white house

Did We Forget About Executive Privilege?

I keep thinking back to the Bush years and every time someone in Congress wanted someone from the Bush administration to testify the Republicans would give cover to Bush by arguing about “executive privilege”. At that time so many of us on the left kept thinking “I wonder if they will do the same when we have a Democrat in the White House”. Well now we know:

Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, joined Sanchez in demanding Rogers' testimony on Friday, a day after Secret Service director Mark Sullivan took responsibility for the incident in an appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee.

Peter King was one of those that constantly helped Bush with cover from congressional testimonies. Apparently to King the White House should only be exempt if a Republican is in it. Forget what the actual issue is, because he sure didn’t want Bush officials to testify when it was about Walter Reed or the failing wars. Those issues are no where as important as someone showing up uninvited at the White House.

Media

OMG Bloggers In The White House Press Pool

Look at what they are doing to poor Helen!

I just love how the press is so outraged by this story.

Politics

Salahis Refuse To Testify Before Congress And May Now Be Subpoenaed

NPR:

"The Salahis' testimony is important to explain how a couple circumvented layers of security at the White House on the evening of a state dinner without causing alarm," Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee chairman, said in a statement released by his committee last night. "If the Salahis are absent from tomorrow's hearing, the committee is prepared to move forward with subpoenas to compel their appearance."

Subpoena? Please. What Thompson should do is simply revoke the invitation of the Salahis to testify, then they will show up….er “crash” the hearing.

Let’s Talk About Those White House Party Crashers

The story of the White House party crashers is apparently the only thing that has happened over the extended weekend if you listen to MSNBC, so let me take a moment and bring up my thoughts.

There is a lot of finger pointing going on with this. Some are blaming the Secret Service, while others point the finger at the White House. The latter is completly obscene, but if the right wants to travel that path then let’s remind them of a man who posed as a reporter for a fake publication and sat in the White House press briefing room for a couple of years under Bush. Jeff Gannon not only sat in the briefing room, but also was in attendance when countless foreign leaders were visiting. Security at these events are much more relaxed than they are during a state dinner.

But I really want to focus on the Secret Service. Yes there was an apparent failure here, but what caused that failure? People seem to be ignoring the fact that President Obama has received more threats than any other president, so the Secret Service is stretched thin trying to keep the President safe as it is. The fact that Obama has been such a big target of threats has become a laughing issue for the right, which it is not. It’s a very serious issue, and one that the Secret Service takes very seriously. Perhaps it’s time to increase the size of the Secret Service.

Then there is the issue of what to do with the couple. Many are calling for criminal charges. I’m sure prosecutors can find something to charge the couple with, but will it stick? The most I can think of charging them with is trespassing and that is a rather minor crime. Instead of being out for blood we should be looking for solutions, like not allowing this to happen again.

Scarborough Going After Media For Covering Non-Stories

While going on about Tiger Woods again this morning, Joe Scarborough started defending Woods from the onslaught of media coverage and said it reminded him of balloon boy. What’s interesting is that this is happening on the very morning when Scarborough could only take 10 seconds to talk about the slaying of the Washington police officers by a man released from prison by Mike Huckabee. Instead of talking about this big story, Scarborough has decided to talk about the White House party crashers and Tiger Woods.

Exit question – How much longer before MSNBC cuts their losses with the major ratings bomb that is Morning Joe? All they cover is fluff pieces.

I Guess MSNBC Doesn’t Cover News?

I’ve been watching Morning Joe for over an hour and they didn’t mention the killing of the Washington State cops or Huckabee’s involvement. They talked about Huckabee being the front runner in the GOP polls for 2012 and him maybe not running, but it wasn’t until guest Donnie Deutsch mentioned the case that Scarborough could bring himself to talk about it for 10 seconds. I guess they can’t be bothered to talk about one of the biggest stories in the nation now.

Adding….They are getting ready to cover the White House party crashers again, after spending about 30 minutes last hour on it. No wonder Morning Joe is the worse rated morning show on TV.

Dobbs In 12?

Greg Sargent is reporting that Lou Dobbs is weighing a run for the White House in 2012. To this we should give thanks this week. Now that will be a fun campaign to watch explode.

Can’t Blame Them For Ever

Image via Wikipedia

We knew that it was only a matter of time before the public shifted the blame of the economic mess from Republicans to Democrats and that time has come:

Nearly two years into the recession, opinion about which political party is responsible for the severe economic downturn is shifting, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday morning indicates that 38 percent of the public blames Republicans for the country's current economic problems. That's down 15 points from May, when 53 percent blamed the GOP. According to the poll 27 percent now blame the Democrats for the recession, up 6 points from May. Twenty-seven percent now say both parties are responsible for the economic mess.

The problem is that America isn’t seeing any improvement in the economy. Sure Congress and the White House can point to Wall Street, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing to the average citizen, who is out of work. It’s the common disconnect that occurs between Washington and Main Street USA.

