Dobbs Dumped

Lou Dobbs announced the end of his tenure as a CNN anchor today, explaining his departure from the news agency “to pursue new opportunities.”

“some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day”

read the whole transcript here.

Though Dobbs was under contract until 2011, CNN President Jonathan Klein called the release “extremely amicable,” and the CNN story is very polite, noting Dobbs’ various awards and calling Dobbs “a valued founding member of the CNN family.”

The timing of Lou Dobbs’ quitting his show undermines the civility of the above-mentioned article, as Dobbs had been under fire as of late for his positions on immigration issues and his continuous “birther” stories questioning the validity of Obama’s citizenship.  The birth certificate stories put Dobbs at odds with the network, while the immigration prompted a few organizations to push for the firing of Dobbs, including Presente.org and Media Matters.  We can expect the “DumpDobbs” people to call this a victory.  It will be curious to see how Dobbs comes out in all this.  Fox News reportedly aren’t planning on picking him up.  Will he fade into obscurity?  We’ll see.

A kinder, gentler
- Dick Harvey

Those Stupakers!

Believe it or not, but most of these people that are pushing for healthcare reform are… oh I dare not say it… liberal.  Now liberals often tend to be champions of various people’s rights, and usually included are the ol’ women’s rights.  For many godless, socialist, bloodsucking, liberal, social-progressive types the whole issue of abortion is in essence a women’s rights issue.  To most of the godfearing, flag fetish, communist-hunting, Glenn Beck following, so-called ‘conservatives’ abortion is in essences about the liberal’s apathy to the killing of babies.

But whatever your view on the topic may be, it certainly is a hot button issue that can kill a political career if not handled properly.  This fear undoubtedly contributed to this little number: the Stupak Amendment.  The main point of the amendment is,

“No [government] funds… may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of any of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion”

A lot of the pro-choice voices in the media are expressing their disappointment with the Stupak amend.  And it’s not so much that healthcare reform won’t be paying for abortions, but that any plan that someone buys with a tax subsidy (which should be a huge segment of the population) won’t be able to cover abortions.  Even if you’re getting insurance through your employer, if they put your plan into the insurance exchange whatever plan you end up with will not cover abortions.

Basically the pro-choicers (baby-killers) are upset because the government is going to make abortion covering health plans uncompetitive, obsolete and most likely very very hard to come by for cash-strapped families.  Here’s the NY Times editorial on the matter.  Blogger Digby is none to happy about it either.

Fox News doesn’t have ANY stories about the Stupak Amendment since the vote… none.  It appears they’ve been too busy breaking the story that Barack Obama went on a shooting spree at Ft. Hood, killing 13 and injuring over 30 people.  But Fox does have a pretty craptacular story about Stupak from back on the 7th.  Truly they are the undisputed best news agency of today.

The Stupak Amendment is certainly a disappointment.  I know I’ve said some sensationalist things up there, but I’m just trying to be outrageous.  Birth; life and death; all the scientific comprehension we could ever hope to muster couldn’t simplify these issues for us.  These are the philosophical puzzles that reach to the very center of humanity.  And I don’t think I’m going to change anyone’s mind with a 500word rambling on the internet.

My point on abortion law is this: the moral obligation we have to the multicellular organisms that will one day become humans should be compatible with our modern values, which include a woman’s right to reproductive control; to not have the womb control a woman’s life.

The Stupak Amendment includes a provision that serves as a glimmer of hope for some,

“Nothing in this section shall be construed as prohibiting any non-federal entity [i.e. people] from purchasing separate supplemental coverage for abortions”

The effect this will have on people’s access to abortion will help define the issue.  In a funny way we are taking the GOP route: letting the the free market decide.  Will there be an effective supplemental insurance market for abortion coverage?  Or will the Stupak Amendment serve to restrict abortion rights in our country?  Only time will tell.

