Politics

It's easy to criticize the dialogue surrounding the election as substance-free and lacking merit, but this takes the cake: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121755336096303089.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today What happened to the Wall Street Journal? (oh right, Rupert Murdoch purchased them)

CBS cut out his mistake for him, but unfortunately for McCain the original footage was discovered: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/politics/24check.html This raises the question of how well McCain actually understood the surge when he voted for it. McCain has been triumphantly trumpeting his approval of the surge in 20/20 hindsight of its outcome, the entire time disparaging Obama for voting against it and instead suggesting an early withdrawal. CBS decided to cut directly to the remarks which disparaged Obama, omitting McCain alluding to the Anbar Awakening which occurred months prior to the surge as one of its successes. This is completely wrong. …

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-he8f7AdVl4IRQAEFnivpPn6HOAD9289GU00 Although it's still unclear if Pelosi will allow a final vote. Rove broke the law... it's about time the House Sergeant at Arms was sent to arrest him. Unfortunately Congress has a reputation for being too spineless to stand up to Bush.

When China won the Olympic games, one of the things it agreed to do was a bit unusual -- it promised not to censor media reporting on anything related to the games, and to allow uncensored Internet access within the Olympic village before and during the games. It's already broken these promises several times, the most recent incident taking place on Friday. Apparently thousands of people were waiting in line to purchase tickets and a fist-fight broke out around 4am. Hours later, in daylight after the incident was over, reporters were turned away from people standing in line whom they wanted to interview. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&si…

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/28/2009.deficit/index.html ...which will quite likely be enough to push the national debt over the $10 trillion mark. It appears the neocon "spend more, tax less" approach to fiscal policy has failed miserably. The present national debt represents almost $32,000 for every man, woman, and child in the US. I really hope a new administration will focus on massively reducing budget deficits, hopefully employing a "tax more, spend less" approach to fiscal policy. It'd be good to see the Bush tax cuts rolled back, and hopefully we'll elect a president who can get us out of Iraq and stop the country from profusely bleeding money.

New York Times columnist David Brooks ran a great column yesterday about the debt situation in this country. He talks about the left and the right blaming each other over it, with the right screaming that it's about accountability, and the left screaming about compassion. Then he talks about a "third position". His point is not that people aren't responsible for their actions, but that there is a larger concern here. We've created a society that has forgotten the significance of debt and the value of thrift. As he puts it, we're in a period of "mass luxury", and many institutions that used to warn people about the dangers of profligate spending no long…

Congress passed the housing bill today and the president is expected to sign it immediately. Not that that simple name really explains the 684-page bill very well. - Bailouts for homeowners in trouble - Bailouts for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - $7,500 tax credit for first-time home buyers - Tax breaks for home builders and companies in the home construction industry - Raises the national debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion (14 digits) to pay for all this (an increase of $800 bil) And the proverbial partridge in a pair tree (i.e. earmarks galore): This bill basically allows lawmakers to spend about 1.1 trillion dollars, entirely at their discretion. Gee, …

And thus, we see why the true substance driven statesman is dead, only on display at the intellectual museum. No one who is focused on real problem solving, disinterested in partisan babble, committed to the principles of the constitution and honest reverence to the people is going to be "perfect" enough to pass our pedantic social tests. We sure are missing out.

The New York Times has apparently rejected an op/ed piece by Republican candidate John McCain, after running a similar op/ed by Democratic candidate Barack Obama on July 14th. The Obama piece attracted some comment last week over its suggestion of a 16 month timeline for departure from Iraq. The 7/14 Obama piece can be found here. Times editor David Shipley (as quoted in the two articles linked below) says he rejected the piece because it wasn't substantive, saying in part: But renowned media analyst Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, commenting in a blog piece that can be found here calls that a "pretty high bar", and even the widely-seen-as-liberal…

"A VERY SERIOUS SITUATION. I am very concerned about the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan Border." See his comments here: FROM: Amygdala Hint -

Obama made this statement in Israel this afternoon: Two sources posted within the last hour: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/23/obama-incorrectly-claims-membership-of-senate-committee/ http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/23/1218024.aspx Unfortunately Obama is not on the Banking Committee. This one really irks me because it should have passed his internal "stink test". You simply cannot say something like that without realizing it's false. You can't not know what committees you're on. It's just not reasonable. I may be jumping the gun a bit posting this so quickly. Perhaps there's a reasonable explanation. (I want to che…

