Will The Clintons Try To Get Their Daughter A Congressional Seat?

Nita and Hillary

Don't we all really hate nepotism and political dynasties? If we didn't before, the advent of the Trump family should have put that in everyone's minds. And that Liz Cheney thing in Congress! Yeccchh. The Clintons have been wanting Nita Lowey to retire so their daughter Chelsea could take her House seat (NY-17) in northern and western Westchester County and all of Rockland County. The Clinton home-- which isn't where Chelsea lives-- is in Chappaqa in the center of the district. The district which has a PVI of D+7 and was won by Hillary 58.6% to 38.4% (slightly better than Obama had done against McCain and Romney) starts in Port Chester on the Connecticut border and heads west through White Plains and Dobbs Ferry and then north through Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, Mount Kisco, as far north as Yorktown and Peekskill and west across the Hudson into Rockland County, which borders on New Jersey.

She's been in Congress for 3 decades. Last year the Republicans didn't bother running a candidate against Lowey, who beat Reform Party candidate Joseph Ciardullo, after outspending him $1,349,828 too $16,942.

Lowey, a Pelosi crony who heads the Appropriations Committee, is 82 years old and a garden variety moderate Democrat. ProgressivePunch has rated her voting record a disappointing "C," so it is likely a more progressive candidate will be elected with her out of the picture. She already had three primary challengers including Mondaire Jones, a 32 year-old former Obama Justice Department staffer who currently works as an attorney for Westchester County. He decided to run against her because she refused to back the Green New Deal and other policies he backs. He's running on an across-the-board progressive platform. The other two candidates already in the race are Johnny Jabbour, a progressive Arab-American singer-songwriter and progressive school teacher Lola Osoria.

Chelsea, another McKinsey consulting alum like Mayo Pete, works at the Clinton Foundation today and is married to sketchy investment bankster Marc Mezvinsky. They live in a $10.5 million Manhattan condo. She hasn't announced yet whether she's running or not. If Chelsea doesn't run, expect a whole slew of establishment types to jump in, like Assemblyman David Buchwald, right wing asshole and terrible state Senator David Carlucci, and White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach.

Is There A George P. Bush vs Chelsea Clinton Coming Up At Some Point?

Nita Lowey is 79 and has been in Congress since 1988. The Clintons are among her constituents and she has easy reelection races in this D+5 district. This cycle the Republicans didn't bother putting up an opponent. The district spans northern and western Westchester County and all of Rockland County (40% of the district population-wise). Hillary beat Trump 2 to 1 in Westchester-- 64.9-32.1% and beat him in Rockland County 51.2% to 46.1%, which wasn't quite as well as Obama did in Rockland Co. in 2012, when he beat Romney 53-46%.

Friday the NY Post reported that Chelsea is being "groomed" to run for Lowey's seat when she retires.

A source told us, “While it is true the Clintons need some time to regroup after Hillary’s crushing loss, they will not give up. Chelsea would be the next extension of the Clinton brand. In the past few years, she has taken a very visible role in the Clinton Foundation and on the campaign trail. While politics isn’t the life Hillary wanted for Chelsea, she chose to go on the campaign trail for her mother and has turned out to be very poised, articulate and comfortable with the visibility.”

The source continued, “There has been a lot of speculation within New York Democratic circles about Lowey’s retirement and Chelsea running for the seat. There is a belief that Chappaqua is a logical place for Chelsea to run, because it would be straightforward for her to raise money and build a powerful base.”

I didn't puke. I put up a Twitter poll. Not many people thought it was a good idea:

Her father's old friend and ex-Secretary of the Department of Labor, Robert Reich did an OpEd for The Guardian yesterday-- Democrats once represented the working class. Not any more. His point was that the election was "a repudiation of the American power structure" brought about in charge part because Bill Clinton and Obama "helped shift power away from the people towards corporations. It was this that created an opening for Donald Trump." That can't come as a surprise to anyone who reads DWT with any frequency.