- Dick Harvey

Mike Pence Speaks for You! (whether you like it or not)

Thus far the Democrats have managed to get a President elected while promising “universal” healthcare in his first term.  Then they managed to get healthcare reform through 5 government committees, something Clinton was unable to do back in 1993.  And now the House of Representatives have passed healthcare reform with a public option tacked on.  But according to Mike Pence, R – Ind., the Democrats are just digging themselves into a hole.

“I think the American people are deeply frustrated with a liberal establishment in Washington, D.C. that is ignoring their will…

If Democrats keep ignoring the American people, their party’s going to be history in about a year.”

According to Pence the Dems are going to suffer at the polls in 2010 for going against the people’s will and passing the reform.  Pence definitely has history on his side:  In 1993 bickering Dems managed to stall healthcare reform in committee and retained their majority, riding a wave of voter gratitude in the ’94 Congressional elections… oh wait, I’m sorry, this is what really happened.

Can this guy really be serious?  Let’s pretend for a second that Pence isn’t just spinning this thing around to make it look like healthcare reform getting through the House is a good thing for the GOP – how could not getting anything through, and appearing completely impotent be any better for Dem votes in 2010?

Micheal Steele couldn’t help but join in on the fun -

“The Democratic Party had better pay attention to what the people out here are saying,” Steele said. “You can no longer dismiss people by sitting on your cell phone when they’re talking to you or calling them un-American or making them feel like you don’t give a heck about what they’re concerns are.

If Micheal Steele thinks calling people un-American is a cheap shot, maybe he should start by lecturing his own party.  Michelle Bachmann *cough* *cough*

Who is it that’s giving so much attention to all this crap?  If you guessed Fox News, you’re dead on.  Of course, it’s hard to stay consistent when you’re spinning things so much.  Just above the Mike Pence article is a thinly veiled attack article on Anh Cao, the only GOP vote for reform.

So Mike Pence says voting for healthcare reform is political suicide.  Then why did Cao vote for reform?

“I have always said that I would put aside partisan wrangling to do the business of the people. My vote tonight was based on my priority of doing what is best for my constituents,” Cao said.

According to The Times-Picayune, [Cao] said over the summer that “voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career.”

*singing* One of these things is not like the other.  One of these things just doesn’t belong…

But really, all this talk is just a red herring.  It’s pretty clear that getting legislation through the House is a win for Democrats.  Throwing in the public option is icing on the cake.  Let’s see what the Senate can manage now.

- Dick Harvey

PelosiCare Lives!

Welp… the House of Representatives voted on, and passed Health Care Reform.  Read all about it.  This marks yet another hurdle passed in what seems like an endless chain of difficulties.  But I suppose no one figured this would be easy.  Just ask Bill Clinton.

The hard part with the House bill is that it includes the dreaded… PUBLIC OPTION!  Over in the Senate Harry Reid has pledged to produce a bill with the PO as well, but that will be easier said than done.  The trick to getting this done is the built in state by state opt-out.  This means that should all this hubbub actually get signed into law, if you live in a red state you might not have the ability to buy into a government run healthcare program.

Now to a lot of people the public option is a scary thought.  There is a good article in the Oct 31st Economist discussing the possibility that a public option might put private insurance providers out of business, leaving us with universal socialized healthcare.  But at the same time I’ve also heard the prediction that a public option wouldn’t address the underlying issues of how healthcare costs have become so outrageous, turning into a disastrously costly government venture.  Arguments against the program for two completely opposite reasons.

Theoretically the public option is meant to be just a tool providing the government with a method of injecting a reasonably priced healthcare program into markets to compete with overinflated private insurance companies.  But the potential effectiveness of it is very questionable.  Here’s why the opt-out is a pleasant add-on in my eyes:  Without a hard public option mandate we can ease our fears of a full government takeover and being stuck with a money bloodletting program.  It removes our complete obligation to what is essentially an experiment while we still get to see the results.

