J's Cafe Nette

Archive for August 14th, 2007

You Are a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

You life your life in a free form, artistic style. You are incredibly creative and at times, quite messy. Deep down, you are a kid at heart. And you aren’t afraid to express it. Your best friend: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Club Sandwich

Yeah, that’s me alright.

HT: The Anchoress <):)

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It seems to me we hear an awful lot of noise out of Congress lately about a sitting President claiming Executive Privilege. It makes sense to me for a President to have this power so those around him feel free to speak, but we are now learning that PRA protection extends to former First Ladies. Via Fox News:

Opposition researchers would love to get their hands on the nearly 2 million pages of off-limit documents generated by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office during her eight years as first lady, but it’s not going to happen.

The Presidential Records Act allows federal archivists to censor the materials now at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, The Los Angeles Times reports, because they contain confidential advice that is permitted to be kept secret at least until after the 2008 presidential election.

“Confidential advice that is permitted to be kept secret at least until after the 2008 election,”well that is convenient don’t you think? Does this mean that the day after the election for the highest office in the land , we will be made privy to this information?

More from the LA Times:

The healthcare papers that have been released contain gaps when it comes to the part played by Hillary Clinton. A number of records involving her have been kept secret because they include confidential advice between presidential aides. Among the withheld documents are memos about meetings between Hillary Clinton and Democratic Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph R. Biden Jr. — now her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Other records kept from public view include a 1993 memo to the first lady entitled “positioning ourselves on healthcare,” and another from that year called “public portrayal of the Medicare program.”

Information which is classified should be protected, but the next time I read or hear of an article condemning President Bush for exerting the powers of his office, these articles will be a reminder that the knife cuts both ways. Confidential advice is confidential advice and what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

However, if I were a candidate running against Mrs. Clinton, this would appear to reek of injustice. Everyone elses lives are laid out for the world to see but she receives special treatment due to her former status..boy the games we play nowadays with our elections.

I’ll ask the question which has been levied so often against the current administration. If you have nothing to hide Mrs. Clinton, why not release it all?

Just asking.

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While Michael Yon is getting some well-deserved rest he is finding more time to write about the war now that he’s not on the battlefield with the soldiers and Marines.

His latest dispatch matches his other fine writing and compares the situation in Mosul in 2005 to now.

This kind of stuff freaks out the enemy: our guys didn’t get them with jets or fancy machines from a distance, but just rushed into them and outfought them. Despite an enemy with perfect surprise, our guys still killed four of them and CSM Pippin was the only American casualty. Countless acts like these around Iraq are a large part of what has given our guys moral authority with Iraqi Police and Army. Before the war, the Iraqis clearly questioned the courage of our fighters. They no longer question the courage of our fighters, or the abilities of our military leaders.

Large numbers of Iraqis detested us after the prisoner abuse stories, and some over-the-top attacks on Fallujah, for example. But through time, somehow the American military has managed to establish a moral authority in Iraq. It’s not the only authority, but the military has serious and increasing moral clout. In the beginning, our influence flowed from guns, or dropped from the wings of jets. Later it was the money. Today, the clout still is partially from the gun, and definitely the money is key, but there is an intangible and growing moral clout and it flows from an increasing respect among Iraqis for our military. Washington has no moral clout in Iraq. Washington looks like a circus act. The authority is coming from our military. The importance of this fact would be difficult to overstate.

Follow the link and read the rest of this excellent post.

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Speaks for itself.

WASHINGTON — When he was a keeper of the federal purse strings, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska told another Republican senator who opposed the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” “I don’t threaten people. I promise people.”

His home-state GOP colleague, Rep. Don Young, was not to be outdone. Last month he told a fellow House member who opposed education money for native Alaskans: “There is always another day when those who bite will be killed, too, and I am very good at that. Those that bite me will be bitten back.”

Stevens and Young may not be promising, threatening or biting anymore, now that both are under federal investigation.

The investigations – and a questionable land deal that entangled the third member of Alaska’s congressional delegation – also may have ended a modern-day gold rush that sent billions of federal dollars to the state.

