The Liberal Thread #2 - No Debate Please

[Planogirl]

Edited - not going to get into it any more. Maybe...

 

[Planogirl]

More "power of competition" nonsense. Yeah, that's worked out so well with the Airlines, Banks, and Cable Providers, just to name a few. They all keep merging and buying each other up and driving the cost of their goods and services up for all of us. But the Health Care industry is immune to this? Hah. They are buying each other up just as fast as everybody else. Pretty soon there will be THE Airline, THE Bank, and THE Insurance Co. So much for "competition".....

Ugh. The monopolies that are out there now are insane. How can any smaller company hope to compete? I know that there are exceptions but it sure seems difficult.

I worry about the previously mentioned problem of McCain's plan not covering pre-existing conditions. I need to read up on it more than I have because I'm no sure how all-encompassing that is.

 

[Fitswimmer]

Elizabeth Edwards was just on the Today show continuing her criticism of McCain's plan. I'm glad to see her looking so well, first-and secondly I'm glad to see someone on the Democratic side going after McCain!!

 

[eclectics]

Elizabeth Edwards was just on the Today show continuing her criticism of McCain's plan. I'm glad to see her looking so well, first-and secondly I'm glad to see someone on the Democratic side going after McCain!!

I wonder if this "noise" from the Edwards camp is a precursor to John Edwards endorsing someone.

 

[Fitswimmer]

I wonder if this "noise" from the Edwards camp is a precursor to John Edwards endorsing someone.

Meredith pushed on that and Elizabeth's answer was that when John has something to say, he'll say it himself.

I wonder if he's waiting until after the next round of Primaries.

 

[eclectics]

Meredith pushed on that and Elizabeth's answer was that when John has something to say, he'll say it himself.

I wonder if he's waiting until after the next round of Primaries.

I think if he's going to do it he'll do it before PA, but that's just my gut. He and Al might just keep mum altogether. It's a big if.

 

[Chloe'sMom]

Elizabeth Edwards was just on the Today show continuing her criticism of McCain's plan. I'm glad to see her looking so well, first-and secondly I'm glad to see someone on the Democratic side going after McCain!!

NO KIDDING!

~Amanda

 

[wvrevy]

Elizabeth Edwards was just on the Today show continuing her criticism of McCain's plan. I'm glad to see her looking so well, first-and secondly I'm glad to see someone on the Democratic side going after McCain!!

Is this ok to post here?

Obama Casts Race Between Him, McCain
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Sen. Barack Obama is talking about the elephant in the room _ Republican rival John McCain _ and all but ignoring the Democrat who stands between him and his party's presidential nomination.

.......

"He's on a biography tour right now," Obama said of McCain. "Most of us know his biography, and it's worthy of our admiration. My argument with John McCain is not with his biography, it's with his policies."

Obama argued that McCain would merely be another four years of President Bush on economic and military policies. McCain has criticized Obama as being inexperienced on national security, and the Illinois senator answered back.

"Meanwhile Senator McCain has been saying I don't understand national security, but he's the one who wants to keep tens of thousands of United States troops in Iraq for as long as 100 years," Obama said.

The McCain and Obama camps have been feuding for days over remarks McCain recently made when he said the U.S. could end up having a long-term military presence in Iraq, similar to the more than 50-year presence of U.S. soldiers in Germany and South Korea.

"One hundred years in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 may make sense to George Bush and John McCain but it is the wrong thing to do. It is not right for our national security. It is not right for our economy," Obama said to applause at a town hall.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said that given the long history of peacetime U.S. bases overseas, Obama's remarks show his "complete lack of preparedness to be commander in chief."

"His attempt to paint McCain's position as something else is nothing but the disingenuous, old-style politics that he claims to reject," Bounds said.

Though the primary contest has heightened tensions among Democrats fearful it will hurt their chances of winning the general election in November, Obama told the crowd not to worry.

"I don't buy this whole thing that people are super-divided," he said in response to a question. "We are going to come together and focus on the fact that John McCain wants to continue the war in Iraq, I want to end it, John McCain wants to continue George Bush's economic policies."

........

For all his complaints about McCain, Obama also talked tough on international trade issues _ a sensitive subject in a state with plenty of blue-collar Democratic votes to be won.

