jamie's blog

"Fair and balanced" sure has an interesting meaning when it comes to Fox News. We're all used to their highly partisan reporting, but this story takes the political involvement of the network to a whole new level.

Roger Ailes, the longtime Republican media guru, founder of Fox News and its current chairman, had some advice last year for then-Gen. David H. Petraeus.

So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.

The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.

So Ailes was trying to get the General to run for President. But even more interesting is this part:

Think Progress has posted this stomach-turning chart:

The red line indicated corporate profits and the blue is the average wage of Americans. As you can see the profits have been sky rocketing to record levels, while wages continue to plummet.

CNN Money puts it into words here:

In the third quarter, corporate earnings were $1.75 trillion, up 18.6% from a year ago, according to last week's gross domestic product report. That took after-tax profits to their greatest percentage of GDP in history.

But the record profits come at the same time that workers' wages have fallen to their lowest-ever share of GDP.

So we have to record breaking pieces of information here; profits are at record highs and wages are at record lows.

This comes at a very critical time in our nation. With the fiscal cliff less than a month away, many on the right are content with middle class taxes going up, just to save the corporations some tax money. The thinking is the same, failed logic that GOP has been pushing for years; "if corporations have more money, they will hire more." It goes against the very basis of supply and demand economics and is a proven failure just by this data. The corporations do have the money, but they aren't hiring and they aren't paying.

If anything great should be remembered from this past election it should be the fact that Grover Norquist has become much less significant. The number of Republicans breaking with the Norquist pledge to not raise taxes keeps rising, with the latest one coming out today:

Open criticism of Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform group's anti-tax pledge continued to make its way to the forefront of debate on Monday, with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) saying that his only real obligation was to serve his constituents by finding a long-term solution to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff."

“I’m not obligated on the pledge,” Corker told Charlie Rose of CBS News, responding to a question about growing disenchantment among Republicans who had previously stood in agreement with Norquist's strict "no new taxes" pledge. “I was just elected. The only thing I’m honoring is the oath I take when I serve when I’m sworn in this January.”

Corker joins other big names, such as John McCain, Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn, Lindsey Graham and Peter King. These influential Republicans can really put pressure on the rest of their party to disavow the thinking of Norquist and finally work to move our country forward.

But any man in the midst of defeat, old Grover is resilient as ever:

Prominent American anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist on Monday insisted that his movement was as strong as ever and that Congress would withstand pressure to raise taxes even if more Republican lawmakers are spurning his anti-tax pledge.

The darling GOP Governor of the Tea Party, Scott Walker, is under some serious scrutiny:

Gov. Scott Walker and his top campaign and Milwaukee County aides were named Monday as part of a team that routinely commingled political and official county business.

The disclosures came during the sentencing of a former aide to Walker during his last year as Milwaukee County executive. Kelly M. Rindfleisch, 44, was sentenced by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Hansher to six months in jail and three years of probation on a single felony count of misconduct in office. The judge stayed the sentence pending Rindfleisch's appeal to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals or the state Supreme Court.

In a lengthy presentation during Rindfleisch's sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf displayed numerous emails between Rindfleisch and key members of Walker's campaign staff in which they discussed how to manage county government in 2010, while Walker was a candidate for governor.

Repeatedly, Landgraf argued that Rindfleisch knowingly broke the law by doing campaign work at the courthouse. In a new development, the prosecutor made clear - without saying it was illegal - that top Walker campaign officials influenced, even directed, county strategy.

It hasn't been disclosed if Walker himself is being targeted in the investigation, but it does lead you to wonder how high this thing can go.

The New York Times has a very interesting article today about Chris Christie and how the GOP has treated him since Hurricane Sandy:

A few days after Hurricane Sandy shattered the shores of New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie picked up the phone to take on a different kind of recovery work: taming the Republican Party fury over his effusive embrace of President Obama.

On Nov. 3, Mr. Christie called Rupert Murdoch, the influential News Corporation chief and would-be kingmaker, who had warned in a biting post on Twitter that the governor might be responsible for Mr. Obama’s re-election.

