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June 2008
Mahoney: Honoring Soviet veterans?
Republicans are having a field day over a flier sent out by U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney that shows an elderly gentleman bedecked with what appear to be Soviet medals.
The picture is on the cover of a Mahoney flier labeled: “Honoring Those Who Defend Our Freedom.” The flier touts Mahoney’s record on veterans’ issues.
“Is Tim Mahoney’s commitment to our veterans so shallow and superficial that he can’t even tell the difference between an American veteran and one who fought for Communism in Joseph Stalin’s Red Army?? said Ken Spain, press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“This is a stunning indictment of Mahoney’s utter lack of knowledge concerning veterans’ issues. We knew he had Socialist tendencies when it came to his record, but this takes it to a whole new laughable level,” Spain said.
In an enlargement of the photo, the hammer and sickle logo of the former Soviet Union is clearly visible on the top medal on the man’s left breast pocket.
Asked about the picture, Mahoney spokeswoman Leslie Pollner-Levey said: “We’d like more time to respond. We’re looking into it.”
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911 records cited breathing problem for John Linder
Newly released emergency 911 records describe Rep. John Linder as suffering from “difficulty breathing” or “allergic reaction” May 15 after being helped outside a Capitol Hill bar and restaurant, although the Georgia congressman continued to assert that his problem was an injured knee.
District of Columbia officials, in compliance with open records laws, disclosed a recording of the emergency dispatch exchanges and a written chronology of the incident, which drew national press coverage last month.
Asked in an interview about the official account, the Republican congressman said, “This is a knee that was injured in February, and I re-injured by slipping on something” while dining with his grown son. He added, “It could have been allergic reaction or trouble breathing. All I know is that I was hurt badly. I was helped out of the place.”
Linder said he told a U.S. Capitol Police officer, who found him sitting outside of the restaurant/bar Bullfeathers, that he was waiting to regain the strength in his knee to walk home.
The official chronology cites the Capitol Police as reporting a code “02C02”—allergic reaction or difficulty breathing or swallowing—at 6:55 p.m. In recorded two-way radio exchanges, an ambulance driver cited the same condition when announcing he was “responding to 431 First St., SE,” which is next door to Bullfeathers.
Minutes later a voice from a fire engine, which was dispatched to the scene along with the ambulance, reported: “Per Capitol Police, the patient got up and walked away—refused treatment.”
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Will Wes Clark hurt Rick Noriega?
On paper, an association with retired Gen. Wesley Clark is probably a plus for Texas Democratic state Rep. Rick Noriega as he seeks to unseat Republican John Cornyn from the U.S. Senate.
But don’t be surprised if Republicans try to use Clark against Noriega after Clark’s controversial appearance Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Clark was there to talk about Barack Obama and get in some shots on John McCain, as Joe Lieberman had just done on McCain’s behalf in the prior segment. But the conversation moved toward McCain’s military service (Naval aviator, Vietnam, POW) and that’s where the controversy began. Clark praised McCain’s military service, but then said McCain did not have the kind of executive experience that forced him to make major military decisions.
Then, after a followup question, came the money quote:
“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,” Clark said.
So how does this relate to Noriega? Clark is scheduled to host a fundraiser for Noriega on July 16 in Dallas. And Noriega has made his own military service, first in the Army and then the Texas Army National Guard, key to his campaign. Clark’s Sunday comments probably won’t make much of an impact, but they can’t help Noriega’s message.
Here’s a fuller video of the Clark interview:
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Cornyn losing endorsement of Texas Medical Association
The political action committee of the Texas Medical Association, furious about a Thursday night vote on a Medicare-funding bill, is going to rescind its endorsement of Sen. John Cornyn’s re-election bid, two sources familiar with the association said.
Cornyn and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison voted to stall a bill that would have prevented a 10 percent cut in Medicare funding for physicians, prompting an unusually harsh reaction from the medical association, which has 43,000 members and is one of the most powerful trade groups in Texas politics.
The two Republican senators say they wanted a 30-day extension that would have prevented the cuts, which are scheduled to take effect July 1.
Here’s the letter from the chair of the medical association’s political action committee.
Dear Senator Cornyn:
The Texas Medical Association Political Action Committee (TEXPAC) is outraged that you made the decision to follow the direction of the Bush Administration and voted to protect health insurance companies at the expense of America’s seniors, those with disabilities, and military families.
On July 1 - just four days from now - the government will slash Medicare physician payments by at least 10.6 percent, even more in many parts of Texas. That will force physicians into an impossible choice: face financial crisis by continuing to see their Medicare patients, or protect their practices and cut off those patients.
There is talk and then there is action. We expect our elected officials to show leadership and do the right thing. Absent that, TEXPAC has rescinded our endorsement of your candidacy.
Sincerely,
Manuel Acosta, MD Chair
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Pelosi continues praise of Chet Edwards
At her weekly press conference Thursday, reporters asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about her surprising mention earlier this week of Waco Democrat Chet Edwards as a possible running mate for Barack Obama.
Pelosi said she has always tried to encourage Edwards to run for leadership posts.
“I particularly admire the work that he has done on veterans’ issues,” Pelosi said. “He is Mr. Veterans in the Congress.”
