Day: October 27, 2008

Palin’s GOP Future

From an article written in the Politico.com by Garry South.

Many of my down-in-the-mouth Republican friends, contemplating the ongoing implosion of John McCain’s campaign, are consoling themselves with the idea that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin represents the future of the party. She’s the new rock star in the firmament of the Grand Old Party, they’re convinced — and she certainly will be the presumed favorite for the Republican nomination in 2012.

All I can tell them is, don’t bet the bank on it. (OK, maybe under our economic circumstances that’s not quite the right choice of terminology, but you know what I mean.) During my lifetime (I was born in 1951), only one nonincumbent vice presidential nominee on a losing ticket — Bob Dole, who ran with President Gerald Ford in 1976 — has ever come back to win their party’s nomination, and none has ever been elected president.

The first woman ever to serve on a major-party ticket, of course, was New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. Although the bright, feisty congresswoman briefly energized the Democratic base, especially women voters, President Ronald Reagan ultimately annihilated her and Walter F. Mondale. Not only did Ferraro never run for president herself, she also lost two subsequent Democratic primary campaigns for the U.S. Senate in New York in 1992 and 1998, which ended her political career.

Despite McCain’s continued gushing about the brilliance of his picking Palin, it is crystal clear that she has in fact become a major liability and drag for the Republican ticket. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed that 55 percent think she’s unqualified to be president, and carries the only net-negative rating (38-47) of the four major-party candidates. That survey also found that Palin’s qualifications to be president now rank as the voters’ top concern about McCain — even ahead of his continuing George W. Bush’s policies. The latest New York Times/CBS poll shows Palin with the highest negative for a vice presidential candidate in the 28-year history of the survey — higher even than the hapless Dan Quayle’s in 1988.

After the McCain-Palin ticket gets its head handed to it next week, I suspect Palin will snag a lucrative book deal from some right-wing publisher and go on the rubber-chicken circuit, giving paid speeches to adoring conservative gatherings. She will continue to be the ethically challenged governor of the 47th-largest state, of course, with fewer residents than Barack Obama’s old Illinois state Senate district. Maybe now she will even have time to actually visit that Alaskan island in the Bering Sea from which you can see the Russian landmass.

Complaining About “Socialism”

THis is an op-ed piece from the People’s Weekly World

John McCain has been describing Barack Obama as a “socialist” because the Illinois senator would impose higher taxes on the wealthy than on the working class and poor. McCain says this amounts to an “unacceptable” redistribution of wealth.

Let’s grant, for a moment, that the Obama plan really amounts to redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Let’s grant, just for the moment, that this really can be defined as a form of “socialism.”

How then would we define the upward redistribution of wealth that Congress approved in the Wall Street bailout package? The deal takes tax money from folks who earn $40,000 annually and hands it to bankers who, at the low end of their scale, make $4,000,000 per year.

McCain says he wants everyone to have the chance to get rich. But doesn’t the massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich that Congress just approved make that even more impossible than it already is? I’m not an economist, by any means. It seems to me, however, that the bailout only worsens the enormous income inequality between workers and Wall Street execs. It seems to me this only puts further out of reach for more millions the age old American Dream of “moving on up.” It seems to me that Obama’s approach would put that dream a bit more in reach and allow more people to move up a bit. It seems to me that the Obama approach makes for at least a little more economic democracy.
So far, nothing has been done to help bail out Main Street and none of the $700 billion approved for Wall Street has yet been used to help anyone other than the Wall Street moneymakers themselves.

Thus far Wall Street bankers have used the handout that we pay for to buy up other companies. They have even used some of it to go on $500,000 all-expense-paid “retreats” to discuss their next moves. They decided, during one of these “retreats,” to use some of the bailout money to pay lobbyists who will — guess what — lobby for additional taxpayer handouts. There is also evidence that quite a bit of the bailout money they have already received is being hoarded.

Be all that as it may, one thing is clear. They are not using the money for what we were told they were going to use it: pumping it into the market so that credit would again be available not just to Wall Street but to Main Street.

The issue during this major crisis of American capitalism is not that Obama or anyone else is trying to slip “socialism” into the picture. The issue is, as the economist, Dean Baker put it recently:

“Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson mailed $150 billion in checks to the big banks. From that point forward, the CEOs and all other top executives of these banks are now our dependents. They are living off the tax dollars of schoolteachers in Iowa, truck drivers in Montana and even Joe the Plumber.”

The Left And Liberals and Progressives, Oh My!

