Jeb Bush: ‘I don’t know’ if Obama is a socialist.
Jeb Bush: ‘I don’t know’ if Obama is a socialist.
When asked by Tucker Carlson in an interview for Esquire magazine if he considered President Obama a socialist, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) said, “I don’t know. Define socialism for me.” But then, after calling Obama a “collectivist” — a common synonym for socialist or communist — Bush said the he believed the word “‘socialism’ was a pejorative, and ‘didn’t help’ the GOP make its case.” Bush said further that he didn’t think that Obama would have been elected had he “been honest with Americans about his agenda”:
Bush would not answer the question of whether he agreed with the assessment of some congressional Republicans that the president is a socialist. “I don’t know. Define socialism for me,” he told Esquire magazine. “It’s a word… I believe he’s a collectivist. He believes that through collective action, through government, you can solve more problems.” He added that he believed the word “socialism” was a pejorative, and “didn’t help” the GOP make its case. [...]
“….He made it appear like McCain was going to raise taxes, which was unfair, but there was no response back. When there was an ideological component, it was generally centrist or even center-right. Had he said what he was going to do as a candidate, (Obama) would have lost.”
Bush’s response appears to follow the lead of other prominent Republicans, like his brother former President Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). In May, the former president declared that “the verdict is out” on whether Obama’s a socialist. And while RNC Chairman Michael Steele has refrained from labeling Obama a socialist, he — like Jeb — said that he viewed Obama as a “collectivist.”
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Palin’s key reason for resigning was inflated.
Palin’s key reason for resigning was inflated.
One of the main reasons Sarah Palin cited for her resignation as Alaska’s governor was frustration with “frivolous ethics violations.” She said that she didn’t want to waste “valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars” go toward responding to the charges. Palin’s office provided the Anchorage Daily News “with a breakdown of what it says are $1.9 million in costs.” However, it appears that these costs may be inflated. Most of the $1.9 million is a “per-hour accounting” of the time that state employees have spent working on the charges, even though those “state employees would have been paid regardless.” Greg Sargent notes:
But [David] Murrow, the [governor's] spokesperson, acknowledged to our reporter, Amanda Erickson, that this total was arrived at by adding up attorney hours spent on fending off complaints — based on the fixed salaries of lawyers in the governor’s office and the Department of Law. The money would have gone to the lawyers no matter what they were doing. The complaints are “just distracting them from other duties,” Murrow said.
In other words, while these lawyers might have been free to do other legal work for the state, the ethics complaints have apparently not had the real world impact Palin has claimed, and didn’t drain money away from cops, teachers, roads and other things.
Torture By Mexican Government In Drug War Highlights U.S. Loss of Credibility On Human Rights
Torture By Mexican Government In Drug War Highlights U.S. Loss of Credibility On Human Rights
The Washington Post reports today that the Mexican government has employed numerous torture techniques to extract confessions from suspected drug traffickers. The techniques included beatings, suffocation with plastic bags, electric shocks, the insertion of needles under suspects’ finger nails, water torture, and other abuses.
Under what’s known as the Mérida Initiative, the U.S. government agreed in 2007 to provide Mexico with $1.4 billion in funding to fight the war on drugs, but 15 percent (or $90.7 million) of the original funding and $24 million authorized under the Obama administration will be released only after the “secretary of state reports that Mexico has made progress on human rights.”
The reports of torture put that money’s release in jeopardy. As a result, Mexican human rights workers are accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy when it comes to human rights abuses, citing the mistreatment of suspected terrorists under President Bush. The Post explains:
Many Mexican human rights activists do not support the [human rights] conditions, noting that they were imposed by a U.S government widely accused of torturing prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“It really takes a lot of cynicism, a lot of hypocrisy, for the United States to say, ‘We will give you money to fight drug trafficking as long as you respect human rights,’” said José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, director of the Acapulco office of the Collective Against Torture and Impunity, which documents abuses in Guerrero.
