What's So Funny? VOTE!

Reasons Not To Vote For John McCain: Summing It Up

I started this blog back in June as a way to disseminate to then-ambivalent Hillary supporters the reasons why I thought no supporter of Hillary Clinton should support John McCain. It’s grown since then, and as a (formerly!) non-politics person, it’s sometimes hard to think of what to say without sounding like another whiny liberal blogger. But I’d like to bring back older posts that many of you haven’t read, and sum up my reasons not to vote for John McCain. Honestly, I think the older posts were my best ones, and I'd like to share them with you one more time. Thank you for reading.

No Hillary supporter should vote for McCain because he has opposed everything Hillary Clinton stands for: abortion rights, equal pay, access to healthcare including contraception, comprehensive sex ed. He also has behaved misogynistically in his personal life.

Sunni, Shia, remember that controversy? McCain's multiple "gaffes" demonstrate a lack of understanding of the basic relationships in the region, which will be vital to create a lasting peace. Thought foreign policy was supposed to be his strong point.

McCain's campaign is filled with lobbyists:

• Chief political advisor lobbies for brutal dictators and performed lobbying duties on McCain's campaign bus.
• Campaign co-chair (now resigned) and other high-ranking campaign officials lobbied him directly to disregard free trade agreements and give a $35 billion air force contract to a European conglomerate instead of American Boeing. At least one was being paid specifically to lobby McCain while she was part of his campaign staff (illegal).
• Other campaign staffers (resigned) lobbied for Myanmar's military junta.
• His top energy advisor was an energy lobbyist while he was also McCain's energy advisor, helping form his energy policy.
• Campaign manager lobbied for a Ukranian politician in opposition to United States' national interest. Also lobbied for a Russian businessman with so many organized crime and antidemocratic ties that he was denied a U.S. visa. A fundraiser lobbied for the UAE to help defend them after it came out that they kidnapped and enslaved children as camel-jockeys.
• Chief foreign policy advisor was a paid lobbyist for Georgia, even as he worked on McCain's Russia-Georgia policy.
• Hired an oil lobbyist to help find people to fill all vacant staff positions in a new McCain administration.

The economy: Phil Gramm, McCain's chief economic advisor, who resigned but still advises him, wrote the legislation that deregulated energy commodity trading. That's what allowed Enron to collapse, and that allowed speculators to drive up the price of oil. Gramm also wrote the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which deregulated the financial services industry and in large part resulted in our current Wall Street meltdown. By the way, Gramm has been mentioned as a potential Secretary of the Treasury in a McCain administration.

McCain takes a lot of money from lobbyists. Read the blog post for an interesting discussion of what this will mean for him politically, in contrast to the 3 million small donors supporting the Obama campaign.

Drill, baby, drill. McCain believes more offshore drilling will somehow make an immediate big impact at the pump, and remain environmentally safe. The day after he announced this turnaround on oil drilling, (the very next day!), he had a $1.3 million fundraiser with Texas energy industry executives. Did any of you happen to catch the number of oil rigs damaged or missing after Hurricane Ike, and how much oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico? Half a million gallons.

McCain wants to give more and more tax breaks to the people who need it the least: the top 1% and especially the top 0.1% of earners in this country, and almost nothing to the lowest 25%, those who can barely fill their gas tanks and put food on the table. By the way, the top 1% earn over 20% of the nation's income.

McCain's gun policy is so extreme, he won't even speak out against a loophole that allows people on a terrorist watchlist to buy a gun. Oh, wait, his top foreign policy guy lobbied for a gun trade association that opposed closing that loophole. Right. (same guy who lobbies for Georgia).

Sarah Palin would assume the role of president if 72-year-old-he-with-a-history-of-cancer were to die. In my opinion, appointing her showed a terrible lack of judgement on McCain's part.

Palin is just the first of McCain's appointments. If elected president, yes, he can appoint Supreme Court Justices, but also a million other people you'll never hear about, but who carry out whatever McCain's party line is going to be. Remember Monica Goodling??

McCain has done his best to distract the American people from the issues with political stunts. Remember "lipstick on a pig?" His campaign itself has admitted that if they spend too much time talking about the economy, they will lose the election.

McCain, though a veteran and former POW, has voted against the interests of our troops and veterans again and again. Got a "D" rating from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

McCain wants to tax your health care benefits until it gets so expensive that your employer will just stop providing them. Good luck on the deregulated free market! Yes, unbelievably, he also wants to deregulate the health insurance industry. If you're a health care provider, good luck getting reimbursed once the markets are deregulated!

I've tried hard to stay away from subjective "gut-feeling" topics on this blog, but this post will be incomplete if I don't ask you to stop and think, now that the campaigns are nearly behind us, about which candidate you think has acted like a man you'd want to be in charge of our nation.

Well, that's it. Thanks so much for reading, and please pass this along to anyone who isn't committed to voting for Obama. We’re going on a family vacation the week before the election, so this will be one of my last posts, barring another video or big topic idea.

So Now He Wants To Deregulate Teaching?

McCain from last night's debate:

We need to encourage programs such as Teach for America and Troops to Teachers where people, after having served in the military, can go right to teaching and not have to take these examinations which -- or have the certification that some are required in some states.

So now he wants to deregulate teaching?

(thanks to David N.)

Along Came John . . .

You know, I feel like I've covered most of the reasons not to vote for McCain, without attacking his person or his serpentine would-be first lady. I'd love some topic suggestions, but until then: videos. Enjoy!

McCain's Denial

Fixin’ to Vote Rag

Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits

In honor of tonight's debate, here's Keith Olbermann's salute to Sarah Palin . . . so far. Enjoy!

My Musings On Experience

A good friend of mine said to me the other day of Sarah Palin, something along the lines of, "Just because she's inexperienced doesn't mean she's unknowledgable or incapable." My friend was right, and it got me to thinking. I concluded that it's not really experience that has me concerned, as much as capableness.

