Quote of the Week


"While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies."

-House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D.-Cal.) after hearing from Yahoo Incorporated's chief executive officer Jerry Yang and its general counsel, Michael Callahan. (Yahoo upon request had provided the government of mainland China information about the online activities of journalist Shi Tao, who was then jailed for ten years for engaging in pro-democracy efforts.)

The Republican Media- No. 9

David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register appeared this morning on in a contiuation of MSNBC's "Super Tuesday" programming and made a remark that has been repeated, in slightly different words, throughout the media throughout this campaign. the generally objective Yepsen, who has a sterling reputation for knowledge of Iowa politics and is the source most sought after every four years to give his take on the caucus there, said of Rudolph Giuliani's alleged national security credentials: "He has a great portfolio on that."

Great portfolio? Is this the Rudolph Giuliani who established emergency management headquarters at the site most vulnerable to terrorist attack because he and his girlfriend could walk there from Gracie Mansion? Or the Rudolph who over several years failed to provide workable radios for the New York firemen, helping lead to many of their deaths on September 11, 2001? Or perhaps the Rudolph whose actions, according to the International Association of Firefighters "meant that firefighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill (while) hundreds remained entombed in Ground Zero when Giuliani gave up on them?"

Giuliani is no dark horse candidate and Yepsen is no Fox News flack. Rudolph is the leading Repub candidate in nationwide polls and the media's continuing assertions that the former mayor is somehow experienced in foreign policy amount to free and effective advertising.

Specter, Schumer Cave

The Huffington Post reports that Attorney General nominee Michael B. Mukasey was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee today by a vote of 11 to 8, with Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California breaking ranks with their Democratic colleagues. This virtually assures approval by the full Senate, though Democrats could filibuster, which of course they won't.

Approval came only after Senators Schumer and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, the ranking Repub, each had a chat with Mukasey. In what would have been a bizarre event- were it not the Bush White House, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in today's edition, prior to the vote

"A ranking White House official didn't ask, but told me that there was a question as to whether I would be breaching classified information by telling another committee member who had not been read into the program what the program was," Specter said. "How do you like that kettle of fish? And they expect us to pass on Mukasey?"
Specter, who was briefed on the interrogation program along with the committee chairman, Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.), said he took the warning as a threat.
"They didn't say I 'would be,' but they said I 'could be' and once they said I could be, you know damn well I wouldn't do it," the senator said. (A White House spokesman denied even subtlely threatening Specter.)

So in yet another of Arlen Specter's characteristic profiles of courage, he was threatened, then caved.

No matter. Senator Schumer, who had recommended the former federal district judge, who apparently can't decide whether waterboarding constitutes torture, decided to vote for Mukasey after speaking to him last week. Specter was allegedly reassured by the candidate after talking to him yesterday, November 5. Two questions occur: does a member of Congress ever vote against a nominee after speaking personally to him/her? And if not, is the conversation much more than a charade- an opportunity to rationalize a vote in favor of a controversial nominee?

Our Buddy Musharraf

Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf may have declared a state of emergency throughout Pakistan and, as time.com notes, "suspended the constitution, blacked out domestic TV news broadcasts and arrested lawyers, human rights advocates and opposition political party figures." The U.S. government may be paying him approximately $80 million a month, approximately $1 billion a year, approximately $5.6 billion since payments began in October, 2001. And perhaps Musharraf inked a deal with militants in North Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, the center of al Qaeda operations, assuring the extremists that his army would no longer conduct operations against them. And suppose Abdul Abdeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, had transferred nuclear technology to libya, Iran, and North Korea (two-thirds of the "axis of evil") from the late 1980's to the late 1990's, was caught, confessed, and pardoned in 2004 by Musharraf, supported by George W. Bush's State Department.

Now suppose all this happened and the President of the United States of America, father of Gulf War II and the man who "looked (Vladimir Putin) in the eye" and "found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy" lectures the American people "Pervez Musharraf has been a strong fighter against extremists and radicals."

This is southcentral Asia, where India and Pakistan face each other across a nuclear chasm. And this could be a nightmare, but instead is the latest indication of the horror Antonin Scalia and four other judge/politicans visited upon our country when they decided seven years ago that the votes of south Floridians were not worthy of being counted.

Reflections on the Debate (Philadelphia)- no. 5

These guys are dangerous. Maybe Barack Obama was a community organizer. It's beginning to appear that the target audience for not only John Edwards but also Barack Obama is Main Street, not Wall Street. Here are a few examples from these fellows from the 10/31/07 Presidential debate in Philadelphia, Pa.


In response to a question about oil prices, John Edwards said in part "well, what we can do in the short term—and I will do as president—is ensure that my Justice Department investigates what these oil companies who are vertically integrated, you know, from refinery to pump, are doing." Asked about the Alternative Minimum Tax, Senator Obama got a little off the subject, but rightly maintained "I want to make sure that seniors who are making less than $50,000, that they get some relief in terms of the taxes on their Social Security. Those kinds of progressive tax steps, while closing loopholes and rolling back the Bush tax cuts to the top 1 percent, simply restores some fairness and a sense that we’re all in this together, as opposed to each of us being in it on our own."

And after criticizing lobbyinsts for hedge funds, Edwards noted "we decided to try to keep the country safer by inspecting containers that come into this country. And who lobbied against it? The biggest company in America: Wal-Mart. We’ve had trade deals that have cost us millions of jobs, and what did America get in return? We got millions of dangerous Chinese toys."

Cutting taxes for those (elderly) earning little, questioning individualism ("as opposed to each of us being in it on our own") at the expense of community, criticizing a corporate behemoth, and questioning our trade policy that aids the mainland Chinese at the expense of consumers and workers. Dangerous ideas. Senator Clinton will not embrace them. The media will be skeptical of them. And the Repubs will be horrified.

Quote of the Week


"You probably couldn't find one middle-class Canadian who would trade our system for yours."

- Steve Paikin, author of "The New Game- How Hockey Saved Itself," responding to guest host David Shuster about health care on MSNBC's "Tucker," on 10/31/07

Reflections on the Debate (Philadelphia)- no. 4


Thanks to Tim Russert's questioning at the Democratic debate on 10/31/07 at Drexel University, we now have a fairly good idea what the three leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for President believe about one of the most viable options for reforming Social Security. Asked about raising the cap from $97,500, Senator Clinton stated


So when somebody asks me, would something like this be considered, well, anything could be considered when we get to a bipartisan commission. But personally, I am not going to be advocating any specific fix until I am seriously approaching fiscal responsibility.

Thus, the frontrunner's response: maybe, assuming I get political cover. Later in the same discussion, Senator Obama explained:

So what I’ve said, and I know some others on this stage have said, is that among the options that are available, the best one is to lift the cap on the payroll tax, potentially exempting folks in the middle— middle class folks— but making sure that the wealthy are paying more of their fair share—a little bit more.

Thus, the response from the guy in second place: sounds like a good idea.

We already had heard from the guy in third place. Edwards has advocated the approach Obama describes as "exempting folks in the middle- middle class folks." To be sure, individuals earning more than $97,500 annually are in most states upper middle class, but there may be some policy value exempting those earning say, $150,000 a year, aside from the obvious advantage of political viability. And of course, the idea that someone accruing a half million, or a million, dollars a year should have to pay more to help the elderly in itself is anathema to most professional Repubs, who by their support for a cap demonstrate a belief that wages earned by middle class workers are somehow tainted.