After the recent run on IndyMac, Wachovia is being raided by security investigators and Merrill Lynch is reporting a $4,900,000,000 loss, their fourth straight quarterly loss with a yearly total comprising some $19,200,000,000. But no, it's not a depression. Clinton, you know, after he left office... that was a depression. This isn't a depression. Nope.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece today about how much things have changed regarding off-shore drilling. Editor Andrew Cline of the New Hampshire Union Leader makes the claim that drilling is largely safe, and supports this with some numbers, and also an interesting turnaround by an anti-offshore drilling environmental group that now supports drilling off the coast of California. The numbers he brings up are intruiging. This next bit is really a sidebar, since it doesn't in itself say anything about the safety of such drilling, I was just stunned by sheer size of these pollution numbers, which the author was misleadingly using t…

Mitt Romney is, IMO, a very credible candidate for the VP spot. He's obviously smart & competent, actually, I now think he was a better candidate than McCain (from the republican side, at least). Apparently, this guy, Bobby Jindal, is a serious candidate. He's pro life with no exceptions (his words), he supports creationism/ID in the classroom, and he supposedly encountered a demon and practiced an exorcism (Jindall, B. 1994. "Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare", New Oxford Review). wow.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/22/1161113.aspx Obama wishes to cut down on excessive energy speculation by closing the so-called "Enron loophole", allowing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to fully oversee the oil futures market and investigate cases where excessive speculation may be driving up oil prices. This would occur by banning trades of oil futures on unregulated offshore exchanges while working with other countries to adopt similar legislation. McCain says he'd also like to close the "Enron loophole" and blasted Obama for stealing his idea, or something, all while getting in a few jabs at Clinton for signing the bill into law in t…

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1824132,00.html?imw=Y Obvious that Gore will not be a VP candidate! He compared this goal to getting to the moon, but I think it makes the moon shot look like a walk in the park. I hope we finally start moving in this direction, but is this a realistic goal?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566841,00.html Mission accomplished? Time to go home? Well, McCain wants to stay there for another 100 years... Obama's approach seems to be making a lot more sense.

http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN1819664920080718 I see no good reason for McCain to tell everyone about this possible secret trip to Iraq. Comes off as being a smart ass and reckless IMO. Maybe the media would reveal it anyway, but I thought with his military background he would understand that it is a danger to all those in Iraq to expose something like that.

Or at least, that's what I'm gathering from his latest speech: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/the_debate_of_the_day_is_iraq.php I can't help but be reminded of Futurama's Zap Brannigan: But seriously, where does McCain expect to get these soldiers? Are we just going to take the troops used for the surge in Iraq and make them do another surge in Afghanistan?

Kucinich's bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee by a 238-180 vote. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hr110-1345 Rock on!

Why is it that in all the talk about reaching tipping points in both subject events , very little mention is made of the effect of relentless & exploitive population growth & the "footprint " each new individual makes on the environment & any attempts to control this ? Is it because of such debate is considered being politically incorrect as it would arouse the ire of pro life , pro euthansia or certain religious entities ?

At risk of misleading people with the subject line, this isn't so much about whether the economy isn't as bad as people think it is, as it is about recognizing that we've kinda had it easy before now, thanks to low energy prices, a strong dollar, and deficit spending. I didn't post anything on the Phil Gramm comments last week for the same reason I didn't post anything on Wesley Clarke's McCain comments, and was proud of the board for not falling for that stuff. But the larger question raised by this particular comment seems worth discussing. The ABC News piece linked below is worth a read (or watch the 3-minute video). Kate Snow spoke with a business professor …

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZDPDG3HNjIv0GWUaM1t0BED3UoAD91R3E4G1 Isn't it about time they sent the Sergeant at Arms to arrest him? Isn't this contempt of Congress?

Some chatter today about the possibility of Schwarzenegger accepting a cabinet post as energy secretary -- in the Obama administration! http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11714.html The chatter was entirely Schwarzenegger's, not coming from the Obama camp, but I think it's an interesting idea, and I'd love to see a Republican, especially one of Schwarzenegger's variety, in the Obama cabinet. I think he bring excellent balance and even some useful realpolitik experience to a challenging arena. One down side is that he's not a scientist or engineer, and it would be nice to see Bush's appointment of Samuel Bodman (who has a PhD in Chemical Engineering…

Retroactive immunity for telcos who participated in Bush's domestic spying program was passed in the Senate today. The bill now goes on to an ecstatic Bush who can't wait to sign it. In other words, it's a done deal: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSWAT00975320080709 This is truly a sad day. Among other things this means civil suits against these companies, by the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, will never reach the Supreme Court. To me, this represents Congress and the Executive colluding to sidestep an important check provided by the Judicial branch. I weep for our civil liberties.