August 6, 2010
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July 27, 2010
July 3, 2010
June 27, 2010
Do Republicans have a God-given right to be disingenuous?
Last week while most Americans were fretting about the oil spill and a change in personnel, the Supreme Court of the United States was looking (askance) at Section 18 of the US Code and the results of their ruling may let some high profile prisoners walk free in the sunshine sooner than expected.
The broad implication of the decision might give Republicans more latitude in making reality gelatinous. Democrats hold themselves to a higher standard and won’t be inclined to indulge in any chance to avail themselves of the possibility to find some wriggle room regarding the issue concerning an opportunity to “deprive another of the intangible right to honest services.”
Some people might assume with all the laws about fraud and a certain religious commandment that there is, in any business dealing, an implicit right to honest services.
Wrong! Does the reverse corollary apply? Do Republicans now know that they have an intangible right to deliver dishonest service? When a Republican candidate for office says that he (hypothetical example) had the training to be an F-102 pilot does that mean that he actually was one?
We know a fellow whose identity revolves around his training and expertise in the martial arts. He will often drop the fact that he taught Bruce Lee into the conversation. Often it comes right after he has listed his qualifications for being an authority on the martial arts. He does not say what he taught Mr. Lee and so if he taught Bruce Lee to change a tire on his car and you leap to the assumption that the fellow taught Lee everything he knew about karate, the misperception is your fault because you have made an assumption.
Recently we picked up a bargain copy of the book which was the basis for the move “Catch Me If You Can.” The book was a bit different from the movie hence the movie carried the tag line: “based on a true story.”
The author, Frank Abignale, would ask people “can you cash a check for me?” and then present a slip of paper which was not a genuine check. Since when is a question a lie?
Do you want the evidence to be in the form of a mushroom cloud? Since the invasion of Iraq, it has become the custom to refer to hand grenades as weapons of mass destruction. If you didn’t realize that it was necessary to invade oil rich Iraq because they had hand grenades, that was your own fault for not being a weapons expert and fully able to parse the talking points offered as sound logical reasons for invading Iraq. Little did America realize that the Bush team was composed of cunning linguists dead set on going to war.
In ethics class, students are presented with the concept of “the greater good.” Suppose a man who wanted to kill you entered (another hypothetical) your office and informed your secretary that he wanted to see you so that he could kill you. Should she say that you called in sick today, point to the inner office where you work, or should she use the intercom to ask if you could squeeze an unscheduled visitor into your schedule? Some ethics experts say that the greater good of saving your life outweighs the obligation to adhere to the Commandment that gives the flat fiat that you must always tell the truth.
So it’s OK to lie sometimes and the Supreme Court has rendered the concept of “deprive another of the intangible right to honest services” moot; so truth, justice and the American way have just seen one of the team go missing in action.
The headline for this column asks a question. We have presented several relevant items for your consideration and now invite you to draw your own conclusions . . . or . . . you can wait and see if the Republicans act as if they have a God-given right to lull you into adoring acquiescence.
Americans have no right to know what went on in the meeting between Dick Cheney and the energy companies. Americans have no right to know how the programs used in the electronic voting machines work. Americans have no right to know what BP is doing or plans to do regarding the oil spill. As a matter of fact, Americans have no right to go to public parks and see the oil spill clean up work being done. It would seem that other than being used to print the coming tsunami of corporate financed campaign ads, America has no want or need for a free press to keep citizens informed so that they can vote intelligently.
It would also seem that the Supreme Court based their decision on the old folk wisdom: “After you shake hands with a Republican, count your fingers.”
Cynical curmudgeons will continue to regard all politicians as they would a snake oil salesman as portrayed by W. C. Fields. Dittoheads will be the first to second the Charles Dickens Republican attitude of “God bless us every one.” (Was Dickens predicting Uncle Rushbo when he wrote: “He is an honorable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly reasonable man.” in Bleak House?)
Perhaps it is time to change the motto on money from “In God We Trust” to “Caveat Emptor.”
Rudyard Kipling was ahead of his time when he wrote
“If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.”
Now the disk jockey will play: “the theme from Elvira Madigan,” “Green Fields,” and Shirley Temple’s version of “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” We have to go write a letter to Santa Claus. Have a “smile when you say that” type week.
June 25, 2010
June 22, 2010
The Tattlesnake – It’s McChrystal Clear: The General is Running for President Edition
By publicly making derogatory comments about his superiors in the chain of command – President Obama, VP Biden, Defense Secretary Gates, White House National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones — US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has committed an act of rank insubordination, and I think he did it intentionally.
Subsequent apologies for his loose-lipped Rolling Stone interview notwithstanding, McChrystal knows Obama must, in order to maintain what little credibility he has with the military as commander-in-chief, relieve McChrystal of his command and he should break him in rank down to a Colonel or, at least, Brigadier General, but, considering Obama’s reticence in such matters, he likely won’t do the latter.