The accusations of hypocrisy highlight one of the hard-to-quantify costs of the Bush administration’s use of torture against suspected terrorists to extract unreliable intelligence: the loss of credibility as a champion of human rights. In recent months and years, in fact, a growing number of nations have rejected calls from the U.S. to end human rights abuses, citing the Bush administration’s actions:
China: In response to the State Department’s annual human rights report critical of the Chinese government, a government spokesman said the report “exposed the double standards and downright hypocrisy of the United States on the human rights issue, and inevitably impaired its international image.” [3/12/2008]
Iran: The L.A. Times reported on Iran’s latest response to the State Department’s latest human rights report, writing, “Iranian officials regularly accuse the West of hypocrisy in zeroing in on Iran’s human rights record, citing prisoner abuse allegations in the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay. [3/11/09]
Russia: In response to criticism from former Vice President Dick Cheney regarding Russia’s human rights abuses, then-Russian President Vladimir Putin asked, “Where is all this pathos about protecting human rights and democracy when it comes to the need to pursue their own interests?” [5/11/06. Similar remarks: 3/27/08]
Venezuela: The Venezuelan government responded to a recent State Department report on Human Trafficking, saying, “It is scandalous that a country…where torture has been practiced and terrorists are protected, pretends to prop itself up as a judge of human rights in the world.” [6/19/09]
As Matt Yglesias recently explained, the abuses that go on in Iran, China, North Korea, and other nations are perpetrated on a much wider scale and have gone on far longer than those that occurred in U.S. detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba. But the fact remains that “whenever you read about these kind of techniques being applied in Iran or North Korea, it’s immediately apparent to everyone that it’s torture, it’s cruel, it’s inhumane, and it’s wrong.” Indeed, it was immediately apparent to the world that the U.S. abuses were torture as well. Now, Obama must work to rebuild the credibility that his predecessor squandered.
Rep. Murphy: Opponents of DADT repeal would support it if not for a politically ‘tough district.’
Rep. Murphy: Opponents of DADT repeal would support it if not for a politically ‘tough district.’
Yesterday at the National Press Club, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), an Iraq war veteran, launched a campaign to persuade Congress to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy barring gay men and women from serving openly in the U.S. military. “We cannot afford to wait any longer,” Murphy said. “Now is the time to change this, when our military is stretched so thin.” Last night on MSNBC, host Rachel Maddow asked Murphy if opponents of the repeal in Congress “make good arguments…about the merits of the policy.” “I think that would be a stretch, to be honest with you,” said Murphy, who added that there are many members who say they would support the repeal but won’t because they represent a “tough district”:
MURPHY: I think, you know, sometimes, it’s frankly disheartening. I’ve only been here for 2 1/2 years, but sometimes they give the excuse of, “I can’t do it in my district. I’m in a tough district.” And that’s Republicans and Democrats. They’d be like, “Murph, I would love to be with you.”
“There are members on both sides of the aisle that say, ‘Patrick, I’ll vote for it. I just can’t cosponsor it,’” Murphy later said. Watch it:
King’s New Rationale For Voting Against Slave Labor Resolution: It Wasn’t ‘A Balanced Depiction Of History’
King’s New Rationale For Voting Against Slave Labor Resolution: It Wasn’t ‘A Balanced Depiction Of History’
Yesterday, a number of blogs reported that right-wing Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was the lone dissenter on a House vote to acknowledge the role that slave labor had in constructing the U.S. Capitol. The resolution would merely authorize the placement of a marker inside the new Capitol Visitor Center to acknowledge the work of slaves.
In an attempt to quell the criticism, King spun his vote as an effort to defend religion. He said in a statement that he opposed the slave labor resolution because it was put up for a vote before the depiction of “In God We Trust” could be considered in the Visitor Center.
But in an interview with Radio Iowa yesterday, King offered a new explanation for his vote, complaining that the slave labor resolution wasn’t a “balanced depiction of history”:
KING: I would just add that there were about 645,000 slaves that were brought to the United States. And I’m with Martin Luther King, Jr. on this. His documents, his speeches – I’ve read most of them. And I agree with almost every word that came out of him. Slavery was abhorrent, but it was also a fact of life in those centuries where it existed.
And of the 645,000 Africans that were brought here to be forcibly put into slavery in the United States, there were over 600,000 people that gave their lives in the Civil War to put an end to slavery. And I don’t see the monument to that in the Congressional Visitor Center, and I think it’s important that we have a balanced depiction of history.
