MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: November 11, 2007

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November 16, 2007

Buzzy Krongard Quits Blackwater Board

Amazing what publicity can do. Buzzy Krongard, brother of the embattled State Department Inspector General, has resigned from Blackwater Worldwide's board of advisors. Full story here.

The Brothers Krongard: Buzzy 'Blown Over,' Calls Cookie Out

State Department IG Howard "Cookie" Krongard's testimony before Waxman's committee earlier this week is becoming the gift that keeps on giving. At the hearing, Krongard stood accused of many improprieties, among them that he'd interfered in a State Department investigation of Blackwater (one being run out of his own office), perhaps due to a conflict of interest: Krongard's brother Buzzy sits on Blackwater's board of advisors.

Shortly after being sworn in at Wednesday's hearing, Krongard flatly denied his brother's connections to Blackwater, even after Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) presented documentary evidence to the contrary—two letters from Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince to Buzzy, one inviting him to join the board and the other thanking him for doing so. During a break in the hearing, Krongard called Buzzy, who admitted that he indeed was a member of Blackwater's advisory board and had, in fact, just returned from his first board meeting. After returning to the witness table, Krongard admitted as much to Waxman's committee and recused himself from involvement in any further matters related to Blackwater.

End of story? Not quite. Later that day, TPMMuckraker's Spencer Ackerman called Buzzy Krongard at home. He said that he'd told his brother Cookie of his decision to join Blackwater's board in early October. So, did Krongard knowingly lie to the committee under oath? If so, who was he trying to protect? Hopefully not his brother Buzzy, who has been very quick to sell him out. Just reference this latest missive from Waxman:

On November 15, I sent a letter to Buzzy Krongard requesting an interview and documents relating to his communications with Howard Krongard about Blackwater. After receiving the letter, Buzzy Krongard called Committee staff and provided information that differed significantly from Howard Krongard’s testimony.

Buzzy Krongard stated that Howard Krongard called him specifically to ask about any relationship he had with Blackwater “in preparation for his testimony” to the Committee. Buzzy Krongard stated: “He asked me whether I had any financial interest or any ties to Blackwater, and so I told him ‘I’m going on their Board.’” According to Buzzy Krongard, “He responded by saying, ‘Why would you do that?’ and ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’” Buzzy Krongard then said, “I told him that was my decision, not his, and that we just differed on that.”

Buzzy Krongard stated that during the Committee hearing, he was at home watching it live. He listened to Howard Krongard’s prepared opening statement. Then, he heard Howard Krongard offer spontaneously the comment that his brother had no connection to Blackwater. Buzzy Krongard said: “You could have blown me over.” During the hearing, he attempted to reach Howard Krongard by telephone. Before he could reach him, Buzzy Krongard received a call from Howard Krongard and explained again that he was a member of the Board.

These discrepancies between the testimony of Howard Krongard and the information from Buzzy Krongard raise questions about the truthfulness of Howard Krongard’s testimony. During the hearing, there were a number of other discrepancies between Howard Krongard’s testimony and what the Justice Department and senior officials in the Inspector General’s office told the Committee. This is a serious matter given Howard Krongard’s position as the Inspector General of the State Department. I expect the Committee to hold a hearing during the week of December 3, 2007, to provide members the opportunity to assess whether the Inspector General provided truthful testimony to the Committee.

Wish I could be a fly on the wall at the Krongard family's Thanksgiving.

The Gender Trap: Yes, or Yes?

Warning: I watched parts of the Democratic debate last night at the gym. This is the fate of the resident of the Pacific Time zone.

Watching Hillary Clinton smile as she listened to the final question, for a minute, I almost thought I liked her. But then the closed captioning caught up and I saw that the question had been, "Do you prefer diamonds or pearls?" Clinton's response was, "I want both."

Now a wave of really hating her passed over me. It's not just the starving children in Africa who can't afford precious gems—which, in case I need to remind you, have absolutely no function other than to advertise that the wearer has the money to buy something with absolutely no function. No, middle-class Americans with kids in school and mortgages can't afford diamonds and pearls. The right answer would have been, "I'm much more worried about getting our soldiers home from Iraq."

But now a wave of compassion for Clinton washed over me (yes, as a matter of fact, I am ambivalent about her). Any answer other than one which could be translated roughly as "I love jewelry" would have insulted the questioner. So Clinton was set up, something like this: "Okay, lady, so you're a politician, but you're still just a girl, right?" And she had to say, "Yes, that's right, I'm just a girl—a middle-class girl who loves to be pampered."

Now to add insult to injury, the MC then guffawed about whether he could ask the question to any of the other candidates—who are, you know, obviously not girls.

Because gender is the most obvious thing there is, right? Wrong. There are tons of people walking around who aren't immediately readable as male or female. Say it is obvious, as in Clinton's case. The debate question made it seem that her love of jewelry—and being regaled with it by a man who pampers and cares for her—follows just as obviously. Huge leap, people! And extremely misogynist.

Well, it turns out that the questioner had actually wanted to ask something about plans for a nuclear dump site at Yucca Mountain. So it was male reporters who planted a female questioner to ask a question that forced Clinton to say with a smile that yes, she did throw like a girl, and diamond's are a girl's best friend!

Does this shed any light on McCain's bitch problem?

November 15, 2007

Las Vegas Smackdown? Nah, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards Play to a Draw

Is that the best they got?

Anyone who watched Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate hoping to see Barack Obama or John Edwards tear Hillary Clinton apart had to be disappointed. In the run-up to the this face-off in Las Vegas, both Edwards and Obama had intensified their attacks on the woman leading in the polls. And with the most recent survey in Iowa showing the race in that all-important state tightening to almost a three-way tie, there was reason to assume that Edwards and Obama would continue the assault.

