alstott's Blog

Enough about the Bush surveillance program

2009-07-11T21:08:40Z

Is it important? Yes it is. However these disclosures yesterday are old news. For example Spencer Ackerman's "big scoop" that the surveillance program was useless was written about in the NY Times 3 1/2 years ago. (see link below).

What I want to see is an investigation and criminal charges brought. Wringing your hands and complaining that Bush was a naughty boy is pointless. What scares me more is that I see Obama wanting to do absolutely nothing. And it is not because he has enough on his plate.

All indications is that Obama wants to preserve the prerogatives of executive power even if he does not exercise all the abuses committed in the Bush Administration. I am giving Obama the benefit of the doubt because I think Glenn Greenwald and Jonathan Turley make an excellent case that there is little difference between Bush and Obama on national security.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17spy.html?pagewanted=all&ex=12951540
00&en=f3247d208f184898&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

We'd chase a number, find it's a school teacher with no indication they've ever
been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former FBI
official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau.
"After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get
some frustration."

My favorite quote was this:

In response to the F.B.I. complaints, N.S.A. eventually began ranking its tips
on a three-point scale, with 3 being the highest priority and 1 the lowest, the
officials said. Some tips were considered so hot that they were carried by hand
to top F.B.I. officials. But in bureau field offices, the N.S.A. material
continued to be viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new
bunch of tips meant more "calls to Pizza Hut," one official, who supervised
field agents, said.

The Ballad of the Wasilla Hillbillies

2008-11-05T23:01:20Z

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581/page/1

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family--clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: "Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin."

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

__________________________________________________ ________

The Ballad of the Wasilla Hillbillies

Come and listen to a story about a husband and wife named Sarah and Todd
Sarah was a Governor while her first dude husband was a little odd
Then one day she was shooting at a moose
And up through the lower 48 came a visit from some bumbling fools

Be our VP they said, VISA gold, RNC paid shopping spree

Well the first thing you know Sarah's dressing with some flair
Kinfolk said "Sarah move away from there"
Said "Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue is the place you ought to be"
So they loaded up in the McCain's jet and flew across the country

150K shopping sprees, clothes for first dude, TV stars, Tina Fey

Well now its time to say good bye to Sarah and Todd and all their kin.
And they would like to thank the RNC folks fer kindly shopping for them
They all invited back again to this locality
To give us a credit line limit worthy of our celebrity

Wasilla Hillybilly that is. Set a spell, Take your shoes off.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?.

The real meaning behind Uncle Barney Frank comments of Palin

2008-10-27T01:38:43Z

This is a question that Josh Marshall asked at the main TPM web site.

First, the idea that government is working as a nanny state making all our decisions. This is a standard conservative argument. I do not have a problem with it. Here is an excerpt of what Palin said yesterday about "Uncle Barmey Frank" yesterday

http://gretawire.foxnews.com/2008/10/25/governor-palin-talking-about-congressman-barney-frank-and-the-wardrobe-controversy/

That philosophy of government taking more, which is a misuse of the power to tax. It leads to government moving into the role of taking care of you and government and politicians and kind of moving in as the other half of your family to make decisions for you. Now they do this in other countries where the people are not free. Government as part of the family, taking care of us, making decisions for us. I don't know what to think of having in my family Uncle Barney Frank or others to make decisions for me. I and John McCain tend to want to trust the American people with their income, their businesses, their things. With a pro-tax, bigger government mentality, and that's what you would get if we had unchecked powers there in congress and the white house, if liberal leaning, bigger government persons were in charge of the house, the senate and heaven forbid the white house too.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Uncle Barney Frank rhetoric works on a subtle and more disgusting level.

Barney Frank is a high profile Gay Democratic Congressman. In cases of child molesting, the term funny uncle is a derogatory term for a family member who molests children. Conservatives believes gays are predatory child molesters and what better way to make that point than to make gay Congressman Barney Frank the uncle. That is why you do not hear Aunt Nancy Pelosi or Uncle Harry Reid. They are not gay and the dog whistle politics of Democrats as child molesters would not work.

