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I'm always for less regulation. But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. ... But I am a fundamentally a deregulator. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated.
-WSJ via Think Progress
Just like the rest of his party, "original maverick" John McCain is a strict follower of the dogma of deregulation. Deregulation in the financial sector is exactly what lobbyists want. It allows for unrestricted Invisible Hand (+ Invisible Handouts) Economics. But it's not helping. It's not helping middle class Americans who feel the burn of an economic crisis, and it's not helping the upper class--or even the corporate class-either. Regulation doesn't just keep corporations from screwing the public; it keeps them from screwing each other.
Anybody who was listening to NPR around noon on Saturday heard all about Bush-appointee Chris Cox, absentee Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose modus operandi is as little regulation and enforcement as possible. How just in the past few months, he has said no to bipartisan offers from Congress for authority to find out whether (as is evident) credit rating companies are getting paid to lie to investors about how safe certain new securities are and said no to bipartisan offers from Congress for a bigger budget for enforcement.
This current crisis was caused by financial companies swindling each other into making and recommending investments that weren't nearly as safe as many were led to believe, and yet the first priority of Wall Street's top regulator is preserving the anarchy. Anarchy, as even the most basic examination of political philosophy, common sense, or current events will find, is bad for everyone.
But it should come as no surprise; the Republican Party has been pushing anarchy in business for decades; finally, they won, and this is what happened. It's a wonder people failed to see this coming.
This is simply part of a decades-old Republican assault on the American Dream, both for those who seek it and those who have achieved it. Trickle-down economics have been proven real in one sense: follow their dogma and you will end up with a trickle-down economic crisis. This isn't just bad for the people losing their jobs; it isn't just bad for the investors who are losing their money (from 401(k)'s to billion-dollar portfolios); it's bad for the corporations who hired the lobbyists and gave the money to the Republicans to create this mess.
The only people who benefit from this entirely avoidable and foreseeable state of affairs are those who bet against the United States of America.
Yet John McCain keeps pushing the same policies that got us here, promising more of the exact same while calling it "change", and insisting, 22 times this year and as recently as yesterday, that "the fundamentals of our economy our strong". I won't stoop to his level and accuse him of not putting Country First. I think he just drinks the kool aid His Friends give him.
The only people who have real job security during this Republican assault on the American Dream are the empty-suit political pawns who created it, and the fallen-from-on-high public servants who promise to stay the course. And that is precisely why it's time to show the Republican Party what real job insecurity feels like.
PS: "Republican Assault on the American Dream". Pass it on.
At their closest points, Alaska and Russia are 2.4 miles apart, and the International Date Line (opposite of the Prime Meridian) lies in between. That's the distance between Little Diomede Island, Alaska, and Big Diomede Island, Russia. Little Diomede has a population of less than 200, and it doesn't seem anybody lives on Big Diomede anymore.
Whether or not Sarah Palin has ever been to Big Diomede Island--or even its American neighbor--is beside the point. She has implied that for her, Russia is a neighboring place, that she sees it not far away, that this gives her foreign policy credibility. Really?
Let's kep in mind that the horizon is about 3 miles away. Governor Palin works in Juneau, the capital of Alaska. Juneau is over 1,200 miles from Russia.
But the distance from Juneau to Russia is really beside the point. The only question here that really matters in terms of foreign policy cred is: how far is the Governor's Mansion from the Kremlin? Prepare yourself. Juneau, home of the Governor of Alaska is a little over 4,500 miles from Moscow.
Oh, and so is Wilmington, home of the Senior Senator from Delaware.
Images courtesy of Google Maps and Google Earth. Click any of the thumbnails for full-size pictures.
It has become a commonly cited statistic here at BH that New Hampshire receives back $0.67 for every dollar it contributes in federal taxes, and Alaska receives $1.83 to the dollar. Now, we can't expect every state to get a dollar for every dollar, because that would mean the government would be spending nothing on the mechanics of government (like the judicial system, the military, etc as opposed to functions like the postal service, national parks, road subsidies, etc), but that figure in Alaska is pretty egregious.