The White House Breaks Their Silence On The Move To Drupal

Image via Wikipedia

Last month the White House, under the direct instructions of President Obama, scrapped the old, expensive system the White House’s website ran on and moved towards the freely available open source platform Drupal, which also powers this site. In a Drupal meet up in D.C. last night, the White House tech team broke their silence on the move:

The biggest news from the night was a few announcements about the White House's plans for engaging with open source development communities. Dave Cole, the White House Deputy Director for Technology, said that the White House New Media team has been working with the White House legal council to figure out how to participate and contribute code back into the Drupal community. They can't promise a timeline for when that'll happen since it's pretty unprecedented for the Executive Branch to be participating in an open source project and to be directly engaging the Drupal community.

Tis’ The Season – 1 In 6 Americans Going Hungry

Statistics like this in the richest nation on the planet are totally unacceptable:

The number of Americans that have trouble putting food on the table shot up last year in an unprecedented spike to a record 17 million households, the government reported on Monday.

The Department of Agriculture report, which has been released annually since 1995, said the number of Americans that were hungry rose to 14.6%. In 2007, 13 million households or 11.1% of Americans had trouble getting enough food.

The one-year jump is all the more significant, given the number of hungry Americans had never been higher than 11.9% since these surveys began.

And what do we hear from our leaders on statistics like this? Nothing but crickets. I’m not going to single out one party or another here, as the issue of hunger is non-partisan. Instead the deafening silence from Congress and the White House as a whole should be considered a crime. All they seem to worry about is their buddies on Wall Street, while turning a blind eye to the American people. Again – that is a crime.

Pro-Life, Anti-Stupak

Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), one of the pro-life Democrats, is dropping hints that he will oppose the Stupak amendment in the health care bill:

Senator Casey has been a vocal supporter of health care reform and voted for the HELP Committee bill in July. He supports the public option to increase competition and reduce costs. And he is offering amendments to improve health care for children. Senator Casey thinks that health care reform should not be used to change longstanding policies regarding federal financing of abortion which has been in place since 1976.

He continues to work with his colleagues in the Senate and with the White House to ensure that the Senate health care reform bill protects existing federal and state conscience protections, existing state abortion laws and contains strong language to prohibit federal funds from being used to fund abortions. He voted for amendments in the HELP Committee that would maintain neutrality on abortion. Until Senate bill language is released it is premature to discuss next steps.

Hopefully Casey has opened the door for other pro-life members of Congress to give opposition to the Stupak amendment.

Hoekstra Accuses White House Of “Hiding” Information On Ft. Hood

Wow it didn’t even take a week for this to happen:

The ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee on Tuesday night accused the White House of withholding information on the Fort Hood attack.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) said administration officials delayed briefing members of Congress about the alleged gunman, raising "red flags" about what the White House was hiding.

"When they withhold information, you always start asking questions," Hoekstra told Fox News. "That's what raises red flags. What do they know that they don't want us to know?"

Maybe we should all take some time and tell Hoekstra that the politicizing of the horror that happened at Ft. Hood won’t be tolerated.

[congress]H000676[/congress]

10.2%

More bad economic news for the real people of America – the workers:

The unemployment rate in the U.S. soared to a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October and employers cut more jobs than forecast, underscoring why Federal Reserve policy makers say interest rates will remain low until the labor market recovers.

Payrolls fell by 190,000 workers last month, compared with a 175,000 drop anticipated by the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The jobless rate gained from 9.8 percent in September and exceeded 10 percent for the first time since 1983.

Just because Wall Street is making money again doesn’t mean that Main Street is. It’s time for the White House to focus on regular America instead of the elites. If these numbers don’t turn around soon then Democrats can kiss it good bye next year.

The Real Lessons Of Last Night

As I mentioned earlier, a major contributing factor to the huge loss Creigh Deeds suffered last night was from the fact that he ended up running against the Democratic agenda. Markos gives some needed warning to the Democrats on what happened last night:

Giving Republicans cover by stymying the reform agenda that won Democrats the 2006 and 2008 elections won't win them any conservative votes. In a base election, and 2010 will certainly be one, the party that better rallies its base will win. And abandoning the promises that got Democrats elected is a sure fire way to make sure that the activist base stays home and refuses to do the heavy lifting every campaign needs to win, and makes sure that less committed Democrats say "fuck it" and stay home on election night.

This is exactly what the Democrats have been doing this year, and healthcare is a shining example. Instead of starting out with a package that the left would have loved, something like universal coverage, the Democrats immediately started bowing to the Republicans and making healthcare less liberal. That was before the rightwing attacks could even start. Once they did then Democrats took even more out of the reform.

Fox Lied About Their “Ratings Soar”

During the entire White House/Fox News feud FOX decided to bolster about their “soaring ratings”. This meme was then picked up by a lot of talking heads in the mainstream media. Media Matters decided to go to the data and see exactly what “soar” meant to FOX:

No matter how many times reporters and pundits made the claim, a detailed analysis of Nielsen ratings numbers clearly indicates that in the two weeks after the White House in mid-October sparked a media controversy by claiming Rupert Murdoch's channel was not a legitimate news organization, Fox News' ratings did not soar or go "through the roof." In fact, not only did Fox News' overall ratings not soar, they experienced no significant increase at all. Instead, in the two weeks following the initial verbal jousts with the White House, Fox News' total day ratings virtually flatlined.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words (and something that most FOX viewers are only able to comprehend), here’s a nice graph:

Soar or spiked seems like a very big over-exaggeration. I doubt you can even call that a bump. Instead FOX really gained nothing from the war.