They did try, but at the end of the two-hour event it was hardly apparent that they had scored any new points. Why not? There were two main reasons. First, Clinton was well prepped for the slams. Second, the attackers had no new ammo to fire at her. Moreover, the audience at the debate was not eager to see Dem-on-Dem violence, and people in the crowd booed when a knife came out.

The first question addressed the meme of the evening. CNN's Campbell Brown asked Clinton to respond to the Obama/Edwards charge that she avoids taking stands on tough issues and practices the politics of parsing. She had her lines down. Joking that her pants suit was made of asbestos, she insisted she had been fighting for women, children, working families, and union members for 35 years and that in this critical election the Democrats must pick a candidate "who's been tested and who is ready to lead on day one." This has been her pitch from day one--and it's a jab at Obama, the freshman senator.

Next Wolf Blitzer gave Obama the chance to advance his offensive against Clinton. Noting that Obama a few nights ago had suggested that Clinton is "triangulating" and "running a textbook Washington campaign," he asked Obama what he meant by that. Obama essentially repeated what he had previously said: Clinton's botched answer in the previous debate to a question about awarding driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and her less-than-specific response to queries about Social Security show she cannot provide "straight answers to tough questions" and cannot respond to the American people's desire for a "different kind of politics" that challenges the "standard practices of Washington."

This was not a major blast. Clinton retorted by accusing Obama of not "stepping up" on universal health care because his health care proposal would not create mandates that force people to obtain insurance. The two then engaged in a rather wonkish back-and-forth on their health care plans. Actually, a calm and detailed discussion about the differences in their plans would have made for an interesting debate. But this exchange looked more personal than policy.

Then it was Edwards' turn. Blitzer asked Edwards to explain his charge that Clinton is a politician who parses. The former one-term senator suggested Clinton could not be trusted because she has said she will end the Iraq war but would still keep some troops there and because she recently voted (with 70-plus other senators) to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist outfit (which could help the Bush administration cook up a case for war). Edwards also maintained that Clinton is a defender of a "broken" and "rigged" Washington system.

She fired back, saying she didn't mind taking shots on the issues but she resented anyone throwing mud at her that is "right out of the Republican playbook." Not content to play defense, she went on the offense, pointing out that when Edwards ran for vice president in 2004 he did not advocate universal health care but does so in this campaign. So perhaps he's the flip-flopper.

In these opening skirmishes, no one gained ground. But that was good news for Hillaryites. She held her own, and neither Obama nor Edwards advanced their critique of her.

From that point on, the debate settled down, and the candidates proceeded to agree more than not on most of the issues. There were some splits. Not all the Democrats supported issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Clinton, Edwards, Biden and Dodd said no; Obama and Richardson said yes. (Kucinich told Blitzer he "took exception" to the term "illegal immigrants" because people cannot be "illegal.") Most of the aspirants urged some sort of education reform. Bill Richardson called for a national service program. Joe Biden touted his proposal for dealing with the Pakistan crisis. Chris Dodd said he was opposed to the Peru trade accord, noting Clinton and Obama support it. Obama called for sending U.S. inspectors to China to safeguard food and products made there for export to the United States.

There was a scuffle over the Iran legislation vote. Biden called it "counterproductive" and a "serious mistake." Edwards decried the bill as a blank check for the Bush administration and neocon hawks. Clinton defended her vote for the measure and asserted she has been working for months with other senators to prevent Bush from attacking Iran on his own. But when Obama and Edwards attempted to revive the case against Clinton, audience members jeered.

At one point, Obama and Clinton tussled over Social Security. He called for lifting the cap that restricts the Social Security payroll tax to only the first $93,000 of income. Clinton countered that a compete removal of this cap would lead to a $1 trillion tax on the middle class. Obama saw an opening. He replied that since only 6 percent of Americans earn more than $93,000, calling this move a middle-class tax increase was dishonest. "Playing with numbers to make a point," he said, was "the kind of thing I would expect from Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani." People in the auditorium booed. For them, comparing Clinton to the Republican leaders was going too far. Obama didn't try that again.

During the debate, the back-of-the-packers all showed their strengths. (Biden had several moments of humor.) And the three leading contenders put in performances similar to earlier debate appearances. Clinton was back on her game. Edwards seemed more confident in swinging at Clinton than did Obama. And Obama was not able to match the intensity and passion of his much-praised speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner on Saturday night.

It may be that at this point in the race no single debate will change the overall dynamic of the Democratic contest. Which means that the decisive factors for Iowa and the other early states will be the organizing abilities of the campaigns, the stump performances of the candidates, and the impact of the ad barrages that have begun. What the candidates and their campaigns do off the national stage will be what counts.

Nixon on Tape: Reagan Was "Shallow" and of "Limited Mental Capacity"

Richard Nixon, say what you will of this criminally minded president, was a keen observer of politics. But he seems to have underestimated fellow Republican Ronald Reagan (or the American public). On the morning of November 17, 1971, Nixon, while meeting with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office, shared a few sharp--and negative--comments about California Governor Ronald Reagan, who had recently told Kissinger that Nixon had a "real problem" with conservatives who believed Nixon was not sufficiently hawkish on foreign policy matters.

For years, the Presidential Recordings Program of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia has been transcribing and analyzing the tape recordings Nixon secretly made in the White House. Even though it's been 33 years since a disgraced Nixon left office, his tapes are still being processed by the National Archives, and the Miller Center has only recently gotten to the tape of this particular conversation. According to the newly created transcript of the meeting, both Nixon and Kissinger believed Reagan was not the brightest bulb in the GOP. Here are some key excerpts:

President Nixon: What's your evaluation of Reagan after meeting him several times now.