She went on to praise spending increases on veterans’ programs while Edwards has led the Appropriations subcommittee that deals with those issues.
She continued, “Whether it’s with regard to homeland security, to protecting our people, to protecting our Constitution, he would be a great addition to the ticket.”
How do you really feel, Madam Speaker?
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Lamar Smith, other Republicans want to amend Constitution on child rape
Rep. Lamar Smith, a San Antonio Republican who represents part of Austin, and three of his GOP colleagues introduced legislation Thursday to change the U.S. Constitution to allow the death penalty for the rape of a child younger than 12.
This comes in response to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling this week that the death penalty for someone who rapes a child but did not kill or intend to kill the child violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars punishment that is excessive or cruel and unusual.
A constitutional amendment must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the U.S. House and Senate, then ratified by at least three-fourths of the states before it becomes law.
“States, with the approval of their legislatures, should be able to impose the maximum punishment for a crime that may not constitute murder in the legal sense, but certainly results in the death of youthful innocence and the carefree joys of childhood,” Smith said.
Also introducing the amendment were GOP Reps. Steve Chabot of Ohio and Tom Feeney and Ric Keller of Florida.
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Travelers would flock to see this
On Thursday, the House Small Business Committee examined the impact of high air fares and flight cutbacks on business travelers. But the committee’s senior Republican, Steve Chabot of Ohio, also wanted to use the hearing as an opportunity to remind witnesses from the travel industry that his district is a great place to visit.
He noted that Cincinnati has great sports franchises and fine museums. But even better, at its annual Oktoberfest, the Queen City sets records for getting the most people anywhere in the world to do the Chicken Dance. “We’re proud of that, of course,” he said.
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Obama still has big social networking edge over McCain
If the election came down to social networks like Facebook and MySpace, John McCain would already be back on the Senate floor doing his normal job.
The 71-year-old McCain has never been too keen on the Internet Web 2.0 phenomenon. He told Yahoo! News that he was “an illiterate” with computers who relies on his wife for computer assistance. And it shows.
Barack Obama has more than 1 million supporters on Facebook, while McCain has just more than 150,000 supporters. Hazelnut spread Nutella, the cartoon Tom and Jerry, and ventriloquist/comedian Jeff Dunham have more supporters than McCain.
Even Obama’s wife, Michelle, has a Facebook page and a rapidly growing support base - in just three days she went from about 37,000 supporters to almost 50,000 supporters this week. Cindy McCain, the supposed tech guru of the McCain couple, doesn’t have a page.
Does this flood of youth support mean much for Obama though?
According to data from Rock the Vote, more than 2.1 million more voters ages 18-29 turned out for this year’s Democratic primaries compared to the 2004 primaries.
Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), said young voters will definitely turn out in much higher numbers for the general election, but he is not convinced that Obama will have as wide a margin as he does now.
The Democratic primaries were more competitive and interesting for younger voters, and McCain has time to make up lost ground on the Internet. He might have to learn a few more things about the Web beforehand, though.
Either way, the young college voter demographic is not where McCain has his sights. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only an estimated 6.1 percent of the population was enrolled in college in 2006.
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Spymaster Drives For Sixty Cents Per Gallon
Former CIA director James Woolsey makes no secret about wanting to reduce the amount of U.S. petrodollars flowing to the Middle East: his devotion extends to the car he drives, a plug-in hybrid.
“Electricity today is like driving on about sixty-cent-per-gallon gasoline,” Woolsey told reporters this week. “There’s no way that the Saudis undercut that.”
Called “part-geek, part zealot” by the liberal magazine, “Mother Jones,” Woolsey lives in a solar-powered farmhouse near Annapolis, Md., and makes the hour-long commute into Washington where he has a private law practice and is a security consultant.
Lately, he’s been advising GOP presidential hopeful John McCain on energy and security policy.
McCain is offering a $300 million reward to the company that can build a low-cost, high-powered battery to lead the auto industry away from the age of the internal combustion engine and into the era of the electric car.
Woolsey plugs in his hybrid at night to take advantage of low-cost kilowatts.
“There’s no way oil prices come down enough to compete with off-peak, overnight electricity prices,” said Woolsey. “Electricity is going to come along nicely,” as an auto power source, he said, “if we have the batteries.”
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Warning to Southern delegates: Democratic convention a no-fry zone
The South has been a huge political headache for the Democratic Party for the better part of the last half century. In the last 10 presidential elections, for example, the South was pretty solidly behind the Republican presidential nominee.
So, you would think the Democrats, with their 50-state strategy instituted by national chairman Howard Dean, would be a little more accommodating to the Southern delegates to the party’s presidential convention in Denver in August.
You would think. But you would be wrong, at least as far as food is concerned.
As part of the effort to make the 2008 national convention the greenest ever, the Democrats’ catering guidelines include one that strikes at the heart of Southern cuisine: no fried food.
No fried chicken. No fried catfish. No fried green tomatoes. No fried okra. No fried anything.
The Democratic guidelines say every meal should be nutritious and include “at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, purple/blue and white.”
“It’s the new patriotism,” says Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the driving force behind the greening of the Democratic convention.