CNN reports today Governor Palin's federal earmark requests in her first year in office (2007)--and that's just Palin's things, not everything her delegation takes--exceed the total amount of earmark money taken by the entire bi-partisan delegation from New Hampshire, a state with about twice as many people.
New Hampshire's delegation requested took 238 million dollars in earmark money. Governor Palin requested 256 million. Her state's Congressional delegation took a combined total of over 486 million dollars, 456 of which by Senator Stevens--who, by the way, is a longtime political ally, advocate, and collaborator of Palin, not simply another Republican from her state.
Alaska takes more money per person in earmark money than any other state.
And to top it all off, the $27 million in earmarks Palin secured as Mayor of a town of 5,000 people--far more than many members of Congress take in a year, and Congressional districts are generally more than a hundred times the size of Wasilla. On three separate occasions, Palin projects in Wasilla met criticism ("objectionable" on McCain's regularly published pork lists) at the time from Senator John McCain, whose campaign was recently asked about that very same money. Respondeth McCain's people,
Towns like Wasilla in Alaska depended on earmarks to take care of basic needs.
A big change from making a point to object. Furthermore, if that's true, then when he promises to veto any bill with earmarks, isn't John McCain screwing Small Town America?
This issue is vitally important; it may be the only real thing McCain is talking about changing.
h/t in part to CNN
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...
http://www.congress.org/congre...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
http://marcambinder.theatlanti...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c...
If only a campaign commercial could be four and a half minutes long, this would be the one to air over and over again. You haven't seen an account of McCain's transformation this biting and concise.
The Daily Show presents the bio video you didn't see in St. Paul:
Stephen Colbert explains what the Republican diehards were laughing about during Giuliani's speech. Drag the slider and watch this video from 1:30 to 3:00.
According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.
(emphasis mine)
Support the troops? The troops have spoken. And by the way, if they're voting on military/veterans issues, Obama is obviously the smarter choice--no sixth tour in Iraq (bring them home!), more benefits, better care...
If the option were a candidate who wants to send you back and back and back to war or a candidate who wants to bring you home and take care of you/honor your service, who would you choose?
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party was hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday, a party executive said. A television station reported that three shots were fired at party headquarters.
"There has been an incident at the party and chairman (Bill) Gwatney has been taken to the hospital," said Bruce Sinclair, the director of the state Democratic Party.
Police said they apprehended a suspect.
Sarah Lee, a sales clerk at a flower shop across street from the party headquarters, said that around noon Gwatney's secretary ran into the shop and asked someone to call 911. She said a man had come into the party and shot Gwatney multiple times.
A day after it comes out that parts of the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony were CGI, The Huffington Post is reporting that the Gold Medals (which are supposed to be solid gold, and are always produced by the host nation) are actually 99% lead and covered in a gold-colored lead-based paint.
That's downright Shakespearean.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Emphasis mine:
The medals, which were supposed to be made entirely of gold, were instead found to be composed of 99% lead alloy and coated with a gold-colored lead-based paint.
The shocking revelations roiled the Olympic complex today and sent officials looking for answers from the Chinese manufacturer of the medals, the Wuhan One Hundred Percent Gold Medal Corporation.
...
"I am very, very concerned about my extensive contact with gold medals," Mr. Phelps told reporters. "But what am I supposed to do? Stop being so awesome?"
"Wuhan One Hundred Percent Gold Medal Corporation"? They might as well call it, "Really, Our Gold Medals Are Made of Gold! We Swear! Really!, LLC"
(The show's about to start... - promoted by elwood)
This Sunday's edition of WMUR's Close Up (10 AM) is all about young candidates running for State Representative. It features three Democrats, Hamsters all: NHYD President Garth Corriveau, Merrimack candidate Andrew Sylvia, and me, as well as three Republican counterparts.
I actually just got back from taping it. Again, it will air this Sunday, August 3, at 10 AM on WMUR.
Oh, and guess who plugged www.bluehampshire.com but not his own website?
Anybody familiar with what the Wikipedia page for a current or former officeholder will see very quickly what's wrong with Governor Lynch's page. His infobox reads "Democratic Candidate for Governor of New Hampshire" (it should read, as is very standard for current and former government officials, "90th Governor of New Hampshire"). My knowledge of Wikipedia editing is very basic, but if anybody knows how to fix this, go ahead and do it, and we should be on guard for such things in the future. Wikipedia's records show the article has been like that since July 4.
