Search
You are currently browsing the CrazyDrumGuy weblog archives for July, 2008.
Archives
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
Popular Tags
Joe Biden CNN Mitt Romney president RNC Sarah Palin waterboarding torture meta Iraq George W. Bush Hillary Clinton John McCain Barack Obama 2008Archive for July, 2008
Fighting Back
It’s not 2004 anymore, folks. Team Obama is not going to let the Republicans get away with making shit up. Now that’s change I can believe in.
(via)
McCain Makes a Year’s Salary Without Showing Up
After I graduate college, I’m going to run for the US Senate. The pay is great, even if you don’t bother coming in to work:
- $51,345.08 - Senate salary John McCain has ‘earned’ since he last showed up in the Senate to perform his job on April 9, 2008.
- $48,201.00 - The median household income in the US in 2006.
John McCain has missed 399 votes–that’s 63.3% of all votes in the current Congress–yet he’s made more money in the time that he hasn’t voted than the average family makes in a year. He’s the only member of the Senate to miss more than half of the votes. Hell, he skipped the vote on the Medicare bill that even Ted Kennedy came back to vote on while he’s suffering from a brain tumor!
John McCain wants to run on his record, but right now his record is one of an absentee legislator. The last thing we need to follow the disaster of the Bush/Cheney presidency is a president who won’t even work half the time.
Ted Stevens Indicted
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate, has been indicted:
Government sources tell CBS News Republican Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has been indicted on seven charges related to a corruption probe.
A federal grand jury in Washington has handed up the indictment against Stevens — which the Justice Department is set to announce very shortly.
Stevens faces seven counts of false statements involving VECO, the oil services company in Alaska, and the renovations done on his home.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. More details as the story develops. Also, now wouldn’t be a terrible time to send some love over to Mark Begich.
Update: Teh Funny, courtesy of the fine folks over at CBS:
Update 2: It’s like Christmas in July:
Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and one of the chamber’s most powerful members, was indicted Tuesday in Washington for failing to disclose more than $250,000 worth of gifts that he received from businessmen who were seeking his help on federal issues and projects.
The seven-count indictment charges Stevens with making false statements by failing to disclose things of value he received from the Veco Corp., an Alaska-based oil services compmany, and from its CEO, Bill Allen, over an eight-year period.
The indictment charges that among the undeclared items were substantial improvements to Stevens’ home in Girdwood, Alaska; automobile exchanges in which he received new vehicles that were worth far more than the old ones he exchanged; and household goods, including a Viking gas grill.
Update 3: Here’s a thought. If the agents and prosecutors responsible for this indictment had been applying for their jobs when Alberto Gonzales was AG, would Monica Goodling have tossed out their applications?
Update 4: Teh Funny continues:
You’ve got ten prison cells going down a corridor. And what happens to your own personal prison cell? Just the other day, one of my staff members put me in a prison cell at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday. I just got out yesterday. Why? Because I got tangled up with all these things going on in the prison commercially.
The problem is that they want to deliver vast numbers of Republican convicts into the prisons. And again, prisons are not something you can just dump something in. PRISONS ARE NOT BIG TRUCKS. Really, they’re a series of tubes.
Now, if you don’t understand, you can fill these prison tubes with Republican felons, and if these tubes are filled, when you put more Republican convicts in, they get in line and they’re going to be delayed by anyone that puts into these tubes enormous amounts of Republican felons. Enormous amounts of Republican felons.
(Look over here if you don’t get it. )
Update 5: CQ Politics upgrades the Alaska Senate race from leans Republican to leans Democratic as a result of the indictment. Meanwhile, all across the country, vulnerable incumbent Republicans who took money from Stevens are giving it back.
Newsflash: Obama Thinks He Will Win
A crucial election news update:
Barack Obama told donors at a Monday night fundraiser just across the Potomac River from Washington that “the odds of us winning are very good.”…“What I knew and I think those who joined us early knew was that this was a moment for change, this was a moment for big ideas and really trying to push the envelope,” said Obama. “And people have responded all across the country. We are now in a position where the odds of us winning are very good. But it’s still going to be difficult.”
So, in other words… Barack Obama… in a room full of people he wants money from… says he thinks he will win the election. Stop the presses! It’s just shocking! No candidate before has been so bold! Assemble the talking heads!
Seriously. And these people are supposed to be “the best political team on television”? I mean, I know you have to fill 24 hours of news each day, but next time be more like the Washington Post and just reprint some old news from eight years ago.
Bush’s Parting Gift: Record-Setting Debt
Thanks, George, for all that fiscal responsibility:
The White House has increased its estimate for next year’s deficit to nearly $490 billion, a record figure that will saddle the next president with deepening budget problems in his first year in office, a report due out Monday shows.
The projected deficit for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is being driven higher by the continuing economic slowdown and larger-than-anticipated costs of the two-year, $168 billion fiscal stimulus package passed by Congress, said two senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the report. In February, President Bush predicted the 2009 deficit would be $407 billion.
The budget update shows this year’s deficit headed under $400 billion, at least $10 billion less than projected, according to the two officials. That’s partly because tax revenue held up reasonably well despite the weaker economy.
The rising deficit for 2009 marks a sharp turnaround for Bush’s fiscal legacy. He inherited a $128 billion surplus when he came into office in 2001. It soon turned to red ink because of a recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the war on terrorism.
In other words, not only did George Bush turn Bill Clinton’s budget surplus into a black hole, he managed to reverse his own deficit reduction. Heckuva job, Georgie!
DOJ Hiring Practices Broke the Law
Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general’s report released today.
Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party, said investigators, who interviewed 85 people and received information from 300 other job seekers at Justice. Sampson developed a system to screen immigration judge candidates based on improper political considerations and routinely took recommendations from the White House Office of Political Affairs and Presidential Personnel, the report said.
Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs: “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” the report said. One former Justice Department official told investigators she had complained that Goodling was asking interviewees for their views on abortion, according to the report.
You can read the full 146-page report here (PDF). For those who don’t have the time, the House Judiciary Committee picks out the good parts:
The report, released today by the Office of Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility found:
- Senior Bush Administration Department of Justice officials, including Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, Jan Williams, and others violated federal law and committed misconduct in basing hiring decisions for career prosecutor positions, details to senior Department offices and immigration judgeships on the applicant’s political affiliations and views. (125-27)
- The report highlighted political cronyism that was “particularly damaging” in a vital counterterrorism post when a qualified expert was rejected because his wife had the wrong political affiliation. Instead a candidate was chosen that “lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues” and who other DoJ officials believed “was not qualified for the position.” (136)
- Immigration judgeships were needlessly held vacant for long periods while Department leaders sought to identify politically suitable candidates, leading to a severe backlog of immigration matters. (128)
- Monica Goodling also made false statements to the Department’s own lawyers who were defending a lawsuit regarding Immigration Judge hiring. (138)
- A current Department official, John Nowacki, prepared and circulated a press release responding to public concern about these issues that he knew was false at the time; the report recommends that Mr. Nowacki be disciplined (127-28)
- Monica Goodling refused to approve several DOJ appointments for an AUSA who Ms. Goodling believed was gay. (132-33)
Of course, no disciplinary, criminal, or other action will come about as a result of this report since the individuals involved have all resigned and/or are suffering from temporary amnesia. Still, it’s good to know that those of us in the reality-based community were right all along.
Update: And while we’re on the subject, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, twenty days ago:
Steve Schmidt, the new man in day-to-day charge of the McCain presidential campaign, stoutly defended his lobbying and PR firm’s hiring of Tim Griffin, a former prosecutor who figured in the U.S. attorneys firing scandal.
…
Schmidt was untroubled by the firings, telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it was “mostly a combination of nonsense and politics and provides us no concern at all.”
Hispanics Prefer Obama by 40 Points
Remember Obama’s Hispanic problem? Remember all the times we heard that Latinos would vote for McCain en masse if we didn’t nominate Hillary? Yeah, not so much:
Hispanic registered voters support Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66% to 23%, according to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, from June 9 through July 13, 2008.
…
Obama is rated favorably by 76% of Latino registered voters, making him much more popular among that voting group than McCain (44% favorable) and President Bush (27% favorable). Hillary Clinton’s ratings among Latino registered voters are 73% favorable and 24% unfavorable; Obama’s are 76% favorable and 17% unfavorable.Also, more than three-quarters of Latinos who reported that they voted for Clinton in the primaries now say they are inclined to vote for Obama in the fall election, while just 8% say they are inclined to vote for McCain. That means that Obama is doing better among Hispanics who supported Clinton than he is among non-Hispanic white Clinton supporters, 70% of whom now say they have transferred their allegiance to Obama while 18% say they plan to vote for McCain, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Yes, who could have predicted that Latinos wouldn’t join the party of nativists just because we nominated a black guy. Yet another example of why the blubber heads on teevee are overpaid.
Surrender
Apparently that’s what most Americans want to do:
With the news that Iraq’s prime minister wants the US to set a timetable for withdrawal, 60% of registered voters believe it’s a good idea for the US to set such a timetable, while 30% say it’s a bad idea.
Why does America hate America?
McCain Proves the Surge Isn’t Working
Wow, it is just great to see the McCain campaign imploding over its self-appointed “best” issue, the War in Iraq. First, there was the lost in translation nonsense, then the Iraq-Pakistan border conflict, and now we get this:
The major Sunni sheik who John McCain said was protected by the surge and subsequently helped lead the Anbar Awakening, was actually assassinated by an al-Qaeda led group in midst of the surge.
On Tuesday evening, McCain falsely claimed that the downturn in violence in Iraq’s Anbar province was a result of the surge, when in fact the surge began months afterward. Moreover, he said, if it weren’t for the work of U.S. forces, the major Sunni figure leading that awakening wouldn’t have had the protection he needed.
“Colonel MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks,” said the Senator. “Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening.”
The Arizona Republican’s campaign went further the next day, claiming that the major figures that turned around Anbar province would have been killed had the surge policy not been in place. “If Barack Obama had had his way, the Sheiks who started the Awakening would have been murdered at the hands of al Qaeda,” said spokesman Tucker Bounds.
Sadly, that murder took place even with the surge underway. In September 2007, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the sheik widely credited with persuading Sunni leaders to turn against al Qaeda in Iraq, died in a bomb attack in Anbar. His work, prior to then, was held as a major effort in transforming the province from one of Iraq’s deadliest areas into one of its safest.
So in other words, the Glorious Surge is only working in some alternate universe where up is down, black is white, and people who died are still alive. I wonder if CBS will ever report that.
John McCain, Foreign Policy Expert
Because knowing how to win wars and knowing where we’re fighting wars apparently have nothing in common:
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) refused to call the situation in Afghanistan “precarious and urgent,” but admitted that “We have a lot of work to do.” He warned of a “very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.”
Ah yes, the periolous Iraq-Pakistan border, otherwise known as Iran.
Maybe in John McCain’s mind, he’s already skipped ahead to the part of his presidency where he has bomb bomb bomb, bomb bombed Iran and absorbed it into the “sovreign” nation of Iraq that he would have us occupy for a hundred years. Until then, though, maybe he ought to check out a map before he starts showing off more of that famous foreign policy expertise.