I can dig.
- Dick Harvey

State of the Economy

Paul Krugman wrote an editorial piece for the New York Times today giving his opinion of the results of the stimulus effort and the current state of our economy.  Give it a read here.

I’m going to be lazy and just quote from it a bit:

…the stimulus was far too small given the scale of our economic problems. Unless something changes drastically, we’re looking at many years of high unemployment.

And the really bad news is that “centrists” in Congress aren’t able or willing to draw the obvious conclusion, which is that we need a lot more federal spending on job creation.

…the U.S. economy was in free fall. Without the recovery act, the free fall would probably have continued

If you want to see the recovery act in action, visit a classroom: your local school probably would have had to fire a lot of teachers if the stimulus hadn’t been enacted.

Last week’s G.D.P. report showed the economy growing again, at a better-than-expected annual rate of 3.5 percent.

Suppose that the economy were to keep growing at 3.5 percent. If that happened, unemployment would eventually start falling — but very, very slowly. The experience of the Clinton era, when the economy grew at an average rate of 3.7 percent for eight years (did you know that?) suggests that at current growth rates we’d be lucky to see the unemployment rate fall by half a percentage point per year, meaning that it would take a decade to return to something like full employment.

What I keep hearing from Washington is one of two arguments: either (1) the stimulus has failed, unemployment is still rising, so we shouldn’t do any more, or (2) the stimulus has succeeded, G.D.P. is growing, so we don’t need to do any more. The truth, which is that the stimulus was too little of a good thing — that it helped, but it wasn’t big enough — seems to be too complicated for an era of sound-bite politics.

We now know that stimulus works, but we aren’t doing nearly enough of it. For the sake of today’s unemployed, and for the sake of the nation’s future, we need to do much more.

Peace out
-Dick Harvey

Glenn Beck’s Words of Wisdom

I’ve tried not to pick on Glenn Beck on this blog.  It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.  He’s always going to say something dumb, because… well, he’s an idiot.  Really though, pointing out how stupid something Beck says isn’t nearly as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.  It’s not because Glenn Beck weaves beautifully intricate arguments so much as you’ll never convince his ill-informed followers that they’re listening to utter crap.

But I don’t mean to just badmouth the guy.  What I’m really wanting to do is share this little gem with you.  Of course if you went on Fox News to find it yourself you would have been greeted with the headline:

DEATH PANELS SURVIVE! – Though I will grant that the article itself is a perfectly fine and objective report on the issue.  My guess is that the reporter did not write the catchy title.  I wish I could know how many Fox followers actually read the articles or just the headlines.

But back to Beck!

This nation is being fundamentally transformed; the president promised us in his own words he would transform it. What we didn’t know was how and just how much.

One way this administration and its helpers are doing it is by systematically stripping away our right to free speech.

…free speech is being eradicated for controlled speech: Control over the media; control over the Internet; control over you.

Now how does Glenn prove that this is happening?  What’s he found that has tipped him off on the atrocities being committed by this Administration?  Well he’s found a group called Free Press.  WARNING: don’t click on that link unless you’re immune to evil marxist propaganda!

One of Beck’s chief complaints against the organization is that they’re pro net-neutrality.  Now if you’re anything like me, you’re asking yourself:  What the fuck is Net Neutrality?  Well I googled it.

A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.

Judging from wikipedia net neutrality is just a way of saying that service providers shouldn’t be allowed to restrict access to certain types of devices, areas, etc.  See for yourself.

I also found a Google Guide to Net Neutrality.  If you listen to Google, net neutrality is more about service providers than anything else:

Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. …Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet.

…broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.

According to Glenn Beck however, net neutrality is about making the internet a banquet of Mao, Marx and Lenin fansites.

net neutrality… would take the Internet out of the hands of private business and put it into the hands of government. That would create a level-playing field, which would destroy the free market that… created the Internet.