Hillary Clinton’s defeat is all the more remarkable in that her campaign vastly outspent the Trump campaign on television and radio advertisements, and get-out-the-vote efforts. Moreover, her campaign had the support in the general election not of only the kingpins of the Democratic party but also many leading Republicans, including most of the politically active denizens of Wall Street and the top executives of America’s largest corporations, and even former Republican president George HW Bush. Her campaign team was run by seasoned professionals who knew the ropes. She had the visible and forceful backing of Barack Obama, whose popularity has soared in recent months, and his popular wife. And, of course, she had her husband.

Trump, by contrast, was shunned by the power structure. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, actively worked against Trump’s nomination. Many senior Republicans refused to endorse him, or even give him their support. The Republican National Committee did not raise money for Trump to the extent it had for other Republican candidates for president.

What happened?

There had been hints of the political earthquake to come. Trump had won the Republican primaries, after all. More tellingly, Clinton had been challenged in the Democratic primaries by the unlikeliest of candidates-- a 74-year-old Jewish senator from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and who was not even a Democrat. Bernie Sanders went on to win 22 states and 47% of the vote in those primaries. Sanders’ major theme was that the country’s political and economic system was rigged in favor of big corporations, Wall Street and the very wealthy.

The power structure of America wrote off Sanders as an aberration, and, until recently, didn’t take Trump seriously. A respected political insider recently told me most Americans were largely content with the status quo. “The economy is in good shape,” he said. “Most Americans are better off than they’ve been in years.”

Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and the undermining of democracy by big money.

Median family income is lower now than it was 16 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Workers without college degrees-- the old working class-- have fallen furthest. Most economic gains, meanwhile, have gone to top. These gains have translated into political power to elicit bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, special tax loopholes, favorable trade deals and increasing market power without interference by anti-monopoly enforcement-- all of which have further reduced wages and pulled up profits.

Wealth, power and crony capitalism fit together. Americans know a takeover has occurred, and they blame the establishment for it.

The Democratic party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.

Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class – failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with simple up-or-down votes. Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22% of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to less than 12% today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.

Bill Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify-- with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated. The unsurprising result of this combination-- more trade, declining unionization and more industry concentration-- has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. This created an opening for Donald Trump’s authoritarian demagoguery, and his presidency.

Now Americans have rebelled by supporting someone who wants to fortify America against foreigners as well as foreign-made goods. The power structure understandably fears that Trump’s isolationism will stymie economic growth. But most Americans couldn’t care less about growth because for years they have received few of its benefits, while suffering most of its burdens in the forms of lost jobs and lower wages.

In the same issue of The Guardian Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), warned these kinds of Democratic Party elites that "middle-of-the-road thinking has overstayed its welcome" and that "the future of the Democratic party begins with cleaning house at the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Without a dynamic progressive committed to a year-round 50-state strategy leading our party-- and a DNC staff committed to humble outreach and genuine advocacy for peoples’ needs-- we are doomed to repeats of 8 November.

We cannot rely on the same tired, inside-the-Beltway social media messages and stale talking points that got us here. Nor can we fall for the dangerous notion that if only she’d talked more about privatizing social security, Hillary Clinton might have won over more moderate voters. There is no evidence that such triangulation has any credibility with the American people, and our party needs to recognize that once and for all.

If Donald Trump’s unusual ideology has taught us anything, it’s that many of the political fights ahead of us have nothing to do with the arguments of the past 20 years. Party leaders need to recruit candidates with a genuine understanding of the issues that matter today, from economic insecurity to the future of rural America to social justice to education affordability.

We need to work with grassroots organizations to build a fresh party for the future. Just putting fresh paint on the party that lost the White House is not an option.

In the NY Times yesterday, Gretchen Morgenson, wrote that there were people who voted for Trump because the Clinton-Obama wing of the Democratic Party (i.e., the Establishment) let the banksters off the hook. I didn't vote for Trump, of course, but that's very much part of the reason why I didn't vote for Clinton.

There are many facets to the populist, anti-establishment anger that swept Donald J. Trump into the White House in Tuesday’s election. A crucial element fueling the rage, in my view, was this: Not one high-ranking executive at a major financial firm was held to account for the crisis of 2008.