Kissinger: Well, I think he's a--actually I think he's a pretty decent guy.

President Nixon: Oh, decent, no question, but his brains

Kissinger: Well, his brains, are negligible. I--

President Nixon: He's really pretty shallow, Henry.

Kissinger: He's shallow. He’s got no...he's an actor. He--When he gets a line he does it very well. He said, "Hell, people are remembered not for what they do, but for what they say. Can't you find a few good lines?" [Chuckles.] That's really an actor's approach to foreign policy--to substantive....

President Nixon: I've said a lot of good things, too, you know damn well.

Kissinger: Well, that too.

Later in the 24-minute-long discussion, the two discussed the possibility of Reagan running for president:

President Nixon: Can you think though, Henry, can you think, though, that Reagan with certain forces running in the direction could be sitting right here?

Kissinger: Inconceivable.

So much for Kissinger's powers of prognostication. As they were finishing up--after discussing other matters--Nixon slammed Reagan again:

President Nixon: Back to Reagan though. It shows you how a man of limited mental capacity simply doesn't know what the Christ is going on in the foreign area. He’s got to know that on defense--doesn't he know these battles we fight and fight and fight? Goddamn it, Henry, we've been at--

Kissinger: And I told him--he said, “Why don't you fire the bureaucracy?” I said, “Because there are only so many battles we can fight. We take on the bureaucracy now, they're going to leak us to death. Name me one thing that we have done that the bureaucracy made us do.”

President Nixon: The bureaucracy has had nothing to do with anything.

Kissinger: No, no. They've made our lives harder. They've driven us crazy. But that doesn't affect him.

Shallow, negligible brains, limited mental capacity? Well, Reagan did manage to get elected twice, and he served out his two terms--a feat Nixon did not accomplish. And Kissinger happily served on Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Kucinich Campaign Hoping to Rolling Out Energy-Efficient Computers Cooled by Veggie Oil. Seriously.

Some say Dennis Kucinich is a little off-kilter (enter UFO joke here), and his most recent idea does seem pretty out there. But is it really? Turns out the campaign's multimedia director, Chad Ely, is also an inventor and is assisting the camp in rolling out veggie-oil-cooled computers to every office. The entire processing system is submerged in oil, which keeps it cool and decreases the energy used to run it. It's also economical and dead quiet (you know, because it doesn't have all those fans). The prototype pictured above, which has been going strong for eight months, lives in a fish tank, although Ely claims the computers going out to the offices will be surrounded by Plexiglass. I think it's pretty wild. Apparently, other "computer modifiers" are already hip to it. This according to our tech guy.

But that's not all. Kucinich signed an agreement yesterday with SmartPower in which he promises that if elected president, he will make the White House 100 percent energy efficient (enter veggie-oil-filled WH joke here). Mother Jones has more fun facts about the presidential campaigns' commitment—or lack there of—to decreasing their environmental impact. Stay tuned.

Correction: Ok, so technically the Kucinich campaign is not yet rolling out these veggie-oil-filled, wonderfully efficient and quiet computers. According to the campaign, it is still waiting on funding, but as commenter Croydon Kemp reminded us, it's more than most are doing for the planet.

Barry Bonds Going (Jail)Yard?

In a federal indictment, just handed down, Barry Bonds has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for denying that he knowingly took illegal steroids. Surprising? Not really. Revelatory? Perhaps not, but for the media mayhem that will inevitably unfold in the latest act of this beleaguered play.

You won't hear much new, or different. Bonds will be torn apart, his records questioned, his career asterixed. He faces up to 30 years if convicted. But lest you miss this on the ESPN or CNN crawl: in all of Barry's years in Major League Baseball, he's never tested positive for steroids. And even this indictment fails to directly charge him with taking the drugs; the evidence that links Bonds to illegal drugs is a doping calendar seized from the home of his former trainer (who was just released from prison today).

Plenty of ballplayers have tested positive recently, some of them playing the very same season. San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman was suspended at the beginning of last season, and he made the Pro Bowl. And as the testing system has ramped up, dozens of minor and major league players have tested positive, and though they've all been fined and suspended, none have lost more than Bonds has.

It's easy to see why he's so vilified:

He's surly in public, standoffish with the media, and is a selfish teammate. Yet the love/hate of Bonds falls disturbingly along racial lines (The SF Chronicle's Scott Ostler had a great piece on this a couple years ago). Would Bonds be as vilified as he is if he was white? I don't think so.

I've got a different reason for supporting Bonds all these years though. Back in middle school, a teammate and buddy of mine, Lee Franklin, was diagnosed with leukemia. When he couldn't find a donor, Bonds helped him out, first by testing to see if he was a match, and when he found out he wasn't, by raising awareness nationally to try to find a donor. It's much more difficult for African Americans to find bone marrow matches, and as much as Bonds tried, he couldn't find one for Lee. Luckily the cancer went into recession, and Lee and Bonds stayed close. Lee went on to play second base at the University of Arizona, but had to leave when the cancer came back. Lee died a year ago. So when Bonds gets blasted and dragged through the coals in these next few days, keep in mind that performance enhancers didn't help his hand-eye coordination, his swing, or the fact that he tried to give Lee a fighting chance.

—Andre Sternberg

Ron Paul Refuses to Divest of Donations from Neo-Nazis

When I read this very well-documented story in the Lone Star Times about the $500 donation to Ron Paul from well-known white supremacist Don Black, I didn't really blame Paul for taking the money. After all, it's hard to screen out every kook in advance. I assumed Paul would immediately return the money (or donate it to a group like the Holocaust Museum), prevent a link on Black's Neo-Nazi website, Stormfront, from connecting to the campaign's donation page, and announce these moves on the official Ron Paul website. I assumed wrong.

