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Each succeeeding Wikileaks docudump leaves me "meh." I think I finally know why.
We lied about why we invaded a country, ending over a hundred thousand lives before their time, wounding many more, displacing more still.
Our chief executive at the time goes on book tours. Senators like Judd Gregg leave the stage with full honors. Congresscritters like Charlie Bass get re-elected.
This is the accountability lesson we are leaving our children.
First of all, congratulations on your victories in 2010. You've earned the right to celebrate. For a moment, though, I hope you'll indulge me in a discussion of a profound responsibility shared by New Hampshire voters of all persuasions: picking Presidents.
Ten years ago, the Iowa Caucus sent you George W. Bush, and you picked John McCain-an admirable choice. In 2008, the Iowa Caucus sent you Mike Huckabee, and you again picked John McCain-a shadow of his former self, but still a superior choice. In both cases, you saw an unreasonable choice out of Iowa and with the eyes of the world on you, you said no. I respect you for that. Although I'm a Democrat who supported Gore and Obama, I'm proud of my state to think of what you Republicans did in those primaries.
We need you to do it again.
All signs point to the disturbing possibility of former Governor Sarah Palin running for President in 2012. I don't need to explain to you all the ways in which she isn't worthy of the job; we've all become very familiar with her in the past few years. McCain's choice of Palin as a running mate was staggeringly irresponsible. Governor Palin's entry onto the national political stage is an insult to the intelligence of the American people, and especially to that of Republicans.
America can do better than Sarah Palin. Republicans can do better than Sarah Palin. Republican women can do better than Sarah Palin. Republican women from Alaska can do better than Sarah Palin. You better believe that New Hampshire Republican primary voters can do better than Sarah Palin. And, fellow New Hampshirites, I hope you do.
I want to make it clear that I do not fear she'd win a general election. I will vote to re-elect President Barack Obama no matter whom you nominate, and I happen to think he would defeat former Governor Palin very easily. But even though I want President Obama to be re-elected, I believe America deserves a real choice. I hope your party nominates someone who, regardless of ideological persuasion, is good enough to be President. New Hampshire Republicans, it's up to you to make sure that happens.
George W. Bush, perhaps the worst president in the history of the Republic, got reflective the other day:
The former president said his greatest failure in office was not passing Social Security reform.
It wasn't "reform"; it was privatization. And I remember it as the tipping point that led to Bush's dramatic decline in popularity. Which was certainly fortunate for America; imagine the economic collapse his policies hastened with the added horror of our Social Security money having gone into Wall St. instead.
But never to fear. Where George W. Bush and his congressional allies John E. Sununu and Paul Ryan failed, Frank Guinta intends to succeed:
Government's the problem here, ladies and gentlemen. When Social Security was created, you didn't have the wealth of private sector solutions for lifetime savings that you have today. We have to honor the obligations that have been made to those who are reliant on the federal government - older generations. But future generations should seek different private sector solutions and have personal responsibility start to lead the way. My kids are 6 and 5. They shouldn't know what Social Security is!
Of course, this brings us to where we were before with Frank on this: by taking future generations out of Social Security, he doesn't have a clue as to how to pay for people like you and me who are currently contributing to the system. So under the Frank Guinta plan, either we will see decades of our earnings stolen from us, or else he will have to dramatically balloon the budget deficit. Take it away, President Obama:
"Given the way Social Security is structured, you'd actually have to borrow a trillion dollars to make up for the money that was siphoned into the private accounts, and this would weaken the solvency of Social Security,"
So there you have it. In order for Frank Guinta's kids never to know what Social Security is, he's going to have to put the US in debt one trillion dollars.
I'm not sure there's a magic bank account in the world big enough for Frank Guinta to borrow that much money.
Binnie described himself in a November 2003 Chicago Tribune story as an independent who supported Bradley's presidential run in 2000 and said he would not vote for George W. Bush and was leaning toward backing Democrat Wesley Clark in the upcoming presidential primary.
Hold the phone!
Binnie campaign manager Bryan Lanza tells Hotline OnCall that Binnie did indeed vote for Pres. Bush in '04, after considering ret. Gen. Wes Clark (D) in the primaries because of Clark's military record.
I find this to be most amusing.
A candidate whose weakness is a lack of Republican bona fides trumpeting a vote for a former president the GOP can't get away from fast enough. That's some acrobatics right there!
