Month: May 2007

Fred Thompson Worked as a Washington Lobbyist for 18 Years

Jon Ponder

There’s fresh word today that Fred Thompson will announce in July that he is getting in the GOP presidential race. Coincidentally, here’s a bullet point on his resume that was news to me:

Thompson’s successes as a lobbyist include pushing for deregulatory legislation that led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s

Over about two decades of lobbying (during which he also acted and practiced law), Thompson made nearly $1.3 million and represented clients including a British reinsurance company facing billions of dollars in asbestos claims, Canadian-owned cable companies, and deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to government documents and media accounts from his first run for the Senate in 1994…’There’s nothing wrong with lobbying. It’s an honorable profession,’ Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo said…A year after stepping down [from the Senate in January 2003], he registered to lobby for British reinsurance company Equitas Ltd. The company paid him $760,000 to guard its interests against several bills seeking to protect businesses from asbestos lawsuits.

And:

Critics point out that Thompson’s aw-shucks, shit-kicker populism is more than a little bit phony. That he spent 18 years as a registered Washington lobbyist, doing the bidding of such high-powered clients as General Electric and Westinghouse, pushing for the passage of the deregulatory legislation that led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s.

Conservatives have been hailing Fred as the living incarnation of St. Ronnie, but “Republican lobbyist” has become synonymous with “D.C. call girl,” thanks to Jack Abramoff and his merry band of pranksters and murderers.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Journalism in America is not only an obsession but a drawback that cannot be overrated. Politicians are frightened of the press, and in the same way as bull-fighting has a brutalizing effect upon Spain (of which she is unconscious), headlines of murder, rape and rubbish excite and demoralize the American public.

— Margot Asquith

DeLay: My Adultery Was Less Immoral Than Newt’s

Jon Ponder

In his book, “No Retreat, No Surrender,” Tom DeLay, the indicted former House Majority Leader, admits that in the days when he was drinking as many as 10 martinis a day, he engaged in extramarital affairs:

“I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There’s a big difference.”
— Tom DeLay

In this period, he earned the nickname Hot Tub Tom. Then he found Jesus and, he said, stopped sinning. In the book, he freely confesses to committing adultery. “I had put my needs first,” he told me. “I was on the throne, not God. I had pushed God from His throne.”

In the book, DeLay attacked his former colleague, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, for having an affair while he was leading the impeachment of Pres. Bill Clinton because he committed perjury when asked under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. DeLay says Gingrich’s adultery was worse than his — due to the implicit hypocrisy:

[Gingrich was] conducting an affair with a Capitol Hill employee during the 1998 impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. (The woman later became Gingrich’s third wife.) “Yes, I don’t think that Newt could set a high moral standard, a high moral tone, during that moment,” DeLay said. “You can’t do that if you’re keeping secrets about your own adulterous affairs.”

A reasonable person might see this as splitting hairs, but so-called Christians always have an “out” when it comes to accountability:

“I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There’s a big difference … Also, I had returned to Christ and repented my sins by that time.”

But what about “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” Tom?

Christians Wait Until Cheney Infant Is Six Days Old Before Attacking His Gay Parents

Jon Ponder


Six days after the birth of his grandson, the Republican Party’s Christian base launched a vicious attack yesterday on Vice Pres. Cheney’s gay daughter, Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe. The assault came from Concerned Women of America, an anti-feminist organization that promotes homophobia, which issued a statement denigrating the relationship between Poe and her son, specifically, and all adoptive parents, in general.

“[The] President’s number two, right hand man, Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly rebels against his superior, makes a public mockery of the President … and clearly holds to a different set of moral standards and beliefs.”
— Concerned Women for America

CWA is upset because the caption of a photo of the vice president and his wife holding the baby posted on the White House website read, “[The baby’s] parents are the Cheney’s daughter Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe.” The group objects to this description of the Cheneys’ family arrangements, but the tone of the the statement is unusually bitter and mean-spirited, especially considering the fact there is an blameless infant at the bullseye of their attack:

If the Vice President and his wife Lynne are joining their daughter Mary in playing this homosexual game of “house,” then all have chosen their roles and designated lesbian lover Heather Poe as the “Daddy.”