Listen here (full interview available here):
The Capitol Visitor Center is simply trying to recognize the work of those who built the Capitol. But King is apparently concerned that slaves are being unduly recognized while Union soldiers who fought for their emancipation are not getting any credit. He simply needs to open his eyes and look around Washington, DC. If he steps right outside the Capitol, he’ll see the Ulysses S. Grant memorial, a monument that commemorates the former general of the Union Army. (See picture to the right.)
Grant’s statue is flanked on either side by monuments of fighting Union Artillery and Cavalry groups. The Grant statue faces west toward the Lincoln Memorial, which of course honors the President who led the effort to free the slaves. In addition, at the Congressional Cemetery lies the Arsenal Monument, a memorial in honor of women who died while performing services for the Union Army. And there’s also an African American Civil War Memorial that honors the contributions that African-American troops made to the war effort.
If Steve King wants to learn more about how DC has honored the contributions of Union soldiers, he can order this book, titled: “Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments In Washington, D.C.” And if King’s truly interested in a “balanced depiction of history,” he’d be supporting a simple acknowledgment of slave labor’s role in building the Capitol, a memorial that doesn’t currently exist in DC.
Steele dismisses Palin as ‘old school’: ‘That’s not the generation of candidates I’m trying to groom.’ (Updated)
Steele dismisses Palin as ‘old school’: ‘That’s not the generation of candidates I’m trying to groom.’ (Updated)
RNC Chairman Michael Steele has been sending mixed messages on Sarah Palin in recent days. On Tuesday, he said that he believed 2012 was “off the table” for Palin. He then backtracked and said he meant that talking about 2012 was off the table, adding that he welcomed Palin’s presence. But yesterday at a state GOP event in Indiana, Steele summarily dismissed not only Palin, but also Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) and Sen. John Ensign (R-NV):
Steele on Wednesday brushed off the recent incidents as “old news, old school.”
“That’s not the generation of candidates I’m trying to groom, he said.
Steele said the party needs to get back to its small-government roots. Daniels and fellow governors Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana are great examples, he said.
“These guys are the laboratories for the ideas we believe in,” Steele said.
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, told Newsmax that Palin has to stop complaining. “You’ve got to recognize that there are people who want you to fail,” he said. “And if you spend your time worrying about them, or whining about what they say, at the very least it’ll get you off your game.”
‘Paranoid’ Netanyahu calls David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel ‘self-hating Jews.’
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports today on the “atmosphere of permanent crisis” surrounding the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the report, a handful of Netanyahu’s top aides “dislike each other: They are constantly badmouthing each other and blaming each other for leaks.” One aide even revealed that Netanyahu attacked President Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior advisor David Axelrod as “self-hating Jews”:
Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communicat[e] normally with the White House. To appreciate the depth of his paranoia, it is enough to hear how he refers to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Obama’s senior aides: as “self-hating Jews.”
An aide also said that Netanyahu thought that his recent speech tacitly endorsing a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict (an endorsement that came with enormous caveats) “would become mandatory reading at schools in the United States, and when he realized that Obama gave no such order, he went back to being frustrated.” Matt Yglesias notes that Emanuel, who has taken a leading role in the Obama administration in pushing the two-state solution, has frustrated many in the right-wing American Jewish community for being too “tough” on the Israelis.
ThinkFast: July 9, 2009
ThinkFast: July 9, 2009
“CIA Director Leon Panetta recently testified to Congress that the agency concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001, according to a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta made public Wednesday.” But the letter “contained no details about what information the CIA officials allegedly concealed, or how they purportedly misled members of Congress.”
“President Obama threatened to veto the pending Intelligence Authorization Bill if it included a provision that would allow information about covert actions to be given to the entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees, rather than the so-called Gang of Eight.” The White House claimed an expansion would undermine “a long tradition spanning decades of comity between the branches regarding intelligence matters.”
The state of Massachusetts sued the U.S government yesterday over the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, arguing that it “interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define and regulate marriage as it sees fit.” Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage.
As the G8 met yesterday, the “world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India” refused at a separate meeting to “commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050.” Instead, negotiators “embraced a goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and developing nations agreed to make ‘meaningful’ if unspecified reductions in emissions.”
Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and an occasional economic adviser to President Obama, said he thinks a second stimulus may be necessary. “I think that a second one may well be called for,” he told Good Morning America today. But, he added, “you hope it doesn’t get watered down in many ways.”
The Israel Project: Ending Settlements = ‘Ethnic Cleansing’
The Israel Project: Ending Settlements = ‘Ethnic Cleansing’
Columnist Douglas Bloomfield reports that The Israel Project (TIP) — a Washington- based group that describes itself as “devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace” — advocates accusing those who support removing illegal Israeli settlements of promoting “a kind of ethnic cleansing to move all Jews” from the West Bank.
Bloomfield obtained a copy of TIP’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, “a manual on how to talk to journalists and opinion molders about the Arab-Israeli conflict.” The manual states:
“The single toughest issue” to defend among Americans generally and American Jews in particular is settlements, says the manual, and “hostility towards them and towards Israeli policy that appears to encourage settlement activity.” [...]
Similarly, TIP says the “best argument” for settlements is this: Since Arabs citizens of Israel “enjoy equal rights,” telling Jews they can’t live in the Palestinian state “is a racist idea.”
As Bloomfield notes, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said recently that Jews who choose to live in the new state of Palestine “will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel.”
Last Thursday, TIP organized a press call with Israeli spokesman Mark Regev, who defended continued building in Israel settlements. Given the numerous Israeli administrative and security measures that function to divest Palestinians of their property and put it into the hands of Israeli settlers, TIP’s use of the term “ethnic cleansing” is patently ridiculous.
Mullen says U.S. troops will have ‘long-term relationship with Afghanistan.’
Mullen says U.S. troops will have ‘long-term relationship with Afghanistan.’
In response to a question about how long U.S. troops are expected to stay in Afghanistan, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said today that his “expectation is that we will have a long-term relationship with Afghanistan.” He emphasized that the “best number” he can offer right now is that we need to “turn the tide” against the Taliban in the next 12-18 months. Watch it:
Later in the press conference, Mullen said leaders in the region are “very wary” that the U.S. won’t make a long-term commitment to them. He explained that when he travels in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “the question that comes up either directly or indirectly is — are you staying this time or are you leaving?”
McCaskill: I’m Going To Make ‘My Friends On The Left Very Unhappy’ On Clean Energy Legislation
McCaskill: I’m Going To Make ‘My Friends On The Left Very Unhappy’ On Clean Energy Legislation
Last month, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which aims to transition America to a clean energy economy while combating climate change. After the bill’s passage, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) tweeted that she wanted to “fix” the bill’s cap on carbon pollution because it would “unfairly punish” Missouri’s families and businesses.
Appearing on a conservative Missouri radio show this morning, McCaskill reiterated her belief that the House bill will “hurt a state like Missouri that is so coal dependent.” Asked where she was “on the cap-and-trade,” McCaskill said that her position would make her “friends on the left very unhappy“:
MCCASKILL: Well, I’m going to make people, my friends on the left, very unhappy and I’m going to make those who don’t think global warming is real very unhappy because I’m probably going to be working with a group of moderates in the middle to try to come up with a bill that doesn’t punish coal-dependent states like Missouri. We’ve got to be very careful with what we do with this legislation.
McCaskill added that she wouldn’t “vote for the version ever that was voted on last year in the Senate” and that she doesn’t “think the version that passed the House will pass the Senate in the same shape,” so she’ll work to “craft it in a way that is very gradual.” Listen here:
As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson noted after McCaskill’s initial tweet, “the cap-and-trade system the House passed fully protects states now dependent on coal, with multi-billion-dollar programs for advanced coal technology.” In fact, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), an architect of the bill, told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on Monday that the House took the Senate’s regional concerns into consideration when they crafted the legislation:
WAXMAN: We tried to keep the Senate in mind and adopted a bill that eliminates some of the regional disparities and bad results. The Senate is particularly sensitive, when you have two senators per state, to what’s going to happen in their state. And that’s why we drafted a bill that is, wasn’t really partisan, but more bridging the regional differences and some of the partisan differences by making sure no country and no industry had to bear more of the burden and that the ratepayers, where ever they may be in this country, are protected from steep increases.