Mr. Christie told Mr. Murdoch that amid the devastation, New Jersey needed friends, no matter their political party, according to people briefed on the discussion. But Mr. Murdoch was blunt: Mr. Christie risked looking like a spoiler unless he publicly affirmed his support for Mitt Romney, something the governor did the next day.

Mr. Christie has been explaining himself to Republicans ever since. His lavish praise for Mr. Obama’s response to the storm, delivered in the last days of the presidential race, represented the most dramatic development in the campaign’s final stretch. Right or wrong, conventional wisdom in the party holds that it influenced the outcome.

Apparently in the view of Republicans, Christie should have let his own state suffer and die in the name of party. Perhaps they should have told Republicans there might be some pregnant women out there who could die, then maybe the GOP would have gone people first. No, I doubt it. After all, beating the black guy was more important than even that.

Make no doubt about it; Republicans absolutely despise democracy. That's not to say they don't love the sound of the word, but when it is in actual practice, well they only like it when their person wins. Evidence of that can be seen in the actions and words of Republicans in comparison to presidential votes.

Let's start off with Bill Clinton. In 1996 he won the presidency by a whopping 9%. Did the Republicans look at that as a mandate or "will of the people"? Nope. Instead they started a witch hunt to try and remove him from office by the most extreme method this country has - impeachment. Not since 1837, when Andrew Jackson was impeached, has this happened and Clinton was only the second time in our nation's history.

Now let's go to 2008. Before President Obama even took the oath of office, Republicans were starting to beat the impeachment drums. Republicans started looking for anything and everything they could throw at him. But again, Obama won that election by 7%. So to the Republicans, a majority of this country is idiots and don't know how to vote. Democracy be dammed!

So here we are now, just a little over a week since another Obama victory. Sure it wasn't as big this time, him only getting the popular vote by 3%, but still, the people elected a Democrat. So how does the Republicans respond to this?

People in four states — Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington — have reported strange political robocalls from a birther group called Conservative Majority Fund, saying that they “suspect” Obama may be “guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors,” adding “there may be grounds for impeachment as is laid out in the Constitution.”

Got that? They don't know what crimes, but they think there has to be some. But on what grounds? Is it PWB (Presidenting While Black)?

We have heard so much this week about why Mitt Romney lost. The one thing I really can't wrap my head around though is the "blame the campaign" meme that is going on. For example, here's RedState talking about Romney's failed ORCA program:

So what caused the breakdown and why didn’t it get fixed in time? Well according to sources who worked closely with the program, the blame is at the feet of consultants.

But there is a serious flaw here. We were told that Mitt Romney's most qualify feature to be President was his success as a business man. A good business man is an excellent manager and can quickly identify waste and abuse. Shouldn't Mitt have realized the problem here and done something about it?

And if the people who run the campaign are the failure, isn't that also a condemnation of the candidate himself?

We heard all this before. Just look back to 2008 when Republicans instantly started blaming the people on McCain's campaign instead of the candidate himself.

This is the big problem. If a candidate is unable to hire and manage quality people to run their campaign, how can we expect them to do so when sitting in the Oval Office? We need a President who has strong advisers and can help pick strong cabinet members. We need a President who can tell when someone isn't living up to their expectations and can cut them loose. We need a President who can manage people!

It seems like we haven't been getting that with the past couple of Republican candidates though. Instead we get failed managers that would be disastrous as President.

Even though the Republicans held on to the House this week, it doesn't appear that it is the will of the voters:

While not all ballots have been counted, Democrats hold an edge over Republicans in overall votes. According to ThinkProgress, 53,952,240 votes were cast for Democratic candidates, while Republican candidates received 53,402,643. However, thanks in part to redistricting, Republicans will hold more than half the seats in the House while receiving less than half of overall votes.

After the 2010 election, Republicans worked hard on redistricting to help insure that they can keep their seats. While many complain about the electorate college, to me the system we use to come up with our congressional districts is much more antiquated and disastrous than the electoral college will ever be. Hopefully we can work to fix that in the future, coming up with an actual, bi-partisan commission that redraws the lines, instead of the current, partisan nightmare we have.