McChrystal well knows that if he wants to criticize his superiors there is a legitimate and honorable way to do so – resign his commission and fire away as a civilian. Instead, the wily general has manufactured a situation wherein Obama must relieve him or lose all respect with the military establishment and a good portion of the public, as well.
Why would McChrystal set up such a situation? The easiest answer is that he’s planning on running for president as a Republican in 2012 and he can use it to a) play the aggrieved victim of a president and administration that doesn’t know what it’s doing in the Middle East; and b) insulate himself from charges of incompetence when we are forced out of Afghanistan. “I told the president the strategy he was pursuing to defeat the Taliban was naïve and wrong and that I had a better plan. This so angered him he found a flimsy reason to dismiss me.”
This is the line I believe McChrystal will employ following his resignation after Obama has relieved him of his command. Such criticism dovetails nicely with the GOP’s probable angle of attack on Obama in 2012 – arrogant, incompetent, headstrong, vengeful, naïve – and McChrystal will go to the head of the class of potential presidential candidates in a so far thin field for the Republicans — Romney’s no barn-burner; Palin’s a sour joke; Gingrich is stuck in the mud of 1994; Pawlenty’s a calamitous bore, and no one else is really on the radar.
Of course, the GOP establishment would welcome McChrystal with open arms as the second coming of Dwight Eisenhower, but even the various Teabaggers, quasi-Libertarians and Christian zealots who are now the party’s foundation would most likely not much contest nominating a ‘military hero’ such as the general. His campaign would also provide some lengthy (and stable) coattails for other Republicans to ride, a surcease from the almost daily factional friction of a minority party in turmoil.
The question: Will former Pentagon black-ops chief McChrystal’s new strategy to gain the White House work any better than did his plans to tame Afghanistan?
The answer: For a man as arrogant, incompetent, headstrong, vengeful, and naïve on public matters as Stanley McChrystal — who also, according to Rolling Stone, thinks Bud Light Lime is a great beer – is a resounding no.
Read more:
“The Runaway General” – Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, June 8-22, 2010.
Stanley A. McChrystal’s Wikipedia bio.
“New Afghanistan Commander Ran Secret ‘Executive Assassination Ring’ Under Cheney”
– Tom Englehardt, TomDispatch.com, May 21, 2009, by way of The Huffington Post.
© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
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June 17, 2010
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May 18, 2010
The Tattlesnake – Goodbye Specters of Doom Edition
A Brief Breakdown of Today’s Most Notable Primaries
Pennsylvania Democratic Primary: One of the best political ads I’ve seen in some time is Rep. Joe Sestak’s spot featuring Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter admitting he changed parties solely to get reelected. The old lizard practically hisses when he snarls the word “reelected” and you could easily imagine his desiccated Dorian-Gray-on-the-easel face asking Eve if she wanted a bite of his apple. Mr. Magic Bullet Theory has shown himself time and again to be a coldly calculating old-line politician at heart, and now it’s caught up with him. The last polls I saw had Sestak and Specter running even, but I don’t think it will be that close – the solons of the Big Media (BM) Punditsphere don’t seem to have noticed that Arlen has no real Democratic constituency in PA, unless it’s 80-year-old vipers, and, contrary to Dem Gov. Ed Rendell’s public support, the Edster is not about to exercise his state political muscle to shoehorn a creature like Specter into office again, especially after Obama and Biden politely flipped Arlen off. I call it Sestak by 10 points. (Tip to Dems: Follow Sestak’s lead and run ads showing your GOP opponent making an ass of him or herself in their own words. They work.)
Arkansas Democratic Primary: Once again the BM has managed to miss the story here, as they did in Connecticut when Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in the Dem primary. As in Specter’s case, what was Lieberman’s core base of support? Wealthy insurance company execs, AIPAC and Republicans. Why would the GOP back Quisling Joe? Because they knew he was a closet Republican with electable name recognition who would help with their issues and screw up the Dem majority in the Senate. But this won’t happen down in Clintonland – sitting Dem. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, like Lieberman, has very narrow Dem support and none of it particularly enthusiastic, and the GOP hates her. On the other side, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter has the same kind of avid progressive ground game Lamont had in CT. It may not even be close but, if it goes to a run-off, Halter will win the day: He’s got the eager troops; Blanche has the establishment Dem coffee klatch. Halter by 5 points.
Kentucky Republican Primary: Let’s keep it short and sweet: A Libertarian who believes in legalizing drugs and ending our wars overseas, Rep. Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul, is about to beat the pants off of the official GOP-endorsed candidate, Trey Grayson. This election may be a heads-up ‘game changer’ with a long shadow – GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell’s KY machine is dead and a Red State is heaving toward purplish Libertarianism rather than Mitch’s grisly Bush Neoconnery. The bonus is that the always-wrong and unfailingly unpopular (except to the BM Punditocracy) Dick Cheney has wholeheartedly endorsed Grayson, the sure kiss of death. Paul by at least 10 points and probably much more.
Update, May 19, 2010: Here’s how I did:
Pennsylvania: Sestak beat Specter, but I didn’t cover the spread – Sestak won by only 9 points instead of 10.