What if McCain's running mate was Bobby Jindal instead of Sarah Palin? Jindal was a congressman for three years, and became Louisiana governor 8 months ago. Less experience, I think, than Palin's two years as governor of Alaska, even if you leave out her years as president of the PTA.

Jindal graduated with honors from an Ivy League school, and received a master's degree in political science from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, having turned down acceptances to Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School. Palin attended FOUR different schools (University of Idaho twice, having transferred out then back in to graduate) before finally receiving her bachelors.

Jindal, though I disagree with his positions, is a thoughtful man who would clearly be capable as an executive. Someone who could manage a meeting with world leaders, without being on the receiving end of mockery and outright cringing on the part of the American people. Someone who I think is qualified to run the country. I'm not worried about his lack of foreign policy experience as governor, because I'm confident that he follows world issues, is interested in them, and forms opinions, and can converse knowledgably about a range of issues, even those not directly affecting his constiuents in Louisiana.

Palin, though, is a train wreck. She can't answer simple questions, like, "What newspapers do you read?" She's barely conversant on even the big talking points associated with her ticket, much less an in-depth conversation about complex issues affecting the country. It's been reported that she had a thirty minute attention span during Alaska Gubernatorial debate prep. I think, perhaps, she can't be bothered to pull facts out of her head, or maybe she has such an intense lack of interest in global issues that it all just flies right out the window.

Since George W. Bush has made the United States a laughingstock for the past eight years . . . I, for one, don't want ANOTHER "Joe six-pack" running the country. I want someone a whole lot smarter than myself. I want someone with intellectual curiousity and interest in the issues s/he is asked to manage. Wouldn't you rather see the former President of the Harvard Law Review take office than someone who had to transfer back and forth FIVE times between different third-rate colleges, just to get her undergraduate degree? Wouldn't you rather have the guy who is conversant on a range of issues, over the person who can't name a Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade, even though she's been busy mouthing off about "activist judges?" Does she even know what that means? I'll take the smart guy, thanks.

The Deregulator

Drop The Regulations!

Phil Gramm and Financial Services Deregulation

One of the reasons that the stock market crash of 1929 caused so many banks to fail during the Great Depression was that banks had invested their deposits in speculative stocks during the bubble years of the 1920s. When the stock bubble burst, the banks lost their money, and the government had to step in and start insuring our bank deposits to make banks safe again. Another reform was to prevent banks from getting involved in speculative securities. If banks were too important to let fail and the government was going to insure our deposits, the government wanted to regulate the kinds of risks that banks would be allowed to bear. Force the banks to bear their own risks and not pass them on in the securities market, and they’d be careful not to enter into risky mortgages with people who can’t afford them, right?

This worked great for the next 50 years, until the stock market bubble years of the 1990s, when there was so much money to be made in the market that bank lobbyists and friendly legislators got together to remove the regulations that prevented banks and securities firms from getting too intermingled in each other’s businesses. McCain economic advisor and former Senator Phil Gramm was one of the leaders of this effort. In fact, the legislation which deregulated the financial services industry was named the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Yes, President Clinton signed the bill, there’s blame to go around.

So mortgage banks (IndyMac) were freed from the usual free market risk/reward incentive to be careful about who they gave mortgages to, because they could simply pass the risks on to investment firms (Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros.) who could bundle enough risky mortgages together to make they seem safe to investors. Everything would be fine unless a whole lot of mortgages defaulted, and THAT will never happen!

Phil Gramm removed the very regulations that prevented banks from assuming too much risk and then went to work for one of the biggest mortgage banks in the world (UBS). And this is the result of Gramm’s deregulation: The banks assumed too much risk, failed, and are now running to the taxpayers to save them from their own bad mortgage decisions. And once again, the banks are too important to let fail.

Now McCain wants to deregulate the health insurance industry just like his advisor Gramm deregulated the banks. Oh, and Gramm's name is floated all over the place to be McCain's Secretary of the Treasury. Sound good to you?

Those Pigs Didn't Oink

From MSNBC's First Read:

Those pigs didn’t oink: Notice how the McCain campaign tried to change the subject yesterday? It cut its first Tony Rezko ad, which tied Obama to the “corrupt Chicago machine”; it angrily denounced the New York Times on a conference call with reporters; and it brought up Obama’s tenuous ties to ‘60s radical William Ayers on that same conference call. But unlike two weeks ago, when the McCain camp’s “lipstick on a pig” and “sex-ed for kindergartners” TV ad dominated the political discussion, those weapons of mass distraction got very little attention yesterday. The economy and the current Wall Street crisis have become THE story, and nothing right now is going to stop that. All the cable outlets will be covering the Paulson/Bernanke hearings as big news today -- making subject-changing efforts much more difficult.

The media is finally starting to cover the story of how McCain would rather distract us all than discuss the issues -- losing issues for him. Hopefully, the media will continue to ignore his attempt at diverting our attention, and continue to cover the important stuff. A big win for American voters, whatever party we support.

McCain Still Wants To Deregulate Health Insurance?

Quote from an article John McCain wrote for the CURRENT issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries (look at the top right column of page 30):

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Deregulate? After the week Wall Street has had, after Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and AIG have collapsed, he wants to do to the health care industry what his former chief economic advisor, Phil Gramm, did to the mortgage and banking industries. Yikes.

Presidential Appointments

I’m not talking about the Supreme Court. I’ll leave that to your imagination. I’ve been thinking lately about all of the presidential appointments you never hear about, up and down the executive branch. Some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t.

Remember Monica Goodling? She was a young graduate of televangelist Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School. She was appointed by the Bush administration to hire career people at the Justice Department. Not political appointees. Career people. Prosecutors and immigration judges. The people who don’t go away when the next administration comes in (as do US attorneys and other political appointees). It’s illegal to hire career people based on political leanings, campaign donations. Remember the famous line, "Why do you want to serve George W. Bush?" And my favorite: when an applicant stated that he admired Condoleezza Rice, she frowned in disapproval and said, "But she’s pro-choice." Entertaining, yes. But also illegal.