As millions of foreclosures and job losses followed, the failure to go after fraudsters confirmed the suspicion that the powerful got protection while those on Main Street were kicked to the curb. When Mr. Trump asserted that the system was rigged, he tapped directly into such misgivings.

Many readers of the New York Times, particularly if you live in Manhattan, San Francisco or another affluent enclave, may not see how an accountability failure of years ago could still resonate. But the failure to prosecute even one or two high-profile bankers-- or force them simply to pay fines and penalties out of their own pockets-- left millions of Americans believing that our justice system was unjust.

Recall that more than 800 bankers went to jail after the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. And that mess wreaked nowhere near the devastation that the housing debacle did on the overall United States economy.

Embarrassed, perhaps, by their passivity, Justice Department officials recently pledged to take a more aggressive approach to white-collar crime. But the memo issued last September by Sally Quillian Yates, deputy attorney general, outlining new ways the department would hold individuals to account, has not translated into results.

So Chelsea Clinton for Congress? I don't think so. People just want the Clintons to go the fuck away. Like the Bushes.

Chelsea Clinton: "Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle CHIP, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance"

 Chelsea Clinton, left, and her mother, Hillary Clinton. Photograph: Jason Decrow/AP (source)

by Gaius Publius

Someone seems to be pulling out all the stops:

Stumping for her mother for the first time in 2016 on Tuesday, Chelsea Clinton directly criticized Bernie Sanders on health care policy, echoing Hillary Clinton’s recent attacks on the Vermont senator.

Asked about mounting enthusiasm for Sanders among young people, the daughter of the Democratic presidential frontrunner urged younger voters to focus on the “specifics” of Sanders’ policy proposals.

“Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance,” she said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “I worry if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that, we’ll go back to an era – before we had the Affordable Care Act – that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance.”

The authors note: "The attacks are similar to charges made by Hillary Clinton herself in recent days." Indeed they are, and highly inaccurate claims at that. Also easily disproved. Does Sanders want to "dismantle Obamacare" and leave you without insurance — or give you a form of Medicare in its place?

One could call these claims "absolutely false," as they were called when candidate Clinton herself first made them — though "dismantling private insurance," if that's indeed what he wants to do, wouldn't be unwelcome in most quarters.

The Inaccuracy of Chelsea Clinton's Claims

The media response to this renewed anti-Sanders attack has been swift. Like her mother's claims when she made them during the debate, Chelsea Clinton's claims — which seem to go a bit further — are just false, plain-speak for media language like "wildly misleading" (Huffington Post), "wasn't an honest attack" (David Axelrod), and "a crude, inflammatory distortion" (National Nurses United).

For detail, first ABC News and David Axelrod: "The Sanders campaign quickly responded by saying that Chelsea Clinton was 'wrong. ... A Medicare-for-all plan will save the average middle class family $5,000 a year,' a spokesman for Sanders’ campaign said. 'The Clinton campaign is wrong.' ... Later in the day, Democratic strategist David Axelrod criticized the Clinton campaign for having Chelsea Clinton take a shot at Sanders. 'It wasn’t an honest attack,' he said during an interview on CNN."

Now Common Dreams quoting the nurses' union NNU: "National Nurses United added its voice to those defending Sanders' proposal, accusing Clinton of deliberately distorting the facts. ... 'Surely Hillary Clinton knows that Medicare and Medicaid are national programs, and that they would be funded as national programs,' said NNU co-president Jean Ross. 'To claim that expanding Medicare to all would hand it over to state governors is a crude, inflammatory distortion, and shows an indifference to all those people who continue to be harmed by a broken system.'"

Finally, Jonathan Cohn and Amanda Terkel in the Huffington Post with a longer analysis of Clinton's statements:

Like so many statements the Clinton campaign has made about Sanders position on health care, Chelsea’s contained some true statements -- and some wildly misleading implications. ...

[Sanders' support for single-payer health insurance] has made him a hero to many liberal voters. It has also drawn the wrath of the Clinton campaign, which has attacked the scheme in two separate ways -- each making a factual claims and then leaving out critical context.