Everyone knows there can only be one REAL biological Mommy. We are all grown adults. Playing “house” is a game for children, not for The White House or the Vice President and his wife.

Got that, adoptive parents? You’ll never be REAL parents to your children, so you might as well ship them back to the orphanage.

What is so hypocritical of this Administration is its “double-speak.”

President George W. Bush held several presses conferences calling for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect the God-ordained institution of marriage between one man and one woman, while homosexuals pushed for the union of two men or two women to be equally recognized as real “marriage.”

However, the President’s number two, right hand man, Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly rebels against his superior, makes a public mockery of the President and the current Administration he is supposed to represent, and clearly holds to a different set of moral standards and beliefs.

When President Bush stood on the victory stage several years ago after being elected into office by values voters, Mary Cheney was on stage as well with her lesbian lover, Heather Poe. It was a slap in the face to the values voters who had just elected the duo into office. That wound has never healed.

While this little innocent child Samuel David Cheney deserves every fighting chance at life, the sins of two women, Mary Cheney and Heather Poe, have deliberately denied the Vice President’s grandson one of the most basic human rights of all: the right to a Daddy and a Mommy.

I say shame on the White House, shame on the President and shame on the Vice President for allowing such a caption to be “officially” added onto the White House website and such a beautiful photo of two happy grandparents and their new grandchild.

Predictably, the author of this homophobic screed is a bisexual:

[Stephen] Bennett lived the homosexual lifestyle for over 11 years with over 100 partners, until he finally left it all in 1992. Today, Stephen is happily married to his wife Irene of almost 14 years.

(According to his bio, Bennett also operates a website that apparently provides resources and support for Christians who are shunning their gay children and relatives. What would Jesus do, indeed.)

Vice Pres. Cheney is the Bush administration’s designated attack dog. In 2003, for example, he famously went so far as to potentially jeopardize national security when he directed a campaign to out a covert CIA specialist in weapons of mass destruction, Valerie Plame Wilson, after her husband accused Pres. Bush of lying in his State of the Union speech about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities.

But chances are slim that the vice president will seek revenge against Concerned Women of America over this assault on his family. CWA is too important to his ever-dwindling political base. His daughter, her partner and their baby are merely collateral damage in the political wars.

Give Us Your Tired But You Keep Your Poor

Trish

Without even waiting for the other snobbish and judgmental rules of the new immigration bill to go into effect, the Bush administration is plowing ahead to put all the costs of coming to this country on the new residents. No matter how much benefit you believe we get from immigrants — whether it’s a lot or a little — this hardly seems fair.

But no one ever accused George W. Bush of being fair. The new asking price for citizenship tells us that in his view, the only good immigrant is a rich immigrant.

When my grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Italy in the 19-teens, his family could have never afforded fees like these

…the Bush administration made final Tuesday a new set of fees that will significantly hike the cost of becoming a U.S. citizen or legal resident.

Beginning July 30, the citizenship fee will rise to $595 from $330. Those seeking to become legal permanent residents will see the cost nearly triple to $930 — plus a fingerprinting charge.

The $930 is higher than the $905 fee proposed for legal residency in February, when critics charged that the government was pricing residency beyond the reach of many potential applicants.

But, in what Citizenship and Immigration Services chief Emilio Gonzales said was a change in favor of families, the cost to process a child as a legal resident will be cut to $600 from the proposed $805.

That means a family of two adults and two children will pay $3,060 to become legal residents, compared to $1,100 under the current fees.

But, see, we really need the money. We have to grow the government even more, as we have at unprecedented rates already, under Bush.

Citizen and Immigration Services needs the additional $1 billion that the fee increases will raise to hire personnel, upgrade computer systems, train employees and make other improvements…

Gonzales acknowledged the fee hikes are steep, but vowed that the increased revenue would help reinvent the agency, with a 20 percent improvement in service in the first year…

The agency gets more than 90 percent of its funding from the fees and will have a budget of about $2.3 billion after the new fee structure goes into effect, officials said.

I don’t know about you but I’d say that having the Immigration Service work 20 percent better is money well extorted.

