A Dollar Chasing a Nickle

From Thinkprogress,

Verification measures aren’t always effective either. A House Oversight Committee investigation “reviewed six state Medicaid programs in 2007 and concluded that verification rules had cost the federal government an additional $8.3 million. They caught exactly eight illegal immigrants.” The Government Accountability Office has found that such requirements caused eligible U.S. citizens to lose Medicaid coverage.

They Said the Same Thing

Why was it necessary for Barack Obama to say that the United States does not torture when George Bush has already said the very same thing? And why is it that at least for now people are willing to trust what Obama says?

You Know It’s Bad When

You know it is bad when Ted Stevens wont even vote for himself this election.

Although he can still run for the Senate, as a convicted felon he can’t vote.

Rep. Roy Blunt, Living Wage

One of the most certain things in the upcoming election is that Roy Blunt will be re-elected. That comes as no surprise to anyone who lives in this corner of Missouri. Down home here Blunt certainly is preaching to the choir with his election adds. He tells us he is for a living wage. I guess he is as long as that living wage is $5.15 per hour or less because he sure as hell did not support increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour. Five dollars and 15 cents per hour. Now that is a living wage.

Duh!, Tell Me It Ain’t So

Even after 4 years it seems the Bush Administration has not been able to think themselves out of this most simple of conundrums.

A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Tuesday to immediately free 17 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay into the United States, rebuking the government in a landmark decision that could set the stage for the release of dozens other prisoners in Cuba.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said it would be wrong for the government to continue holding the detainees, known as Uighurs (WEE’-gurz), who have been jailed for nearly seven years, since they are no longer considered enemy combatants. Over the objections of government lawyers who called them a security risk, Urbina ordered their release in Washington D.C. by Friday.
“Because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detentions without cause, the continued detention is unlawful,” Urbina said in a ruling that brought cheers and applause from a standing-room only courtroom filled with dozens of Uighurs and human rights activists.

The Impeachment Hearings

Most Americans probably are not aware the House Judiciary committee is holding fake impeachement hearings. If ever the House Democratic leadership had a bad idea this is it. They (we) are going to jawbone about all of the bad things the Bush administration has been and is doing but not do a damn thing about it. There will be no vote to impeach the President or anyone else. If ever there was an attempt to showcase the weakness of the majority party in Congress this is it. It is like going out and telling the world my dad ass rapes me every night and then at the end of the day going back home to sleep in the same house with the same old man you had before you made your announcement to the world only to be ass raped again. How pathetic! And this is the party that wants us to put them in the lead once more?

What Would Happen?

What if we had a president who could not admit a mistake, ever? And what if he made mistakes fairly often?

Republican John McCain pushed back on Wednesday against Democratic criticism that he misstated when the troop buildup ordered by President Bush began, saying elements were put in place before Bush announced the strategy in early 2007…. At issue are McCain’s comments in a Tuesday interview with CBS. The Arizona senator disputed Democrat Barack Obama’s contention that a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida combined with the dispatch of thousands more U.S. combat troops to Iraq to produce the improved security situation there. McCain called that a “false depiction.”

In essence, John McCain has the cart before the horse in stating that the surge was what brought about the Anbar Awakening. And yet the history of this happening are so easy to research.

Do we really need another George Bush for the next four years who cannot admit when he makes a mistake? Oh and don’t miss CBS’s badge of dishonor in all this mess.

It was the proto-blogger Spencer Ackerman who, yesterday evening, first identified McCain’s error. The Colonel MacFarland to whom McCain referred in the Couric interview “is now a one-star general, and his name is Sean MacFarland,” Ackerman writes. “He was commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, based in Ramadi in 2006 and early 2007 and is a key figure in embracing the Anbar Awakening before it even had that name.”

Ackerman goes on to quote MacFarland’s explanation of the surge, which he gave in a press conference to Pam Hess, then of UPI, on September 29, 2006—which was, Ackerman notes, “at least two months before Bush decided upon the surge, and about three before he announced it to the public”:

With respect to the violence between the Sunnis and the al Qaeda—actually, I would disagree with the assessment that the al Qaeda have the upper hand. That was true earlier this year when some of the sheikhs began to step forward and some of the insurgent groups began to fight against al Qaeda. The insurgent groups, the nationalist groups, were pretty well beaten by al Qaeda.

This is a different phenomena [sic] that’s going on right now. I think that it’s not so much the insurgent groups that are fighting al Qaeda, it’s the—well, it used to be the fence-sitters, the tribal leaders, are stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, and it’s had a very different result. I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they’re finding themselves trapped between the coalition and ISF on the one side, and the people on the other.
“For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge,” Ackerman concludes, “is either a lie or professional malpractice for a presidential candidate who is staking his election on his allegedly superior Iraq judgment.”

Truer Words

All kinds of people are offering Senator Obama advice on how to win the election. One pundit offered a countrified homily, to “dance with the one who brung him”. This is in reference to stay true to the activists who have supported him to victory in the primaries. Others have offered the sage advice that once you have won the primaries the wise course of action is to moderate the tone of your campaign to attract more of those in the middle. And then after having stated that he would re-evaluate his position on withdrawing troops from Iraq once he has made the trip over there had the Republicans screaming that he was flip-flopping. (If ever the pot was calling the kettle black, no pun intended.) One of McCain’s surrogates had the balls to advise Obama that words have consequences. I guess that is true unless you are McCain and the press just gives you a free pass on damn near anything you say. What’s a candidate to do?
Probably the best advice I have seen to date is what I read just this evening from the Washington Post’s Peter Beinart, “As Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin have noted, the Democrats’ biggest political liability is not that Americans believe they are too liberal but rather that they believe that Democrats don’t stand for anything at all.” Most certainly Obama’s equivocation on FISA does nothing to tell the voters he stands for certain principles. That does not mean Obama can not change any of the positions he has taken but it does mean that he can not change them without some changed external condition giving rise to his change of position. Anything less than that and he will lose not only the middle but those as well who “brung him.”

Letter to Senator McCaskill

Dear Senator McCaskill,

I voted for you in 2006 and glad to see you win over Jim Talent. I voted for you, a Democrat, because I thought it was time for a change from the big business interests represented by the Republicans. I believe the coming showdown over the FISA immunity of the the big telecoms will be a time where true blue Democrats can show they hold our Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees to be of key importance. In the past, unfortunately, Democrats have not shown the discipline of the Republicans. Republicans repeatedly were on the wrong side of issues and still held together. Now is the opportunity for Democrats to be on the right side of the issue. My bet is that like in the past the caucus will be divided. Your vote on this issue will be one I will not forget when it comes time for your re-election.

Sincerely,

RichMc

My Email to Obama Today

Up to this point I am committed to voting for Sen. Obama in November.
One issue that is of great concern to me is defense of our Constitution. These past 7 years have threatened more than just a few of our constitutional guarantees. FISA is currently before the Senate. It is my sincere hope Senator Obama does the right thing and helps to prevent passage of amnesty for those who broke the law.
In the past month Republicans have shown what a united caucus can achieve. I hope Senator Obama can demonstrate the same holds true for Democrats. From all indications Republicans seem to able to unite for all the wrong reasons whlie Democrats can’t even get behind the right ones. If that remains to be the case what difference will it make to put a majority of Democrats in power this fall?