Philip A. Cooney, the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, removed or edited to downplay references to manmade global warming in scientific climate research documents. Cooney was an oil lobbyist with an economics degree, no training in environmental science whatsoever.

George C. Deutsch, appointed as a press aide in NASA’s public affairs office in Washington. He too had no scientific training. In the course of his job, Deutsch added the word "theory" to every mention of the Big Bang on NASA’s web site. A NASA scientist, Dr. James Hansen, along with others, complained of "intensifying efforts by political appointees in NASA, including Mr. Deutsch, to "control more closely his lectures and Web presentations." His resume credentials were never checked and it turned out that he had never graduated from college, so he had to resign.

I’m not writing this post to debate abortion rights or global warming or how the earth was made. My point is that the president gets to appoint a thousand nameless, faceless people who make all kinds of decisions for us – they are the people who run all of the departments. I don’t want another Chief Justice John Roberts, I don’t want another Michael Brown (FEMA), and I sure don’t want a thousand Monica Goodlings appointed in departments across the country. Well, John McCain has made his first appointment: Sarah Palin. Basically, Monica Goodling all over again. Except that Monica Goodling at least has a law degree. If you don’t want a thousand Monica Goodlings, don’t vote for John McCain.

What Happened To The Guy?

Fundamentals

McCain Wants To Tax Your Health Care Benefits

Okay, this one's a little complicated and policy-wonkish, but I can't believe we haven't heard about this from the Obama camp every day since the New York Times reported it on May 1. Fortunately, a blogger for Time pointed it out the other day, so here it is, and no, sadly, I'm not making this up.

Most of us get health insurance through our employer, who pays a significant portion of our premium. This is currently a tax-exempt benefit, and can be substantial -- health insurance for a family can run as high as $12-14,000 a year. McCain proposes to treat the portion of our plan paid for by our employer as wages rather than benefits and tax this money as wages, subject to income and payroll tax. He then says that he will offset this extra tax by giving us a tax credit: $2500 a year for individuals and $5000 for families, to grow with the rate of inflation.

Problems:
1. Health insurance premiums rise faster than the rate of inflation, so as taxes on your "new wages" increase, they will be less and less offset by your new tax credit and in a few years you end up paying more in taxes. [McCain raising taxes! Shock! Horror!] If your tax bracket is already high, or your state income tax is high, so much the worse for you.

2. People who have really good health insurance may start out paying more in taxes than the tax credit covers the very first year. McCain says this will be only the wealthy, but I can tell you as a physician that I see plenty of lesser-paid union and government employees who have outstanding health insurance and will probably face the same problem.

3. Your employer is now paying for health insurance premiums plus taxes on this new taxable "wage." S/he may find this new expense too much to handle and either downgrade your insurance or abandon this benefit that the federal government no longer considers a "benefit" but part of your "wages." Now you have to find and pay for health insurance on your own. Hope your employer gave you a really big raise when your health insurance was terminated. For that matter, I hope you don't have diabetes. Hope your child hasn't had four ear infections in the past year. Hope you're not a woman of childbearing age.

3a. This is actually what McCain is hoping will happen -- according to the NY Times article, he wants the free market to do it's thing by encouraging people to buy health insurance on their own instead of receiving it from their employers. This is a big part of his goal in taxing employer-paid health premiums.

4. If you're poor or have a chronic illness, $5,000 isn't going to help buy you health insurance on the free market. Low-income families need much more help than that to afford the $14,000 that family health care costs. And when uninsured people show up in the emergency room for free care, it raises the bill for the rest of us who do have insurance. Fiscally speaking, the best bet is to insure everyone and spread the risk to keep premiums as low as possible.

5. When local governements have to pay taxes on health benefits for their employees, it will mean less money in the budget for other things, like parks, and teacher salaries, police, fire, hospitals, etc. Or perhaps our property tax rates will increase.

Notably, the other part of McCain's health care plan is deregulation of the health insurance industry. Have you heard him say that you should be able to buy health insurance from other states? What goes hand in hand with that is removal of some of the consumer protections for people in those states. Have you ever had a claim denied? Still want to remove whatever laws regulate insurance companies? This is really glossed over on his campaign web site. Wonder why. After all, we know how well it worked out when they deregulated the trading of energy futures (think Enron), when they deregulated the mortgage and securities industries (mortgage crisis). I could do without a disaster that will leave me without access to healthcare, thank you very much.

For a more involved report, see John McCain's Radical Prescription For Healthcare. It comes from a less-than-objective liberal group, but the report itself is pretty good. I especially recommend the discussion on page 10, which describes further why people with pre-existing conditions won't be able to afford insurance in the free market, but is way more complicated than I could get into here.

McCain Hired An Oil Lobbyist To Help Ease His Transition Into The White House If Elected

Time reports today that McCain has hired another Washington lobbyist, William Timmons, to help prepare for McCain’s transition, should he win. “Transition” in this context means in charge of hiring all the people who have to be prepared to staff the new administration the moment the new President takes off. So McCain put an oil lobbyist in charge.

William Timmons is an influential Washington lobbyist who has worked in every Republican administration since Nixon. According to the Time article, he is currently registered to work on bills dealing with domestic oil drilling, regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and bills to provide farm subsidies.

McCain is promising REFORM??? By hiring an oil lobbyist who has worked in every Republican White House since I was born to do all his staff hiring for him? You go, maverick.

If You Support The Troops, Don't Vote For McCain

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America has ratings for all members of congress. Obama got a B+. McCain got a D. Wonder why? There's a difference between being a veteran and supporting our veterans -- and our troops. McCain does not support our troops.