Call me crazy, but I was always under the impression that the internet was started as a means for government computers to share data during fears of nuclear strikes in the Cold War.  But I really don’t know my internet history all that well.  Something tells me Glenn Beck doesn’t either.

But look here.  The point is that Glenn Beck, in his article, attacks Obama by talking about some organization whom he never links Obama to, nor could I find any associations in my own searching.  Come on Beck!  How the hell is Free Press related to Obama?  Surely you could at least make something up.  It hasn’t stopped you before.

Second, I don’t think Glenn Beck really knows what net neutrality is.  He just assumes it’s some horrible thing.  Now I’ll admit that I’m pretty ignorant about it all, but as far as I can tell net neutrality is about preserving free speech.  I can’t tell where Beck’s coming up with the claim that net neutrality is  ”eradicating” free speech.

Glenn Beck doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.  I think that’s his message.  ”Look at all this,” he tells people, “doesn’t it just seem scary!”  His whole shtick is to talk bullshit while some people just eat it up.  Don’t be that person friends! Please!

-Dick Harvey

Time to Call the Wha’mbulance

Fox News brings us another pointless story today.  The US Chamber of Commerce and a Health Insurance Industry Vice Presidents have jumped on board the ‘Obama’s out to get us’ train.  Apparently we’re suppose to feel sorry for one of the country’s biggest lobbying groups because the Administration has been ignoring their lawyers and lobbyists, instead approaching the member companies separately.

Doesn’t Obama know that the CC mandates the collective policy?  The gall!

Oh, and let’s not forget the Health Industry’s VP’s worries.  His industry’s outrageous price gouging is about to be reined in by regulation and possibly a competitive government option, potentially ending decades of disreputable practices at the cost of human lives.  What a shame…

Speaking on Fox News Sunday the Health Insurance VP Mike Tuffin said,

“There shouldn’t be a penalty for speaking out and introducing data into the public domain,”

Fox seemed to be supportive of this complaint, noting with unhealthy lack of disclosure in regards to the issue,

Tuffin’s group absorbed sharp criticism earlier in the month when it released a report criticizing health care reform ahead of a key vote on the Senate Finance Committee.

First of all, the timing of the report was very dubious.  It was released the night before the vote by the Committee, leading rational people to take it as a final hour attempt to discredit the Committee which was sure to pass the bill.  If you want to read the report you can find the official document here, on the NY Times server (those evil, bias, liberal suppressors of conservative facts!).  Now if you’re willing to take my word for it, the central issue of the report is that the Baucus Bill, and really healthcare reform in general, will sky rocket basic costs which will be passed onto consumers.  Let me restate what the report said: Healthcare Reform will Cost You!

And it says it with these points (and before you ask, yes I stole these):

1. Weak mandate
2. Excise taxes on “Cadillac” plans
3. Increased cost-shifting
4. Taxes on medical devices

Now if you’re still with me on this story, let’s get the “sharp criticism” that Fox News is referring to.  This is from a PBS NewsHour.

“This report is untrue, disingenuous, and bought and paid for by the same health insurance companies that have been gouging too many consumers for too long, as they stand in the way of reform yet again. It’s a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple.”
-Senate Finance Committee Spokesman Scott Mulhauser

It ignores some of the key policies that are part of the Senate Finance Committee bill
-Director of the White House Office of Health Reform Nancy-Ann DeParle

Now the first quote from the Senate Finance Committee is really just telling it like it is.  I’d think that once you get past the name-calling aspect of it you’d find that it’s not misinformed.  And in this day and age of ugly politics I don’t think it’s out of line for Max Baucus and crew to call these insurance industry thugs out on their bullshit.

But let’s examine the second “sharp criticism” we’ve got here: that the report “ignores some of the key policies that are part of the Senate Finance Committee bill.”  Here we have a substantive claim regarding the report.  Maybe there’s something in the report itself that could explain DeParle’s accusation…

Quoting said report:
The reform packages under consideration have other provisions that we have not included in this analysis…

We have not estimated the impact of the new subsidies on the net insurance cost to households. Also, if other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated.