Because a single-payer plan would require the government to raise literally trillions of dollars in revenue, Clinton has assailed Sanders for calling for a massive tax hike. That's true. What Clinton never mentions is that those taxes would displace existing private insurance premiums.

And because Sanders' version of single-payer envisions separate state programs, Clinton and her allies have suggested that hostile state officials could thwart his plan. That's also true. But what Clinton never adds is that Sanders' scheme would also impose regulations, limiting state leeway over who to insure and what kind of coverage to supply.

During a campaign appearance in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Chelsea offered a version of these arguments -- but went a little further.

"Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the [Children's Health Insurance Program], dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance," she said, according to an account from NBC News. "I worry if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that, we'll go back to an era -- before we had the Affordable Care Act -- that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance."

It's true that, under a scheme like the one Sanders envisions, most people would lose the insurance they have today. But that's because everybody would have the new government-provided insurance instead. And while the transition from the old system to a new one would be far more complicated than single-payer advocates like to acknowledge, the whole point of a single-payer plan is to make sure that coverage is simpler, more comprehensive and more reliable than it is today.

If anything, a single-payer plan like the one Sanders envisions would result in more coverage than current arrangements would allow.

And:

Characteristically missing from Chelsea's comments was any recognition of these facts -- or acknowledgment that Sanders has a long record of arguing that people need more protection from medical bills, not less.

"Characteristically missing" is quite a charge in itself. I've rarely seen an adverb do this much damage in a political comment.

While Sanders hasn't rolled out his 2016 plan, the bills he has sponsored, like the 2013 American Health Security Act, are nationally controlled single-payer plans that would cover far more people than even the ACA and provide huge net savings for most Americans by freeing them from the vicissitudes and profit-seeking whims of American health insurance companies.

"To Bernie Sanders with thanks for your commitment to real health care access for all Americans and best wishes" –Hillary Rodham Clinton 1993 (source)

Is falsely asserting otherwise a sign of something, for example a tightening race? If so, I'd be careful if I were the offending campaign. The eventual winner is going to need the other side's voters if the surviving Democrat expects to defeat what the the Republicans spit out in the fall — and at this point, the bulk of voter enthusiasm seems to favor Sanders. Burning bridges to that part of the electorate with obvious ... distortions? lies? ... may be the Democrats most direct path to defeat in the general election, something the Party claims to abhor like the plague. Just a thought.

(Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. If you'd like to help out, go here; you can adjust the split any way you like at the link. If you'd like to "phone-bank for Bernie," go here. You can volunteer in other ways by going here. And thanks!)

UPDATE: And then there's this response: "Clinton’s attacks produce windfall of campaign cash for Sanders". I'll repeat what I said above, since this underscores it. Burning bridges to the Sanders-supporting part of the electorate may be the Democrats most direct path to defeat in the general election.

GP

The Clinton Cash Story from the Left

Someone who thinks voters want a candidate "prepared take on the billionaire class" (you can help him here)

by Gaius Publius

I want to do a "just the facts, ma'am" piece with this information, because there are so many angles to it. But first an introduction, for context.

We all know that there's a book out on Clinton cash (no link, but the google will show it to you) that looks for all the world like a right-wing hit job, and a clumsy one at that. According to many reviewers, the writer doesn't have his facts straight, doesn't document his assertions, and by his own admission, doesn't connect quid to quo except by implication. The assertions have all the left defenders understandably rushing to Hillary Clinton's defense.

This has the effect of muddying the Clinton water on the right — this season's version of the "swift boat" attacks on John Kerry in 2004. It also has the effect, unintended I'm sure, of inoculating Clinton against any similar attack from the left. (Given the latter effect, I'd have paid the guy to write that book if I were the Clinton campaign, just as long as he did it badly.)

But the Clintons, the whole family (all of whom are adult principals of their eponymous foundation), live in the world of money. They float on money, receive it in various ways, dole it out in various ways, declare it, don't declare it, redeclare it, rub elbows with people who have it to spare — think Davos, but also events like the Yalta European Strategy conference — fly on expensive jets owned by people who own expensive jets, and generally are very good friends of people who are very good friends of money. From wherever they started, this is now their world.