Alaska’s entire delegation is under an ethical cloud, something congressional historians say is unprecedented:

- Stevens is contending with an extraordinary FBI and IRS raid on his Girdwood, Alaska, home and a probe into his dealings with businessmen who oversaw remodeling of the house.

- Young is the subject of a federal investigation that includes his campaign finance practices, and he has been chided by the leaders of his own party for his threatening comments. He was left off a House-Senate conference on an annual water resources bill that he had handled as a committee chairman.

- Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced that she and her husband will sell back an undeveloped piece of riverfront property after a complaint to the Senate’s ethics committee alleged the purchase was a sweetheart deal.

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You can find the cowardly liberals Here
this is a story that J. referenced in her comment on Democrats see Clinton as strongest, most experienced leader.
I wonder if these are the same Democratic leaders that keep giving in to President Bush. They need to be replaced anyway.

WASHINGTON: Looking past the presidential nomination fight, Democratic leaders quietly fret that Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top of their 2008 ticket could hurt candidates at the bottom.

They say the former first lady may be too polarising for much of the country. She could jeopardise the party’s standing with independent voters and give Republicans who otherwise might stay home on Election Day a reason to vote, they worry.

In more than 40 interviews, Democratic candidates, consultants and party chairs from every region pointed to internal polls that give Clinton strikingly high unfavourable ratings in places with key congressional and state races.

“I’m not sure it would be fatal in Indiana, but she would be a drag” on many candidates, said Democratic state Reprenstative Dave Crooks.

Unlike Crooks, most Democratic leaders agreed to talk frankly about Clinton’s political coattails only if they remained anonymous, fearing reprisals from the New York senator’s campaign. They all expressed admiration for Clinton, and some said they would publicly support her fierce fight for the nomination – despite privately held fears. The chairman of a Midwest state party called Clinton a nightmare for congressional and state legislative candidates.

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Well I guess Mr. Edwards tactics of attacking Hillary and Obama are driving him further down in the polls.

– Potential Democratic primary voters see Sen. Hillary Clinton as more experienced and a stronger leader than her major rivals for the 2008 Democratic nomination, according to a poll released Monday.

Clinton is also viewed as the most electable candidate and the one most likely to bring change to the country, according to the results of the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll.

However, Clinton did not score as high when registered Democrats were asked which of the candidates is the most likable and the most honest, the poll showed. And a quarter of those polled don’t think she can beat the Republican standard-bearer in the general election if she gets her party’s nod.

Asked which of the candidates in the race has the best experience to be president, Clinton was the choice of 59 percent, compared to 11 percent for former Sen. John Edwards and just 9 percent for Sen. Barack Obama, who is now running second to Clinton in national polls.

The poll’s sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.

When asked to pick the strongest leader, Clinton again scored far ahead of her rivals, at 47 percent, compared with 22 percent for Obama and 13 percent for Edwards. She also came out on top when voters were asked who is most qualified to be commander-in-chief, with 46 percent saying Clinton, 15 percent Obama and 13 percent Edwards.

Despite Obama’s concerted efforts to portray himself as the agent of change, 40 percent of poll respondents thought Clinton is the candidate most likely to bring change, compared with 27 percent for Obama and 15 percent for Edwards.

However, the poll found Clinton and Obama are neck-and-neck when it comes to which candidate is the most likable, with 34 percent picking Obama and 31 percent Clinton. Edwards was at 19 percent.

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This is truly amazing.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama’s football stadium.

About 10 condominium projects are going up in and around Tuscaloosa, and builders are asking up to $1 million for units with granite countertops, king-size bathtubs and ‘Bama decor, including crimson couches and Bear Bryant wall art.

While many of the buyers are Crimson Tide alumni or ardent football fans not entitled to any special Katrina-related tax breaks, many others are real estate investors who are purchasing the condos with plans to rent them out.

And they intend to take full advantage of the generous tax benefits available to investors under the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, or GO Zone, according to Associated Press interviews with buyers and real estate officials.