An Iraq war veteran at the town hall asked the senator's opinion of a recent decision by the Pentagon to award a a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract to a consortium led by Airbus, located in Europe, over a bid led by U.S.-based Boeing.

Obama said he had concerns about the deal but an investigation was warranted to find out more.

"I don't mind the Pentagon procuring from other countries but when you've got such an enormous contract for such a vital piece of our U.S. military arsenal, it strikes me that we should have identified a U.S. company that could do it," he said, though he added that he might conclude the decision was justified if it turns out Airbus' bid was 10-15 percent better than Boeing's.

McCain has faced questions about the contract because some of his current advisers lobbied last year for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the parent company of plane maker Airbus. EADS and its U.S. partner Northrop Grumman Corp. beat Boeing Co. for the lucrative aerial refueling contract.

McCain has said his inquiries into the contract were designed to ensure evenhanded bidding and denied they were motivated by lobbyists who are close advisers to his presidential campaign.

I snipped out the parts where he was also critical of the other Democratic candidate.

 

[wvrevy]

Also, here's another good article about McCain:

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/04/01/basra-iraq-mccain/

John McCain did a little more damage to his foreign policy credibility yesterday. After hailing the Basra offensive last Friday as “a sign of the strength of [Maliki’s] government,” yesterday McCain distanced himself from the Iraqi leader, expressing surprise that Maliki had chosen to lead the offensive, and claiming that “Maliki decided to take on this operation without consulting the Americans.”

I think he felt – which many of us had talked about many times—that Basra was an important part of the country, it was not under the control of the government, we all know that varying mafia-like factions, Shiite militias, control different parts of it […] The police are corrupt. So he decided he wanted to address the issue. And whether he should have or not, I think we will see what the ultimate results are. But it certainly shows a degree of independence.

As many observers have pointed out, rather than being aimed at “varying mafia-like factions,” Maliki’s offensive was aimed at one particular faction: Jaysh al-Mahdi of Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political movement Maliki and his allies sought to weaken in advance of elections. Military analyst Malcolm Nance reports that “most Shiites in Southern Iraq…see this as a fight between two rival militias, the Badr Corps (aka Maliki and the Iraqi army) and the JAM [Sadr’s Jaysh al-Mahdi militia].” Anthony Cordesman stated that “the current fighting is as much a power struggle for control of the south, and the Shi’ite parts of Baghdad and the rest of the country, as an effort to establish central government authority and legitimate rule.”

Asked if Maliki’s Basra campaign had “backfired,” McCain replied, “Apparently it was Sadr who asked for the ceasefire, declared a ceasefire. It wasn’t Maliki. Very rarely do I see the winning side declare a ceasefire. So we’ll see.”

Actually, it was apparently members of Maliki’s own government who traveled to Iran and requested the cease-fire, to which Sadr agreed. Maliki’s government then issued a statement praising Sadr, after Maliki insisted less than a week ago that there would be “no negotiation.”

Eugene Robinson suggested that the explosion of violence shows that “the tranquility brought about by Bush’s ballyhooed “surge” turned out to be as evanescent as a rainbow.”

McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann saw it a different way, claiming that “this demonstrates…that there are very powerful forces that still remain that do not want to see the success of the central government and that would relish the prospect of the American withdrawal so that they could try to fight or shoot their way into power.” Scheunemann then asked, “Would you rather have the Maliki government in control, or the Iranian-backed special groups in control, or Al Qaeda in control?”

Despite Scheunemann’s fear-mongering, no credible Middle East analyst has ever suggested that Al Qaeda would ever be “in control” of Iraq. Given how uninformed John McCain is on Iraq, it’s no surprise that his advisers are too.

It's part of a series that Think Progress is doing called "How many Iraq Gaffes Can One Man Make?" that can be found on HuffPost.

 

[LuvDuke]

It cannot be repeated enough that the 35 billion dollar tanker deal going overseas was facilitated by John McCain through legislation he sponsored. In addition, McCain has 3 EADS lobbyists on his campaign staff. EADS was the shell company Northrup-Grumann was the shell company set up to cover up the fact that the contract went to Airbus which is a French company, heavily subsidized by the French government.

McCain has never met an Airbus deal he didn't like.