Some highlights from Frank Rich's column in yesterday's NYT, emphasis mine:
How Obama Became Acting President
IT almost seems like a gag worthy of "Borat": A smooth-talking rookie senator with an exotic name passes himself off as the incumbent American president to credulous foreigners. But to dismiss Barack Obama's magical mystery tour through old Europe and two war zones as a media-made fairy tale would be to underestimate the ingenious politics of the moment. History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind.
...
The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain. It was laughable to watch journalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into saying he was "wrong" about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities later, they're still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American "bloodletting" and "be paid for by the Iraqis."
...
Looking back now, we can see that the fortnight preceding the candidate's flight to Kuwait was like a sequence in an old movie where wind blows away calendar pages to announce an epochal plot turn. First, on July 7, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, dissed Bush dogma by raising the prospect of a withdrawal timetable for our troops. Then, on July 15, Mr. McCain suddenly noticed that more Americans are dying in Afghanistan than Iraq and called for more American forces to be sent there. It was a long-overdue recognition of the obvious that he could no longer avoid: both Robert Gates, the defense secretary, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had already called for more American troops to battle the resurgent Taliban, echoing the policy proposed by Mr. Obama a year ago.
...
"We have one president at a time," Mr. Obama is careful to say. True, but the sitting president, a lame duck despised by voters and shunned by his own party's candidates, now has all the gravitas of Mr. Cellophane in "Chicago." The opening for a successor arrived prematurely, and the vacuum had been waiting to be filled. What was most striking about the Obama speech in Berlin was not anything he said so much as the alternative reality it fostered: many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad to wave American flags instead of burn them.
...
Once again the candidate was making factual errors about the only subject he cares about, imagining an Iraq-Pakistan border and garbling the chronology of the Anbar Awakening. Once again he displayed a tantrum-prone temperament ill-suited to a high-pressure 21st-century presidency. His grim-faced crusade to brand his opponent as a traitor who wants to "lose a war" isn't even a competent impersonation of Joe McCarthy. Mr. McCain comes off instead like the ineffectual Mr. Wilson, the retired neighbor perpetually busting a gasket at the antics of pesky little Dennis the Menace.
...
This really captures where the election is right now. The incumbent President is comically irrelevant, and one of the two would-be successors is an incompetent campaigner.
According to an article in today's edition of Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill (h/t HuffPo), fewer than half of Senate Republicans (21 + Lieberman, out of 49 + Lieberman) have contributed to John McCain's Presidential campaign, and -- wait for it -- fewer than twenty percent of House Republicans. Some choice excerpts, emphasis mine:
McCain, Arizona's senior senator, has had a far warmer reception in the upper chamber. At least 22 Senate colleagues have contributed to McCain's campaign, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), an Independent who attends Democratic caucus meetings.
Only 21 House Republicans have given to McCain from their personal campaign accounts since he became the presumptive GOP nominee four and a half months ago, according to an analysis of House fundraising reports made public Wednesday
...
So while nearly half the Senate GOP conference has given to McCain, less than 20 percent of House Republicans have pitched in.
Several of the highest-ranking Republicans in the House have yet to give to McCain. Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.) have not given anything, according to the most recent fundraising reports.
...
The lack of financial gifts raises questions about McCain's relationship with members of the lower chamber. McCain has clashed throughout his career with House Republicans on issues ranging from immigration to campaign finance reform to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A survey by The Hill in June found more than a dozen House Republicans who refused to endorse McCain, even though he will be the party's standard-bearer this fall.
...
Aides to McCain's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
And my personal favorite,
Some lawmakers reported small contributions. Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), for example, gave McCain $96 worth of in-kind secretarial services.
This needs no introduction; you all know what I'm talking about. Phil Gramm said we're in a "mental recession" and called Americans "a nation of whiners." And McCain says Gramm doesn't speak for him? Gramm was doing an interview in his capacity as national co-chair of the McCain campaign. A lesser party would ask, "Why do John McCain and Phil Gramm hate America?" I'll simply ask why this isn't being shouted from the rooftops like Obama's "bitter" comment.