The GO Zone contains a variety of tax breaks designed to stimulate construction in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. It offers tax-free bonds to developers to finance big commercial projects like shopping centers or hotels. It also allows real estate investors who buy condos or other properties in the GO Zone to take accelerated depreciation on their purchases when they file their taxes.

The GO Zone was drawn to include the Tuscaloosa area even though it is about 200 miles from the coast and got only heavy rain and scattered wind damage from Katrina.

The condo deals are perfectly legal, and the tax breaks do not take money away from Katrina victims closer to the coast because the depreciation is wide open, with no limits per state.

But the tax breaks are galling to some community leaders, especially when red tape and disorganization have stymied the rebuilding in some of the devastated coastal areas.

“The GO Zone extends so damn far, but the people who need it the most can’t take advantage of it,” said John Harral, a lawyer in hard-hit Gulfport, Miss.

“It is a joke,” said Tuscaloosa developer Stan Pate, who has nevertheless used GO Zone tax breaks on projects that include a new hotel and a restaurant. “It was supposed to be about getting people … to put housing in New Orleans, Louisiana, or Biloxi, Mississippi. It was not about condos in Tuscaloosa.”

Locals say Tuscaloosa was included in the GO Zone through the efforts of Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, who is from Tuscaloosa, graduated from Alabama and sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee. But Shelby aides said Tuscaloosa made the cut because it was classified as a disaster area by the government after Katrina, not because of the senator’s influence.

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Mansfield, Louisiana has passed a law that requires people to keep their pants up above the underwear line or pay a fine of up to $150 and court costs or 15 days in jail.

It’s about time, and while they’re at it how about passing a law that baseball hats need to be on your head straight?

OK, maybe not that far, but it’s a law that should be passed all over the country. I’m tired of seeing men with the crotch of their pants down to their ankles. I wonder how they walk.

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Yesterday I read this disturbing article in the Financial Times.

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”

This assessment is from the man who is in charge of the GSA and does investigations on behalf of Congress, but also orders about 10% of all governmental investigations to be done on his word.

History has shown the great empires in the world have lasted about 200 years before their collapse from political and/or military infighting, a military stretched too far, a collapse of our monetary system and various other reasons. In other words we get too comfortable with ourselves and cause our own demise if we are to believe his report.

All one has to do is take a good look around at all the disgust of the common man and woman in this country with our leaders in Congress and some with our president.

In my lifetime I have seen the office of President of the United States go from respecting the office and the man who holds it to one that some have publicly wished the holder of that office dead.

I’ve thought about the Roman Empire comparison several times before, but this is the first time I have seen anyone of any consequence say what I was thinking.

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Max Deveson of the BBC’s Analysis and Research unit explains what happened to the men and women who came to power with President Bush in January 2001.

The appointment of the staunchly religious, anti-abortion John Ashcroft as attorney general, in charge of the Department of Justice, was an early sign that the Bush White House would be keen to reward the religious right for its electoral support.

Ashcroft was widely disliked by liberals for his package of security measures after 9/11, perceived as an attack on civil liberties.

However, this opposition turned to grudging admiration when it later emerged that Mr Ashcroft – whilst ill in hospital in 2004 – had rejected a White House request to authorise a scheme to allow the warrantless wire-tapping of US citizens.

After his departure in 2005, Mr Ashcroft set up a lobbying company advising clients involved in the homeland security industry.

Although he was one of the longest-serving chiefs of staff in over 40 years, Andrew Card was never a particularly high-profile member of the president’s team.

Mr Bush valued him for his loyalty and dedication. His wife is said to have asked once: “Are you married to me or George W Bush?”

Mr Card resigned in March 2006, a move reportedly prompted by concern that the Iraq War would be perceived as another Vietnam. He now sits on the board of directors at Union Pacific Railroad.
When Mr Bush chose Mr Cheney as his running mate in 2000 the decision was seen as an attempt to reassure voters that the young Bush would be able to draw on Mr Cheney’s wisdom and experience.