April 2003 Voted to table (that means kill the bill, or in this case amendment) that would have appropriated over a billion dollars for procurement of equipment for the National Guard and Reserves in Iraq.

October 2003 Voted to table an amendment that would have provided an additional $322 million for safety equipment for United States forces in Iraq.

March 2004 Voted against an amendment to increase Veterans' medical care by $1.8 billion by eliminating abusive tax loopholes.

April 2005 Voted against a bill to provide $2 billion for medical care for veterans.

November 2005 voted against legislation that would have provided $500 million a year for readjustment counseling and mental health services for veterans with mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder.

March 2006 voted against an amendment to increase Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.

April 2006 voted against an amendment to provide an additional $430 million for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans. Was one of only 13 senators to vote NAY.

May 2006 voted against an amendment to provide $20 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs for Medical Facilities.

March 2007 didn't show up to vote on a resolution to start redeploying combat troops from Iraq.

September 2007 voted against an amendment to require minimum rest periods for armed forces between deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

May 2007 A spokeswoman for Senate majority leader Harry Reid commented to The Hill, "[McCain] has only managed to show up for four of the last 14 Iraq votes."

June 2008 Along with President Bush, McCain opposed the new GI bill -- which passed in a veto-proof bipartisan majority. McCain didn't bother leaving the campaign trail to vote against it. The GI bill gives veterans who have served in the military for at least three years since 9/11 full tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university.

I couldn't help but notice that McCain voted for corporate tax loopholes over veterans healthcare not once, but twice. Nice.

Look! Something Shiny!

It seems to be the consensus of the pundits that the lipstick thing really IS a distraction "on purpose" from the McCain campaign from the issues of the day.

We have two wars, an energy crisis, a foreclosure crisis, and a recession. The American people want to talk about healthcare and jobs and middle class tax cuts. None of these is a winning issue for McCain. So any day that he can distract us with something unimportant and irrelevant, especially that will get his base a little riled up is a good day for McCain. Any day that Obama can stay on message about the issues will hurt McCain -- he's voted with Bush 91% of the time. And nobody wants more of what Bush has to offer. So watch for more distractions and tantrums and diversions. McCain doesn't want to talk about the issues. If he talks about the issues, he loses.

It was heartening to see some in the media last night treating this for what it was -- a big lie. Some even brought up other recent lies out of the McCain camp, specifically their disgraceful new "sex ed ad" and the "Bridge to Nowhere." Up until now, the media has gone along with the "Maverick McCain" persona, though the "maverick" is long gone. It's my hope that the "lipstick on a pig" affair might mark a turning point -- that the media will abandon "maverick" and portray McCain more often for what he is: a big fat liar.

McCain Would Rather Call His Running Mate A Pig Than Discuss His Economic Policy

To me, it was perfectly clear: Barack Obama was talking about the McCain-Bush economic policies when he said, "You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig."

We all know what happened then. The McCain campaign suggested it was an insult directed at Sarah Palin ("What's the difference between a bulldog and a hockey mom? Lipstick"). The campaign put up a web ad and demanded an apology.

Obama responded this morning. My favorite parts came near the beginning and near the end:

The McCain campaign would much rather have a story about phony and foolish diversions than about the future. This happens every election cycle. Every four years, this is what we do. We've got an energy crisis. We have an education system that is not working for too many of our children, and making us less competetive. We have a economy that is creating hardship for families all across America. We've got two wars going on, veterans coming home not being cared for, and this is what they want to talk about. This is what they want to spend two of the last 55 days talking about.

Spare me the phony outrage. Spare me the phony talk about change. We have real problems in this country right now, and the American people are looking to us for answers. Not distrations, not diversions. Not manipulations. They want real answers to the real problems that we are facing.

I'd like to add, for my part, that the media could choose not to cover this nonsense.

On Community Service

Unless I missed the boat (and that's always possible), Barack Obama hasn't claimed his years as a community organizer in Chicago as experience that qualified him to be president. They are part of his life story, his history, part of what brought him ultimately to run for president. But as a qualification to be president? I don't recall hearing him say that.

You'd think otherwise after some of the speeches at the Republican convention this week. You'd think that being a community organizer was all the experience Obama has claimed. "Community organizer," Guiliani sneered. "What?" Palin said that being the mayor of a small town is "sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

If you believe in small government, believe in cutting government food programs, cutting programs to aid the homeless, or, for that matter, cutting aid to young unwed mothers in Alaska, if you believe in cutting job training programs because you feel that isn't the governement's role, or shouldn't be . . . well, it seems to me that you might then have a strong personal committment to community service. You should believe in non-governement programs through local houses of worship, though community centers. It's just not good for society to have homeless children starving on the street. So if you believe in small governement, then for Heaven's sake, don't ridicule people who give up lucrative jobs and go into the business of community service!

Pray we all stay safe and dry in Hurricane Ike.

It's 3 a.m.

You May Have Made A Bad V.P. Pick If . . .

If people keep hitting their internet browser refresh buttons to see what else has come out about her, you might have made a bad VP pick.

If your surrogates are citing her time on the PTA and refueling stops as credentials, you might have made a bad VP pick.

If the word “secessionist” comes up during your convention’s video tribute to Abraham Lincoln, you might have made a bad VP pick.

If Google associates her name with Dan Quayle (122,000 hits), Tom Eagleton (26,100 hits), and Spiro Agnew (21,500 hits), you may have made a bad VP pick.

If the phrase “Jews for Jesus” appears in press coverage previewing her convention speech, you might just have made a bad VP pick.

If there's a picture of her holding a (Bridge to) Nowhere t-shirt, you may have made a bad VP pick.

If the phrase "executive privilege" is used with respect to a pending investigation against her, you just may have made a bad VP pick.

Refresh . . . refresh . . .