For some unknown reason conservatives, all of them, have a problem differentiating those three types of Dems.  They have the tendency to lump all of them into the same envelope.  For instance, just what does “The Left” mean?  Who is the liberal?  Who are those darn Progressives?  Are they the same person?  These terms are “generic” for anyone not a conservative.  But who among them know the difference?  To them it is just labels to tag there opponents with in any election.

All are the “bogey man” to conservatives.  What does The Left really mean?  They are a much aligned and demonized sector of the political landscape.  These guys are the ones that everyone feared 50 years ago…they believe in health care for all birth to grave.  They think education should be free from K through college.  They are the ones who work for better labor practices from the government and corporations.  They are the ones that truly believe there are different classes within the societal make-up of the country.  In the past the Left was those darn pesky socialists.  Sorry to inform you but those days are gone and the Left is all but dead, except in the minds of old fart conservatives, which there is still a wealth of in the political parties.

Enter the Progressives–which can best be characterized in today’s terms as a revolutionary democrat.  They still believe in the value of the ballot box, but in a different way.  They believe that the people should make and vote on most major issues addressed by the government.  They believe that the people should participate in the government not be a spectator.

Oh my God, those damn LIBERALS–according to today’s campaigns they are anti-American, socialist, communist, unAmerican, unpatriotic, is that enough?  Liberals are nothing more than the opposite side of the same coin in the two party system.  Mostly, they are centrists which have a slight, ever so slight, lean to the left, but not enough to be called a leftist.

I submit that there is NOTHING sinister about being on the Left of the political spectrum. Just means that domestic and social policies are more important than being able to kick Iran’s ass in a fight.  To demonize a person because they are truly the ones putting “country first” is just moronic.  There is one of my fav sayings by John Mills, “I am not saying that conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives”.

There is another old saying “a liberal leaves the room when a fight breaks out.”  I added to it “A radical starts the fight and a conservative hires someone to do the fighting”.  By labeling people you can demonize all of the political thought as…..well whatever you want to label it….it is a coward’s way to approaching a disagreement……

Taliban Negotiations Begin

A major push to open negotiations with the Taliban on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border will begin Monday at a summit of leading political figures from the two countries, as the U.S.-backed governments in Kabul and Islamabad face a mounting threat from Islamic extremists.

Pakistani Taliban, based in the country’s tribal border area with Afghanistan, have joined the battle in Afghanistan and also taken on Islamabad. Nevertheless, the assembly of 50 people, called a jirga, which will meet for two days in Islamabad with the backing of both governments, is likely to question the continued presence of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a participant and a former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, said it’s impossible to deal with the Taliban while Western forces remain in Afghanistan. He also said that the Kabul and Islamabad governments must drop their insistence that they’ll negotiate only with Taliban who’ve disarmed.

This year has been the most violent in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban regime. Signs that Western will may be collapsing have panicked many Afghans, who fear that the international community is about to abandon them once again, as it did after the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989.

US Attacks Syria

U.S. forces ferried by helicopter Sunday crossed five miles into Syria from Iraq and launched a commando raid that left at least eight people dead, Syrian news outlets and sources reported.

Syria has long been a conduit for foreign fighters attempting to slip into Iraq to attack U.S. troops. American officials say that military action in Iraq has reduced the number of those fighters. And tense relations between Damascus and the Iraqi government have improved enough that this month Syria sent an ambassador to Baghdad for the first time since the early 1980s.

But U.S. officials complain that militants still are able to operate openly in Syria, and that the Damascus government needs to do more to rein them in. They accuse fighters who filtered across the Syrian border of fomenting trouble recently in the northern city of Mosul, and of an attack in May that killed 11 Iraqi policemen.

Details of the attack Sunday were sketchy. A military officer in Iraq confirmed that U.S. forces had conducted a raid into Syria, but declined to provide more information. In Washington, several military representatives who were asked about the operation did not deny that a raid had taken place. Although they would not confirm the attack, they used language typically employed after raids conducted by secretive special operations forces.
It was unclear how the raid would affect U.S.-Iraqi negotiations over an agreement to extend the American military presence in Iraq. Syria and Iran have opposed the agreement, in part out of fear that U.S. forces would use Iraq as a base to strike at them.

U.S. officials have asked Arab leaders to pressure Syria to tighten its visa restrictions on “military-aged males,” in an effort to prevent would-be militants from flying to Damascus and then making their way to the Iraqi border.

More On The Palin Pipeline

Gov. Sarah Palin’s signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence.

“We’re building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America’s largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever, to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets,” Palin said during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate.

