mccain

A big milestone was hit in Iraq yesterday, yet I doubt the media will talk about it too much:

Iraqi commandos showed off skills they learned from U.S. military forces, who Saturday formally handed over control of combat operations to Iraqi security forces.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, was on hand to watch the final American combat team, the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, tender responsibilities to the 6th Iraqi Army Division.

In a little over 3 weeks we will only have 50,000 forces in Iraq. Yeah that’s 50,000 more than I like, but it is a far cry better than the numbers we saw when Bush was President, or if McCain had become President.

And with this major accomplishment, I highly doubt the media will talk too much about it. When President Obama announced that everything was on target last week, the media stayed mostly quiet, yet when President Obama first announced the plan to get the troops down to 50,000 in the summer of 2010 last year, the media was full of the pessimistic Republicans saying it couldn’t happen. Where are those people now?

In 2008 three employees of the city of Cincinnati wanted to volunteer for the presidential campaigns, two for Obama and one for McCain. None of them could though. It turns out that Cincinnati had a law on the books for the past 80+ years that prohibited any political involvement by city employees.

The law was enacted because of local councilman and Republican chairman George "Boss" Cox. During his reign Cox would shower his supporters with city jobs, but that came at a price – a demand to donate 2.5% of their paycheck to the Republican Party. Cincinnati decided it was time to prevent such political corruption from running rampant again, so they enacted the law.

Attorneys for the complainants argued successfully that the law was to broad. It was an essential gag order against city employees, even banning them from discussing politics at a barbecue in their own backyards.

A settlement was reached in the U.S. District Court today to revamp the rules and allow city employees more freedom in campaigning and donating money. One of the complainants had this to say after the settlement was reached: "If the city attempts to hinder my First Amendment rights like communist North Korea I won't hesitate to sue again." I can’t say I don’t blame him at all.

Bob brings up an excellent point today:

The retirement of Byron Dorgan is a solid example of why, in many cases, legislation is at the mercy of conservative-leaning states, and nothing the president can- or should do will change it.

With Dorgan out, it's very likely that a Republican will win that seat. If Ben Nelson were to resign, he'd probably be replaced by a Republican. Blanche Lincoln is likely to be replaced by a Republican. It goes without saying that those Republicans won't be very receptive to robust public options or passing the Obama agenda.

Progressive groups would be helped to remember one of the greatest quotes given by Tipp O’Neil, “all politics is local”. Let’s go with the example of Blanche Lincoln and Arkansas.

GovTrack ranks Lincoln as a moderate Democrat, something we all know. In 2008 Arkansas went for McCain by +7, so Arkansas is a red state. That pretty much means that Lincoln and Pryor are the most liberal we will get out of Arkansas, unless the state makes a dramatic shift to the left.

This brings us to the point of primaries. A lot of national organizations will be focusing on unseating Lincoln in the primary, a very possible feat, but at what costs? If we end up replacing Lincoln with a more liberal/progressive candidate, will they hold up against the general electorate, which is much more right leaning? Most likely not.

So where does this leave us?

Well Lincoln is out as the Democratic candidate and replaced with someone far more progressive, then we will lose a Senator that votes with the Democrats somewhere along the lines of 30-40% of the time. That will be replaced by a Republican who will vote with Democrats 0-10% of the time. In the long run we will lose.

Well at least we now know what she was thinking:

Speaking to the conservative talker Rusty Humphries today, Sarah Palin left the door open to speculation about President Obama's birth certificate.

"Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?" she was asked (around 9 minutes into the video above).

"I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers," she replied.

"Do you think it's a fair question to be looking at?" Humphries persisted.

"I think it's a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records -- all of that is fair game," Palin said. "The McCain-Palin campaign didn't do a good enough job in that area."

It really is becoming an epidemic of stupidity:

Two DeKalb County police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama.

A representative for the DeKalb County CEO’s office identified the officers as Ryan White and C.M. Route.

I guess they missed that whole thing last year with State Department employees accessing records on Obama, Clinton and McCain? Just the lack of judgment on the part of these officers is alarming enough. What ever law this violates they should be given the maximum penalty on. They have abused their power, betrayed the public trust and betrayed their oath to uphold the law. That is inexcusable.

There are a couple strong theories behind Palin’s resignation right now. One is that she got fed up with the media attention and the other is that she is being indicted. I want to focus on the first.

Let’s go with that first reason.

If Palin thinks the media spotlight is too bright now, then what does she think would happen as President? That spotlight intensifies exponentially. Just look at President Obama. He can’t even take his wife out for a night without meeting strong criticism. So would Palin resign then?

What if things turned out differently last November. She would have been a 72 year old heart beat away from being the President. What if something happened to McCain and she was instantly thrusted into a stronger spotlight. Would she resign then because of the media intensity, leaving us with President Pelosi? That there should scare the shit out of the GOP.

There was a reason she gave yesterday that also doesn’t make sense. She is claiming its because of her “lame duck” status. Anyone buying this reason needs their heads checked. If our elected officials started to quit because of being a lame duck then we would never have leaders. They figure they should quit 18 months before their term is up. Well then after awhile people would consider their term minus 18 months being lame duck, so then what? Resign 36 months before the end of their term?

All this brings me back to the other theory – being indicted. While that is just a rumor, it is the most plausible. If not that then there is some other, bigger reason she is resigning. She just threw away her political career yesterday. Any run for President will quickly be squashed now because of her resignation. That defeat won’t even be at the hand of the Democrats. She would never get through a primary. Does Sarah Palin really think she can go against Mitt Romney now and win? Come on – she’s a quitter!

Bob dug up this interesting list of the top recipients of campaign money from the insurance industry in the House and Senate.

TOP 10 SENATE RECIPIENTS:
McCain, John (R-AZ) $251,834
McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $200,200
Baucus, Max (D-MT) $183,750
Lieberman, Joe (I-CT) $101,400
Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA) $98,600
Collins, Susan (R-ME) $96,500
Kyl, Jon (R-AZ) $90,450
Warner, Mark (D-VA) $89,700
Hatch, Orrin (R-UT) $85,903
Nelson, Ben (D-NE) $83,300

TOP 10 HOUSE RECIPIENTS:

Cantor, Eric (R-VA) $113,850
Camp, Dave (R-MI) $112,923
Pomeroy, Earl (D-ND) $104,500
Boehner, John (R-OH) $101,200
Deal, Nathan (R-GA) $100,000
Towns, Edolphus (D-NY) $87,750
Rogers, Mike (R-AL) $74,000
Blunt, Roy (R-MO) $72,800
Ryan, Paul (R-WI) $69,000
Tanner, John (D-TN) $68,500

What’s interesting is that those are the same people who oppose any kind of public plan, including Max Baucus, who is one of the Senators in charge of health care reform. If America is supposed to support democracy then we should first learn how to run one.