Day: October 11, 2006

Florida Governor Race — How Did These Losers Get On the Ballot?

Buck Banks

Underqualified and underwhelming: Charlie Crist and Jim Davis may not be the most flamboyant candidates for Florida’s governor — okay, they aren’t even mildly interesting — but until today I didn’t know how totally unprepared they are to govern our state. Their financials were published today, and what they reveal about these guys is disturbing.

They’re both losers, at least by most financial measures. Maybe that’s why they’re running for a job that pays $132,000 a year with free room and board at the guv’s mansion in Tallahassee.

Crist, 50, has never bought a house. He’s a renter. He’s never run a business. He’s divorced with no kids and until five years ago never held a job that paid more than about $40,000 a year. He has a net worth of $423,000, including about $185,000 for retirement, $97,000 in an investment account and $16,000 in cash. He gave $1,000 to charities last year, most of it to his church. He keeps his investments in a Fidelity Fund to avoid any conflicts of interest. His 74-year-old father is his financial advisor, and Crist earns about 5 percent per year on his investments.

They’re both losers, at least by most financial measures. Maybe that’s why they’re running for a job that pays $132,000 a year with free room and board at the guv’s mansion in Tallahassee.

There has been some speculation on this Web site in the past regarding whether Crist is gay. According to the article I read, he supposedly has a girlfriend with whom he vacations occasionally. Sure, okay, I’ll buy that. But then when one finds out what he drives, one starts to wonder all over again: a 1997 Jaguar XK8 convertible, bought used, and a leased yellow 2006 Mustang convertible. Hmmmmm.

Davis, 48, is the bigger loser, however. He supports a wife and two teenage sons on his $159,000 congressional salary, so he would actually take a pay cut to be governor, though I guess he’d make it up in food and housing costs. His net worth is $405,000. The family’s major asset is their home, which was purchased in 1989 for $152,500 and is now assessed at $421,871 because of rising property values. There is a $63,000 mortgage.

Davis paid $26,920 in income taxes and declared he had given $4,170 to charity last year. He owns no stocks or bonds, and has not enrolled his sons — in 1oth and ninth grade — in Florida’s prepaid college program, so he hasn’t saved anything for their education. Davis drives a three-year-old Ford Taurus and sleeps in the spare bedroom of his sister’s Georgetown home when the House is in session.

These guys do share one thing in common — they’re basically career politicians who have few, if any, accomplishments outside their political work, and virtually none in their careers. Neither has ever run a business or managed a complex land transaction. At least Jeb Bush was a millionaire developer before he won the governorship. Not that that’s such a good thing, but at least the guy had some experience managing people and swinging real estate deals.

Other examples of governors with little or no practical governing experience — fake wrestler Jesse Ventura and muscle-bound action figure Arnold Schwarzenegger come to mind. And look what those guys have done for for Minnesota and California, respectively.

Gone are the days of Lawton “He-Coon” Chiles, a man of conviction who really cared about Florida and its people, and who actually governed the state pretty well, even as it slid toward a Republican majority. Now, the choice is between a couple of empty-suit politicos with crappy taste in automobiles.

Oh well, throw a dart and let’s get on with the election.

10 Things Your Congressman Won’t Tell You

Buck Banks

Congressional perks: Actually, it goes well beyong perks. It’s a wonder more of these sleazeballs aren’t caught doing bad things. But then again, as you’ll see in this list from Smart Money, members of Congress can get away with all kinds of things you and I would be sent up the river to the big house for:

1. “I can’t lose.”
2. “I’m above the law.”
3. “Read the bills I vote on? Who’s got that kind of time?”
4. “Congress is just a stepping stone to big money — in lobbying.”
5. “My health care benefits are way better than yours…”
6. “…and so is my pension.”
7. “I enjoy great perks and gifts, and it’s all legal.”
8. “I simply can’t be fired.”
9. “Lobbyists love me because I deliver the goods.”
10. “Rules are meant to be broken.”