Still burns me up to hear about pieces of Bush's right-wing agenda that were enacted under the guise of the War on Terra.
Paul O'Connor, president of the Metal Trades Council at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, was among the union members who gathered at the gates of the shipyard Friday to thank Shea-Porter and the House of Representatives for passing a National Defense Authorization Act that repeals the controversial National Security Personnel System.
O'Connor said NSPS stripped upward of 200,000 individuals of their collective bargaining and workforce rights.
He said NSPS, enacted in 2003, was a product of the Bush Administration, which used the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to institute new policies that sacrificed union defense employees' workforce rights under the guise of protecting the country by allowing the Department of Defense to be more "flexible and agile" in its hiring, promotion and governance of employees.
Oh dear. But really, we all knew Shrub's religious right pander was basically a horse and pony show for votes:
For a commencement address at Furman University in spring 2008, Ed Gillespie wanted to insert a few lines condemning gay marriage. Bush called the speech too "condemnatory" and said, "I'm not going to tell some gay kid in the audience that he can't get married."
No worries though. Civil Rights Leader Kevin Smith will tell that kid he can't by telling him it's the same as marrying his sister:
The other side wants to say this is about discrimination, but there's already discrimination built into marriage. You can't marry your cousin, you can't marry your cousin's sister, you can have polygamy, and on and on. The whole issue runs hollow if you scratch below the surface."
On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.
...
"I know it sounds arrogant to say," (George W. Bush) told me, "but I redefined the Republican Party"
...who ruled the executive branch of power in the country I love dearly for eight years of my life.
NYT, August, 2004 (h/t Glenzilla):
Speaking to factory workers and invited supporters at a lawn and garden equipment manufacturer in Lee's Summit, Mo., Mr. Cheney lashed out at those who have implied that the terror alerts were at all politically motivated, specifically citing former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, an unsuccessful candidate this year for the Democratic presidential nomination.
"There has been some commentary from some of our critics - Howard Dean comes to mind - saying somehow this is being hyped for political reasons, that the data we collected here, the casing reports that provided the information on the prospective attacks is old data, i.e., four, five years old," he said. "That just tells me Howard Dean doesn't know anything about how things operate."
US News, August 2009:
Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: [Tom] Ridge... was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
The families of roughly 3,000 Americans deserve a media that will get to the bottom of this, and a government that will hold the evildoers, if found to be so, accountable.
And that's on top of the spying, the renditions, the torture, the corruption of Justice, and the lies for an unnecessary invasion of a country that resulted in the early deaths of over a half a million people. All done in our names.
So many times when we get together you have to put up with me complaining about something...and there are lots of other times when it's me warning about events that are looming in our future.
Even though they're conversations we need to have, they're often not very emotionally satisfying.
Today we depart from that pattern, in a very good way.
It's "follow-up day"; and the conversation takes us to three "happy places": two "problem" stories that have recent positive progress to report-and, just because I care about you, Gentle Reader, an exclusive preview of the George W. Bush autobiography, obtained with considerable effort from an unnamed and particularly well-placed source.
There's a lot to cover, so let's jump right in and tell you what you need to know.
Excited as we all are about the coming of the Obama era, let us take a moment to appreciate and digest an equally momentous event, much longer anticipated.
Today is Friday, January 16, 2009. Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and Tuesday is Inauguration Day. Both are federal holidays.
Bush staffers were told to clear out of the White House by 9:00 PM tonight. It's 9:40.
The last business day of the Bush Era has ended. While the President who should never have been is still in office until Tuesday at noon, his administration is effectively over, and Bush is spending the weekend at Camp David...while his things are moved out of The White House.
There are millions of American children and teens who think this is what a president is, because they have known nothing else since the time they started remembering.
This is an Open Thread. And this, this is just devastating.
TPM Muckraker is reporting that Joe Buck and Tim McCarver had U.S. Marshall protection during the 2007 World Series games at Fenway:
A new report by the Justice Department's inspector general finds that a lawyer for the U.S. Marshals Service arranged for the Marshals Service to provide a private escort for the limousines of Fox's star broadcasters, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, after two World Series games at Fenway Park in 2007.
Now, I haven't liked Tim McCarver since he was the catcher for the Cardinals in the 1967 World Series (I know that is a long time to hold a grudge, but I was a kid and it broke my heart when the Red Sox lost in 7), and the guy is incapable of shutting up and letting us enjoy a game. But are there so many of us McCarver critics in New England that the taxpayers really have to pay for US Marshall protection at Fenway?