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), who represents a coal district and was very influential on the bill, is confident that the legislation doesn’t disproportionately harm coal. “My focus in the shaping of the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee was to keep electricity rates affordable and to enable utilities to continue using coal,” said Boucher. “Both of these goals have been achieved.”
Transcript: More »
25 Latino groups hit Sessions for racial attacks.
25 Latino groups hit Sessions for racial attacks.
Last week, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) claimed that Judge Sotomayor may not be fit for the Supreme Court because she served on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now known as “LatinoJustice PRLDEF”), a highly regarded civil rights organization. On Monday, a group of 25 leading Latino organizations, including the Hispanic National Bar Association, the National Council of La Raza, and the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to Sessions slamming his questionable attacks on LatinoJustice PRLDEF:
LatinoJustice PRLDEF is a strong and vibrant institution and its work serves not only the Latino community, but the nation as a whole because it advances the basic American principles of equal opportunity and equal access to justice for all in our society. While we each have the right to disagree on specific issues, LatinoJustice PRLDEF’s body of work deserves our respect and yours. Attacks on Latino advocacy and civil rights organizations are not new – we have seen figures in the media mischaracterize and slander our good works, using provocative terms that fan the flames of ethnic animosity. We expect and are entitled to better from a sitting member of the United States Senate.
Sadly, however, Sessions has a long history of these kinds of attacks. Indeed, his own nomination to the federal bench was rejected by the Senate in 1986 because of Sessions’ record of bringing racially-motivated prosecutions, belittling African-American attorneys, and describing the NAACP as an “un-American” and “Communist-inspired” organization that “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” Twenty-three years later, Sessions hasn’t changed one bit.
First-Class Cornyn Offers Weak Defense Of His Exorbitant Travel Costs: Texas Is A Big State
First-Class Cornyn Offers Weak Defense Of His Exorbitant Travel Costs: Texas Is A Big State
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has tried to portray himself as an upstanding lawmaker dedicated to fiscal restraint. He has frequently criticized “wasteful spending” in the federal government and even called President Obama’s spending plans “reckless.”
Last month, Politico published a chart illustrating the transportation costs from the offices of all 100 U.S. Senators. Topping off the list was Cornyn, who has spent over $150,000 on travel costs during the first half of the 2009 fiscal year.
When a local ABC News affiliate in Dallas (WFAA) asked him about his expensive travel habits, Cornyn called Politico’s report “a cheap shot.” The reporter then asked the obvious follow-up, “In what sense was it a cheap shot? They were using the Secretary of the Senate information?” However, Cornyn wouldn’t budge and instead decided to dig in:
CORNYN: Oh yeah, not every state is the same. When you represent a state as big as Texas and traveling home from Washington D.C. every weekend, it unfortunately costs some money.
The “Texas is a big state” defense seems plausible on its face, but the same records Politico reported show that Texas’s other U.S. Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R), spent nearly 43 percent less on travel than Cornyn during the same period ($87,651).
Moreover, California Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who represent a state similar to Texas in size and population (and one that’s further away from Washington, DC), spent less than Cornyn on travel combined (Boxer $72,473; Feinstein $29,917; Total $102,390).
But also, WFAA reports that Cornyn and his staff spent more than $55,000 in taxpayer money on a three day retreat to St. Michaels, MD in February and that “a third of the costs, $17,353, was Cornyn’s alone”:
He was reimbursed for $7,750 in incidentals. The senator’s per diem, a daily allowance, was $5,226 for the three-day trip. For a 162-mile, round-trip journey from Washington, D.C., transportation to get the senator to Maryland cost taxpayers $4,377.66.
Referring to Cornyn’s defense, watchdog group Public Citizen’s Tom Smith said, “I agree senator. It is a big state, and most big cities where he’s spending most of his time have real good airline service. He should be flying coach with the rest of us.”
Cornyn said he does fly commercial but admitted that he also takes more expensive charter jets. When asked if he would “change anything” regarding his travel expenses, Cornyn replied, “No, I wouldn’t. I believe the travel I do is essential.”