But having lost all but three of the last 10 presidential elections - and almost disappearing from the South as a presidential party - you would think the Democrats would have bigger fish to fr… - uh, make that - bake.
You would think.
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David Gregory disses Chet Edwards, mangles a couple facts
David Gregory’s “Race for the White House” panel just did a very short segment on U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco, whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested this week could be a good running mate for Barack Obama.
Gregory and panelist Jay Carney of Time (the only two who talked about him) cast him as a longshot. Edwards on the ticket would make “not a lot of sense,” Carney said.
This blog is not in the business of defending Chet Edwards or any other politician, but let’s at least get a couple facts straight. First, Edwards does not chair the Armed Services Subcommittee, as Gregory said, but rather the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans’ Affairs.
Secondly, Gregory pointed out that Edwards studied economics at Texas A&M under former Sen. Phil Gramm. That’s true, but Gramm is hardly his mentor. The two ran against each other for Congress in 1978 (Gramm narrowly won) and they’ve never been friends. Legend in Texas has it that Gramm said in 1996 that defeating Edwards mattered more to him than his own re-election that year (They both won).
Having said all that, the larger point that Edwards is not a frontrunner is probably true.
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Colony collapse in honey bees proves sweet topic on Hill
It was either the free ice cream or a genuine concern for the dwindling adult bee population that brought dozens to the House Agriculture Committee room on Wednesday to kick off National Bee Pollinator Week.
Government staffers, lawmakers - and many, many summer interns - packed the room, making it almost a standing-room only event hosted by Haagen-Dazs, Burt’s Bees and the Pollinator Partnership.
The kick off was a prelude to a House Agriculture Committee hearing scheduled for Thursday in which a team of researchers from the Florida Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies are expected to present their latest findings of colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon that has led to the decline of the adult honeybee population.
The disorder threatens commercial pollinators, which crop growers depend on to pollinate fruit and vegetables.
Researchers still don’t know the cause of the disorder, but they may be closer to their quest for answers.
Maryann Frazier, part of the research team studying colony collapse, said scientists are studying a new pathogen that may be contributing to the drop in the adult bee population. High levels of pesticides may also be a factor.
Overall, the health of the insects has worsened. The adult honeybee population declined 36 percent this year, compared to a 31 percent drop last year, Frazier said.
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“Maggie’s Farm” works for Obama - the song, not the commune
In an interview to be published Friday by Rolling Stone magazine, Barack Obama talks about his musical tastes, including how much he likes Bob Dylan’s 1965 track, “Maggie’s Farm.”
“It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee says of the song.
Political rhetoric aside, the song and Obama are a good match, even if Obama and the people at some of the anti-government “Maggie’s Farm” communes the song inspired are not. Like Obama, who is trying to make history in politics, becoming the first African American president, the song “Maggie’s Farm” has a special place in music history.
“Maggie’s Farm” was at the center of the furor Dylan created with his plugged-in electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
Dylan performed the song in a faster and more aggressive manner than he had on his landmark album, “Bringing It All Back Home,” and it featured the ear-splitting lead guitar of the legendary Chicago bluesman Mike Bloomfield.
Some critics compared the performance to Dylan and his band firing machine guns at the crowd. Others said it was downright spine-tingling. Most viewed it as Dylan declaring himself free from the confines of acoustic folk music.
The song and Dylan’s performance of it at Newport are still debated today, as is the meaning of the lyrics (like those of so many other Dylan songs). Some say it’s a protest of working conditions in the service industry, for example, while others say it is merely Dylan griping about the music business.
So, maybe, if the song speaks to Obama the way he says it does, he can explain it all during his campaign.
For example, what does Dylan mean when he sings that Maggie’s pa has a window made of bricks? And why is the National Guard standing around his door? Or, even more basic, just what is Maggie’s farm and what do they grow there?
Some folks took the song literally and formed communes. One even has a blog, maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com, which noted with glee that Obama shares their love of the song.
“Clearly, we enjoy the spirit of the song too, but if Obama really wants to be a cool dude, he needs to get hip to Maggie’s Farm blog,” they write.
They may not be registered to vote, however, and they certainly aren’t expecting a revolution in American politics, even if Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee.
They write: “We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn’t pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does ‘try my best to be just like I am,’ and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.”
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UGA teams visit the president - yet again
The women’s gymnastics team at the University of Georgia was invited to the White House, again.
By now, the team, which has won four national championships in a row, has been to the White House and shaken the president’s hand often enough to do it blindfolded.
“I just love it,” said Grace Taylor, the national champion on the balance beam. “I’m on cloud nine. I loved history growing up, so just to be walking around in the pages of my history book - it’s a dream come true.”
Bush honored 20 national championship teams from smaller intercollegiate sports at the annual Championship Day on the south lawn of the White House.
The University of Georgia men’s tennis team was honored for its second championship in a row. The men’s and women’s ski team at the University of Denver received special recognition from Bush for winning the championship with one fewer competitor than other schools.
Bush congratulated a variety of national champions in sports not usually seen on ESPN, like Ohio State’s men’s and women’s fencing teams and the University of North Carolina women’s field hockey team.