The World of Money Can Be Corrupt and Corrupting

Not everyone with money does bad things with it — consider FDR, for example. But many people with money are very bad people indeed.

David Koch, a very bad person
with too much money

And people who wheel and deal with big money people can become quite changed as a result. So as you read the following, consider: We're dealing with the world of money. Does that increase the odds of some kind of fire behind the smoke?

And while you're asking yourself questions, ask this: If we were discussing a Bush brother, what possibilities would you now be open to considering?

The Clinton Cash Story from the Left

As I said, the right-wing book, by all accounts, is garbage, a paid op, a hit. Does that mean that the story itself is garbage? Here are David Sirota, Andrew Perez, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook writing in Business Insider, asking us to consider otherwise (my emphasis):

Firms Paid Bill Clinton Millions As They Lobbied Hillary Clinton

Former President Bill Clinton accepted more than $2.5 million in speaking fees from 13 major corporations and trade associations that lobbied the U.S. State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, an International Business Times investigation has found. The fees were paid directly to the former president, and not directed to his philanthropic foundation.

Many of the companies that paid Bill Clinton for these speeches -- a roster of global giants that includes Microsoft, Oracle and Dell -- engaged him within the same three-month period in which they were also lobbying the State Department in pursuit of their policy aims, federal disclosure documents show. Several companies received millions of dollars in State Department contracts while Hillary Clinton led the institution.

The disclosure that President Clinton received personal payments for speeches from the same corporate interests that were actively seeking to secure favorable policies from a federal department overseen by his wife underscores the vexing issue now confronting her presidential aspirations: The Clinton family is at the center of public suspicions over the extent of insider dealing in Washington, emblematic of concerns that corporate interests are able to influence government action by creatively funneling money to people in power.

“The dynamic is insidious and endemic to this system,” said Meredith McGhee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog group in Washington. "The fact is that the wealthiest .01 percent on the outside of government believes -- fervently -- that by paying speaking fees, or making campaign contributions, that it can gain access and influence."

You can read the rest at the link.

What Are the Issues?

First, note again that this isn't a connection of quids and quos. But it's the appearance of connection. Do public officials have the obligation, legal or otherwise, to avoid that appearance?

Next, this doesn't have to be about Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Any of the three Clintons, but certainly Bill and Hillary, are and will be in position to do favors for the favors they receive. One of those favors could be advocating for policies that give friends-of-money even more money.

Bill Clinton telling friends-of-money why your Social
Security benefits should be cut (2011; source)

Or consider that list of companies in the Business Insider story — Microsoft, Oracle, Dell. Do they have an interest in getting the TPP "jobs-to-Asia" trade agreement signed? Would Hillary Clinton be in a position to initiate and promote corporate-friendly "free trade" agreements in her next job? Depends on what her next job is.

Third, as progressives we say to each other, over and over, "That damn world of money; it owns us, dammit. Let's put an end to the power of people with money." Well, here is that world of money, staring right at us. Note that the progressive indictment isn't against individuals, but a class of people, the very very rich — and a second class, the large pool of politicians who serve their interests, over and over again.

Lastly, there is a candidate who is running specifically and credibly against the world of money. That's him in the video above. Just thought I'd throw that in. (If you like, you can help out here.)

Bottom Line

The Clinton cash story is an ugly, badly executed smear job on the right. But the world of free-floating cash and what it buys is a story on the left as well, and a huge concern. There may be nothing here with respect to the Clintons. Or there may be quite a lot. My suggestion — let the story play out. If there's nothing but smoke and a Breitbart blowing it, you'll be glad you let them prove themselves wrong.

But if there's a raging fire beneath the swirl of implications ... you'd want to know that, right?

GP

A WEEK IN THE LOOKING GLASS

-by Noah

I think about doing a post like this every week. Certainly, the material is available, but it just seems that every time you think our world has gotten as dysfunctional and warped as it can possibly be… Last week was special.