Rep. Steve King only one to vote against recognizing slave labor’s construction of U.S. Capitol.
Rep. Steve King only one to vote against recognizing slave labor’s construction of U.S. Capitol.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was the only congressman to vote against a resolution yesterday that acknowledges the role that slaves played in the construction of the U.S. Capitol Building, reports Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post. According to the text of the resolution, which passed 399-1, its simple goal is to recognize those who constructed the Capitol with a marker:
“Whereas enslaved African-Americans performed the backbreaking work of quarrying the stone which comprised many of the floors, walls, and columns of the Capitol…
Whereas recognition of the contributions of enslaved African-Americans brings to all Americans an understanding of the continuing evolution of our representative democracy; and
Whereas a marker dedicated to the enslaved African-Americans who helped to build the Capitol will reflect the charge of the Capitol Visitor Center to teach visitors about Congress and its development…”
King has never been afraid to stand alone, particularly when it comes to his blatantly racist sentiments. He has referred to both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as “separatist groups” and immigrants as “livestock” who are waging a “slow-moving terrorist attack.” This past election season, he used Obama’s Kenyan heritage and middle name to proclaim that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if “Hussein Obama” won. In 2008, King also said that apologizing for slavery wasn’t about contrition, rather “White Americans wallowing in guilt.”
Last night I opposed yet another bill to erect another monument to slavery because it was used as a bargaining chip to allow for the actual depiction of 'In God We Trust' in the CVC. The Architect of the Capitol and liberal activists opposed every reference to America's Christian heritage, even to the extent of scrubbing 'In God We Trust' from the depiction of the actual Speaker's chair in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Issa removes partisan video from Republican Oversight Committee YouTube channel.
Issa removes partisan video from Republican Oversight Committee YouTube channel.
As ThinkProgress reported earlier today, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) posted a video of an RNC event on the official YouTube channel of the Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The political nature of the video appeared to make its publication on the committee’s official channel a violation of House rules. Now, just two hours after our post, the video is gone — replaced with an error message reading, “This video has been removed by the user.” A screen shot of the original video:
The Oversight Committee’s minority press office has not yet responded requests for comment from ThinkProgress.
Bank Lobbyist’s Freudian Slip: ‘We’re Not For Any Regulation’
Bank Lobbyist’s Freudian Slip: ‘We’re Not For Any Regulation’
Today, Scott Talbott, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at The Financial Services Roundtable (one of the financial services industry’s main lobbying arms) appeared on C-Span to discuss the Obama administration’s proposal to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The Roundtable has already made its opposition to the new agency abundantly clear, while claiming there are other ways to enhance financial regulations. However, when asked what the Roundtable would support, Talbott slipped and said “we’re not for any regulation“:
HOST: So if not this process by the administration, the creation of the CFPA, how would the Financial Services Roundtable go about assessing and remedying this…
TALBOTT: Sure, sure. We’re not for any regulation. In fact, we have some proposals, but what we don’t want to do is separate out the regulation of the entity from the regulation of the product, which is what the CFPA would do.
Watch it:
Ever since the administration first suggested creating the CFPA, the financial services and business lobbies have been up in arms, claiming that the agency will drive up costs for consumers and limit which financial products they can use. As part of a wider multi-million dollar lobbying campaign, the industry plans to run “Harry and Louise” style ads saying that the CFPA will amount to government “telling you what you can and can’t buy.” Republicans have bought into this frame, claiming that the CFPA will “decide whether or not we can be trusted with a credit card.”
In reality, the CFPA would “take consumer regulatory responsibility of financial products from seven other agencies and centralize it in one office that is empowered to make rules, examine balance sheets, [and] issue subpoenas.” It’s designed to ensure that all financial products (from mortgages to credit cards) are transparent, with disclosure forms that are clear and fair, thus protecting consumers from exploitation and predatory lending.
The financial services industry claims that it has consumers’ best interests in mind, but as Talbott’s unwitting admission reveals, what it’s really interested in is a return to the free-wheeling practices that contributed to the economic meltdown.
Cross-posted at The Wonk Room.
Palin: My whining is different than Hillary Clinton’s.
Palin: My whining is different than Hillary Clinton’s.