That is why it is Uncle Barney Frank. It is an added bonus that Frank was a major part of the bailout plan. You can keep it as a nanny state reference to the national media while using the funny uncle subtext of gays as child molesters to appeal to the homophobic GOP base. It is the same as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad references that was a dog whistle toward the Southern base that Obama likes young blonde white women while claiming to the national media it was about Obama being a celebrity.

The absurd lie that even a 11 year old can see through

2008-09-06T12:57:50Z

In the Pink Panther movies, Inspector Clouseau would fall down or spill something and try to hide it by saying I meant to do that. The one I remember the most is he spilled a box of rice as he was trying to open his apartment door. As his neighbor looks at him with contempt, he starts dancing on the rice as though he spilled it deliberately so he could dance on it!! The Walter Reed Middle School flap is one of those Inspector Clouseau moments.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-walterreed6-2008sep06,0,6691654.story Sixth-grader Joshua Popue offered the explanation most commonly being floated Friday both at the Irvine Avenue campus and in political circles: Somebody in the McCain campaign mistook Walter Reed Middle School for the military's troubled Walter Reed Army Medical Center when preparing the Republicans' high-tech video background wall.

"McCain messed up. He was talking about Walter Reed hospital, and he used our picture by mistake," said 11-year-old Joshua. Yet that is not what the McCain campaign spokesman is claiming.
By late afternoon, McCain's campaign was characterizing the use of the picture as a way of illustrating the candidate's call "for public education reforms that empower parents and students before bureaucrats and labor unions," as spokesman Tucker Bounds put it.

But Tamar Galatzan, who represents the North Hollywood area on the Los Angeles Board of Education, was having none of that. She said she was "flattered that Sen. McCain chose to use a school from my district as backdrop to his remarks" but that more federal resources for education seems "not a priority for the McCain/Palin ticket." ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ If the Obama campaign or the media does not rip him apart for this absurd lie, they all need to quit their jobs.

The absurd lie that even a 11 year old can see through

2008-09-06T12:52:21Z

The Five stages of Grief about Maliki's Der Spiegel

2008-07-23T00:17:56Z

I posted this a couple of days ago on another board. When I saw David Kurtz reference to the stages of grief and Maliki, I thought it was a good time to repeat the post.

The 5 stages of grief over the Der Spiegel interview with Maliki by the McCain campaign.

The stages are:

Denial:
Example - It has to be mis-translated. Maliki never said that.

Anger:
Example -We're fucked. Have Bush get that SOB Maliki on the line and make him take that statement back.

Bargaining:
Examples - "Can't you say Maliki was misquoted or a bad translation? How about we argue this would not have possible without the surge? Who cares what Iraqis think?

Depression:
Example - We're fucked. Shrug shoulders and shake your head sadly.

Acceptance:
Example - OK, move on to the next issue. Let's talk about Obama being a Muslim.

Another McCain bamboozlement

2008-07-14T03:40:42Z

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=771909

Yet it was the McCain campaign threw out a 61 year old librarian who showed up at a town hall meeting.

The McCain town halls are as scripted as the Bush town halls but they are not always as good as tossing out the
few dissidents who manage to sneak in or occasionally a "helpful" surrogate like Carly Fiorina or Phil Gramm gets McCain in hot water.

His real bamboozlement is the Bush third term criticism. He mentions that he opposed the Bush tax cuts because he did not see a restraint on spending (without mentioning he now supports them which is noted by the Journal Sentinel). Does any one remember Bush or McCain supporting new restraints on spending that makes up for the cost of extending the tax cuts.? Earmarks are a tiny fraction of the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts.

He lists the immigration reform bill as an example of his political courage of takng on his party without mentioning that he would have voted against his own bill. Of course he was trying to appeal to that same base he wanted to take on and show his "independence."

The article from the JS online is typical of the fawning treatment that McCain gets from the media. The most negative part of the article occurs in a side bar how McCain changed his POW story from naming his men after Packer players in his memoirs to Steeler players while campaigning in Pennsylvania. It was kind of bad luck for McCain to be in Wisconsin and Green Bay Packer country immediately after his Pittsburgh gaffe.

If it was not for that side bar, this article could have been written by a McCain campaign staffer.