Five days after the Lone Star Times story appeared, Paul spokesman Jesse Benton told the paper he was still unsure whether the campaign would return Black's money. "At this time, I cannot say that we will be rejecting Mr. Black’s contribution," he said, "but I will bring the matter to the attention of our campaign director again, and expect some sort of decision to be made in coming days." Would the campaign at least block fundraising links from Stormfront's IP address? Again, Benton said, he'd have to bring up the idea with the campaign director.

Since then, more than two weeks have passed without an update from the Paul campaign, so I sent Benton and email today asking what the campaign manager had decided. Would Paul be returning Black’s money and blocking further donations from Stormfront? A few minutes later he wrote back, and this is what he said:

(Continue reading after the jump)

Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and the protection of inalienable individual rights for every American. All of our campaigns energy is dedicated to spreading the message of liberty and limited government, and we do not spend time screening donors or blocking websites. We don’t know who Don Black is, and pay him no attention. If a small number individuals who hold racist beliefs want to waste their money by giving to Dr. Paul, a man who stands firmly against their small minded ideologies, then the campaign will simply use those funds to protect freedom, peace and civil liberties across our Nation.

Frankly, I find the glibness of this response appalling, and I could not disagree more with its reasoning. Accepting Black's dirty money creates an implied obligation to these nut jobs and their priorities, which, even if rejected by Paul, is hard to deny. Are we to simply take Paul's word that these people aren't buying anything? How are we to know that Paul doesn't share their motives? Does Paul support tighter border controls because he fears a drain on social services, or because he doesn't like brown people? Now it's hard to know. I say this reluctantly, as someone who has a great deal of respect for Paul's courageous stands on issues such as the war in Iraq: I no longer believe that Paul is a man of principle. There is simply never any principle to taking cash tainted with the blood of Auschwitz and Jim Crow.

More thoughts: In the comments Paulites have echoed Benton's assertion that money from racists is better spent on the Paul campaign than on the active promotion of racism. This is true, but it doesn't make it right to accept the money. The fact remains that some people will view its acceptance as a legitimization of the racists who donated it, no matter what Paul says to the contrary. Racism in America has been a duplicitous endeavor. Why do you think members of the KKK wore masks? Actions speak louder than words here, and if Paul really cared about rebuking the Neo-Nazis, he would do so in the most direct way possible, which is to donate their money to a group that counters them, such as the Anti-Defamation League. (More on Paul and racism here, here, and here).

Ultimately, the Paulites might be correct that this incident isn't worth taking seriously. The Neo-Nazis are not a great threat to American society, and in the end, neither is Paul. He has made a buffoonish, politically tone deaf move, and it confirms, despite his great strides in recent months, that he is still a fringe candidate with no hope of winning the presidency. There's simply no way America will elect a candidate who knowingly takes money from Neo-Nazis.

Update: Because of this post, my membership in Ron Paul's San Francisco Meetup group has been revoked. This morning Stephanie Burns, who administers the group, wrote to me in an email: "I am removing you from our Meetup Group as you certainly aren't a Ron Paul supporter. I suggest you spend your time looking at bigger issues than a stupid $500 donation from someone the campaign did not even know. . . .Why don't you focus your efforts on the Neo nazis in power, instead of some stupid nut job who happens to support a candidate (every candidate has them, Josh, check it out)."

Does this mean that a perquisite of membership is the San Francisco Ron Paul Meetup group is a belief that it is morally fine to accept donations from Neo-Nazi groups? Will others who question this policy also be booted? It certainly seems strange that a campaign that portrays itself as a big tent, where even Neo-Nazis are welcome, is simultaneously so intolerant of dissent.

More on that dissent: Comments to this post have evolved into complaints that Paul is unfairly being singled out. Paulites contend that kooks donate to all of the candidates and ask why I'm only pointing this out in Paul's case. To that I say, show me a proven example of a well-known Neo-Nazi group (or its leader) donating money to another well-known presidential candidate, or posting fundraising ads for the candidate on their web page. I will then contact that candidate and ask if they will reject the money. If they will not, I will blog about it. This is exactly the scenario with Paul. A second recurring critique is the the notion I have some agenda to discredit Paul, which is somehow proven by the fact that I've researched this issue. In reality, researching and writing this blog post took me about an hour. Meanwhile, I have spent months researching the campaign for forthcoming stories, as many here in San Francisco know. It's hard to see how that constitutes an anti-Paul agenda. IMHO, Paul supporters should be doing some soul-searching right now. See, for example, the anti-semitic comments below by "No Mo Jooz." Why has nobody repudiated this guy?

Bombs Sneak Past Airport Security? Shocking!

A GAO report released today shows that current TSA restrictions on liquids and gels are just shy of completely ineffective in preventing a terrorist attack.

Really? You don't say.

Earlier this year undercover GAO agents (as opposed to those who run around wearing uniforms and nametags) tested 21 airports nationwide, and managed to get liquids and detonators that can be combined to create IEDs and (another acronym we don't all want to come to know), Improvised Incendiary Devices (IIDs), past airport screeners.

They were universally successful (and this frightening finding comes just before the busiest travel week of the year). In one case, a TSA agent didn't allow the GAO a "small, unlabeled bottle of medicated shampoo" because he said the bottle "could contain acid." The same TSAer permitted a prohibited, liquid IID component to sail through untouched.

