Month: September 2008

Just watched Hannity’s lovefest with Sarah Palin, and lost a $5 bet that Sean would drop the Bill Ayres bomb in the first installment.

It was billed as an exclusive interview with Hannity and Colmes, (credit to Al Franken for font selection) but milquetoast Alan was not even permitted to ask a question or two as time is running out, the usual protocol.  No it was all Sean, and he proved his love for Sarah by denouncing left wing smears and unspecified attacks from the Obama campaign, and setting her up to parrot GOP talking points.  No mention of troopers, bridges to nowhere, or anything remotely critical of the Palin package.

First Sean teed up McCain’s repeated remarks that the economy is “fundamentally sound” and Palin dropped her prefab soundbite, that this was an unfair attack on McCain’s verbiage, and that he was talking about the American workforce being sound.  No challenge from Hannity on a lie so obvious it drew a rebuke from the NY Times editorial page.  Palin slid into disingenuous calls to fight the “abuse” and “toxic waste” of Wall Street, and that John McCain will fix it with “stringent oversight”.  No mention from either lover of McCain’s intractable support of deregulation of every kind, and that his Senate Commerce Committee failed to provide ANY oversight as Wall Street ran wild.  And when she talks about the “old boys” in Washington, doesn’t that include her Johnny?

Then Hannity accused Obama of exploiting the problems for political gain, and Palin decried “obsessive partisanship”–perhaps she meant “excessive”.  As Hannity blamed Obama for the bailout of Freddie and Fannie, Palin fingered lobbyists (but not the dozens on the McCain campaign), cronyism (3 times) and that her brand of reform will put government regulatory agencies “back on the side of the people”.  Hannity didn’t bother to ask about her own patterns of cronyism as mayor and governor, or raise an eyebrow that a fellow republican would embrace government as a solution.  And isn’t the troopergate investigation that she formerly welcomed an effort to expose cronyism that needs reform?

Next, Hannity got really tough and asked her why low taxes are good.  Another prefab bite;  “Barack Obama had 94 opportunities to be on the side of the people”, but voted against tax cuts.  No mention that McCain had opposed some of the Bush tax cuts, too.

And Hannity, oblivious to all of the fact checking that shows Palin deserves the scrutiny she’s gotten (and much more), talked about the heated campaign and that she has been the focus of “attacks”.  Palin said the American people are getting down to the facts and “seein’ through the rhetoric and cheap shots”
I hope she’s right, guys and gals!

Now 81 days without a budget, just today I learned the cause of the stalemate in Sacramento:  we are the first to go swirling down the drain of Grover Norquist’s bathtub.

John Laird, the Democrat who chairs the budget committee in the lower house, the Assembly, told me today that the reason the Republicans have held firm on their “no new taxes” pledge–even though it will cripple economic growth and education for years to come–is that all but one of the GOP in the Assembly have signed a pledge to reject all tax increase proposals, even from their own Governator.  And they all know that if they fall off the wagon they will be taken out at the next election; just like kindergarten, they make an example out of one guy, and it keeps the rest in line.

So, instead of some modest tax increases to close a $17-billion gap, we get a payday loan plan.  Starting January 1, the payroll withholding rate doubles (from 5 to 10%) but the tax rate doesn’t go up.  For 2009 only (they say), every worker in California will loan the state a few bucks each paycheck, interest-free, creating a loan pool of about a billion dollars.  In April of 2010 (they say) they will refund the extra tax we paid.  Can you think of a more regressive tax?  In Grover’s book, this is not a tax increase, it just feels like one.

Arnold has painted himself into a corner, one Dem said “he’s a leader with no followers”.  He broke his own pledge a few weeks ago and proposed a sales tax increase (only slightly less regressive) and could not get a single member of his party to support it.

And now Schwarzenegger is vetoing the stinky budget that passed by a veto-proof margin, further delaying the resumption of payments to millions of people, plus schools and nonprofits.  The squabble now is about the terms of a “rainy day fund” that is supposed to prevent budget gridlock in the future.

The Grover virus is most dangerous when it combines with the Jarvis strain of anti-tax radicals here in California.  They passed Prop 13 in the 1970’s which limits property taxes, and are ruthless enforcers like the Norquist gang.  They use thuggish tactics and minority rule and they are winning.