Bush joked that he would love to welcome back the athletes next year, but his “eligibility has run out.”
Four seniors on the Georgia gymnastics team and two on the tennis team also will run out of eligibility - but that won’t stop the underclassmen from coming back to the White House, again.
“I only have two more chances, and I look forward to coming back,” Taylor said.
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McClellan: Marked down
That didn’t take long.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s book has been marked down 25 percent at a train-station book store near the Capitol in Washington,
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Pelosi suggests Chet Edwards for VP
A video that appeared on the Web this morning has a brief interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about who would be a good vice presidential candidate.
“Anyone that Barack Obama wants is my choice for vice president,” Pelosi told the interviewer, who appeared to be from Newsweek. “But I do think in the list of considerations there should be somebody from the House of Representatives and Chet Edwards is a person that many of us think would be a good person to be in the mix.”
She then went on to name a few of the usually mentioned candidates from the Senate.
Edwards, a Texas Democrat whose home is in Waco, is a very interesting idea. He chairs the subcommittee that doles out money for veterans’ facilities and could brag of last year’s record increase in funding. He also has strong defense credentials — he is much loved at Fort Hood, the world’s largest military installation, which he used to represent. There is a street there named after him. He endorsed Obama before the Texas primary.
On the flip side, he supported the war in Iraq and he’s somewhat unknown nationally, even though he’s been in the U.S. House since 1991 and was a state senator before that.
And here’s where it gets really interesting: He is President Bush’s local congressman. Would that help him or hurt him? It could show his appeal to Republicans, or people might want nothing to do with the president.
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Pelosi views Democratic ethics problems differently than Republican “culture of corruption”
The reason Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House is the Democrats won back their congressional majority in 2006 after a dozen years in the minority. And one of the main reasons the Democrats won back that majority is they campaigned against the “culture of corruption” under Republican rule.
But Pelosi sees the ethical problems of some Democrats much differently than she views the ethics of the House under the iron hand of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the so-called “Hammer,” who left Congress under criminal indictment.
At a breakfast with reporters Tuesday, for example, Pelosi declined to say whether she believed it was appropriate for Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader in her leadership team, to host a fundraiser this week for California Congresswoman Laura Richardson.
Pelosi also contrasted the problems of Richardson with the ethical problems of GOP members in Congress during the 2006 election, the “culture of corruption” as Democrats repeatedly described it in the campaign.
“I don’t know of any ethical violation except she didn’t have enough money to pay her mortgage,” Pelosi said in response to a reporter’s question. “But that is not what we ran against. What we ran against is what the Washington Post called a ‘criminal syndicate’ centered in the leader’s office where public policy was affected by the special interest and not the people’s interest. And that’s the contrast we made.”
She added: “One person’s personal difficulties is not about the ethical standard that we’re talking about. I hope she gets - literally, figuratively, in every way - her house in order. It’s not about the special interest which dominate Washington, D.C.”
Pelosi said she was unaware of Hoyer’s plan to hold a fundraiser for Richardson. It was displayed prominently in the same paper she quoted at the breakfast, the Washington Post, on Tuesday.
Just last week, through a spokesperson, Hoyer suggested it might be appropriate for the House Ethics Committee to look into Richardson’s personal finances. Even so, he’s going ahead with the fundraiser to help her pay off some $330,000 in campaign debts.
Richardson lost her home in Sacramento to foreclosure after she was elected in a special election last August. She also reportedly defaulted on loans six times on two other California homes and owes some $9,000 in property taxes.
The capital’s leading political ethics watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which helped draft the original ethics complaint against DeLay, has dubbed Richardson a “deadbeat congresswoman” and called for an ethics investigation of her.
In Tuesday’s Post, CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, said, “I’d prefer to see a member file an ethics complaint against Richardson rather than help retire her campaign debt.”
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Symbolism of Unity, N.H., also an argument for Obama-Clinton ticket
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and chief rival Hillary Clinton will make their first joint appearance of the general election campaign in the small town of Unity, N.H., on Friday.
In announcing that decision Monday, the Obama campaign was less than subtle in its symbolism. The announcement noted, for example, that in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire last January, the town of Unity split evenly between Obama and Clinton - 107 votes to 107 votes.
But Unity could also be a point in the argument that Obama should pick Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, an argument he doesn’t appear to want to make but others in the Democratic Party do.
Together, their vote total in Unity nearly equaled the entire vote for the Republican field, 214 for Obama-Clinton, 216 for the 21 Republicans on the New Hampshire ballot.
In Sullivan County, in which Unity is one of 15 towns or villages, the Obama-Clinton total did even better against the entire Republican field, receiving 7,335 votes to the 6,783 cast in the county’s Republican primary.
Although Obama and Clinton tied in Unity, Sullivan County was clearly Obama country in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Obama carried the county, 3,823 votes to Clinton’s 3,512 votes.
And in the city of Unity and the county of Sullivan, both Obama and Clinton easily topped the vote totals for presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain. In Unity, McCain got 81 votes. In the entire county of Sullivan, McCain got 2, 795 votes.