When my grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Italy in the 19-teens, his family could have never afforded fees like these. It was all they could do to scrape up the money for some fake papers and a ticket on a boat bound for Ellis Island.

Unfortunately, Grandpa spent the whole voyage arffing over the rail or passed out in steerage, so he failed to memorize the false information in his papers, such as what his name was supposed to be, who had sponsored him, where he would be living, who his closest relatives in America were, etc. He was shipped right back to Italy. The next time he made the crossing, he studied harder and gave the right fake answers. He passed his citizenship test for real in the 1950s.

Guvs Starting to Dole Out Endorsements to Prez Candidates

Buck Banks

Is it me, or does it seem way early for governors to be backing candidates in the run for the White House? Nonetheless, they are choosing their horses early, with Hillary Clinton and John McCain getting more goodwill of the guvs:

New York’s U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Arizona’s U.S. Sen. John McCain have garnered the most gubernatorial endorsements with three each.

Stumping for Clinton are Democratic Govs. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Eliot Spitzer of Clinton’s adopted state of New York. In McCain’s corner are Republican Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Jon Huntsman of Utah.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) enjoys the backing of Democratic Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Rod Blagojevich of his current home state of Illinois. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has the endorsement of Republican Govs. Matt Blunt of Missouri and Don Carcieri of Rhode Island.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds (R) backs former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). The only sitting governor in the presidential race — Democratic New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — has yet to be politically blessed by any of his gubernatorial colleagues. Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) also has not been endorsed by any current governor to date.

Predictably, governors of early primary states and caucus states are showing admirable restraint by not endorsing any candidate, preferring, it seems, to let their voters decide for themselves — next year.

It’s Official: Plame was Covert – So Federal Law Was Broken, But ‘Rule of Law’ Only Applies to Dems

Jon Ponder

From the beginning of the scandal around the outing of the CIA secret agent Valerie Plame by top White House officials, Bush’s spinners and GOP operatives have worked as hard as they could to create confusion about Wilson’s status as a covert agent. The desperation with which they have tried to muddy the waters about Wilson’s undercover status is a clue to how dangerous they consider this piece of information to be.

Now we see for certain what many of us have long suspected: For Republicans, the rule of law only applies to Democrats.

For starters, if the public believed Wilson was covert, the fact that her cover was blown by top White House officials, including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby — who was working under instructions from his boss, Vice Pres. Cheney — would be construed as unseemly, at the very least.

Of course, White House officials are restricted from revealing government secrets by their security clearances. But what had many top West Wingers concerned was the fact that there’s also a specific law, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), that forbids government officials from revealing the identity of covert personnel. In fact, former White House spokesperson Ari Fletcher was so concerned that he may have run afoul of the IIPA that he sought, and was granted, immunity from prosecution before he testified.

When Valerie Wilson testified before a House committee in March, she said, under oath, that she was covert. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) also read a statement from Gen. Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA, that stated that Wilson was covert at the time she was outed. And yet, the White House and GOP operatives have continued to lie about Wilson’s status.

While it is doubtful that anything can stop them, there is finally official confirmation now from the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald — writing in a recommendation for Scooter Libby’s sentencing for perjury related to the case — that Valerie Wilson was indeed covert:

The unclassified summary of Plame’s employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, “Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”

Former CIA agent Larry Johnson, who was a colleague of Wilson’s, says this confirmation of Wilson’s status bolsters the charge that Rove, Libby and others violated the IIPA when they revealed her identity to reporters:

Fitz makes the following points:
– Valerie Wilson was an operations officer working in the Counter Proliferation Division (CPD) of the Directorate of Operations and headed a unit that covered weapons proliferation issues concerning Iraq.
– While in CPD Valerie traveled overseas seven times to more than ten countries always, repeat always, undercover.
– Valerie was a covert officer on 14 July 2003, when Novak identified her as a CIA employee.
– The CIA was taking "affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."

Despite this development, there remains little or no chance that these White House officials will be held accountable for revealing Wilson’s identity — which is egregiously compounded by the fact that Wilson was a specialist in tracking black-market sales of weapons of mass destruction. We will probably never know what sources and counter-proliferation activities were compromised by the treasonous actions of Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.