It Just Gets More And More Absurd

New Yorkers have to take their amusements wherever they can find them. It’s part of the defense mechanisms one needs to live here, in a harsh environment. One source of amusement, for me, has always been the headlines of our daily newspapers. I hit the street everyday (we walk a lot in NYC. It’s faster.) and I can’t wait to see what the nearest newsstand (limit, 3 per block) has to flash at me. The best in headline history may be the NY Post’s "Headless Body In A Topless Bar" from about 25 years ago, but the competition goes on and on. It’s not just the tabloids, though. The NY Times, our stuffy would be protector of the elitist establishment status quo, is known for its own unique headline style. Their specialty is the ridiculously reserved or inadvertently understated headline; a headline so coy that it seems to be hiding something, like for instance the truth or a truth they’d really rather not come out and say. One such headline appeared on Saturday. It even used the word understated; perhaps breaking new ground. The headline reads "Unofficial Tallies In City Understated Obama Vote." The first line in the story immediately belies the headline. "Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama. That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district." Read it again if it hasn’t sunk in. Now, I don’t want to assume that just because there are great multitudes of humans of African descent and huge numbers of young college students in my town that they would all vote for Senator Obama, but none? NONE is a pretty understated turnout for any candidate, let alone one who generates the enthusiasm of the Senator from Illinois. For instance, in Harlem’s (!) 70th Assembly District, not a single vote ended up in the Obama column. That’s according to the unofficial count. Incredibly, there are 80 more election districts in NYC where Obama DID NOT RECEIVE A SINGLE VOTE. Kinda hard to believe isn’t it? This reminds me of those old elections in the U.S.S.R. where Khrushchev got all of the votes, every one of ‘em. Oh, I know you might say, "well, New York is where Senator Clinton is from". Believe me, we don’t love her that much. In fact, most people I know, barely tolerate her. We look at her and we don’t see the funny pant suits. We look at her and we see a t-shirt emblazoned with "The Lesser Evil." I personally know a couple of people who voted for her. I know dozens who voted for Senator Obama. Clinton is our Senator and she can expect a lot of votes in New York City, but not all of them. Something is amiss. Or, as the Times might say it: "Some Theorize Something May Be Amiss."

In an even more ethnically African-American district in Brooklyn, the vote on primary night stood at 118 to 0 for Senator Clinton. Since then, more votes have been "found." She now leads 118 to 116, still a suspicious count. Back in that Harlem district, the count is now 261 to 136. Well, I guess 136 is better than the ZERO. ZIPPO. NONE Obama was credited with a week ago. Is this home field advantage? Is this love for the local Senator, or, is this confusion?

Has Jeb Bush been spotted in NYC? With all of the time Bill has spent with Daddy Bush, did he get a few pointers? New York’s delegates are apportioned by proportion of vote count. The more zero counts Senator Obama gets, the fewer delegates he gets. Guess who gets those. We all heard about the Super Delegates and the war for delegates past this week but, this is getting really dirty and suspicious. It may get Senator Clinton more delegates but it sure won’t increase her likeability quotient. We’ve spent 8 years pointing at Bush and Rove and what happened in Florida and then, the last four years, at what happened in New Mexico and Ohio. We’ve spent 8 years seething about Republican corruption and the sleaziness of the Bushes. Now, it looks like instead of rectifying the corruption, someone is adopting the same methods of "electoral" politics. It’s not new, of course, but, it is sickening. The Clinton Machine is a mighty big machine. I can’t wait ‘til the dead people rise up from the grave and start voting. I can just see Ann Coulter leading them to the polls for Hillary, directed by Roger Corman, no doubt.