There you have it.

It is not by mistake that we see this story reported by Fox and ignored by the rest of the major media.  Time and time again they have proven themselves to be an echo-chamber for opponents of the Obama Administration and their policy positions, far from being the objective news agency they claim.  How they hell do they continuously push the corporate agenda and still manage to woo the very people that suffer the most from it?

Craziness!
- Dick Harvey

Crazy Like a FOX

Make no mistake.  Fox News is on the hunt.  Well, they’ve alway’s been on the hunt, it’s just that now their quarry has come out to meet them.  In case you’ve been living under a rock, let me inform you that we are in the midst of a war of words between the White House and Fox News.  And it’s not too pretty.  Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Anita Dunn have been the mouth for the Administration in all this, saying:

[Fox] is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective

[Fox's] programming is geared toward making money…  It’s really not news — it’s pushing a point of view. And the bigger thing is that other news organizations like [ABC] ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way.

Fox News has been quick to cry foul, pointing out that it’s not the Executive Branch of Government’s place to criticize new outlets.  And they have ramped up their attacks on the Obama Administration.  Playing the victim is a role they seem to savor, and the fight has recently dominated their coverage.  I don’t think I need to start quoting the Fox side of the argument – there are only so many hours in the day.

Now the NY Times is reporting that last month, before this fight became public, David Axelrod and Roger Ailes “met in an empty Palm steakhouse before it opened for the day, neutral ground secured for a secret tête-à-tête.” Ailes making the case that, “Fox’s reporters… should be considered separate from the Fox commentators who were skewering President Obama nightly.” While Axelrod argued that, “it was the view of the White House that Fox News had blurred the line between news and anti-Obama advocacy.”

What both men took to be the start of a frank but productive dialogue proved, in retrospect, more akin to the round of pre-Pearl Harbor peace talks between the United States and Japan.

Now please let me preface my opining with this: I too find it disturbing that the White House is trying to discredit a news agency.  It certainly stirs up the ol’ Orwellian fears.  Consider that only recently, the Treasury Department tried to exclude Fox News from a media pool interview with Kenneth Feinberg about executive pay-cuts.  The other media outlets balked.  It’s a frightening commentary on our culture to see these things come to pass.  But if you’re buying into Fox’s poor-little-us being attacked by the big-bad White House, you need to do your research.  Fox is no stranger to critic suppression.  Even if it is shameful of the Obama people to be the ones defending themselves against the Fox assault, it is important to understand the circumstances surrounding the issue.  And perhaps it is our culture’s shame that Fox News has credibility to begin with.

The Chairman and Chief Executive of Fox News - Roger Ailes, far from being a good start to defend Fox New’s objectivity, was a Presidential Media Consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.  He is famous for his “Revolving Door” commercial which helped to defeat Dukakis in the 88′ election.  His closed door sessions with David Axelrod point to the deliberative nature of Fox’s reporting; the hierarchy involved with the perspectives presented on their programs.  It is not by mistake that the most inflammatory statements coming from television against the Obama Administration come from Fox News.  And further proof of this top-down control comes to us from Fox’s interactions with other news agencies in the past.

A NY Times article by David Carr from 2008 helps to paint a picture of the Fox News Juggernaut as seen by competitive medias.  He describes the relentless defensive posturing taken by Fox, and the quieting force it places on outside reporting.

Once the public relations apparatus at Fox News is engaged, there will be the calls to my editors, keening (and sometimes threatening) e-mail messages, and my requests for interviews will quickly turn into depositions about my intent or who else I am talking to…

And if all that stuff doesn’t slow me down and I actually end up writing something, there might be a large hangover: Phone calls full of rebuke for a dependent clause in the third to the last paragraph, a ritual spanking in the blogs with anonymous quotes that sound very familiar, and — if I really hit the jackpot — the specter of my ungainly headshot appearing on one of Fox News’s shows along with some stern copy about what an idiot I am.