When George W. Bush is finally, thankfully gone next Tuesday, what other ridiculous expenditures are we going to discover? 8 more days, thank God!
While it's still playing at some theaters throughout the state, I wanted to write about "Milk," and encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to take a couple of hours to learn about our history. It's "our history" because in one way or another Harvey Milk affected most of us, whether we feel it daily because we're gay or we're straight and have gay friends or family members whose lives are a little better due to this man fighting for a cause.
I can't call "Milk" entertainment. It's a tremendous movie, and should win a number of awards -- Sean Penn is fantastic as usual, and Josh Brolin -- fresh off his portrayal of George W. Bush in "W." -- puts in another great performance as yet another tortured and confused character, this time Dan White.
I'm not giving away the story line by relating that on his third try, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. That's like a Board of Alders or a City Council. He was the first openly-gay person elected to a political position that high in government at any level.
In the less than a year he served, he worked successfully to pass a citywide gay equality ordinance, and then worked to defeat a statewide law that would have led to the firing of suspected gay or lesbian teachers. Fellow Supervisor Dan White unsuccessfully fought some of Milk's initiatives, and after several confrontations shot and killed Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978.
While "Milk" the movie might not be entertainment in the usual sense of the word, it is a remarkable experience. For some, it will seem like ancient history. To me, it felt like yesterday. Many of the images I remember very well from my trips to San Francisco in many years past.
I went to "Milk" the first time with a straight friend, and I think he was as emotional as I at parts of the movie, especially the end. "Milk" is the story of a very good man, but also a history of the gay equality movement and the fight against discrimination wherever it exists. I reminds us that not too long ago, one could be arrested just for going to a gay bar.
Imagine that -- police would go into gay bars and arrest people just because they were there. Newspaper photographers would be there with their cameras, and the pictures and names of those arrested would appear the next day. We're talking about the early 1970s. I do remember it well. None of us should ever forget.
"Milk" is a dramatization, but is based much on history. I've read "The Mayor Of Castro Street" (Randy Shilts, 1988), which itself has been made into a movie to be released in 2009, and studied Harvey Milk rather thoroughly during the past thirty years. I've seen "The Times Of Harvey Milk," a character documentary of his political career and the assassination (1984), and "Execution Of Justice," a made-for-television 1999 movie that was also very well done. "Milk" appears very accurate, and mixes in some period newsreel film with flawless precision.
Had he lived, Harvey Milk would be 78 today. I think he would be proud of the progress of the gay equality movement that he pushed along with passion. His call of "come out come out wherever you are" has been answered by millions of openly-gay Americans, including thousands involved in politics and government and business at all levels. Still he'd be ashamed that one can still be fired or denied housing or services in more than half the states of this nation just for being gay. He'd be depressed at the recent defeat of gay marriage in California, but he would have got a good night's sleep and despite being an older man now he'd be out there the next morning passionately continuing "the movement." It's a fight that will always have to be engaged because hate and discrimination will always exist, so good men and women have to keep pushing. We'll get there.
"Milk" has another lesson as I watched it, and that is that a man doesn't have to be rich or become President to do great things. Passion, idealism, and sometimes even tunnel vision toward a goal sometimes does the job. Harvey Milk wasn't perfect. But he did great things.
Too funny - Teh Decider is such a colossal failure he might actually beat out our own Franklin:
"When I speak to groups, somebody always asks, 'How does it feel to know your man is no longer the worst?' " said Peter Wallner, author of a recent two-volume biography of Pierce. "I take a little bit of pleasure in the fact that (President George) Bush is viewed by them as worse than Pierce."
I was at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium today (and saw Jay Buckey's flightsuit there, btw), and as I was driving home I noticed that the golden dome in Concord was shining a little more brightly than it's wont. Now I know why.
Don't know how I missed this from over a month ago. Landrigan:
But curiously, even though 36,000 more voters cast ballots than four years ago, the much more popular McCain got fewer votes in all 10 counties than Bush did in 2004.
"That's very significant, and it does say something," Secretary of State Bill Gardner said. "I'm just not sure what it was."
The man who trounced Bush in the 2000 primary actually got less votes in '08 that W. did in '04? Despite 36K more voters overall??
That's stunning, even when you factor in the power of incumbency for King George in '04.