And Doncha Come Back No More

Back in the middle of the week, on Valentine’s Day, Rep. John A. Bo(eh)ner, of Little Germany, er, te northern Cincinnati suburbs, stood up in our House Of Representatives and threw one of those 14 year old girl tantrums that he is so known for. This time it was about FISA, the Immunity For Bush And His Telecom Buddies Act of 2008. He just couldn’t believe that some dastardly Americans, including all too few of their elected representatives were against Bushie’s cherished FISA bill. It didn’t matter that even Bush, in a moment of carelessness or once in a lifetime honesty, had already publicly admitted that he had broken the law over the wiretap issue. No, this bill was an absolute must if America was to be saved from "the terrorists." By America, of course, he meant the huge campaign contributors that they so generously give to campaigns and, oh yeah, just happen to run the telecoms. He also meant, I’m sure, virtually the entire A-team of the Bush administration, Bush, Cheney, Rice, former Attorney General Gonzales et. al. After all, it is a little known aspect of the bill that it would not only grant immunity for the telecoms and the slime that sit in their corner offices; it would also grant the Bushies immunity from prosecution, strip away a high crime and misdemeanor that they could be impeached for during or after the long national nightmare of their regime, and, quite neatly, protect everybody from lawsuits that could potentially be filed against them by the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been illegally spied upon.

For some reason, the media doesn’t talk about all of that very much. Oh, that’s right! They just happen to be part of the telecom industry. I’m sure what they think is that what we, the public, don’t know won’t hurt us, or is it them. Make no mistake, this bill isn’t about protecting Americans. Bush and his lapdogs in Congress care more about protecting their own butts and those of the telecom giants than you or I. But, J.A. Bo(eh)ner got so worked up that he said words to the effect that he just wasn’t gonna stand for "the other side of the aisle," or those who want to protect the Constitution that all congressional representatives are sworn to uphold with or without their fingers crossed behind their backs, opposing his and his dark master’s desires. The J. A., as I like to call him, wasn’t about to stand for a bill that was amended so that it didn’t grant all of those blessed immunities, so, he walked out and walked out with all but around 30 Republican representatives. The Republican congresscreeps ran out so fast you woulda thought there was a Valentine’s Day half-price sale on male hookers in back of the dumpster down the street, or, maybe they heard Tucker Carlson was doing a pole dance out on the Mall with the Washington Monument as a backdrop. In either event, don’t let the door hit you, J.A. (unless, of course, you kinda like that sort of thing). Oh, and J.A., while you were running down to the dumpster, the rest of Congress voted contempt citations for administration officials Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers. Yeah, if I was you, I’d wanna avoid that vote and I’d be afraid of what they might say before Congress too, if only they were compelled to talk. I could say you and your filthy colleagues walked out on the American people who hired you to work for them and defend the Constitution, but, you guys walked out on us long ago.

Three Ring Circus

One ring is named Clemens. One ring is named McNamee. And, one is a congressional panel headed up by a guy who is almost always one of our very best Congressmen, Rep. Henry Waxman. I guess he had to hold the hearing since Roger Clemens requested it, but, although somewhat riveting, it sure was a circus. Watching it was like watching a train wreck that you have advanced knowledge of and can do nothing about. I made a comment to one of Howie’s posts earlier in the week about the whole thing. For those who didn’t see it, I offer a couple of observations on some subtext of the whole thing. Both Clemens and his accuser came off quite badly, but what was interesting was that the Republicans on the hearing supported Clemens while the Democrats leaned toward McNamee. There was a clear partisan divide. Behind it all was a subtext. First of all, Clemens is a longtime buddy of both Dubya and Daddy Bush. This goes back to a time when Sonny Bush owned the Texas Rangers ballclub. Maybe some on the panel received a word from on high. Maybe they didn’t. Secondly, I really enjoyed seeing Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana tear apart the trainer sleazo, but, hmmm, aren’t there some Big Pharma companies based in Indiana? Do you think they might like Republicans these days? Gee, maybe they even contribute big sums of moola to Burton. Is McNamee being assaulted by Repugs because of sleaze or because he upset the apple cart? Is this all coincidence? I doubt it!

Now consider that some of the biggest (literally) stars in sports are poster boys and girls for the results that can be achieved through the use of Big Pharma’s products. To Big Pharma and their lapdogs in Congress, it’s "how dare anyone damage the reputations of our sports hero customers and, by connection, our products!" Lastly, doesn’t Congress have more pressing business on its plate? I don’t want to see high school athletes ruining their bodies and lives, but, such hearings smack of grandstanding. Now, I hear that Sen. Arlen "Single Bullet Theory" Spector wants to investigate the video taping habits of the New England Patriots, another great use of time and taxpayer money. More grandstanding for the public. The clowns have been already sent in.