The screeners are hardly the ones to blame, though. The GAO found that "in most cases transportation security officers appeared to follow TSA procedures and used technology appropriately." The fault lay in nationwide TSA policies and standard-operating procedures that "increases the risk of a terrorist successfully bringing an IED, an IID, or both onto an aircraft undetected."

Reform maven Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) found the GAO's report "mind-boggling," but I'm not so surprised. The TSA failed to find similar components during a test run on Thanksgiving weekend in 2004 and it failed again in 2006.

For more tidbits, like how the GAO got IED parts (which run about $150), the full report can be read here. The TSA's totally unconvincing response to the report, in which they say you shouldn't worry because the failed security checkpoint is really just part of a larger tapestry of inspections, is here. Happy trails.

Coal Sponsors Tonight's Democratic Debate

Think Progress points to the full-page ad in today's New York Times stating that tonight's Democratic presidential debate on CNN is sponsored by the "clean coal" industry. Wow. Aren't euphemisms fun? Sort of the magical realism of the political world. According to Think Progress, the coal industry’s "clean" agenda would have us:

• Expand coal production by using government-funded technology to convert coal to vehicle fuels, thereby producing twice as much global warming pollution as gas production, and consuming huge amounts of water to boot. • Crank out as many new power plants as possible before limits on greenhouse gas pollution take effect. Nearly 150 coal-fired power plants are already on the drawing board. • Delay and weaken any limits on CO2 pollution, even though scientists tell us we need a 20% reduction by 2020, and an 80% reduction in 2050 [actually, we need more than that and faster too]. • Convince Congress to give coalies free "allowances" to emit greenhouse gases rather than force coal-fired plants to buy them in cap-and-trade auctions.

The coal industry's sponsorship of tonight’s CNN debate in Las Vegas appears to be an attempt to pressure Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who has stood firmly against the construction of three proposed major coal-fired power plants in his home state: REID: "I want to help Nevada become the national leader in renewable energy and energy independence. We have vast wind, solar and geothermal resources and we're wasting energy every day we're not tapping into those free, clean, and reliable power sources… As proposed, these coal plants are old news, the way of the increasingly distant past."

Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, here.

Ron Paul: The Only Candidate that Won't Land Catholics in a Pit of Eternal Fire. ... Or Is He?

The nation's bishops held a press conference yesterday to warn that the choices Roman Catholic voters make at the ballot box may put their eternal salvation at risk. In large part, they appeared to be talking about the candidates' stances on abortion. The take-home message: Vote for a Democrat, go to Hell. (more after the jump)

But we're not being entirely fair. Let's face it: Jesus isn't on the ballot. Every last one of these candidates is a filthy sinner, and as soon as any one of them takes the reins, he or she will start making moral judgements with global ramifications. Just to get in the saddle, all are taking stances that clash with those of the church.

Rudy G? He's pro-choice anyway, but Mr. Machismo is also unapologetically pro-war and pro-death penalty. He's also divorced, and thus will drag your writhing soul with him into the underworld.

Fred Thompson? He's a pro-capital punishment hawk who thinks we need to give the Pentagon even more money so it can wreak havoc in ... Iran perhaps?

Hell.

Mitt Romney? He's a Mormon.

Hell.

Voting Democratic may lead the confirmed into pits of burning sulfur, but the fact is, most every GOP candidate is gung-ho on the war and thinks the state should fry death row inmates. What's a good Catholic to do?

Hmm. Well there is Ron Paul. Paul thinks life begins at conception. He's against the war, the death penalty and embryonic stem cell research. Even though he voted against the amendment to ban gay marriage--as a libertarian Republican, he thinks it's not the government's business--he's personally against the practice. Could Paul really be The One to guide voters to Heaven?

Oh, wait. Turns out he wants to legalize, or at least decriminalize prostitution.

Hell.

Edwards Announces "Plants for Hillary"

Earlier, David asked how nasty tonight's Democratic debate is going to get. Judging from the Edwards campaign's actions this afternoon, reeeeeally nasty.

Via an email to reporters, Edwards just announced the group "Plants for Hillary," parodying groups like Veterans for Hillary and African-American Women for Hillary and taking the frontrunner to task for the planted question scandal that isn't really a scandal.

There's even a website, plantsforhillary.com, which the campaign calls the "one-stop shop for all Americans interested in growing the Hillary plant movement." It's pretty crude, kind of mean, and a just a little bit funny.

The campaign calls it a "grassroots" website. I think it puts a new spin on slinging mud.

No One Wants to Blog for Bush Anymore

Once upon a time, writing a right-wing website called Blogs for Bush must have been easy. But now, when the president has lost the confidence of the American people, alienated even his far-right base over the issue of immigration, shepherded a war in disastrous fashion, and failed to achieve a single significant and lasting domestic policy victory... what to do?

Bail on Bush, of course. Blogs for Bush is changing their name to Blogs for Victory. They're saying that it is in anticipation of Bush's departure from the White House, but let's not miss the PR aspect. Check out this very suspicious correlation:

How Ugly Will the Democratic Race Get (Tonight and Afterward)?

How nasty will it get in Vegas?

Tonight, the Democrats will gather in family-friendly Sin City for yet another debate, and as they prep for this face-off, John Edwards and Barack Obama must be calculating how far to go in assailing front-runner Hillary Clinton. And she must be wondering how sharp to be in return.

The latest Iowa poll from The New York Times and CBS News depicts the race in the Hawkeye State as virtually a three-way tie (Clinton, 25 percent; Edwards, 23 percent, and Obama, 22 percent). Such results presumably scare the Clinton machine. If she falls in Iowa, so too does her campaign's double-sided argument of inevitability and electability. These poll numbers are obvious encouragement for the two men with the best shot of toppling her--and a sign that their recent moves might be working.