And if this sounds sensational, consider that this assertion by Carr is so completely grounded in reality that he is referring to an actual incident, though only vaguely.  On a Fox and Friends (which must be another one of those Fox programs that is unencumbered with such silly things as journalistic integrity and should be “considered separate” from the actual objective reporting arm of the company) segment a Times reporter and editor, Jacques Steinberg and Steven Reddicliffe were called “Attack Dogs” for their negative articles on the news organization.  This alone is a good example of Fox’s defensive tactics, but even more childish is that these two Times staffers had their pictures shown altered with teeth yellowed, forehead drawn and nose enlarged.  Now I know that this is a rather laughable personal attack on those who would threaten to question Fox’s journalist integrity, but it is harder to laugh when considering the market-share that Fox carries.  PEOPLE BUY INTO THIS SHIT!   As David Carr says, “Fun is fun, but it is getting uglier by the day out there.” The work that caused Fox to jump out at Jacques Steinberg was an article reporting on the closing viewer gap between Fox News and CNN during election coverage, though still acknowledging Fox’s dominance.  Steinberg supposedly approached Fox for comment for the article with no luck, while Fox simultaneously e-mailed editor and boss Reddicliffe asking why they were not contacted about the article.  Carr further illustrates his point:

Earlier this year[2008], a colleague of mine said, he was writing a story about CNN’s gains in the ratings and was told on deadline by a Fox News public relations executive that if he persisted, “they” would go after him. Within a day, “they” did, smearing him around the blogs, he said.

In the last several years, reporters from The Associated Press, several large newspapers and various trade publications have said they were shut out from getting their calls returned because of stories they had written. Editors do not want to hear why your calls are not being returned, they just want you to fix the problem, or perhaps they will fix it by finding someone else to do your job.

And here’s a lovely little quote from David Folkenflik, the media reporter for NPR:

I don’t think it is any secret that it comes from the top with Roger Ailes. [Fox] behave[s] less like a competitive news outlet and more like a political campaign when it comes to managing coverage.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar?  Isn’t the White House currently echoing what has been said about Fox News for years now?  Do we really need to have this Orwellian fright complex when an Administration stands up for itself when no one else will?  Maybe if you didn’t have the host of the highest-rated show on Fox saying Obama has “a deep-seated hatred of white people,” we wouldn’t see advisors trying to exclude Fox from the media pool.

If you think what is happening now is merely a fight between Fox and the White House, then I guess you’d say that what I’ve just been describing and quoting from was merely a fight between Fox and the New York Times.  But then how would you explain what must have been merely a fight a between Fox and CNBC.  Oh, and there was also that fight between Fox and MSNBC.

And if you think that this is just commentator vs. commentator then think again:

The two cable news channels temporarily resumed their long-running feud this week after The New York Times reported that their parent companies, General Electric and theNews Corporation, had struck a deal to stop each other’s televised personal attacks.

Employees of daytime programs on MSNBC were specifically told by executives not to mention Fox hosts in segments critical of conservative media figures, according to two staff members. The employees requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters.

No, this is a battle dealing with companies and the larger perspectives of corporations.  That is why you see Glenn Beck give reports claiming a “merger between G.E. and the Obama administration” was “nearly complete.” G.E., of course, is the parent company of MSNBC.

“At this point,” a Fox spokeswoman said Friday, “the entire situation is more about major issues at NBC and G.E. than it is about Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann.”

Eventually you have to see the pattern here.  Fox isn’t just a poor little media outlet fighting courageously against getting squashed by the socialist government’s quest for total media control.  Fox has been unscrupulously throwing their weight around in an attempt to control as much of a media share as possible for a long time.  It’s called Reál Pölitick.  And while certainly it is unnerving to actually see the Obama Administration call Fox out like this, personally I’m not nearly as frightened by the government as I am by Fox News.  The problem is, I don’t know that the White House can actually win this fight.  I think it is a brutal gamble.  Obama will draw a lot of heat for this maneuver.  But perhaps this will just further polarize the Fox base, poisoning their credibility.  There is an old saying: something about never fighting with people that buy ink by the barrel.  Once again, I’m dying to see how this one plays out.

