Year: 2006

Happy Birthday, Jack Abramoff — Republican Icon

Jon Ponder

Some people might make the case that the person who most embodies the modern Republican Party — dishonest, fear-mongering and in the pocket of corporate interests — is President George Bush. I would propose that the real GOP icon of our time is Jack Abramoff, a man who put his self-interests above those of everything else, including his country and even the political party that welcomed, encouraged and enabled his corrupt activities.

Here is his record of achievement, which you will agree is emblematic for today’s GOP:

  • Conspiracy Washington, DC (2005), pled guilty 3-Jan-2006
  • Mail Fraud Washington, DC (2005), pled guilty 3-Jan-2006
  • Tax Evasion Washington, DC (2005), pled guilty 3-Jan-2006
  • Wire Fraud Washington, DC (2005), charge dropped
  • Conspiracy Miami, FL (11-Aug-2005), pled guilty 4-Jan-2006
  • Fraud Miami, FL (11-Aug-2005), pled guilty 4-Jan-2006

Abramoff turns 48 today. If he is ever sentenced for these crimes, he’ll like get out of prison around his 78th birthday.

Panel: GAO Underestimated Cost of DoD’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy by Almost Half

Buck Banks

Queer accounting: A University of California commission whose members include a former Defense secretary has challenged the methodology used by the Government Accountability Office to calculate the cost of the Defense Department’s homosexual conduct policy, reports GovExec.com.

The UC-Santa Barbara commission accused GAO of underestimating the cost of replacing military service members discharged under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. The widely criticized policy allows homosexuals to serve in the military so long as they do not disclose their sexual orientation and bars the military from asking.

The February 2005 GAO report found that the overall cost to recruit and train replacements for the 9,488 service members separated from fiscal 1994, the year the policy was implemented, through fiscal 2003, was $190.5 million. But the California commission reported that the actual cost was $363.8 million.

Aaron Belkin, chairman of the commission and an associate professor of political science at the University of California, called the figures used by GAO “loopy.” More specifically, they were too low and inconsistent with previous figures used, he said.

‘In assessing the cost of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, we shouldn’t shortchange the taxpayers or the brave service members who are directly affected by this failed policy.’

The 29-page report from the UC commission, which included former Defense Secretary William Perry, now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, six professors and five military experts, said that GAO relied on “unrealistically low estimates” provided by the service branches.

Using publicly available figures on the cost of basic training and initial skills training, the commission estimated the cost to train replacements at $252.4 million, $157.3 million more than the $95.1 million figure reported by GAO.

Not surprisingly, the GAO is standing by its numbers despite the fact that the commission’s cost estimate is nearly twice the GAO’s. What is even less surprising coming from a Bush administration official, is the tack taken by Derek Stewart, director of GAO’s Defense Capabilities and Management division. He downplays the cost of DADT as being a drop in the bucket of the overal defense budget.
[…]

Poll: Bush’s Approval Drops to New Low

Pensito Editors

Ports Deal and Katrina Bungling Cause 8 Point Drop

Is President Bush in a race with himself to the bottom:

GOP voters oppose the ports deal by 58%

The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.

Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they’re opposed to the agreement…

In a separate poll, two out of three Americans said they do not think President Bush has responded adequately to the needs of Katrina victims. Only 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is responding to those needs, a drop of 12 points from last September’s poll, taken just two weeks after the storm made landfall.

Mr. Bush’s overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job the president is doing.

Ban GOP Marriage

Jon Ponder

Ohio Democratic state Senator Robert Hagan’s proposal to ban GOP adoption is a great idea. Hagan says “credible research” shows that adopted children raised in GOP households are more at risk for developing “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.”

The main threat to the institution of marriage comes from the political right because so many GOP men and women cheat on their partners and have diseases. They are also prone to alcoholism and often die young.

If banning GOP adoption will prevent one more kid from having a miserable life, I’m for it. But why not nip the problem in the bud by eliminating the root cause of all our society’s ills: GOP marriage.

Over half of GOP marriages in the United States end in divorce. Half! That means that millions of marriages are destroyed by Republicans every year. (By contrast, the number of gay marriages that end in divorce in the United States is miniscule.)

Yes, the main threat to the institution of marriage comes from the political right because so many GOP men and women cheat on their partners and have diseases. They are also prone to alcoholism and often die young.