In both cases, McCain edged out second place finisher Mitt Romney. But no vote combination of McCain and any of his Republican rivals came close to equaling the Obama-Clinton combo.
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McClellan’s publisher corrects Lamar Smith’s statement
In “Lamar Smith welcomes Scott McClellan to Capitol” (see below) Smith says Karl Weber, McClellan’s project editor for the book, once called President Bush a “clearly horrible human being.”
Not so, says Whitney Peeling, director of publicity for PublicAffairs, McClellan’s publisher.
It was Weber’s daughter Laura who made the statement, according to Peeling, in a January 2005 posting on her dad’s blog.
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Aide Says Bush Undermined U.S. Justice
Former White House spokesman Scott McCellan said Friday that President Bush “undermined our system of justice” when he commuted the prison sentence of a key aide convicted of lying to federal investigators.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, McClellan said Bush broke the spirit of a 2003 pledge to hold administration officials accountable if any broke the law in leaking the identity of former CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press.
“The president should have stuck by his word,” McClellan said. “It was special treatment, it does undermine our system of justice, in my view.”
The committee’s ranking Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, said McClellan wrote “an inflammatory book” to boost sales for personal profit.
Smith cast McClellan as a Judas figure, accusing of “selling out the president and his friends for a few pieces of silver.”
Last summer Bush commuted the 2.5-year federal prison sentence ordered for Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents investigating the Plame affair.
Bush called the term “excessive,” but left standing a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney.
Libby, former White House political counselor Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage all discussed Plames’ identity with reporters, after her husband, former U.S. diplomat Joe Wilson, publicly criticized the White House case for war against Iraq.
None has been charged with violating federal laws that protect the identity of covert agents.
McClellan said that Bush, Cheney and others urged him to tell reporters that neither Rove nor Libby had anything to do with the outing of Plame. McClellan did so, in 2003, only later discovering, through press reports, that he had been misled.
In testimony Friday, McClellan said he did not know whether any crimes were committed in the Plame affair.
“I do know that it was wrong to reveal her identity, because it compromised the effectiveness of a covert official for political reasons,” he said. “I regret that I played a role, however unintentionally, in relaying false information to the public about it.”
McClellan said he did not think Bush knew about the leak before it happened.
“In terms of the vice president, I do not know,” said McClellan. “There is a cloud that remains over the vice president’s office, but it is because Scooter Libby put it there, by lying and obstructing justice.”
Critics of the president have long accused him of shading the truth in making the case for war against Iraq and of trying to cover for aides who outed Plame.
McClellan, though, is the most senior official of the Bush administration to join in the chorus. In a memoir published this spring - “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” - McClellan writes that the Iraq war “was not necessary” and that Bush waged a “propaganda campaign” to sell the war to the public.
Republicans have blasted McClellan, calling his book a breathtaking betrayal of Bush, who praised McClellan’s “professionalism and class” at the White House five years ago, when he named the fellow Texan as press secretary.
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Gallup Poll shows Congress lowest rated of U.S. institutions
The Democratic majority in Congress is feeling pretty good these days. Most political prognosticators believe the Democrats will expand their majorities in the House and the Senate this fall.
But the American people are not so keen on Congress, Democratic majority or not.
The Gallup Poll’s annual update the public’s confidence in American institutions is out and Congress is at the bottom: just 12 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress, the worst rating Gallup has found in 35 years of polling on the question.
In fact, this year, Congress dropped below HMO’s, which have the confidence of just 13 percent of Americans.
So, maybe health care reform is not such a good thing for Congress to be taking up any time soon.
But before the other branches of the federal government get too cocky about Congress’s fall from grace, they should consider this: just 32 percent told Gallup they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Supreme Court and just 26 percent said they felt that way about the presidency - ratings at or near their lowest point in Gallup history.
The highest rated American institution in the new Gallup survey? The military with 71 percent, followed by small business with 60 percent, the police with 58 percent and organized religion with 48 percent.
From 1973 to 1985, organized religion was the top rated institution, but the Catholic Church’s priest sex abuse scandals apparently continue to have an impact.
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Lamar Smith welcomes Scott McClellan to Capitol
Not exactly how you’d expect one Texan to talk to another Texan, but here is Rep. Lamar Smith’s opening statement before he questioned former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan at a Capitol hearing today:
“Welcome to the Judiciary Committee’s first book of the month club meeting. Today it’s Scott McClellan’s ‘What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.’ I propose that next time we consider Ann Coulter’s recent book, ‘How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).’
“It’s hard to take Mr. McClellan or this hearing seriously. Despite what Mr. McClellan says regarding Iraq, three different studies - the Senate Intelligence Committee report of 2004, the Robb-Silberman report of 2005, and Britain’s Butler report - conclude that intelligence reports were not altered in the lead up to the Iraq war.
“And, despite the book’s innuendo, a three-year independent criminal investigation found that no White House officials ‘leaked’ Valerie Plame’s name to the media in violation of the law.
“Also, it should be of no surprise that there was spin in the White House press office. What White House has not had a communications operation that advocates for its policies? Any recent Administration that did not try to promote its priorities should be cited for dereliction of duty.
“Many have asked why Mr. McClellan did not object to what he saw while he was at the White House. The reason is clear: There was nothing to object to.