There ought to be a law, but then again, these are the folks who make the laws. Read the whole article and all the depressing supporting evidence for this top-10 of what’s wrong with the legislative branch of our government here.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

Trish

In the spring of 2003, I was fortunate to be among a group of about 50 other people in a seminar taught by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In the first few sessions, he lectured about the Peace and Reconciliation process, which allowed South Africa to begin to heal the wounds of apartheid. The last meeting was reserved for him to answer our questions on any subject we liked.

It was the night of March 16, and Bush had issued his moronic ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to get out of Iraq by St. Patrick’s Day or else. Everyone was thinking of what might happen the next day as we listened to Tutu.

A remarkable man with an air of both impishness and solemnity, Tutu believes that no one is beyond God’s love or God’s redemption. His speech reflects his absolute rejection of the idea that some people are good and others evil. We are all both.

I held my question, sure that someone else would ask it so I wouldn’t have to. Finally I raised my hand. Tutu came and stood next to me and I asked if he had any thoughts for us on the eve of Bush’s threatened invasion of Iraq.

I could see he actually had many thoughts and seemed to be struggling to rein them in. Finally, he spoke. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he said. And that was all.

I subscribe to the usual daily emails: horoscopes, inspiration, news, etc. Today I received one that said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Are other people worrying about Iran and North Korea, as I am? Are other people realizing just how long two years and three months is, and wondering if we will make it, as a country and as people, out of the Bush presidency? Is it time to wake up from our stupor and shed our outrage fatigue and take back our future?

If we do, we have nothing to fear — after all, blessed are the peacemakers.

Fox News: North Korea Nukes Are ‘Good News’

Jon Ponder

Only in the mindset of a Fox News anchor and his viewers could North Korea’s purported test of nuclear bombs be considered “good news” that could counterpoint the “bad news” of the Foley scandal:

[JOHN] GIBSON: Does the fact that the North Koreans actually tested a nuclear weapon balance out the bad news from this Foley scandal?

[TONY] BLANKLEY: It doesn’t balance it out. It’s not a big enough story. As big as it should be, I don’t think it will take the oxygen out of the news cycle. I think it will take some of the breathlessness out of the reporting of the Foley story, but there will be some room, as we’re seeing today, both stories are getting coverage.

RIP Habeas Corpus – 1215-2006

Jon Ponder
If you are imprisoned for no reason, First Amendment rights to free speech and Second Amendment rights to bear arms are of no use to you, for example.

On the day the Foley scandal broke, the Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which includes a provision that eliminates habeas corpus from the canon of United States law. Habeas corpus is an ancient right of citizens to be informed why they have been arrested and what charges are being brought against them.

The Constitution allows habeas corpus to be suspended under two conditions: “The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

But the new law does not suspend habeas corpus. It eliminates it.

On Countdown last night, Keith Olbermann examined the potential damage that could be done to American democracy if the law is allowed to stand. He went through each provision in the Bill of Rights suggesting how elmininating habeas corpus makes nine of the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution moot. If you are imprisoned for no reason, First Amendment rights to free speech and Second Amendment rights to bear arms are of no use to you.

Crooks & Liars has the video and a rough transcript.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the text of the section that suspends habeas corpus indefinitely:

SEC. 7. HABEAS CORPUS MATTERS….

`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

Study: Iraq War Dead Exceeds 600,000

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

More than 600,000 Iraqis have died violently since the U.S.-led invasion, according to a new estimate that is far higher than any other to date.

The report, by a team of researchers criticized for its death estimates two years ago, says that 601,027 Iraqis have suffered violent deaths since the March 2003 invasion. It also suggests that the country has become more violent in the last year.

“This clearly is a much higher number than many people have been thinking about,” said Gilbert Burnham, the report’s lead author and a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. “It shows the violence has spread across the country.”

Iraq’s violent death rate rose from 3.2 deaths per 1,000 people in the year after the invasion to 12 per 1,000 from June 2005 to June 2006, according to the researchers, whose findings are being published this week in the British medical journal Lancet.