David Shuster

Last week, on MSNBC, David Shuster referred to Chelsea Clinton as being pimped out by her parents. Poor choice of words, even if true. He shouldn’t have said it, at least not that way. To many, particularly younger people, the word pimp no longer carries the baggage that it does for older folks like myself and Senator Clinton. You see, Senator Clinton got very upset about the comment Shuster laid on her daughter. Any parent would. The difference is that Clinton has access to the upper management of NBC and was provided with an opportunity to abuse her perceived power. And, she is so arrogant that she felt she could suggest that Shuster be fired. Excuse me Frau Clinton, we already have an arrogant prick in the White House. We really don’t need another one. Is it that you feel that being an arrogant prick is a job qualification? Were Reagan, JFK, Eisenhower, FDR, Carter, Truman etc. all so arrogant? OK, I left out LBJ, for one.

Not that you care, but if you ever do wonder why so many people don’t view you as likeable, why do you continue to make yourself so UNlikeable? I gotta tell ya: If the 2008 Presidential election comes down to you and Mr. Straight Talk Out Of Both Sides Of His Mouth and it comes down to just who is more likeable, YOU LOSE, and so do the rest of us. Chelsea is a big girl, 27 and out in the world, the corporate world no less. She is leading a very public life. She can stand up for herself. You’re both in public life. Things get said. Thicken your skin and let it go. Please for your own sake and the sake of your campaign, lighten up a little. Have you ever called for the firing of the numerous conservative commentators that say bad things about you and your family? On the scale of saying your kid is pimped out vs. accusing you of murdering Vince Foster…

CNN To Become Public Access Television

Oh sure, they call it "Citizen Journalism" but CNN’s iReport is a new low in journalism. It’s also an indication that CNN is throwing in the towel. They are now taking "news reports" from the public at large. Anyone with a camera can play. Now, you can be a TeeVee journalist! It’s like those public access TV channels that feature things like Tele-psychic and people who spend hours talking about their sex lives, or just go around to horrible clubs interviewing junkies and fashion disasters. It’s like CNN either doesn’t know what news to report or they don’t know what news people want to see. I’d like to think that CNN might now actually cover and expose some truths but they’ve already had ample opportunity to do that kind of serious investigative reporting and have passed. iReport is desperation in a quest for ratings. It’s the turning of journalism into American Idol, complete with long lines of wannabees who wouldn’t know news if it bit ‘em in the butt. Oh wait, that’s what CNN already has! I mean, how is Glenn Beck different than any public access TV loon? And CNN gave him $50 million to sit on camera and babble his bug-eyed drooling nonsense.

Now, get ready for endless tales of people reporting their abductions by aliens and in depth reporting of the weekly appearances of the Virgin Mary on pieces of French toast. Get ready for some goofball reporting that he saw Nixon having ultra-caffeinated coffee with Bin Laden and E. Howard Hunt coffee at a Starbucks way back in 1976. Wait. No. That was ME!

What I Want To See

It looks like McCain has the Repug nomination all wrapped up, but, it looks like all of his campaigning is aging him fast, faster than normal. The Presidency ages people very fast. I remember my father watching JFK on the telly in early1963. He commented on how much Kennedy had aged in a little over 2 years. It was true. Kennedy was a young man, in his early 40s, but he looked 10 years older than he had just 2 years before. McCain is already 72. Reagan had alzheimer’s disease in his second term, if not earlier. I think that, by now, the 2008 campaign is aging all of us. The 24 hour coverage is over the top. Make it stop! Can’t we have those last three debates between the two finalists, one from each party, and be done with it? I have one suggestion, though. If it’s Obama vs. McCain, let’s dispense with the silly podiums that each candidate stands behind. I say we put Obama and McCain on treadmills, in front of a national audience while they debate. That should tell us something!