Notice none of the "freedom fries" people have anything to say about that.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/business/lobby.php

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

It cannot be repeated enough that the 35 billion dollar tanker deal going overseas was facilitated by John McCain through legislation he sponsored. In addition, McCain has 3 EADS lobbyists on his campaign staff. EADS was the shell company Northrup-Grumann was the shell company set up to cover up the fact that the contract went to Airbus which is a French company, heavily subsidized by the French government.

McCain has never met an Airbus deal he didn't like.

Notice none of the "freedom fries" people have anything to say about that.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/business/lobby.php

I jokingly posted that Rudiger Grube was on McCain's VP short list on one of Papa Deuce's forays into political threads a couple weeks ago. Quite frankly, I don't believe the conservative posters around here have any idea who he or EADS is. Although who could blame 'em after all the jingoistic pablum they been fed over the past 7 + years...

 

[LuvDuke]

I jokingly posted that Rudiger Grube was on McCain's VP short list on one of Papa Deuce's forays into political threads a couple weeks ago. Quite frankly, I don't believe the conservative posters around here have any idea who he or EADS is. Although who could blame 'em after all the jingoistic pablum they been fed over the past 7 + years...

One or two of our friends on the other side of the aisle did defend the deal. They believe in America except when a Republican sides with a foreign government, a foreign company, and foreign workers to the detriment of American workers and American jobs. Suddenly, they had no problem with the French.

I think quite a few people will find out about McCain's love for Airbus and EADS as the campaign moves along. This is McCain's campaign honeymoon afterall.

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

One or two of our friends on the other side of the aisle did defend the deal. They believe in America except when a Republican sides with a foreign government, a foreign company, and foreign workers to the detriment of American workers and American jobs. Suddenly, they had no problem with the French.

I think quite a few people will find out about McCain's love for Airbus and EADS as the campaign moves along. This is McCain's campaign honeymoon afterall.

Put in your pocket for the general.

 

[crazyforgoofy]

It cannot be repeated enough that the 35 billion dollar tanker deal going overseas was facilitated by John McCain through legislation he sponsored. In addition, McCain has 3 EADS lobbyists on his campaign staff. EADS was the shell company Northrup-Grumann was the shell company set up to cover up the fact that the contract went to Airbus which is a French company, heavily subsidized by the French government.

McCain has never met an Airbus deal he didn't like.

Notice none of the "freedom fries" people have anything to say about that.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/business/lobby.php

They won't say anything if it might mean some money for them or their friends, now will they?? Amazing.

 

[crazyforgoofy]

Salon.com has an article by Andrew Leonard called "Great Depression: The Sequel?"

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/02/depression/

It's a two page article I found fascinating. Here are two parts I found especially interesting and frightening:

...Or, in other words, combine Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's toothless
regulatory "overhaul" (which, absurdly, would actually result in less government oversight of the financial markets than currently exists), with Sen. John McCain's pledge to continue the economic policies of George W. Bush (read his lips: make the tax cuts permanent). Presto: A severe recession gets the opportunity it has long been waiting for and heads south for parts unknown for almost a century....


several graphs later...

That last point to underline is that the hands-off-Wall Street, deregulatory impulses unleashed by Ronald Reagan and expanded by all his White House successors have directly contributed to the precarious state of today's average American. The housing crisis offers a terrific example. Yes, speculation by housing flippers played a role in fueling the boom, and so did fraud on the part of both lenders and borrowers. But Wall Street's hunger for high-yielding complex financial instruments, that alphabet soup of CDOs and CMOs and countless other inscrutable derivatives, created the fundamental incentive that encouraged lenders to provide credit without restraint. The voracious demand for the junk encouraged the creation of more junk. And nobody asked any tough questions, all the way down the line. Worst of all, the hedge funds and investment banks that bought and sold these derivatives did not operate under the same levels of government scrutiny that traditional banks must face. Quite the opposite -- the more complicated the financial innovation, the less likely it was to fall under any government oversight. And that was no accident -- that was done on purpose. During both the Bill Clinton and the George W. Bush administrations, Wall Street got exactly what it asked for -- a light hand on the reins, but with the tacit assurance that if the **** really hit the fan, the government would bail it out, because, of course, the awful consequences of systemic collapse would be too devastating to risk.