A long-standing political operator, Mr Cheney had served in Congress and in the administrations of a number of former presidents.

After the election, Mr Cheney used his knowledge of the mechanics of government to become one of the most powerful vice-presidents in US history, seen by some as the “power behind the throne”.

With the president’s approval, Mr Cheney has had a great deal of influence over a number of policy areas, in particular energy and foreign affairs.

He has also developed a reputation for secrecy, refusing to allow congressional oversight of some of his activities.

Health-permitting, he will remain in office until the end of the administration’s second term.

Mr Rove managed Mr Bush’s two successful Texas gubernatorial campaigns in the 1990s as well as the 2000 presidential campaign.

He has been described variously as “Bush’s Brain”, “evil Rasputin” and – by the president himself – “Turd Blossom”, a reference to a Texan flower which blooms on manure.

His success in producing Republican electoral victories and the often cunning, partisan way in which the victories have been achieved has made him unpopular with the president’s political opponents.

His resignation came amid calls for him to testify in the Senate about his role in the sacking of a number of US attorneys and the launch of a probe into political briefings to government officials by him and his team.

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This subject seems to be what everyone is talking about so why shouldn’t we?

Karl Rove and I have something in common: Both of us treasure a campaign poster from the 1972 elections.

The poster, which Rove hung in his Texas political consulting office, was from the re-election campaign of Illinois Gov. Richard Ogilvie, a reform-minded Republican moderate. It was adorned with the slogan: “Charisma Isn’t Everything.”

No doubt our shared lack of charisma drew us both to this campy relic.

But Ogilvie’s progressive Republicanism spoke more to my political affections than his. Rove will be remembered for an approach that drove millions of Republicans and independents of Ogilvie’s stripe into the Democratic Party.

With Rove leaving President Bush’s White House, much will be written about his style of politics. But the key question is whether Rove succeeded on his own terms.

His objective was grand. In an interview in 1999, Rove predicted that the 2000 election would be like that of 1896, when William McKinley created a new Republican majority that went on to control the presidency for all but eight of the next 36 years. As Rove saw it, McKinley built a dominant party by changing its message and appealing to new voter groups. George W. Bush would be this era’s William McKinley.

Bush would do more than just refurbish the coalition that Ronald Reagan built, the back-to-the-future fashion in conservative circles now. Bush offered “compassionate conservatism” as a corrective to the cold-hearted kind. He laid heavy stress on education reform, stealing one of the Democrats’ best issues, and spoke warmly of Latino immigrants. Just as McKinley appealed to the new immigrant groups of his time, so did Rove and Bush understand the urgency of winning a significant share of the growing Hispanic vote.

Rove liked Napoleon’s adage: “The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack.” He would defend Republicans against charges of hostility to the poor, public education and minority groups, and then attack Democrats with whatever came to hand.

This set up Bush’s victory over Al Gore in the U.S. Supreme Court, and from there, Rove went from strength to strength. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he used the national security issue to capture both houses of Congress in 2002. The terror issue, along with “rapid and audacious attack,” defeated John Kerry in 2004, and fortified the Republicans’ congressional majorities.

Yet just two years later, the bottom fell out. Bush could now become not William McKinley but Herbert Hoover, the man who ended the very Republican era for which Rove has such fondness.

What went wrong? Rove’s key missed opportunity came after 9/11.

Instead of using the period of national unity that followed the terrorist attacks to build a broad Republican coalition rooted in Dwight Eisenhower-style moderation, Rove sought to create a narrower but tougher ideological majority willing to pursue such conservative dreams as the partial privatization of Social Security.

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I would have taken him for everything he owns.

The dry cleaners aren’t pressing their case against the Pants Judge.

In a surprise turn yesterday, the small-business owners sued by D.C. Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson withdrew their demand that he pay nearly $83,000 for their legal bills, saying that enough money had been raised from supporters to cover the expenses and that they want to end the fighting.

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This has been going on long enough. Let’s bring it to an end and find the people responsible.