McCain's Really Stretching Here

Tonight on NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams asked Senator McCain whether Sarah Palin was really the best person to be, literally, a heartbeat away from the presidency. I tried to embed the video, it's at about 3:40, but ran into some glitches with blogspot. Try the link to Nightly News above. The gist of McCain's answer was that Palin's had executive experience as governor, mayor, city council member, and in the PTA.

Honestly. How big can the PTA even BE in a town of 4,000 residents (assuming she was on PTA around 1990)? For that matter, city council of a town that's scarcely bigger than my local high school? If you have to reach this far, the argument can't be very good.

More On Inexperience and Judgement

John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign has existed longer than Sarah Palin has been Governor of Alaska. McCain formed his 2008 Presidential exploratory committee in November 2006. Sarah Palin was inaugurated as Alaska Governor in December 2006. Seriously, I know a couple of bright, accomplished PTA moms with advanced degrees (Donna, Sharon, Nicole, you know who you are) who might be as qualified as Sarah Palin.

McCain's campaign slogan "Country First?" Is he putting his country first by choosing a completely inexperienced #2 as a political gimmick? Poor judgement, party before country, more of the same, John McCain.

Just For Fun

Sarah Palin's baby son, Trig Paxson Van Palin -- were you wondering about the "Van?" Wonder no more. It's an homage to the rock band Van Halen. Get it? Van Palin, Van Halen?

Sarah Palin

I just finished watching Sarah Palin's speech. She is beautiful and articulate. She will remind a lot of us of the soccer mom down the street, except that she reportedly wakes up at 3 am to hunt moose (at least when she was a kid).

According to CNN, Palin was on the city council of Wasilla, AK (pop 5,470 in 2000) from 1992-1996, then mayor from 1996-2002. She's been governor of Alaska since 2006. (Note: there were 10,000 people at the speech she gave to indroduce herself today!)

Not yet mentioned on CNN (though CNN.com devoted a paragraph to it): Palin is under bipartisan investigation for firing a state official, Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, for refusing to fire Palin's former brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, who was locked in a child-custody dispute with Palin's sister.

My initial take:
1. If elected, this person will be a 72-year-old-man-with-a-history-of-cancer away from being president. She has less than two years of experience at the state level, none at the federal level, and no foreign policy experience whatsoever.

2. She was chosen because she was a woman. That's where the similarity ends. Hillary supporters, please think about this: you love Hillary not just because she is a woman but because she is a highly qualified woman and because of what she stands for and stands up for. This woman is neither, and the McCain campaign is trying to manipulate you. What Hillary stands for and believes in: universal health care, equal pay, abortion rights, and so forth, McCain-Palin will speak against, fight against, vote against, and veto. McCain will probably appoint three judges to the supreme court while in office. If you never read my first blog post, Why No Hillary Supporter Should Vote For McCain, please, please, take a look before you vote for him out of anger and disgust over the Democratic primary.

Addendum: For a better-written commentary, see Paul Begala on CNN.com today. Just another reminder of why I'm a doctor and not a writer or a politician.

Would McCain Let Alleged Terrorists Buy Guns?

From Newsweek:

John McCain portrays himself as a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights. But does that extend to gun rights for suspected terrorists? His campaign won't say where he stands on a bill to eliminate a gun-control loophole that even the Bush administration wants closed: a gap in federal law that inhibits the government from stopping people on terrorist watch lists from buying guns. The bill was inspired by an official audit covering a five-month period in 2004 which found that, because of the loophole, the Feds had to greenlight 35 out of 44 cases where a gun buyer was on a terrorist watch list. One group opposed to closing the loophole is the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun manufacturers' trade association. Until this spring, one of its congressional lobbyists was Randy Scheunemann, now a top McCain campaign adviser on foreign policy.

I've said it again and again. You can't make this stuff up.

Lobbyist for Georgia Writes McCain's Foreign Policy

Quoting from the Washington Post today:

Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

This came up in a blog post during lobbyist week. Right and wrong in Georgia aside, how is McCain supposed to come up with a credible foreign policy if it's written by people who are STILL being paid to lobby for places like Georgia?

Why You Shouldn't Vote For McCain Unless You're In The Top 1% After-Tax Income

This one's a quicky. The graphic shows how your after-tax income will change, percentage-wise, depending on your income percentile, according to tax proposals as described by each respective campaign. Blue is Obama, red is McCain.

Blue/Obama: Highest increase to lowest two quartiles, and some decrease to the top 1% earners.

Red/McCain: Lowest increase to lowest quartile income. Largest percent increase to the top 0.1% earners in the country. In other words, McCain and his CEO cronies.

Happy Birthday Barack!

McCain Thinks Offshore Drilling Will Do What?

Speaking in Bakersfield, CA on July 28, Senator McCain stated with regard to new offshore drilling that "within a matter of months they could be getting additional oil. In some cases, it would be a matter of a year."

Well, this is what a recent government report has to say. Quoting from the Energy Information Administration report on the impact of increased access to offshore oil and natural gas reserves:

" . . . access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017."

Yikes! That's a lot longer than a year! Wonder how much our continental shelf oil would help us out at the gas pump? Oh, wait, here it is in the report: "Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant."

Jeez, it's all right there, if you know how to use the Google. Took me five minutes to find. Thanks to Mantilla for the idea for this blog post.

No Wonder McCain Supports Offshore Drilling

The Washington Post reports that the oil and gas industry donated $1.1 million to the McCain campaign in June -- most of which came after McCain's June 16 call for an end to the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. The Post reports that the McCain campaign received only $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April, and $208,000 in May from the oil and gas industry.

Quoting from the Washington Post article, "McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club, according to local news accounts."

So McCain flip-flopped his position on drilling and the environment, then the very next day flew off to Texas to collect big donations [read: payoffs] from the big oil money down there in Texas who had thus far been reluctant to give. Unbelievable.