“Last Monday, at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, I had a conversation with an airline employee who asked me what I was working on. I mentioned this hearing and she, a self-proclaimed Democrat, replied, ‘Why are you having him? All he did was write a book.’
“It appears many Americans might have trouble taking this hearing seriously.
Motives are important. We don’t really know Mr. McClellan’s motives. He says he had a revelation, which contradicts everything he said and did for two and a half years.
There are some questions we may never get the answer to:
“What really explains going from a loyal and trusted staff member to a person who makes biting accusations?
“Since Mr. McClellan has included no footnotes in his book, and few direct quotes or written memos are cited, is the book just a typical opinion piece, without evidence to support its assertions?
“Mr. McClellan was asked to leave his job. Did this color his views? Did he just want to strike back at those who showed him to the door?
“What role did money play? So far, he has not revealed what he was paid for the book or what he stands to gain by promoting it. Clearly Peter Osnos, the Editor-at-Large for Mr. McClellan’s publisher PublicAffairs, would have known that an inflammatory book would sell more copies and make more money for all concerned.
“How much influence did a biased editor have on the finished product? What edits were made to the original manuscript to make it more critical of the Administration?
“We do know that Mr. Osnos and PublicAffairs have published six books by George Soros. Mr. Soros was the largest donor to Democratic 527 groups during the 2004 presidential election, giving over $23 million. And we know that Mr. Osnos himself has been highly and publicly critical of the Bush Administration. Also, Mr. McClellan’s project editor for the book, Karl Weber, has written venomous statements about the President, for example, calling him ‘a clearly horrible person.’
“So, who is the real Scott McClellan? The one who actually wrote in his book that the administration did not employ ‘deception’; and said: ‘Some critics have suggested that sinister plans were discussed at the [White House Iraq Group] meetings to deliberately mislead the public. Not so. Or the one who elsewhere in the same book leveled self-serving accusations?
“While we may never know the answers, Scott McClellan alone will have to wrestle with whether it was worth selling out the President and his friends for a few pieces of silver.
“He will have to confront whether he was manipulated by extremely biased editors with a partisan agenda.
“And finally, sooner or later, he will have to answer to his own conscience.”
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Beijing Olympics Draws Electronic Eyes
Less than two months before the start of the summer Olympic Games in Beijing, the Chinese government has installed 300,000 new surveillance cameras in subways, parks and other public places, a human rights activist said Thursday.
The cameras have “vastly increased” the government’s ability to monitor citizens’ activities and to thwart potential protests, said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, a non-profit watchdog group.
“There are real dangers,” she said during a panel discussion sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy, a Washington advocacy group.
Beijing expects the games to draw half a million tourists, largely foreign, and the government will collect fingerprints and other biometric data from each one, said Hom.
Her group has asked the government what safeguards it would use to protect the privacy of visitors. The government response, she said, was that the biometric data would be “only released to the appropriate people.”
Coming from the architects of the Tiananmen Square crackdown 19 years ago, that’s hardly a comforting thought.
China has fallen short on its vows to respect human rights and press freedoms in its bid to host the Olympics, said another panelist, Minky Worden, spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, and editor of the new book, “China’s Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges.”
“At this point,” said Worden, “a lot of promises have been broken.”
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Obama-McCain contest could come down to … Montana?
Barack Obama’s campaign has shown an unusual fascination with Montana, even though the state has only three electoral votes.
Obama has an up-and-running organization in the state already, even though it has voted Democratic in only one of the last 10 presidential campaigns. And last week, Obama tapped Jim Messina, the chief of staff of Sen. Max Baucus, Montana’s senior senator, to be the chief of staff for his presidential campaign.
“Well, there are some credible 269-269 scenarios,” said Obama communications chief Robert Gibbs, referring to a possible tie in the Electoral College. In such a case, even Montana, with just three electoral votes, could put Obama over the 270-vote threshold and make him the 44th president of the United States.
“Besides,” Gibbs added, “it’s really beautiful out there.”
But it could also be guns.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has begun warning voters that during the Democratic presidential primaries, Obama tried to hide anti-gun positions “behind vague statements of support for ‘sportsmen’ or … claims of general support for the right to keep and bear arms.”
One way to counter such charges was for Obama to reach into the office of Baucus, perhaps the most pro-gun Democratic member of the Senate, and make Messina the chief of staff of his entire presidential campaign.
The trouble is, however, that before he worked for Baucus, Messina was chief of staff to Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York, the most anti-gun member of Congress. McCarthy was propelled into politics by the gun control issue in 1993 after a crazed gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing her husband and seriously injuring her son.
With Messina as his campaign chief of staff, Obama could also run into questions about his opposition to the Bush tax cuts of 2001, which, just this week, the presumptive Democratic nominee criticized as “rewarding wealth” at the expense of middle class taxpayers.
Baucus was the key Democratic defector to help pass the Bush tax cuts. And Messina, in a subsequent interview, was asked to name the most important bipartisan accomplishment of Baucus. Messina replied: “Senator Baucus was the chief reason bipartisan tax cut legislation was enacted in 2001.”