Despite Palin’s boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp.

_Instead of creating a process that would attract many potential builders, Palin slanted the terms away from an important group — the global energy giants that own the rights to the gas.

_Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.

_The leader of Palin’s pipeline team had been a partner at a lobbying firm where she worked on behalf of a TransCanada subsidiary. Also, that woman’s former business partner at the lobbying firm was TransCanada’s lead private lobbyist on the pipeline deal, interacting with legislators in the weeks before the vote to grant TransCanada the contract. Plus, a former TransCanada executive served as an outside consultant to Palin’s pipeline team.

_Under a different set of rules four years earlier, TransCanada had offered to build the pipeline without a state subsidy; under Palin, the company could receive a maximum $500 million.

Have you heard any of this in the TV media?

This Just Sucks!

I am a political junkie and do very little reading of fiction, but when I do it is a Hillerman novel.

This is a story in AP.

Tony Hillerman, author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes — Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee — died Sunday of pulmonary failure. He was 83.

Hillerman’s daughter, Anne Hillerman, said her father’s health had been declining in the last couple years and that he was at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque when he died at about 3 p.m.

Hillerman lived through two heart attacks and surgeries for prostate and bladder cancer. He kept tapping at his keyboard even as his eyes began to dim, as his hearing faded, as rheumatoid arthritis turned his hands into claws.

Lt. Joe Leaphorn, introduced in “The Blessing Way” in 1970, was an experienced police officer who understood, but did not share, his people’s traditional belief in a rich spirit world. Officer Jim Chee, introduced in “People of Darkness” in 1978, was a younger officer studying to become a “hathaali” — Navajo for “shaman.”

Together, they struggled daily to bridge the cultural divide between the dominant Anglo society and the impoverished people who call themselves the Dineh.

Hillerman’s commercial breakthrough was “Skinwalkers,” published in 1987 — the first time he put both characters and their divergent world views in the same book. It sold 430,000 hardcover copies, paving the way for “A Thief of Time,” which made several best seller lists. In all, he wrote 18 books in the Navajo series, the most recent titled “The Shape Shifter.”

Each is characterized by an unadorned writing style, intricate plotting, memorable characterization and vivid descriptions of Indian rituals and of the vast plateau of the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.

Who Will Use Force?

The WaPo has this Robt. Kaiser article

The well-advertised differences between John McCain and Barack Obama on the war in Iraq may obscure a consequential similarity between their hawkish views on the use of American military force in other places.

Just two questions in the three debates between the two nominees touched on the subject, and neither has spoken at length on it during a fall campaign dominated by economic issues. Yet both have revealed a willingness to commit U.S. forces overseas for both strategic and humanitarian purposes. Both agree on a course of action in Afghanistan that could lead to a long-term commitment of American soldiers without a clear statement of how long they might remain or what conditions would lead to their withdrawal.

Both candidates favor expanding the armed forces, Obama by 92,000 and McCain by as many as 150,000. Both speak of situations when the United States might have to commit its troops for “moral” reasons, whether or not a vital American interest was at risk. Both accept what Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor at Boston University, calls the “unspoken consensus which commits the United States to permanent military primacy” — shared, Bacevich said, by leading figures in both parties

Neither candidate has spoken explicitly about how American and NATO forces would get out of Afghanistan.

WSJ Tells Voters To Vote For Party

It is common to hear people say “I vote for the person, not the party.” That kind of thinking is especially widespread in this election, where John McCain is old and stuffy and Barack Obama is young and hip. For a young person, it would be much more fun to have dinner and drinks with Mr. Obama than with Mr. McCain.

But that’s not going to happen. The chance of any one of us spending more than a few seconds with either candidate is virtually zero. In no sense is the personality of the president relevant for our lives.

Politics is a team game. A president chooses an administration — a lineup to run the government. The public focuses on the cabinet, but the choices go much deeper. Every level of government is influenced by choices from the top, and all levels of policy are controlled by these choices.

Everyone will be pushing for the same goals. These goals include the growth of government in all aspects, higher taxes and spending, expansion of government-run programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and other health programs, more regulatory control, more power and money for political allies such as the trial lawyers and unions, and less free trade. All the players will want the same things, and so we will get them.

The Republicans, the smaller-government party, grew government by a large amount when they controlled Congress and the presidency. Imagine what the Democrats, the philosophically big-government party, will do if they have this level of control.

If ever there was an election where it is important to vote for the party and not the person, this is the one.

And IU bet you thought that this would be an unbiased look at the coming election…..think again.