000 during the 2000 election, and the sent another $10 grand to Florida to help with the Bush v. Gore recount.

After the truth came out about Enron — largely based on reporting by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, whose book, “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” and the movie thereof, are both excellent sources for information on this story — President Bush pretended he barely knew Lay.

But George Bush did know Ken Lay, and tried to help him in all sorts of ways before the truth came out about Lay’s criminal activities:

As Enron’s crisis worsened through the first nine months of Bush’s presidency, Lay secured Bush’s help in three key ways:

–Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity in California at a time when Enron was artificially driving up the price of electricity by manipulating supply. Bush’s resistance to price caps bought Enron extra time to gouge hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s consumers.

–Bush granted Lay broad influence over the development of the administration’s energy policies, including the choice of key regulators to oversee Enron’s businesses. The chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was replaced in 2001 after he began to delve into Enron’s complex derivative-financing schemes.

–Bush had his NSC staff organize that administration-wide task force to pressure India to accommodate Enron’s interests in selling the Dabhol generating plant for as much as $2.3 billion.

So when will Lay be pardoned — on last Bush’s last day in office (may it come soon) or before Lay’s first day in jail?