Oh, and did I mention Gramm will continue to be a national co-chair of the McCain campaign? Out of touch, out of time.
Incidentally, putting aside for the moment the outrageous "nation of whiners" and "mental recession" bits, how can anyone who thinks "We've [America] never been more dominant. We never had more natural advantages than we have today." be considered an expert on the economy? Even the most basic understanding of globalization leads to the obvious conclusion that we are rapidly losing our dominance and our advantages, let alone the standard of living of our average citizens.
It's time for Congress to assert its inherent contempt power, to send the Sergeant at Arms, the Capitol Police, or whoever it is they send to go out and arrest Karl Rove for Contempt of Congress. They have to reassert themselves as a coequal branch of government that cannot be ignored. Rove is making a mockery of them. I don't care if they're accused of political theater, I'm not even as concerned with what comes of the investigation as much as the fact that it happens. This is important, and we're at the point where the time for inherent contempt has come.
Jim Webb announced today that he does not want to be considered for VP. It comes as a surprise to me, because I would have thought he was the most likely choice to be Obama's running mate.
Several weeks after Senator Obama sowed up the nomination, it seems the time to say this:
Thank you, Senator Clinton. Thank you, Senator Edwards, Governor Richardson, Senator Dodd, Senator Biden, and Congressman Kucinich. Thank you, and thank you to all of your supporters. Each of you has made unparalleled contributions to this country in your respective distinguished careers, and our party is stronger for each of your candidacies. Don't disappear; your leadership and principle guide us still, even though you won't be President this year.
We had seven great candidates, each with legions of supporters, each with varying ideas about how to accomplish our common goals. All seven are leaders we can believe in; all seven remain giants in our party and in the national discourse.
One of those seven will be the next President of the United States, and will bring about the change that all of these candidates and their supporters know we need.
Meanwhile, now that we have chosen our candidate, the Democratic Party at every level, including BlueHampshire, is at peace with itself, and unified in the cause of moving our nation forward, out of the national tragedy that the Bush Era has been.
We have an enormous task ahead of us, and we are finally facing it together.
Tonight on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, there was a special report on how the Enron Loophole, without which apparently the price of crude might be a 3/4 or even half as much as it is today, is connected very directly (it's actually far more shocking and shady than I had realized) to John McCain and his principle economic adviser, Former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX).
Video here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22...
Thank you, Keith, and everyone at Countdown.
An American cable news network investigating a crisis, exposing the source in prime time, and holding people accountable? That IS change we can believe in.
After much consideration, I've decided to run for State Representative in Manchester's Ward 1, the 8th district of Hillsborough County. As an activist, I want to do as much as I can to do as much as I can to move our state forward into the 21st century, and in what is shaping up to be another Democratic wave year, the time is ripe for a new generation of leadership to emerge. Particularly, as a 19-year-old college student, I find it troubling that young people are so underrepresented in Concord; now that our party finally has the power to effect change in New Hampshire, it is vital that we represent everyone. My issue priorities include ensuring excellence in education, gainful employment, and leading the nation in the new energy revolution. In the coming weeks, I will file my official paperwork, begin fund-raising, and open my website, www.douglindner.com. In the meantime, I encourage all interested parties to contact me directly by email: .
Are you on Facebook? My campaign group: http://www.facebook.com/group....
Anybody who saw ABC's 20/20 tonight learned that as tires, even unused tires, get older, the tread dries out, and tires older than six years or so should not be used, even if they never have been, as there is a risk of tread coming off while the car is moving, causing an accident. However, often tires are sold that are much older than "brand new" (ABC found tires sold as brand new at Sears, Walmart, etc up to 12 or 14 years old).
So here's the proposal: as in the UK, all tires sold in New Hampshire (and in the US, but as state legislators are far more likely to read this...) should include either a prominently featured and consumer-friendly notification about when the tire was manufactured and the dangers of aged tires, used or unused. If possible, it should be illegal to sell tires older than whatever the proper cutoff is (20/20 suggested six years), but notification is a good start.
Comments appreciated, and great thanks to anyone in the legislature who addresses this.
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