We are not totally bereft. As Slate's Daniel Gross cogently explained last week, the institutions created during the Great Depression, despite persistent Republican efforts to dismantle them, still provide a sturdy bulwark protecting Americans from abject, 1930s-style levels of misery and poverty. But those relics of the "nanny state" are under constant attack by starve-the-beast radicals whose explicit goal is to roll back the New Deal. And now we have Hank Paulson telling us that a new regulatory system needs to be even less onerous for Wall Street's innovators to bear, while John McCain lectures Americans on how Wall Street deserves a bailout if financial meltdown looms, but individual Americans who screwed up deserve to stew in a soup of their own irresponsibility. ...

 

[Charade]

It cannot be repeated enough that the 35 billion dollar tanker deal going overseas was facilitated by John McCain through legislation he sponsored. In addition, McCain has 3 EADS lobbyists on his campaign staff. EADS was the shell company Northrup-Grumann was the shell company set up to cover up the fact that the contract went to Airbus which is a French company, heavily subsidized by the French government.

McCain has never met an Airbus deal he didn't like.

Notice none of the "freedom fries" people have anything to say about that.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/business/lobby.php

Why did the Boeing deal fall through? Remind me again.

 

[LuvDuke]

Why did the Boeing deal fall through? Remind me again.

If you've got something to say, say it.

Either way, it's a loser for your candidate. At the end of the day, he has 3 EADS lobbyists on his payroll and the contract is going to a foreign government. Airbus is subsidized by the French government aka: your "freedom fries" government, no less. It was also John McCain who lobbied the Pentagon to open the contract to Airbus bidding.

So let's tally it all it all up:

1) Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, lobbies to have a foreign government bid on US military contracts

2) Republican presidential candidate, John McCain then employs 3 lobbyists for the shell company, EADS, set up to cover the fact the tanker will be built by a foreign government.

3) Republican presidential candidate, John McCain lobbied to give 40,000 American jobs to a foreign government to give to their citizens

This one stinks and that stink is all over John McCain. And the rightwing is jumping through hoops to justify it all. After all, Johnny is their man.

However, Obama's minister had nothing to do with this one.

 

[LuvDuke]

Salon.com has an article by Andrew Leonard called "Great Depression: The Sequel?"

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/02/depression/

It's a two page article I found fascinating. Here are two parts I found especially interesting and frightening:

...Or, in other words, combine Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's toothless
regulatory "overhaul" (which, absurdly, would actually result in less government oversight of the financial markets than currently exists), with Sen. John McCain's pledge to continue the economic policies of George W. Bush (read his lips: make the tax cuts permanent). Presto: A severe recession gets the opportunity it has long been waiting for and heads south for parts unknown for almost a century....


several graphs later...

That last point to underline is that the hands-off-Wall Street, deregulatory impulses unleashed by Ronald Reagan and expanded by all his White House successors have directly contributed to the precarious state of today's average American. The housing crisis offers a terrific example. Yes, speculation by housing flippers played a role in fueling the boom, and so did fraud on the part of both lenders and borrowers. But Wall Street's hunger for high-yielding complex financial instruments, that alphabet soup of CDOs and CMOs and countless other inscrutable derivatives, created the fundamental incentive that encouraged lenders to provide credit without restraint. The voracious demand for the junk encouraged the creation of more junk. And nobody asked any tough questions, all the way down the line. Worst of all, the hedge funds and investment banks that bought and sold these derivatives did not operate under the same levels of government scrutiny that traditional banks must face. Quite the opposite -- the more complicated the financial innovation, the less likely it was to fall under any government oversight. And that was no accident -- that was done on purpose. During both the Bill Clinton and the George W. Bush administrations, Wall Street got exactly what it asked for -- a light hand on the reins, but with the tacit assurance that if the **** really hit the fan, the government would bail it out, because, of course, the awful consequences of systemic collapse would be too devastating to risk.

We are not totally bereft. As Slate's Daniel Gross cogently explained last week, the institutions created during the Great Depression, despite persistent Republican efforts to dismantle them, still provide a sturdy bulwark protecting Americans from abject, 1930s-style levels of misery and poverty. But those relics of the "nanny state" are under constant attack by starve-the-beast radicals whose explicit goal is to roll back the New Deal. And now we have Hank Paulson telling us that a new regulatory system needs to be even less onerous for Wall Street's innovators to bear, while John McCain lectures Americans on how Wall Street deserves a bailout if financial meltdown looms, but individual Americans who screwed up deserve to stew in a soup of their own irresponsibility. ...