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Worker abuse and greedy pigs alleged at Smithfield
Area activists launched a month-long bus and metro station ad campaign against the Smithfield Pork factory in Tar Heel, N.C., on Thursday, with some passionate speeches from local religious leaders and council members.
While the ads spotlight several workers from the North Carolina hog-producing plant who claim to have been fired unjustly for getting hurt at work or abused mentally and physically, one has to wonder why members of the Justice at Smithfield group would want to go shoulder-to-shoulder with a demonic pig mascot in a butcher jacket that represents the executives at Smithfield.
Members of the group said a local artist made the pig sculpture and contributed it to the group, which takes it nearly everywhere it goes to remind people of the injustice at Smithfield.
The ads though, are much less frightening and much more sensitive. A 22-year-old woman who will be featured on one of the ads said she developed carpal tunnel syndrome while working at the plant. When she went to get surgery, she said Smithfield fired her without helping pay for the procedure.
Several other ads feature former employees with the same story, and others feature employees who say they were called racial slurs and beaten when they tried to form a union.
Leaders from several churches shared prayers for the Smithfield workers and started chants like “No justice, no peace,” “Let’s stand, let’s fight” and “Let’s bury this abuse.”
“We want to raise the consciousness of the people, that you might know every time you eat one of those Smithfield sausages, every time you eat one of those Smithfield hams perhaps you are aiding and abetting and contributing to the injustice and abuse of these hard-working workers,” said the Rev. Donald Robinson.
Smithfield is the biggest hog and pork producer in the U.S. and produces products under popular brands like Smithfield Premium, John Morrell, Patrick Cudahy, Farmland Foods and many others.
In an interesting turn of fate, the Wall Street Journal reported in June 6 that Smithfield Foods reported a 94 percent drop in fourth-quarter net profit.
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FISA agreement reached
Congressional leaders announced today that after months of wrangling, they have agreed to a compromise on a new version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
A key sticking point had been whether to grant retroactive immunity to telephone companies that helped with warrantless surveillance programs. Republicans have pushed for that immunity, and they seem to be happy with what they got.
“This bill represents a strong compromise between Republicans and Democrats, giving our intelligence officials the tools the need to keep America safe and strengthen civil liberties protections,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. “Additionally, the bill offers communications providers — who assisted the government in the wake of 9/11 — essential civil liability protections.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., praised the compromise in different terms.
“This FISA bill will prevent any repeat of warrantless surveillance undertaken by the president and will hold our government accountable for its actions, past and future, through strengthened court review and congressional oversight,” Rockefeller said.
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FAA just hates a delay
For more than a year, Congress has been delaying the takeoff of a four-year budget authorization for the Federal Aviation Administration. To keep planes flying since the previous authorization expired on Sept. 30, lawmakers have been passing a series of temporary extensions. The latest one will expire on June 30.
Now members of Congress are going back and forth, trying to agree on how to impose taxes to support the aviation system. With the deadline drawing closer, Republicans are pushing for an 18-month extension of the status quo, while Democrats are planning just a three-month punt.
FAA deputy assistant administrator Laura Brown, who attended an Aero Club luncheon on Wednesday, said the agency wants the longer extension because it is “extremely difficult” to manage the budget-related paperwork each time Congress puts off the authorization legislation. And if there’s one thing the FAA hates, it’s a delay.
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North Carolina’s Easley: ‘Too much squeeze…’
North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley told reporters on a conference call organized by the Obama camapign that the risks from drilling were too great and the benefits too small.
“It’s just too much squeeze for the juice,” Easley said.
Easley said the offshore drilling proposal offered by Sen. John McCain and President Bush, “doesn’t help working families at all.”
On the same call, Bob Graham, Florida’s former governor and U.S. senator, said voters will realize proposals to allow offshore oil drilling won’t affect gasoline prices.
“There have been more politicians who went to the graveyard because they thought their voters were stupid and could be sold a bogus bill of goods than probably for any other reason,” Graham said.
“Our people are not stupid. They understand that the time that would be required to go through all the processes of leasing the property, having the winning bidders put their pipes down for exploration and then for exploitation, and that that’s going to take years and years and that this issue has nothing to do with the current prices of gasolione…I don’t think you can sell that.”
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MLK Memorial planners skipped review as statue grew
The controversial statue planned for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial grew into a full-scaled 28-foot model without winning the “normal” interim approvals, said Thomas Luebke, secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.
The federal panel, which must approve any memorial before it is built on the National Mall, was set to take its first comprehensive look at the sculpture design Thursday. Luebke said project sponsors usually seek “periodic review” for statues, starting with table-top sized models and gradually going to full size.
In this case, the private foundation planning the memorial hired a Chinese sculptor who has already produced a full-scale model. The Fine Arts commission and critics have called the statue too “static” and too “confrontational.” Officials of the foundation have since announced some modifications, which are scheduled to be presented at Thursday’s meeting.
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Michelle Obama misses mark in Princeton senior thesis
The senior thesis Michelle Obama wrote at Princeton University has been the subject of much conjecture in recent weeks, especially from conservative critics arguing that it reflected an interest in black separatism.