Just for the record, I personally am not so opposed to the idea of offshore drilling IF we knew that there was enough oil out there to make the United States energy independent while we work on the technology to rid ourselves of fossil fuels, AND IF it did not turn out to be a great big handout to the oil industry at taxpayers expense. But since THAT's never going to happen, well . . . that's another story.

Where Do Candidates Get Their Money?

Today the New York Times reported that the "maverick anti-lobbyist" McCain campaign has raised $181,000 from lobbyists. The Obama campaign has received $6,000 from lobbyists and reportedly intends to return the money.

Why is it such a big deal, where candidates get their campaign contributions? Well, there's a couple of things. For starters, there's the idea of whom a candidate, and later, president, might feel indebted to. There's also the fact that, once president, a person might want to be re-elected, and might want to turn to the same donors again in four years. So chances are, if you the president were sitting in the pocket of some big-ticket donors, you're going to want to try to keep them happy so you can fundraise again and get elected to a second term.

The other issue is one of getting things done in Washington. Most presidents who are elected, are elected because money and power were raised from the top -- they have powerful, wealthy friends who are senators and congressmen and lobbyists and CEOs. These rich, powerful friends raise money and lend their support networks to their favored candidate. Let's consider our two candidates running for president. When the president is elected, he now wants to, say, raise automobile fuel efficiency standards (you know, global warming, energy independence, all that nice stuff he talked about during the campaign).

The Washington Insider has to go to the same people who were his financial supporters and ask for their political support passing this thing. Well, maybe his lobbyist and CEO friends will now say, "Sure, John, just water down your bill a little for us, you know, keep our clients and corporate interests happy." His buddies on the Hill will ask him to water down the bill to keep their interests happy. And the President will have no choice. These are the people who got him elected and they hold all his political power. Plus he has to keep his money happy so he can get re-elected. So his bill is meaningless and we continue to pour CO2 into the atmosphere and remain dependent on foreign oil.

Instead, let's say we have a candidate who took no money from lobbyists. Let's say our candidate raised his money from over 2 million [update: 3 million!] citizens who donated $20 or $100 at a time. He wants to raise fuel efficiency standards and is meeting some resistance in congress. He now can send out a letter or e-mail to his grass-roots network of contributors asking for their political support: Please call or write your senator and pressure them to vote for my bill. So our grass-roots fundraising candidate, now President, will actually have more political capital than the Washington Insider and will be able to pass more meaningful legislation.

Breaking News: Phil Gramm Resigns

Phil Gramm resigned as co-chair and chief economic advisor of the McCain campaign today. Thank Goodness. For more on the fascinating scandal of Phil Gramm and the housing credit crisis, please see David Corn's excellent article, Foreclosure Phil on motherjones.com. Truly, the yellow sidebar on the right explains it far better than I ever could.

I have to wonder . . . after Gramm wrecked our economy by writing laws allowing unchecked speculation on energy trading, and the collapse of the American mortgage banking industry, could it really be the idiotic "Nation of Whiners" comment that was ultimately Gramm's downfall within the McCain campaign? Or could it have been the porn?

Phil Gramm: It's The Economy, You Moron!

First of all, who is this guy? His name keeps cropping up in news stories about the economy, and more recently with his "nation of whiners" comment, but they've kind of stopped explaining how he's connected to it all.

Gramm is McCain's national campaign general co-chair and chief economic policy advisor. He is a former professor of economics at Texas A&M University. He then served seven years as a congressman, followed by three terms as senator (R-TX). After he left the senate, Gramm went on to a lobbying job with Swiss Bank UBS, one of the worlds largest managers of private wealth, where he is also a vice president.

THE ENRON LOOPHOLE
As chairman of the senate banking committee, Gramm wrote and passed deregulatory legislation in several industries. One of these laws deregulated energy commodity trading, essentially allowing energy trading to escape federal oversight. This resulted in the sharp rise in energy costs California saw soon thereafter. Energy-trading company Enron collapsed as a consequence of its own deregulated energy trading. The impact of the "Enron loophole" is felt every day at the gas pump: it contributes to inflated energy prices for American consumers by encouraging speculation in the energy markets.

Incidentally, wife Wendy Gramm persuaded her fellow comissioners on the Commodity Futures Trading Comission to agree to a rule exempting electronic trading of energy futures from oversight. As soon as she resigned from the commission, she joined the audit committee of the Enron board of directors. She, along with other Enron board members, participated in a $13 million settlement for insider trading, having sold stock early in the company's decline. Seriously, you just can't make this stuff up.

Coming up next: Phil Gramm and the mortgage crisis.

Lobbyist Week, Day 4: I Lobby While I Work For You

Richard Davis: Campaign Manager.
In 2006 Davis’s firm represented Viktor Yanukovich, a Ukranian politician opposed by the U.S. Government because of his ties to Vladimir Putin.

Also in 2006, Davis represented Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, whose U.S. visa was revoked because of his organized crime and anti-democratic ties. Davis used his ties with McCain to set up a meeting between Deripaska and McCain at an economic conference in Switzerland.

Davis was still actively working as a lobbyist while also working as a paid consultant to McCain’s Reform Institute, and later used his contacts with McCain to facilitate a merger between DHL and Airborne. McCain "thwarted [R-Alaska Senator Ted] Stevens's effort to insert language into legislation that would prohibit foreign-controlled companies such as DHL from holding certain military contracts."

Randy Scheunemann: Chief foreign policy advisor.
Scheunemann lobbied McCain’s staff on behalf of the Republic of Georgia while he was working for McCain. He has also represented the governments of Macedonia and Taiwan.

Scheunemann acts as McCain’s spokesman on international issues, including those issues involving his clients.

Peter Madigan: Fundraiser
Lobbies for the government of Columbia to promote free trade and "seek appropriations for the Government of Columbia." Has also defended Columbian President Alvaro Uribe against allegations of ties to paramilitary groups. Uribe has also reportedly been linked to drug trafficking and bribery.