A coalition of environmental groups has put together goals for the new Obama administration. It is sadly like getting in line with all the other ill-treated constituencies of the past regime, and I think some of the monetary requests (despite being criminally neglected under Bush) will have to be deferred in the current economy.
But some of the goals are almost heart-breaking in their simplicity:
... agency review boards have been stacked with industry-funded scientists, while cozy relationships between regulators and the companies they regulate have more influence over decisions than unbiased science. This situation needs to be reformed...
Science must play a central role in all policy making, with the Office of Science and Technology Policy leading the charge. Furthermore the broken regulatory process should be fixed, with the Office of Management and Budget's role properly defined so that the mission of the federal government becomes again protecting the public's health, safety and environmental assets.
Science playing a central role -- what a concept!
For those who want to see Bush's environmental legacy, the NRDC compiled a list just from Bush's first term. Or a simpler link from the Sierra club. I was going to list some of the most appalling, but i can't stand to do it. I'll only quote this one from Jan 2002: "Environmental enforcement suffers under Bush"
The fall-off in EPA referrals was more significant in several of the agency's principal anti-pollution priority areas: Toxic Substance Control Act (down 80%); Clean Air Act (down 54%); and Clean Water Act (down 53%).
That was in 2002, we had 6 more years to go. A committment to science, and a committment to law enforcement, even without money, will be a welcome change in the new administration.
While not New Hampshire specific, this is certainly relevant news. I have inserted the date when George Herbert Walker Bush did his infamous deed because the scribe who compiled the Resolution in Nadler's office seems to have forgot it.
November 21, 2008 212 367 7350
Rep. Nadler Moves to Prevent Pre-Emptive White House Pardons
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, introduced a Resolution in the House of Representatives demanding that President Bush refrain from issuing pre-emptive pardons of senior officials in his Administration during the final 90 days of office. H.RES.1531 is in response to President Bush's widespread abuses of power and potentially criminal transgressions against our Constitution. The Resolution aims to prevent undeserved pardons of officials who may have been co-conspirators in the President's unconstitutional policies, such as torture, illegal surveillance and curtailing of due process for defendants.
"This Resolution declares that we will not tolerate a last minute attempt by President Bush to shelter his cronies - cronies who may well be guilty of serious criminal offenses - from the full force of the law," said Rep. Nadler. "President Bush must not excuse his own officials from possibly illegal acts committed outside the context of their official duties. Such pardons would merely obfuscate the truth and amount to a gross miscarriage of justice."
Beyond preventing pre-emptive pardons, the Resolution also recommends the establishment of a special commission or select committee to investigate the potentially illegal activities - including abuse of pardon power - of senior Bush Administration officials. It also calls for the next Attorney General to appoint an independent counsel to investigate and prosecute any crimes.
* The buck stops everywhere except with Joe Kenney.
* I'm not sure either this or this from Jennifer Donahue merits its own diary, because I frankly don't know how to translate gibberish. Suffice it to say that if you chop firewood, Ms. Donahue thinks you will vote to throw the bums out every time.
* John E. sported a Sprinter-Goatee today in the Senate. Now you see it - now you don't!
* Worst. President. Ever. As constantly as the sun rises in the east, if it's bad for America and the world, W.'s for it. The two months left of this villain will feel like a long prison term.
* Note to Barack Obama and Tom Daschle: start complaining about health care. Immediately.
* The submissive Senate Democrats could learn a thing or two from the House.
To President-elect Barack Obama: Welcome! I cannot begin to say how oh so welcome you are!
To Senator McCain: I'm glad you're not our next president, but all in all, you kept the campaign way more civil than Karl Rove and his ilk would have wanted. Thank you for that.
To John Sununu: Your campaign, especially in conjunction with the RNC, was appalling. (But I guess it was hard to run on a record of free-market extremism.)
To Jeanne Shaheen: I'm sorry to say, your campaign was only a little less distasteful than your opponent's. Going door to door for you was hard. I hope you stand taller as a senator.
To Judd Gregg: The only New England Republicans elected were the moderate, pro-choice voices from Maine. You've made a few good votes on the environment, but other than that, you'll really need to burnish those moderate credentials in the next 2 years if you want to hang on....
To Carol Shea-Porter: In more than 20 years of voting, you are easily my favorite Congress-person I've ever voted for. You bring a welcome level of decency and righteous anger to Washington. I hope you can keep that, and I hope you're willing to serve for many terms.