But setting aside that criticism, there was one point on which Obama missed the mark completely in her senior thesis, which she wrote in 1985.
“The path I have chosen to follow by attending Princeton will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society, never becoming a full participant,” she wrote.
Never becoming a full participant?
Michelle Obama, the wife of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, is two votes away - the Democratic convention in August and the general election in November - from possible becoming the first lady of the United States.
Not exactly the periphery of society.
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Iraq Questions Fair Game for McClellan?
Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan will likely face questions about the war in Iraq when he goes before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday.
That’s the word among aides helping members prepare for the high-profile, election-year hearing.
The hearing was set to focus on what McClellan knew - and didn’t know - about the roles of Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other senior White House officials in the 2003 outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Once McClellan is sworn in, though, committee members are free to ask whatever they want.
“We’re hearing from (Democrats) that once McClellan sits down it’s not going to be about Plame, it’s going to be about Iraq,” said one Republican aide.
McClellan, who left the White House two years ago, returned to the media spotlight in May, with the publication of his memoir recounting the three years (2003-2006) he spent as press secretary to President Bush.
In his book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” McClellan writes that “the Iraq war was not necessary” and charges that the administration “made a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
Lines like those raise questions - especially in an election year.
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Still some bugs in G-8 planning
That’s the fabulous lobby in the fabulous Windsor Hotel in beautiful Hokkaido, Japan, where President Bush and other world leaders will gather next month for the annual G-8 summit.
The hilltop hotel, site of all the G-8 meetings, has a glass-walled lobby that offers a spectacular view of Lake Toya below.
The hotel also offers, in each room, this welcoming message from the general manager
Dear Guest,
A very warm welcome to The Windsor Hotel Toya Resort & Spa. Please be advised that there are many small insects spreading all over Japan at this time of the year.
They are harmless by their nature, but you may find some in your room. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
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Are McCain and Obama seeing eye to eye on China?
Two of Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers are in China this week.
A chance for Obama to gain an advantage over the Republican John McCain in terms of relations with China?
Not really.
With its growing military might and economic clout, you might think China would spark policy debates between McCain and Obama.
But there are no significant differences between McCain and Obama when it comes to China, says Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who advises Obama. “There is no alternative but engagement” with China, Daalder said in Beijing.
Philip Gordon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution speaking at Beijing’s Tsinghua University on Wednesday, said he also has been “struck by the degree at which China is not a big issue in this election.” Gordon also advises Obama.
Obama and McCain may want to keep China out of the spotlight. While China has been an easy target for past presidential candidates (Bill Clinton promised in his 1992 campaign that he would not “coddle dictators from Beijing to Baghdad”), whoever is elected will have to deal with the Asian behemoth.
The similar approaches of Obama and McCain have left Chinese intellectuals silent about which candidate they favor.
“You almost don’t see any strong views in the Chinese intelligentsia toward the two candidates,” said Xiao Geng, the director of a Brookings Institution center at Tsinghua University.
“Whoever is elected basically will go back to expected policies,” he said. “The relationship is too important.”
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Lewis says ‘I’m not’ on Clintons’ enemy list
Other prominent Democrats may be on the outs, but Rep. John Lewis said Thursday that Bill and Hillary Clinton have let him know they forgive him for switching allegiance to Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential primaries.
The former president has left “wonderful” messages, including a birthday greeting, on his home answering machine, the Atlanta Democrat said. Lewis added that he’s also talked to Mrs. Clinton.
“I’m not on the list” of reported enemies of the former first couple, said Lewis, who has been a friend of the Clintons since the late 1970s.
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Army unveils new tank to be first tested in Texas
In an age of escalating fuel prices, even military tanks are going hybrid.
The military displayed its newest tank prototype on the National Mall on Wednesday.
Though it looks like a normal tank to the untrained eye, the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon — which allows for precise aiming without needing to see the target through the sights — is being touted as the future of military artillery.
It has hybrid technology, which will allow it to save on gasoline costs and move more quietly; fitted armor, so it can be adapted to the environment in which it is at any given time; and a sophisticated computer system in the back that takes over many of the tasks that normally would be handled by soldiers. Looking in the back of the tank, it almost appears as though it has more wires than at a Best Buy.
Two people sit and operate it in a space not much bigger than an average closet.
Fort Bliss, in Texas, will be among a handful of sites where the vehicle will be tested and developed. The Army expects to deliver 18 test vehicles to the base by 2012.
Paul Mehney, communications director for program manager for Future Combat Systems, said Fort Bliss is an attractive test site because of its rural landscape. It also has plenty of test ranges.
A task force of 1,000 soldiers plans to test and develop tactics, techniques and procedures for the vehicle.
Eight vehicle prototypes are expected to be tested at several other sites, including Maryland and Arizona. Mehney said the Army expects to have the vehicles ready for operation by 2015.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who spoke at the event, said the prototype was “the very best of any kind of equipment you’ll see” in the near future and called Wednesday a significant day for military technology.
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Hutchison gets VP question, again
Responding to a question from an MSNBC anchor, here’s the latest answer from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, on the possibility that she would be John McCain’s running mate:
“He has a wonderful group from whom to choose and I do not want to be on that list.”