In the past week, both Obama and Edwards have intensified their attacks on Clinton. At the Jefferson Jackson Day dinner in Iowa on Saturday night, Obama, in a fiery speech, declared:

The same old Washington textbook campaigns just won't do in this election. That's why not answering questions 'cause we are afraid our answers won't be popular just won't do. That's why telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won't do. Triangulating and poll-driven positions because we're worried about what Mitt or Rudy might say about us just won't do. If we are really serious about winning this election Democrats, we can't live in fear of losing it....

I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over....They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House....

I am sick and tired of Democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is by talking, and acting, and voting like George Bush Republicans. When I am this party's nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran....I don't want to spend the next year or the next four years re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s.

Whether or not the tired Iowan Democrats realized it, this was all an attack on HRC the hawkish, triangulating, hyperpartisan kingpin of conventional, lobbyist-fueled Washington politics--though Obama never mentioned her by name. He was offering a contrast deeply unkind to Clinton without coming across as a slasher.

At the same dinner, Edwards went easy on Clinton, but in the days after he resumed his assault upon her. On Wednesday, he issued a press release challenging her to "stop defending Washington." By that, he meant stop defending the politicians and lobbyists of the nation's capital who plot together to screw working Americans. In another statement, he declared, "Voters have a clear choice between John Edwards, who will fight to finally pass universal health care, and Senator Clinton, who seems intent on defending the Washington establishment." He also blasted her for greasing the path to war in Iran:

The war in Iraq isn't even history yet, but the Bush Administration is repeating the march to war with Iran – and they're getting help from a person who should know a lot better – Senator Clinton. On Saturday at the Iowa Jefferson Jackson dinner, Senator Clinton unveiled her new campaign slogan to ‘turn up the heat’ on the Republicans. Well, somebody will have to tell me how you ‘turn up the heat’ by voting with Bush, Cheney and the neocons on their path to war with Iran. Because I don't believe that's turning up the heat – I think that's giving them exactly what they want.

For her part, Clinton at the Iowa dinner asserted that change without experience is no formula for success--an obvious dig at Obama.

With the race tightening, the mounting pressure could blow the lid of the pot at the Las Vegas debate, which is supposed to focus on matters of specific interest to the West (say water rights, not the number of lobbyists collecting campaign cash for Clinton). Up to now, Obama has said nothing that would prevent Clinton from choosing him as a running mate should she prevail. He has insisted he's not interested in running for veep. But who knows? He also has his politics-of-hope, bringing-folks-together rep to maintain. And that could cause him to limit his assaults on Clinton. Will he cross a line as the January 3 Iowa caucus cometh? Tonight would be the time to do so.

As for Edwards, he clearly has no interest in repeating a run as No. 2. And as an ex-senator, he need not fret about senatorial courtesy. Consequently, he has more freedom to slam Clinton. But does this former trial lawyer want to play junkyard-dog prosecutor and do the dirty work only to create an opening for Obama the nice guy?

Meanwhile, will Hillary swing harder at the foes she has previously preferred to ignore? She cannot afford more slippage in the Iowa polls. In the course of this race, Clinton has consistently put in just-fine performances at the debates--until the last one, when she stumbled over a question about New York State issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Does she have to brandish more muscle now?

The politerati will be poised for a three-person slugfest this evening. If that happens, it will be personal, for the policy differences among the three (despite all the roaring) are not that great. They all say they want out of the Iraq war. Clinton's and Edwards' health-care proposals are, to the naked eye, virtually identical. Each of these candidates calls for energy independence and protecting Social Security from privatization. There are distinctions. Edwards wants to send Washington lobbyists to Gitmo; HRC relies on Washington influence-peddlers for political money. But my hunch is that the strategists of three camps realize that Democratic voters will make their decisions based on the impressions they have of the leadership potential of the three main contenders. That means the attacks--if they do come--will have to target the person, not his or her policy positions. And that means, the race will get ugly. After all, in politics candidates tend to win by beating their rivals.

November 14, 2007

Stupid in the Eye of the Beholder: The Human Genome and Racial Difference

The decoding of the human genome continues apace and those of us who have latched on to the '99% meme' (e.g. "99% of our DNA is the same so we all live in a yellow submarine of bio-racial sameness la la la," etc.) have to batten down the hatches for the continuing unprocessed info-glut from the science types even as the political types sharpen their anti-intellectual cultural swords.

Here's the good news: "When scientists first decoded the human genome in 2000, they were quick to portray it as proof of humankind's remarkable similarity. The DNA of any two people, they emphasized, is at least 99 percent identical."

Here's the bad: "But new research is exploring the remaining fraction to explain differences between people of different continental origins."

Ruh roh. Bell curve, anyone, and nefarious laymen perverting neutral scientific advances to further their own group's racial agenda?

Nonscientists are already beginning to stitch together highly speculative conclusions about the historically charged subject of race and intelligence from the new biological data. Last month, a blogger in Manhattan described a recently published study that linked several snippets of DNA to high I.Q. An online genetic database used by medical researchers, he told readers, showed that two of the snippets were found more often in Europeans and Asians than in Africans.

No matter that the link between I.Q. and those particular bits of DNA was unconfirmed, or that other high I.Q. snippets are more common in Africans, or that hundreds or thousands of others may also affect intelligence, or that their combined influence might be dwarfed by environmental factors. Just the existence of such genetic differences between races, proclaimed the author of the Half Sigma blog, a 40-year-old software developer, means "the egalitarian theory," that all races are equal, "is proven false."

Three guesses as to this "software developer's" race. But check out what scientists have to say about this information still in it's infancy:

"There are clear differences between people of different continental ancestries," said Marcus W. Feldman, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University. "It's not there yet for things like I.Q., but I can see it coming. And it has the potential to spark a new era of racism if we do not start explaining it better."