While GOP households are often unstable and cause a strain on the social fabric, fighting GOP marriage is first and foremost a moral issue. Adultery is the leading cause of divorce in mixed gender marriage — despite the fact that the Bible clearly states, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” (Why is it that GOP people cannot seem to understand that this is a Commandment, not a suggestion?)

Conversely, the Bible’s injunctions against gay sex are found only in a couple of obliquely worded passages among hundreds in the class of sins with eating pork, women wearing pants and improperly covering your poop whilst caravaning in the desert.

Please call or write your representatives and tell them that this country needs a constitutional amendment to save America from the iniquity of GOP marriage.

Stop GOP marriage now — before it’s too late.

Schwarzenegger Admits That His Inexperience Led to Failures

Jon Ponder

“Believe me, I expected it to go faster. In a way this is an on-the-job training. I mean I did not go to school to become a governor.”

— Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, addressing California Republican state convention

“[No one] can prepare for the job of being a governor until you’re there. And that’s when you all of a sudden see the kind of complexities.” — Schwarzenegger

In Washington, a “gaffe” is when someone accidentally speaks the truth. Gov. Schwarzenegger uttered this gaffe in front of a crowd of key constituents: the California Republican Party, at the statewide annual convention earlier this month.

Tim Russert replayed it when Schwarzenegger appeared on Meet the Press yesterday. When asked about the quote, Schwarzenegger appeared to dig his hole a bit deeper:

“[No one] can prepare for the job of being a governor until you’re there. And that’s when you all of a sudden see the kind of complexities.”

No one? Schwarzenegger’s principal advisor (and probably the source of volumes of bad advice) during the Recall campaign and his first year in office was former California governor Pete Wilson, a Republican who had spent a lifetime in public service, starting in the state Assembly, then as mayor of San Diego and as a U.S. Senator, before becoming governor.

As governor, Wilson led his party over a cliff by successfully using immigration as a wedge issue. He put the infamous Proposition 187 on the ballot to drive up rightwing votes in order to win reelection in 1994. It worked for Wilson, giving him another term in office but it moved millions of Latino voters into the Democratic Party, giving the Dems a decisive majority in the state and sending the California GOP into the wilderness.

As bad as Wilson was, his time in office now looks almost successful compared by the utter failure of his protege.

Or take the resume of Schwarzenegger’s immediate predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis: He served in the state Assembly, as chief of staff to Gov. Jerry Brown, as lieutenant governor under Wilson and then as governor.

Davis, who was also a Marine, proved to have wooden political instincts when it mattered — when he was under fire — and he was easily outgunned by Schwarzenegger’s end run around the state’s political system during the Recall campaign by limiting his interviews to national outlets like Entertainment Tonight and Oprah, where he was only asked softball questions.

After criticizing every action taken or proposed by Davis, once in office, Schwarzenegger’s approach to solving the state’s problems was fundamentally the same course Davis had charted.

Even with all their accumulated wisdom, California’s previous two governors were both left office with their reputations in tatters. Leave it to a movie star to think that he could do better than they did just by pretending to know what he’s doing.

Cheney Quietly, Belatedly Turns over Hundreds of Plame-Related Emails

Jon Ponder

The Associated Press buried the lede on this story in the fifteenth paragraph of its story on Saturday:

The defense was told that the White House had recently located and turned over about 250 pages of e-mails from the vice president’s office. Fitzgerald, in a letter last month to the defense, had cautioned Libby’s lawyers that some e-mails might be missing because the White House’s archiving system had failed.

As The Raw Story reminds us, the entire White House staff had been under orders to turn over all such documents over two years ago:

In October 2003, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales told all White House employees to turn in copies of numerous documents relating to the CIA leak investigation. It was sent after the Justice Department told the White House to hand over all records that could be relevant to investigators. According to an article at the time, the deadline was Oct. 10, 2003.

The newly-turned over emails could indicate that not all information had been divulged when the Justice Department first required the information be delivered. It could, however, also signify that Fitzgerald is seeking additional email correspondence based on information he obtained during the probe.

In a letter to Libby’s lawyers last month, Fitzgerald signaled that not all emails during the period in question were properly archived — indicating that some documents may have been lost.