At the very least, we are left to wonder why Karl Rove still has a security clearance for working at the White House.

It was just a decade ago that Republicans hounded the Clinton White House over every perceived and/or fabricated infraction.Their strategy was to hobble and render ineffective an American president proved unsuccessful, so they switched their focus to Pres. Clinton’s sex life, which led them to impeach him over a sex lie.

All the while they were leading the nation down the dangerous path toward overthrowing its duly and twice-elected government, they claimed they were only concerned with “the rule of law.” Now we see for certain what many of us have long suspected: For Republicans, the rule of law only applies to Democrats.

Cindy Sheehan’s Parting Shot

Trish

Almost from the beginning, I had mixed feelings about Cindy Sheehan. I say “almost” because back at the very beginning, before I read anything she said or wrote and only heard there was a mother of a fallen soldier protesting the Iraq Occupation, I thought, “Wow, that’s wonderful.”

What Sheehan said or did never moved me precisely because of the way she said and did it.

But when I got more exposure to the actual person — through the press of course — I had my doubts. I felt I had met Cindy, and one-issue crusaders like her were the reason I got out of party politics. I found it much more fulfilling to work with individual candidates because at every party meeting, there was a Cindy or two who caused a complete and utter logjam with their inability to see shades of gray or look on compromise solutions as anything but defeat. Everything was a zero sum game to them.

I think all of our hearts go out to Sheehan for the loss of her son and for her determination not to back down. But admiration and liking are two different things. She’s a hard person to like.

Take, for example, her pity party today in which she both announced she’s quitting her protest of the Occupation and lashed out at every single American except herself.

I have spent every available cent I got from the money a “grateful” country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

That’s the kind of stuff, bordering on codependence, that made me tune Cindy out.

On the other hand, she’s right about a few things.

Casey died for a country that cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months…

Good-bye America… you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

Of course we’ll manage to go forth without Sheehan and I’m not trying to be snippy about that, only stating a fact. In the end, I feel the same way about her as I did almost at the beginning. What she said or did never moved me precisely because of the way she said and did it.

Poll: Americans Seeking the Anti-Bush for Next Prez

Buck Banks

When I was a kid, I used to read comic books where the plots explored alternate universes (apparently due to a lack of plausible plot ideas). In these alternate comics, Superman would use his powers for evil and was a really unlikeable character, etc. In a recent Zogby poll, it appears that, after nearly two terms of George W. Bush, Americans are ready for their own version of an alternate universe, one featuring the anti-George. You know, someone with diplomatic, managerial, verbal and math skills:

On the traits most important to voters, the front-runners of both parties — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani — were deemed well-equipped to deliver.

The results suggest that Americans are looking for strong, unifying leadership skills both at home and abroad. About eight in 10 said it was very important to elect a “competent manager” and someone who could “bring the American people together.” Also very high on the priority list: someone who could take charge of the military, promote the United States’ image abroad and demonstrate “personal morality.” Lower on the list of priorities were party loyalty and resume-oriented measures such asbusiness, diplomatic or legislative experience.

On the traits most important to voters, the front-runners of both parties — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani — were deemed well-equipped to deliver. They were the top two out of 19 prospective candidates characterized as competent managers. On foreign policy matters, Clinton topped the list, with 24 percent saying she could best promote the U.S. image abroad; Giuliani came in second with 16 percent.

Who’d most likely be a “uniter, not a divider,” for the American people? Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., came out ahead of Clinton on that measure, tying Giuliani for the top spot with 22 percent. But when it comes to uniting partisans on Capitol Hill, more respondents had faith in Clinton (19 percent) than Obama (15 percent).

On the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain’s military experience is still his greatest asset, with one-third saying he’d be the best candidate to command the armed forces.

Meanwhile, the “moral values” question remains Giuliani’s Achilles’ heel. Only 6 percent of respondents said he displayed personal morality, while McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) registered in the teens. In a CBS News/New York Times poll last week, 37 percent of respondents said they did not think Giuliani shared the same values as “most Republicans”; the same percentage said he does. But in that poll’s primary matchup, Giuliani still topped McCain and Romney among Republican voters.