The blogosphere, of course, is leading the race to the bottom. I'll spare you the links to all the knuckle-dragging Neanderthals but here's this smart-ass Negro's advice: wait.

Say nothing.

Start carefully annotated files.

Resist the impulse to try to stifle the discourse with so-far bogus cries of racism. Who knows who'll turn out to be right and who wrong (I do, but the time is not yet right, dearies). Unless, of course, you're actually afraid that blacks really are dumber.

Wait. Watch. Study. Amass evidence for some very specific, very well timed indictments.

Remember, Timbuktu wasn't built in a day.

Take Two Aspirin and Call the NSC in the Morning

The hawks in charge of health care reform? Say it ain't so. Okay, it ain't so ... yet. But in this month's Health Affairs, Leonard Schaeffer warns that if we don't act soon--the "we" in this case being the U.S. medical-industrial complex--the national security guys and budget minders will be the ones rakishly calling the shots on our healthcare future. Why, they wouldn't dare! Well, actually they would, because in case you haven't noticed, healthcare spending is turning into the new global warming. (more after the jump)

Despite decades of hand-wringing, the healthcare community hasn't found the political clout, the political will, or even the collective desire to wrestle the costs into control (Schaeffer, as chairman of Surgical Care Affiliates, one of the nation's largest surgical care companies, is part of that crowd.) In the meantime, a quicksand of greedy special interests, spineless pols, and, let's admit it, our own sense of entitlement has left America with some of the planet's highest per-capita health spending--$6,102 a person in 2004 versus an average of $2,552 for member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. What has this money bought? Not much. Schaeffer cites our "disturbing" international rankings on the accepted measures of healthcare performance.

As the author notes, alarm bells are now sounding in D.C. Indeed, in this month's New England Journal of Medicine, Congressional Budget Office boss Peter Orszag warns that we're breaking the bank, a message he's already put directly to Congress. On our current path, Orszag stresses, Medicare and Medicaid spending alone will suck up the equivalent of our current federal budget by 2050--that's 20 percent of GDP, for all you policy wonks.

That'll never happen, of course. But the healthcare industry's window for self-reform is closing fast, Schaeffer writes. Washington will soon start talking about healthcare in the language of national security, as in: Sorry pal, we just can't maintain our nuclear subs, fight the terrorists and pay for your liver surgery.

In a nutshell, he'd much rather the health lobby be in charge than the defense lobby. No surprise, given his job title. Then again, some of the patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center would no doubt agree with him.

Mixing Activism With Heavy Rock

When he's not speaking with members of Congress about the Armenian Genocide, System of a Down lead singer Serj Tankian is playing sold-out concerts around the globe. Mother Jones spoke with Tankian about his new solo record, his nonprofit activist group, and Turkey's role in the war in Iraq. To read the full interview, head to MoJo's Media & Culture page.

Thompson (Almost) Accuses Bush of Weakening the U.S. Military

The Repubs running for president are each in something of a corner. They have to defend the record of their president and party (a record that is mighty unpopular) and propose change. Fred Thomspon ran smack into that challenge yesterday when he called for "revitalizing" the U.S. military. Doesn't such a battle cry imply that Bush has failed the nation and our troops? Here's how I wrote about it for CQPolitics.com:

According to Fred Thompson, George W. Bush has been derelict in his duty as commander in chief. How else to explain Thompson's latest policy initiative?

On Tuesday, Thompson unveiled what he has dubbed his "Four Pillars of a Revitalized National Defense." You might ask, why must the national defense of the United States of America be revitalized after nearly seven years of the Bush administration? And remember that for most of this time, Bush's GOP controlled Congress. Yet Thompson is saying that on Bush's watch, the military has not been properly managed. He is essentially calling Bush a devitalizer.

His Pillar No. 1: boosting military spending. Apparently, Bush's 60-percent hike in Pentagon expenditures since 2001 (in real terms) hasn't been enough--even though U.S. military spending now represents almost two-fifths of the world's total military tab. And at $626 billion, the U.S. military budget is about seven times the size of the military budget of China, the second largest military spender on the planet. It also is much larger than the combined military spending of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Cuba (about $15 billion). But still, six-tenths of a trillion dollars is not enough for Thompson. So he must believe that Bush has imperiled the nation by spending too little during the previous six years.

For Pillar No. 2, Thompson wants to increase the size of the military to create a "million-member" ground force. Right now, the Army has about half a million troops, and the U.S. Marines Corps has about 180,000. Bush has called for increasing the Army to 550,000 and the Marines to 202,000. But yet again, Bush--as Thompson sees it--is not doing enough. Thompson advocates boosting the Army to 775,000 troops and beefing up the Marines to 225,000. Will there be a draft? Thompson doesn't say so. By the way, CBS News on Tuesday reported that Iraq war veterans have a suicide rate two to four times higher than civilians the same age. How's that for a recruitment pitch?

Moving on to Pillar No. 3. "The U.S. must modernize its Armed Forces," Thompson insists. That's obviously one more important task Bush did not get to while he was busy with the Iraq war.

Pillar No. 4: "The U.S. must take better care of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines....We must also take care of our veterans by fixing the VA system." Is Thompson implying that Bush has not done all he can to support the troops and our wounded warriors? (See the suicide stats mentioned above.)

It would appear that Thompson has a low regard for the current military status quo. And who's to blame for that?

Of course, Thompson doesn't point a finger directly at Bush. Now that would take guts, for the GOP presidential contenders don't want to criticize the president and possibly piss off Republican voters....