Octavia Butler Dies after Accident

Jon Ponder

Science Fiction writer Octavia Butler died on February 24, 2006, after hitting her head on a walkway near her home near Seattle. She was 58.

She remains the only science fiction writer to receive one of the vaunted “genius grants” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a hard-earned $295,000 windfall in 1995 that followed years of poverty and personal struggles with shyness and self-doubt.

“People may call these ‘genius grants,’ ” Butler said in a 2004 interview with the Seattle P-I, “but nobody made me take an IQ test before I got mine. I knew I’m no genius.”

Perhaps best known for the book “Kindred,” in which a black woman from modern Los Angeles is transported back to the pre-Civil War slave era, she wrote about a dozen other books, including the most recent “Fledgling.”

She received a Hugo Award and Nebula Award.

First World Trade Center Bombing

Jon Ponder

The World Trade Center bombing that killed six and injured over 1,000 was 13 years ago today, February 26, 1993. The terrorists failed to bring down the towers that day but eventually succeeded, on September 11. 2001 — about eight and a half years later.

Keep that gap of eight years in mind the next time you hear a Bush worshiper argue that, in spite of his myriad mistakes and failures, at least Dear Leader has kept us safe from another attack.

It has only been four and a half years since the 9/11 attacks. And I think we can assume that when the folks at Al Qaeda hear these claims from Republicans what they hear is, “Bring it on.”

Jeb Mum on Port of Miami Takeover

Trish

There’s an odd silence coming from Florida’s top executive, compared with other states threatened by port takeovers by the United Arab Emirates.

A Florida editorial declined to play up Jeb’s omission, but then again, it didn’t have to.

Sleep well, Florida. The president — and Jeb — have got your back.

The governors of states affected by the sale are raising hell, and rightfully so. They, along with congressmen from those states are threatening all manner of legislative and legal roadblocks.

The editors chose to ask even better questions.

But Tuesday, President George Bush vowed to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the deal. He told reporters, “This is a country that has played by the rules, has been cooperative with the United States, from a country that’s been an ally on the war on terror, and it would send a terrible signal to friends and allies not to let this transaction go through.”

Would any of our “allies” in the Middle East allow the United States to oversee the operation of their ports and its national security? The answer’s pretty simple. They’re not that stupid. What’s that say about us?

Finally, how would you like to be the resident of a state where the major international port is controlled by the Arab world? Well, you are. Operations at the Port of Miami are being sold, along with others in New Jersey, New York, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

Sleep well. The president’s got your back.

Florida Republicans Up the Ante on Gay Marriage Ban

Trish

Having lost any claim to national defense (aka homeland security), fiscal responsibility, and limited government as core Republican values, Florida GOoPers are still hanging on to brand identity in one area: homophobia.

By many accounts the marriage amendment stands to mobilize religious conservatives who would likely vote Republican. Lee…said that has nothing to do with his supporting the party financing the effort

After sinking $150,000 of the $193,000 raised to put a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage before the voters this year, the Florida Republican Party is digging deeper. They’re throwing another $150,000 at the failed initiative.

Determined to get a gay marriage ban on the ballot for Florida voters, the state Republican Party has doubled its initial investment in the effort to $300,000.

State Senate President Tom Lee said the additional $150,000 came after Florida4marriage.org, the political committee working to amend the state Constitution, failed to get enough signatures in time to qualify for the 2006 ballot…

“I supported it because I know it’s an important issue to Republicans. I know it may not be more important than tax cuts, it may not be more important than property rights or whatever, but it is an element, just as the sanctity of life issues are an element of importance of our party,” Lee said.

Since gay marriage is already outlawed by the Florida legislature, Democrats think that what Lee really means is, “This is the only way we can get anyone who would vote for us to the polls.”

“It looks like they’re afraid they can’t win on the issues that actually matter to Floridians – issues like port security, offshore drilling, prescription drugs and class size reduction,” [State Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski] said.

By many accounts the marriage amendment stands to mobilize religious conservatives who would likely vote Republican. Lee is running for chief financial officer but said that has nothing to do with his supporting the party financing the effort.

No doubt he’s just concerned that his own marriage will fall apart if gays are allowed to marry. Let’s see, there’s a law against it, now they want an amendment barring it…what next? A proclamation from the governor? Or how about statutes in all 67 Florida counties? Yeah, that’ll turn out the base!