Five reporters must reveal their government sources for stories they wrote about Steven J. Hatfill and investigators’ suspicions that the former Army scientist was behind the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton is yet another blow to the news industry as it seeks to shield anonymous sources who provide critical information — especially on the secret inner workings of government.

“The names of the sources are central to Dr. Hatfill’s case,” Walton wrote in a 31-page opinion.

The ruling is a victory for Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert who has argued in a civil suit that the government violated his privacy rights and ruined his chances at a job by unfairly leaking information about the probe. He has not been charged in the attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 others, and he has denied wrongdoing.

Hatfill’s suit, filed in 2003, accuses the government of waging a “coordinated smear campaign.” To succeed, Hatfill and his attorneys have been seeking the identities of FBI and Justice Department officials who disclosed disparaging information about him to the media.

In lengthy depositions in the case, reporters have identified 100 instances when Justice or FBI sources provided them with information about the investigation of Hatfill and the techniques used to probe his possible role in anthrax-laced mailings. But the reporters have refused to name the individuals.

The decision means that five journalists — Allan Lengel of the Washington Post; Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, both of Newsweek; Toni Locy, formerly of USA Today; and James Stewart of CBS News — are under instruction from the court to answer specific questions about who provided them with information about the investigation’s focus on Hatfill.

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I can’t think of anything that he did for the country. It was all for total dominance. He failed.
This is an editorial by Eugene Robinson. He does lean Democratic but then so do I.

Buh-bye, Karl Rove. On your way out of the White House, don’t let the screen door hit you where the dog should have bit you.

I can’t say that I’ll miss George W. Bush’s longtime political strategist — the man Bush used to call “Boy Genius” — because, well, that would be such a lie. And anyway, to quote one of the great country song titles — “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?” — I don’t believe for a minute that Rove really intends to withdraw from public life. I predict he’ll be writing op-eds, giving interviews to friendly news outlets and calling Republican presidential candidates to warn them not to abandon Bush, no matter how low his approval ratings slide. Rove’s new job will be to put lipstick on Bush’s hideous legacy — and, in the process, freshen up his own.
Rove’s reputation as the great political thinker of his era took a severe beating in November, when, despite his confident predictions of a Republican victory, Democrats took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

But let’s give the man his due. Karl Rove managed to get George Walker Bush elected president of the United States, not once but twice. Okay, you’re right, the first time he needed big assists from Katherine Harris (speaking of lipstick) and the U.S. Supreme Court, but still. Honesty requires the acknowledgment that Rove was very good at what he did.

The problem, of course, is that what Rove did and how he did it were awful for the nation.

Rove announced he was quitting as White House deputy chief of staff in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying that while he knew some people would claim he was just trying to elude congressional investigators, “I’m not going to stay or leave based on whether it pleases the mob.” That’s the man, right there in that quote: Benighted fools who don’t blindly trust his honesty or fully appreciate his genius are nothing more than “the mob.”

Rove didn’t invent “wedge” politics, but he was an adept practitioner of that sordid art. When Bush was campaigning in 2000, he proclaimed himself “a uniter, not a divider.” But the Bush-Rove theory of politics and governance has been divide, divide, divide — either you’re “with us” or “against us,” either you’re right or you’re wrong, either you should be embraced or attacked without quarter.

Yes, politics is about winning — they don’t give style points for graceful failure. But the us-or-them brand of politics that Rove mastered and that Bush practiced has been a disaster for the nation and its standing in the world.

Yesterday, in remarks on the White House lawn, Rove praised Bush for putting the nation “on a war footing” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But that’s precisely what Bush failed to do. Rather than try to foster a spirit of national solidarity and shared sacrifice, he persisted with tax cuts designed to please his wealthiest supporters. Rather than engage critics of the war in any meaningful dialogue, Bush accused them of wanting to “cut and run.” Rather than actually practicing the bipartisanship he disingenuously preached, Bush governed with a hyperpartisan political agenda.

I would rather take down the post than have someone step on it.

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