You can read the rest here.

The Real Reason Richard Mellon Scaife Has Embraced Bill Clinton?

As Jonathan notes below, the Clintons seem to have won over Richard Mellon Scaife. That's right, Scaife, he of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," the man who funded the American Spectator and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other publications and entites, to go after Bill and Hill with a zeal not seen since the Comstock days, is now saying Clinton is "very laudable" and, through his latest media mouthpiece Newsmax.com, is moreover "a political and cultural powerhouse" who is "part Merlin and part Midas—a politician with a magical touch." In reporting on this strange turn of events, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff (who broke the Monicagate story) can only throw his hands up and say "cue the apocalypse."

Well, I don't really have any idea either, but it's perhaps worth noting that Scaife is going through a particularly tawdry divorce, one that was hilariously detailed by the Washington Post's David Segal back in October. It is more than worth reading in full—this accompanying illustration gives you a sense of Segal's itinerary of a divorce/travelogue device, but just to get you to follow the link...

[Scaife] is best known for funding efforts to smear then-President Bill Clinton, but more quietly he's given in excess of $300 million to right-leaning activists, watchdogs and think tanks. Atop his list of favorite donees: the family-values-focused Heritage Foundation, which has published papers with titles such as "Restoring a Culture of Marriage."

The culture of his own marriage is apparently past restoring. With the legal fight still in the weigh-in phase, the story of Scaife v. Scaife already includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night in jail and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.

Oh, and there's the money. Three words, people.

No. Pre. Nup.

Unfathomable but true, when Scaife (rhymes with safe) married his second wife, Margaret "Ritchie" Scaife, in 1991, he neglected to wall off a fortune that Forbes recently valued at $1.3 billion. This, to understate matters, is likely going to cost him, big time. As part of a temporary settlement, 60-year-old Ritchie Scaife is currently cashing an alimony check that at first glance will look like a typo: $725,000 a month. Or about $24,000 a day, seven days a week. As Richard Scaife's exasperated lawyers put it in a filing, "The temporary order produces an amount so large that just the income from it, invested at 5 percent, is greater each year than the salary of the President of the United States."

But wait, there's more:

At some point in late 2005, Ritchie started having suspicions about her husband and hired a private investigator named Keith Scannell, a specialist in high-end surveillance for insurance companies. In December of that year, Scannell followed Richard Scaife to nearby North Huntingdon, home of Doug's Motel, a place where the TVs are bolted to the furniture and rooms can be rented in three-hour increments, for $28. (It's now under new management and renamed the Huntingdon Inn. Head east on Route 8, then east on Route 30.) There, according to Scannell, Scaife spent a few hours with Tammy Sue Vasco.

Why a billionaire would shack up at Doug's Motel, of all places, is a mystery. Ditto his choice of companions. Vasco is a tall, blond 43-year-old mother who in 1993 was busted in a sting operation after showing up at a Sheraton hotel and offering to have sex with an undercover cop for $225, the Post-Gazette reported.

Now could it be that the reason Scaife has formed a "mutual admiration society" with Bill Clinton because he now sees Monicagate through different eyes? As for Bill, his spokesperson has said of the new friendship: "President Clinton believes in redemption and moving forward." Yes, and money talks.

Peace Brings Cash, For a Change

Today's the day in California when community activists get a heap of cash ($25,000) for their efforts at social justice, winners of what's known as the Peace Prize. Past winners have included Father Greg Boyle who works with gang youth in Los Angeles, to Connie Rice, Condeleeza's (second) cousin whose apple fell far from Condi's tree, as she runs a civil-rights nonprofit. Yet most awardees are unknowns, people who toil at the grassiest of grassroots for decades in relative obscurity, except to those whom they impact.

The awards this year, the 15th that The California Wellness Foundation has honored such efforts, went to three lifetime advocates, Casey Gwinn, Patricia Lee, and Cora Tomalinas, three folks I can almost guarantee you have never heard of, but who have likely made a world of difference to the hundreds, if not thousands, they have worked with.

"Lacerations, Perforations and Death"

Back in June, Cameron Scott reported that George Bush's choice for Surgeon General, Dr. James W. Holsinger, like so many other so-called medical science appointees, has some problems with the concept of human sexuality. Dr. Holsinger, of course, explains it all by reminding us that pipe fittings are named after the parts used in "real" sex, between males and females.

Dr. Holsinger appeared before the Senate health committee in July, in order to answer questions concerning his misgivings about gays and bisexual individuals, which he outlined many years ago in a document in which he warned that gay sex can lead to "lacerations, perforations and deaths." Holsinger, who founded a church to help make gay people straight, told the Senate that his opinions have "evolved" since he first made his famous statements about the dangers of homosexuality. He also has gone from favoring stem cell research to being against it. On July 26, the committee gave him a questionnaire, whose return it requested by August 10. Dr. Holsinger has still not returned the questionnaire, but the recent is now apparent: He does not have to.

Holsinger has resigned from the board of trustees of Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, and the supposed reason is that he is going to get a recess appointment as Surgeon General.

Branding "Progressive" in the Midwest — Your Thoughts?

The folks at the Center for American Progress are looking for opinions on their new ad campaign currently running in the Columbus, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis media markets. Here are there ads:

These first two are great, particularly the first one. The left lost the branding wars over the word "liberal," and this sort of head-on messaging is necessary to win the branding wars over "progressive." I particularly like the line "Progressive. And proud of it." Less success here, though...

By pairing the progressive message with those super smug Mac ads, these spots just reinforce the idea that progressives are coastal elites who think they dress hipper, talk smarter, and know politics better than their middle American cousins. There's also a dangerous degree of oversimplification going on.