Lobbies on behalf of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), because the UAE faces a class-action lawsuit alleging they enslaved thousands of children and forced them to be jockeys in camel races for the entertainment of the Arabian elite.

I've said it before. You just can't make this stuff up.

Breaking News: FARC Rescue and McCain

First, the good news: as you may have seen on the evening news, after six years as hostages in the jungle, Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, along with eleven Colombian police officers and three Americans, have been rescued from Colombian terrorist group FARC. As it happens, John McCain is visiting Colombia right now, and was briefed before the rescue took place.

You may recall about a year ago, Chiquita Brands pleaded guilty to paying off FARC and another group to not harm their workers. Sort of the same thing as paying off the Taliban to not bother you while you harvest your poppies, but in Colombia, and with bananas.

Carl H. Lindner, Jr., the chairman of Chiquita at the time, just held a major fundraiser for McCain. McCain is accepting money, a lot of money, from Lindner, who funded this terrorist group in Colombia to the tune of more than a million dollars, allowing them to hold Americans hostage for years. Silly old bear.

Lobbyist Week, Day 3: resigned to corruption

A number of McCain's lobbyist buddies have resigned from the campaign. Tom Loeffler, discussed yesterday, is one. Another, Craig Shirley, left to work on an anti-Hillary 527 -- 527s can't coordinate with campaigns. No scandal there. Here are the other three who have had to go. Would you want these guys on the Straight Talk Express if you were John McCain? I wouldn't. But then, I'm not John McCain.

Doug Goodyear: GOP convention Chair chosen by McCain. Resigned.
Goodyear’s firm , DCI Group, represented Burma’s (Myanmar’s) military junta. This is the same junta still in power today that withheld aid to its citizens after a cyclone destroyed much of Myanmar’s coastline in May of this year. Goodyear’s firm also launched a PR campaign on behalf of the Burmese junta with the goal of denouncing "falsehoods" by the US government about them.

According to the same source, DCI ran illegal 527 groups during the 2004 Bush campaign, and was later fined. Other clients of Goodyear's firm include ExxonMobil and General Motors.

DOUG DAVENPORT: campaign regional manager. Resigned.
Works for Goodyear's DCI group. Founded their lobbying practice and oversaw the contract with the Myanmar military junta. Yes, the same junta that forces children into military service.

Eric Burgeson: Energy Advisor. Resigned.
Eric Burgeson had to resign as McCain's advisor on energy policy, because he was the head lobbyist on behalf of the energy industry for Barbour Griffith and Rogers (BGR), a lobby firm in Washington, DC.

Yes, you're reading right. John McCain let an active energy lobbyist "advise" him on energy policy. Or wait, is that "lobby" him on energy policy? Or just write the policy for him?? You can't tell from reading this blog, but I'm really not such a liberal. So when I'm amazed that the so-called "liberal media" wasn't all over this story, that's something. I mean, juntas are one thing, but liquid coal is quite another.

Lobbyist Week, Day 2: Loeffler and Friends and EADS

Thomas Loeffler: Campaign co-chair, top fundraising official. Resigned.
According to the New York Times, Loeffler, along with other members of the McCain campaign, lobbied on behalf of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), which recently won the $35 billion contract to build refueling tankers for the Air Force, beating out American company Boeing for this key military contract. McCain himself wrote letters to the Defense Department pressuring them to disregard a prior United States fair trade dispute with Airbus -- Airbus (part of the EADS) receives illegal government subsidies in Europe, allowing them to offer a lower bid for the contract.

Loeffler has also represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, arranging meetings between Saudi officials and Karl Rove three months after 9/11. Loeffler also set up and attended a meeting between a Saudi official and John McCain in May 2006.

According to the L.A. Times, Loeffler also represented Hong Kong, pharmaceutical companies, the nuclear power industry, and Metabolife (an ephedra-containing weight-loss stimulant that killed people and was eventually pulled off the market).

Susan Nelson: Finance Director
Worked for Loeffler’s firm, lobbying for EADS. When she left the firm to work on the McCain campaign full-time, Loeffler suddenly started paying her $15,000 a month for a number of months (severance pay??). Several months later, Nelson was rehired as a consultant to Loeffler’s firm while she was still on the McCain payroll, in violation of federal election law.

William Ball: Campaign Fundraiser
Worked for the Loeffler group as a lobbyist for EADS (see above).

Wayne Berman: Campaign Vice-Chairman
Lobbied on behalf of EADS (see above) with Ogilvy Government Relations.

Kirk Blalock: National chair for Young Professionals for John McCain
Lobbied on behalf of EADS (see above) with Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock.

Lobbyist Week, Day 1: Intro and Charles Black

John McCain has portrayed himself as an anti-special interest, anti-lobbyist reformer "maverick." Nonetheless, his campaign and senate office staff are chock-full of lobbyists. They've lobbied for dictators, human traffickers, and big corporations. Some of McCain’s lobbyist buddies have even represented clients whose interests were contrary to the national interests of the United States.

Media Matters, though hardly an objective source, has a nice chart of most of the lobbyists working on the McCain campaign and who they’ve lobbied for. This week I will tell you about some of the more, um, interesting advisors McCain chooses to surround himself with, with mainstream sources.

Charles Black: Chief Political Advisor. The advisor who hasn't resigned (yet).
If the name sounds familiar, it's because he was in the news last week after he told Fortune Magazine that another terrorist attack would be a "big advantage" to McCain's campaign. Big deal. Look at the list of foreign dictators with sketchy human rights records that this guy has lobbied for:

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, who looted his country during his reign and whose totalitarian regime was marked by human rights abuses.

Angolan Guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi, who brutally murdered and tortured civilians and planted land mines in his own country.

Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, who tortured and publicly executed political rivals, and pillaged his country's resources, enriching himself as the people of Zaire starved.