Ari Melber is a great young reporter who covers Netroots for The Nation and is posting frequent dispatches from the Obama campaign trail at The Washington Independent (www.washingtonindependent.com

This past Sunday morning, I was guest host on The Peter Laufer Show on Green 960, the Air America station in San Francisco.  On Sundays, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has brunch and holds court at her favorite spot along the waterfront, just a few blocks from the station.

So she just might have been listening when Don Siegelman came on the air with a special message for the speaker: please permit a floor vote on the contempt citation for Karl Rove.

Gov. Siegelman is Rove-kill, Exhibit A.  He is a witness to a hatchet job that sent him from Alabama’s governor’s mansion to a federal prison on phony, political charges, and he fingers Karl Rove as a central figure in the caper.  The story is recapped in this audio clip http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/SANFRANCISCO-CA/KKGN-AM/PeterLaufer_091408_Hr2.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=SANFRANCISCO-CA&NG_FORMAT=progressivetalk&SITE_ID=5257&STATION_ID=KKGN-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Peter_Laufer_/_Green960&PCAST_CAT=News_%26_Politics&PCAST_TITLE=Sunday_with_Peter_Laufer

Siegelman believes that his case, if it’s blown open, could expose more about the politicization of the Justice Department and its US Attorneys.  His story includes the theft of his re-election, and a failed prosecution followed by one that got him 7 years in federal prison, he’s now free on bail during appeal.

The House Judiciary Committee voted out the contempt citation in August, and now it’s up to Pelosi to schedule a vote to enforce it.  It’s mostly symbolic, but could help Siegelman and future investigations.  To me, it’s the bare minimum she can do to deliver some accountability for the clear violations of law and ethical standards by the Bush admin.

Today’s Washington Post reported that Cheney’s lawyer David Addington forged the signature of Alberto Gonzalez on a document intended to provide legal cover for the illegal monitoring of phones and emails in the US. This will not be the last Bushie crime to go uninvestigated, unpunished.

Please call Pelosi at 202-225-0100 and urge the vote on contempt for Rove.  And to some of the fine folks who post lengthy comments here, intended to tweak other posters, may I suggest you put the time & effort into getting the word out on contempt for Rove?  much obliged.

If you consume sugar today, in almost any form, you will likely be patronizing the Fanjul family of Florida.  They control 32% of the sugar market in the US, and large swaths of land in Florida, including 40,000 acres between Lake Okeechobee (say it 5 times fast) and the Everglades. The Fanjuls are also big political donors, to both parties, and enjoy access and influence that is, well, special.

About 10 years back, when the Clinton impeachment was on the table, Monica testified about a time she was in the Oval Office and under the desk pleasuring the President.  The “prosecutor” asked Monica to back up her oral assertion with proof of the date and time, she said that Mr. Fanjul had called to protest a plan Al Gore had just announced that would affect sugar cane areas in or near the Everglades.  The prosecutor guy (was it Ken Starr or Bob Barr? my memory is fuzzy) confirmed that the call was on the log for that date and time, so Monica’s account was deemed credible.  But he didn’t note that Clinton did intervene at his donor’s behest, and gore’s plan was re-tooled to please the sugar kings.

For more, there is a remarkably honest and detailed story in the Business Section of the Sunday NYT (link)

+++++

There’s a barrage of coverage of the very thin story of Gov. Palin, but I’ve managed to absorb quite a bit.  CNN featured back-to-back hour specials on Sunday, lady first, and called hers “Sarah Palin Revealed”; Biden’s hour was slugged “Who Is He?” .   The Sarah hour of power started off gauzy and cheezy but I learned this nugget: it took Sarah 5 years and 5 different schools (two in Hawaii, that exotic place that Obama was criticized for his vacation destination) to get her journalism degree.
CNN serves up Sarah’s big sister to tell us about the quickie wedding to Todd at the court house, complete with elderly strangers from a rest home nearby who were wheeled in to serve as witnesses. And, they discreetly add, 8 months later their son Track is born.  The hour has other critical reporting about her stints on the Council and as Mayor of Wasila and more recently as Gov. has fired incumbent pros and replaced them with loyalists, including about half of her high school classmates.  And the Trooper of Troopergate was on screen, Mike Wooten, and he calmly refuted Sarah and Todd’s allegations that he had threatened his ex-father-in-law, and explained that his son wanted to know what a taser felt like before he agreed to zap the boy, at low power.  The troopergate investigation is Palin’s biggest liability right now, although her inexperience may produce more boo boos when she gets off the script “I told Congress, thanks but no thanks for the bridge”
is demonstrably false, but they kept a  lot of that money!

pbc