To Jeb Bradley: She's smarter, she works harder, she cares more, and she does a better job. Stay home, stack your wood.
To all those Democrats who worked so hard to make this happen, to those who serve in the House, to those who knocked on doors, to those who swayed even one vote: Thank you, and don't stop now. We need to stay connected to keep our goals alive.
John McCain and New Hampshire aren't having a love affair. Maybe John McCain loves New Hampshire, and that's nice -- after all, he did receive enough Republican votes here in 2000 and 2008 to keep his campaigns going in those years. But it's simply not true that New Hampshire loves this guy, although I think most of us respect and appreciate his long service to America.
One of the more exasperating comments I hear news media personalities who should know better, or should be doing more accurate reporting, is that "New Hampshire is John McCain country." Baloney. New Hampshire has never been "his state.'
In 2000 he faced a stumbling George W. Bush in the New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary. In the NH Primary on February 1st, 2000, some 239,523 Republicans sloshed to the polls on a cold winter day. John McCain received 115,606 of those votes -- about 48%. George W. Bush got 72,330 votes -- even then the voters were smartening up about him. The rest of the wealth of Republican votes was spread around to names like Forbes, Keyes, Bauer, and a splattering of others. Umm, spreading the wealth around probably got its start in John McCain's mindset that year.
That wasn't too bad for McCain in 2000. Of course, shortly after leaving New Hampshire he walked into walls or off a cliff depending on your description down South, and ended up spending the past eight years not doing much in the United States Senate.
By the way, in that primary of February 1, 2000, there were 156,862 Democrats voting -- not exactly an excited electorate. I remember it well. Most of us voted for Al Gore, but Bill Bradley wasn't far behind. We know what happened after that, and if, if, if -- if Florida, if the US Supreme Court, if New Hampshire, if he didn't roll his eyes, if -- he would be winding up two terms as President.
Update to 2008. Least we forget, John McCain was able to slip in between a pile of conservative Republicans. He was able to appear like the alternative to the far right, and he received 88,713 votes from Republicans in the NH Primary on January 8, 2008. Not bad, except there were some 241,039 Republicans voting -- so McCain this time around got only about 36% of those voting.
It was enough, however, for John McCain to top the New Hampshire Republican ballot because the rest of the candidates spread the balance of the votes -- Mitt Romney coming in second with 75,675, and names like Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, and Duncan Hunter getting the rest. Ohhhhh -- Barack Obama got the write-ins of 1,996 Republicans and Hillary Clinton got 1,828 write-ins, not too bad for Republicans who like Democrats, and who can vote for Democrats again in less than two weeks.
That same election, January 8th of this year, 288,672 Democrats voted. Compare that with the 156,862 Democrats who voted in the 2000 Primary. More than 130,000 additional Democrats turned out this year in our Primary. Some excitement there, huh? Among the Republicans, compared with 239,523 voting in the 2000 Primary there were only about 1,500 more Republicans voting this year. Many stayed home.
At the January 8th Democratic Presidential Primary, Barack Obama got 104,815 votes -- some 16,000 votes more than John McCain received on January 8th. Hillary Clinton placed first with 112,404, and you can bet almost all will be voting for Barack Obama on November 4th. So will those who voted for the other Democratic Presidential candidates, who included Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, and Mike Gravel.
Bottom line, for those who are bottom line types, is this: As of September 9th, there were 868,668 registered voters in New Hampshire. By now in late October there are quite a few more, and many others are expected to sign up as new voters on November 4th.
So, take a look at it: On January 8th of this year John McCain received 88,713 votes -- certainly enough to win a Republican Primary where he staked out the "moderate" ground and there were half a dozen other candidates splitting the more conservative elements of the party.
But of ALL New Hampshire registered voters, John McCain received only about 10.2% this year. This isn't "John McCain Country" by a long shot. And considering the way the Democrats are united this year, and with the motivating issues to encourage people to vote being Iraq, health care, Global Warming and Climate Change, education, tax reform and fairness, and our current economic dilemma -- Barack Obama will do very well.
Those of us who support him have to keep at it right through to Tuesday, November 4th at 8:00 PM, but he'll beat John McCain in New Hampshire. New Hampshire has never been John McCain Country. But after November 4th, we'll be able to call it a proud place for President Barack Obama to come back to whenever he wants.