Nigerian Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who supressed opposition political parties, and had a magazine editor critical of his abuses murdered.

Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, whose army slaughtered 5,000 unarmed civillians in ten months.

The countries of Kenya and Equatorial Guinea

Talking Points Memo quotes a PR industry trade sheet (you have to be a subscriber or I'd link directly) which confirms that Black did work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi is the Iraqi exile who gave false information about weapons of mass destruction to U.S. intelligence agencies because he wanted the U.S. to oust Saddam Hussein so that he could take power (incidentally, his Iraqi National Congress failed to win a single seat in Iraqi parliament). He is currently under investigation for misleading our intelligence agencies, as well as for embezzelment.

Other clients include American Airlines, Bethlehem Steel, the Tobacco Institute, and the Philippine Government.

Still heads his lobbying firm, doing "a lot of his work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus."
HUH?! He's heading his lobbying firm FROM the Straight Talk Express?!
Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Coming soon . . .

Next week is Lobbyist Week!!

Sunni, Shi’a . . . what’s the big deal, anyway?

A little history . . . The Muslim community broke into the Sunni and Shi’a denominations (and other minority denominations) in the late 7th century, in a dispute over who would take leadership of the Muslim community after the death of Mohammed. About 85% of the Muslim world is Sunni; Shiites are in the minority in most of the Arab world, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are Sunni. There is a Shi’a majority In Iran and Iraq: Iran is 85% Shi’a and Iraq is 65% Shi’a. It is important to understand that the rift between Sunni and Shi’a is not simply a matter of a minor disagreement about religious and political leadership; wars have been fought between Sunni and Shi’a, and there is a history of oppression of one group by the other, and inter-tribal rifts along denominational lines going back hundreds of years. So the idea that Iran, a Shiite theocracy, would be training and supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group which incites sectarian violence, is absurd in that context. Furthermore, if you don’t understand the difference between Sunni and Shi’a, you can’t possibly understand the delicate socio-political problem that Iraq faces.

Getting this all wrong isn’t simply a "gaffe," this is something John McCain gets wrong again and again and again:

November 25, 2007: "Al Qaeda is not defeated," McCain told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week. "They're on the run, but they are not defeated, and they continue to get supplies and equipment through Iran, and they continue to get suicide bombers through Syria."

February 28, 2008: In a speech at the Baker Institute for Public Policy: "Al Qaeda is there, they are functioning, they are supported in many times, in many ways by the Iranians . . ."

March 17, 2008: McCain said on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, "As you know, there are Al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."

March 18, 2008: In Jordan with Sen. Joe Lieberman, McCain stated that, "Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training . . ." and had to be corrected by Lieberman.

March 19, 2008: McCain Presidential Campaign Press Release: "Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."

April 8, 2008: During General David Petreaus’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, Sen McCain asked Gen. Petreaus, "Do you still view Al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat . . . Certainly not an obscure sect of, uh, Shiites, or Sunnis, or anybody else?"

To give you an idea of how complicated all of this is: There isn’t a single us-against-them "bad guy" in Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki’s ruling Shiite party, that our soldiers are dying for, was founded in Shiite Iran. Meanwhile, the Sunni warlords, whose support we’re paying for with our tax dollars, are opposed to the Iranian-backed Shiite government we support. Meanwhile, a separate "Sadrist" Shiite faction is fighting both the Sunni warlords we’re paying and the Iranian-backed Shiite ruling party we’re also supporting. But McCain can’t deal with this complexity.

Incidentally, the entirely separate, and relatively insignificant, Sunni group known as "Al Qaeda in Iraq" appears to be unaffiliated with "Al Qaeda" who took down the World Trade Center. Not to mention that "Al Qaeda in Iraq" didn’t exist until after we invaded Iraq, but that’s another story altogether.

So the idea that we are in Iraq fighting Al Qaeda is disingenuous at best. Either McCain, despite all his years in Washington, doesn’t understand this, or he has to lie about it to make his policies appear sane.

Another Reason Why No Hillary Supporter Should Vote For McCain

We all recall "How do we beat the bitch" question and McCain’s response: "That’s an excellent question." Watch the video!

In 1998, McCain told a crude joke about Chelsea, Hillary, and Janet Reno to an audience at a senate fundraiser. Chelsea was just a teenager at the time.

McCain cheated on then divorced his first wife when he came back from Vietnam and found that she had been disfigured in an accident. He eventually married younger, wealthier Cindy Lou Hensley one month after the divorce.

McCain reportedly called his wife Cindy the c-word in public.

How misogynistic is this man? I mean, when I did the Google search for the last thing, I actually typed, "c-word," because I couldn't bring myself to spell it out on my own computer in the privacy of my own home!

Why no Hillary supporter should vote for McCain

"You don't spend your life fighting for women's rights and then vote for Sen. McCain."
– St. Paul, MN mayor Chris Coleman quoted on MinnPost

McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade
Source: McCain’s campaign web site
Source: NPR

McCain opposed an equal pay bill in the Senate
Source: Associated Press

"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion"
Source: CNN

McCain supports Bush policy of denying funding to anti-AIDS projects that include counseling about contraception or any sex education beyond abstinence.
Source: NY Times

Voted against requiring health insurance policies to cover prescription birth control.
Source: Planned Parenthood
Source: Salon.com

Voted to terminate the Title X family-planning program, which provided millions of women with health-care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.
Source: Planned Parenthood

Voted against funding teen-pregnancy-prevention programs and against ensuring that "abstinence only" programs be medically accurate and scientifically based.
Source: Planned Parenthood

Voted for the domestic "gag rule," which would have prohibited federally funded family planning clinics from providing full information about reproductive health options.
Source: NARAL

Voted to uphold the global "gag rule," which bans overseas health clinics from receiving U.S. family planning aid if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even support or discuss abortion options.
Source: Planned Parenthood