It's a funny thing with these Republican bailouts of crooked companies with questionable investments. These Republicans believe the profit should be private but the bailout should be socialized so the American taxpayer pays for it. Bears will cost the American taxpayer nearly $30,000,000,000 (that's billion with a "B"). If the American taxpayers are going to foot the bill, why isn't the American taxpayer being represented by seats on the board of directors of Morgan? Oh, but they're a private company with $30,000,000,000 (that's billion with a "B") in their pocket.

Republicans financial expertise at it's best.

 

[crazyforgoofy]

If you've got something to say, say it.

Either way, it's a loser for your candidate. At the end of the day, he has 3 EADS lobbyists on his payroll and the contract is going to a foreign government. Airbus is subsidized by the French government aka: your "freedom fries" government, no less. It was also John McCain who lobbied the Pentagon to open the contract to Airbus bidding.

So let's tally it all it all up:

1) Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, lobbies to have a foreign government bid on US military contracts

2) Republican presidential candidate, John McCain then employs 3 lobbyists for the shell company, EADS, set up to cover the fact the tanker will be built by a foreign government.

3) Republican presidential candidate, John McCain lobbied to give 40,000 American jobs to a foreign government to give to their citizens

This one stinks and that stink is all over John McCain. And the rightwing is jumping through hoops to justify it all. After all, Johnny is their man.

However, Obama's minister had nothing to do with this one.

But on the 'con' thread they're thrilled that McCain had no 'earmarks'. So he's not helping his constituents by bringing money to his state but he's helping .... Oh, nevermind. I'm sure it makes sense the the Republicans.

 

[Mugg Mann]

Here's one that flew under the radar. I'm not the least bit surprised the Gonzales was in on this one...

Memo justified warrantless surveillance

Secret Memo That Justified Warrantless Domestic Surveillance Comes to Light

PAMELA HESS and LARA JAKES JORDAN
AP News

Apr 02, 2008 19:20 EST

For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.

That view was expressed in a secret Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view.
The October 2001 memo was written at the request of the White House by John Yoo, then the deputy assistant attorney general, and addressed to Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time. The administration had asked the department for an opinion on the legality of potential responses to terrorist activity.

The 37-page memo is classified and has not been released. Its existence was disclosed Tuesday in a footnote of a separate secret memo, dated March 14, 2003, released by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
"Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations," the footnote states, referring to a document titled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States."

Exactly what domestic military action was covered by the October memo is unclear. But federal documents indicate that the memo relates to the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program, or TSP.

That program intercepted phone calls and e-mails on U.S. soil, bypassing the normal legal requirement that such eavesdropping be authorized by a secret federal court. The program began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and continued until Jan. 17, 2007, when the White House resumed seeking surveillance warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Wednesday that the Fourth Amendment finding in the October memo was not the legal underpinning for the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

"TSP relied on a separate set of legal memoranda," Fratto told The Associated Press. The Justice Department outlined that legal framework in its January 2006 white paper.

The October memo was written just days before Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, briefed four House and Senate leaders on the NSA's secret wiretapping program for the first time.

The government itself related the October memo to the TSP program when it included it on a list of documents that were responsive to the ACLU's request for records from the program. It refused to hand them over.

On Wednesday, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the statement in the footnote does not reflect the current view of the department's Office of Legal Counsel.

"We disagree with the proposition that the Fourth Amendment has no application to domestic military operations," he said. "Whether a particular search or seizure is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment requires consideration of the particular context and circumstances of the search."

Roehrkasse would not say exactly when that legal opinion was overturned internally. But he pointed to a January 2006 white paper issued by the Justice Department a month after the TSP was revealed by The New York Times.

"The white paper does not suggest in any way that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military activities, and that is not the position of the Office of Legal Counsel," he said.

Suzanne Spaulding, a national security law expert and former assistant general counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, said she found the Fourth Amendment reference in the footnote troubling, but added: "To know (the Justice Department) no longer thinks this is a legitimate statement is reassuring."

"The recent disclosures underscore the Bush administration's extraordinarily sweeping conception of executive power," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties, and even to violate the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. They believe that the president should be above the law."

"Each time one of these memos comes out you have to come up with a more extreme way to characterize it," Jaffer said.

The ACLU is challenging in court the government's withholding of the October 2001 memo.

Source: AP News