Take care my little Ducklings,
-Dick Harvey

One More Post Today

I know that I just posted on here earlier today, but I have two links that I’d like to share with you guys.

First, there is a real nice editorial piece by Paul Krugman about the current state of banks.  Specifically it discusses the shift in policy by Obama’s administration in light of recent hefty lobbying by the financial institutions against strong reform (read this and then wait to see how the Republicans treat the financial reform bill once it comes), and the attitude of lending vs trading banks.

Second there is this very interesting analyst of today’s “conservative” mindset.  A group called Democracy Corps conducted some focus groups to help define this current wave of Glenn Beckians and Palins, and how they are becoming polarized against the rest of America and to an extent even their own political party.

Let me quote a few things to get you going on the report:

these voters identify themselves as part of a ‘mocked’ minority with a set of shared beliefs and knowledge, and commitment to oppose Obama that sets them apart from the majority in the country.  They believe Obama is ruthlessly advancing a ‘secret agenda’ to bankrupt the United States and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism.  While these voters are disdainful of a Republican Party they view to have failed in its mission, they overwhelmingly view a successful Obama presidency as the destruction of this country’s founding principles and are committed to seeing the president fail.

-Dick Harvey

What’s Karzai Smoking?

Well who would have thunk it?  Is anyone still counting the number of times propped-up leaders of occupied foreign countries have failed to be the unifying, effective head of state we builders-of-nations wish them to be?  After pressure from the US and other Western powers it seems that Hamid Karzai is finally going to accept the fact that Afghanistan’s recent election was too tainted by fraud to stand.  On Monday the United Nations released a report which showed that almost 25% of all the ballots had to be thrown out.  That dropped Karzai’s untouchable 54% of the vote beneath the 50% mark, requiring a runoff.

But too much time has passed since the election and winter is setting in.  A runoff looks difficult to setup anytime soon.  And questions are being asked as to the stomach for voters to go to the polls yet again against threats from the Taliban.  The disappointment of the aborted initial election might have gutted support for Karzai.  Some of the administration is apparently pushing for a coalition government between Hamid Karzai and his opponent, the other potential rula, Abdullah Abdullah (I should have been a rapper).  But supposedly there is not much love between the two men, and these forced-unity governments can get ugly – see Zimbabwe.

In the mean-time Obama has been waiting to make a decision about sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.  Republicans are screaming ‘indecision,’ but it’s obviously a clear case of quid pro quo.  These troops are much wanted by Karzai to help stabilize the region and help cement his government’s authority.  It’s called leverage.

In other news, a shocking case of common-sense in a federal memorandum!
The Justice Department told federal prosecutors to lay off medical marijuana.  Bear in mind people: this is not legalization of marijuana.  In fact, this is a pretty nice side-step of the whole issue.  This sets a precedence of allowing for state-by-state legislation of medical marijuana without addressing federal laws prohibiting the drug.  Kind of a cop out to the legalization supporters, who might have had some hope with this liberal administration.

But in my eyes this is a great bit of common sense coming out of the White House.  Listen to their reasoning:

the department said it was committed to the “efficient and rational use” of its resources, and that going after individuals who were in “clear and unambiguous compliance” with state laws did not meet that standard.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana,”

the memo should not be interpreted as legalizing marijuana. “Rather, this memorandum is intended solely as a guide to the exercise of investigative and prosecutorial discretion,” the department said.

Well would you believe it?  I can’t wait to see how this respect to states’ rights to legislate will be called big-gov, socialist behavior by the GOP.

I’m out!
-Dick Harvey