Arkansas: Headed for a run-off with Halter and Lincoln neck-and-neck. I’ll stick with Halter by 5 points in the run-off.
Kentucky: Rand Paul walloped Trey Grayson by more than 20 points. Although this election is being framed by the BM Punditburo as a victory for the Tea Partiers, do they mean the original Ron Paul Libertarian tea partiers or the astroturf Dick Armey-Glenn Beck corporate Teabaggers? Methinks it’s the latter, and the BM has it wrong again.
© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
The Tattlesnake – Who’s Watching the Watchers? Edition
Or, in the Maxine Waters case, investigating the investigators.
Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) three ethics charges, so far as I’ve read, involved talking to Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in 2008, asking him to try and make sure a bank that helps poor people and women, OneUnited, got its fair share of the bailout money. True, her husband was previously on the bank’s board, and he retained stock at the time, but she didn’t threaten or in any way coerce Paulson improperly – she just asked. If this is the hoary ethics violations the Big Media is getting so hot-and-bothered about, then they’d better start charging nearly every member of Congress with a similar lapse of ethics, because a whole passel of Republicans and Dems did the same thing. Waters herself has stated: “The record will clearly show that in advocating on behalf of minority banks, neither my office nor I benefited in any way, engaged in improper action or influenced anyone.”
It’s worth noting that progressive Democrat Waters sits on the House Financial Services Committee that drafted get-tough legislation on banks and pushed for strong consumer protection from these miscreants. At least we know the Big Banksters would definitely not be sorry to see her go.
It’s interesting that of eight investigations or charges made by the House ‘independent’ ethics committee, all of them are against members of the Democratic Black Caucus. As Eugene Robinson said the other night, the notion that only black Democrats would be involved in unethical conduct is statistically astronomical.
It’s also interesting that one of the senior members of this ‘independent’ House ethics committee is co-chair Porter J. Goss, former rabid in-the-tank Bushite Congressman and, in Congress and as head of the CIA, a man who had considerable ethics problems himself.
Some of Porter Goss’ ‘greatest hits’:
– As head of the House Intelligence Committee, former CIA employee Goss said he could find no wrongdoing in leaking covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name to the media that warranted a Congressional investigation. He ‘joked’ if you could find him a “blue dress with some DNA” he’d open an investigation into who in the Bush Administration leaked her name; short of that, he apparently didn’t care.
– On illegal torture: “March 18, 2005, Reuters reported that Porter Goss ‘defended his spy agency’s current interrogation practices but could not say all methods used as recently as last December conformed to U.S. law.’” And then did nothing to ensure future conduct conformed to U.S. law.
– When Bush-appointee Goss took over the CIA in September 2004, bringing with him his partisan Bush team from Congress, veteran CIA employees with a combined 300 years of intelligence experience resigned or were forced out after his installation. The weakened CIA under Goss then went into “free fall” according to senior House Intelligence Committee Democrat Jane Harman. In other words, Goss was willing to sacrifice the CIA’s mission of non-partisan collection and processing of intelligence to protect America to serve his Republican political agenda.
– On May 5, 2006, Goss resigned under a cloud as Director of the CIA after his handpicked man Kyle “Dusty” Foggo’s Hookergate scandal came to light. Through Foggo, Goss was also connected to disgraced Republican Congressman Randy Cunningham who admitted to and apologized for taking bribes from defense contractors.
“‘Something happened,’ neo-conservative magazine editor William Kristol said on Fox News this afternoon. ‘It’s going to be a bad few days. We’re going to discover something … It will be something not good for the Bush Administration.’ Fox News actually got a phone call from a ‘top White House official’ during Kristol’s damning comments, and Kristol was cut off so Bush mouthpiece Chris Wallace could say the Goss resignation is just a harmless part of the ‘White House shakeup.’”
– Sploid, by way of MediaCynic.com, commenting the day Goss resigned.
Also let’s keep in mind that Goss’ honesty was vouchsafed by no less than Bush confabulator and White House flack Dan Bartlett: “This man has impeccable integrity.” If Bartlett says it, we can pretty much conclude the exact opposite is true – it’s like having one’s veracity on the Iraq invasion endorsed by Dick Cheney.
Gee, I wonder if Maxine Waters had refused to investigate evidence of treason in the White House, turned a blind eye to illegal torture, degraded the CIA’s intelligence-gathering capabilities due to political partisanship, and was connected to a major bribery scandal which caused a Congressman to quit in disgrace along with senior CIA officials she’d hired, if she would be eligible to sit on any future House ethics committees?
As Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democratic DC delegate to Congress, told Ed Schultz on Tuesday, these are allegations, not convictions, and Maxine Waters, Charlie Rangel and anyone else charged with ethics violations have the right to defend themselves in a public hearing rather than resign and appear guilty.
In the meantime, the questions remain: Who would appoint a flagrant Bush hack like Goss to a supposedly independent ethics panel and, most importantly, who’s watching the watchers here?
© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.