Since announcing that she would resign as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin (R) has been blaming her decision on the “mainstream media” and political operatives who accused her of “all sorts of frivolous ethics violations.” Ironically, Palin last year criticized Hillary Clinton for complaining about being put under “a sharper microscope,” saying that when there is “any kind of perceived whine” coming from a “woman candidate,” she thinks, “Man that doesn’t do us any good.” Time’s Jay Newton-Small asked Palin about this contradiction in a new interview. Palin replied that she’s totally different than Clinton because the accusations she’s facing are way worse:
What I said was, it doesn’t do her or anybody else any good to whine about the criticism. And that’s why I’m trying to make it clear that the criticism, I invite that. But freedom of speech and that invitation to constructively criticize a public servant is a lot different than the allowance to lie, to continually falsely accuse a public servant when they have proven over and over again that they have not done what the accuser is saying they did. It doesn’t cost them a dime to continue to accuse. That’s a whole different situation. But that’s why when I talk about the political potshots that I take or my family takes, we can handle that. I can handle that. I expect it. But there has to be opportunity provided for truth to get out there, and truth isn’t getting out there when the political game that’s being played right now is going to continue, and it is.
Rep. Issa Posts RNC Video On Oversight Committee YouTube Channel In Violation Of House Rules
Rep. Issa Posts RNC Video On Oversight Committee YouTube Channel In Violation Of House Rules
Yesterday, the Republican National Committee awarded Matthias Shapiro the “first-ever” Grassroots Logic award for a YouTube video he made that purports to put the cost of health care reform in perspective. After the event, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, congratulated Shapiro on Twitter, writing, “Kudos again to [Shapiro] for receiving RNC award this AM for excellent grassroots web work.” Issa linked to a video of the award ceremony which had been posted on the official YouTube channel of the Republicans on the Oversight Committee, adding, “My staff made video”:
While the event itself was fairly unremarkable, it featured RNC chairman Michael Steele speaking behind a large RNC logo, clearly branding it as a political event. The use of the committee’s official YouTube channel to distribute political communications is a clear violation of House rules. As the House’s policy for use of web videos explains:
The official content of any material posted by the Member on any Web site must be in compliance with Federal law and House Rules and Regulations applicable to official communications and germane to the conduct of the Member’s official and representational duties.
More specifically, House rules stipulate that “materials (ie. photos, logos, or graphics) used in campaign literature” cannot be distributed using government resources.
Issa’s use of the committee YouTube channel to distribute a political video becomes almost laughable when considered in light of the fact that the jurisdiction of his committee includes investigating abuse of government resources. As the about section of the channel explains:
As the minority on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, we will work with our colleagues in the majority to exercise effective oversight over the federal government and will work proactively to investigate and expose waste, fraud, and abuse.
Perhaps Issa’s committee can begin by investigating themselves.
Arizona state senator argues for uranium mining by claiming the Earth is ‘6,000 years’ old.
Arizona state senator argues for uranium mining by claiming the Earth is ‘6,000 years’ old.
On June 25, the Arizona Senate’s Retirement and Rural Development Committee discussed the prospects for uranium mining in the state. During the hearing, State Senator Sylvia Allen (R), the vice chairman of the committee, argued in favor of mining by saying that the earth “has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.” “We need to get the uranium here in Arizona, so this state can get the money from it,” argued Allen. Watch it:
Phil Plait of BadAstronomy notes that the irony of Allen’s claim “is that she’s talking about uranium mining, and it’s through the radioactive decay of uranium that we know the Earth is billions of years old.”
O’Reilly Tells African-Americans Whom They Can And Cannot Hold Up As Icons
O’Reilly Tells African-Americans Whom They Can And Cannot Hold Up As Icons
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was full of his usual hypocrisy as he went off last night about the death of Michael Jackson. O’Reilly started off on a respectful note, saying, “The family of Michael Jackson honored his memory today in Los Angeles. And I do not, do not wish to intrude on that. They are entitled to grieve any way they want.” However, he then decided to intrude, saying that he was “just about fed up with all the adulation” because it’s “basically grandstanding and pathetic in the extreme.”
O’Reilly was also offended at the “racial component” to the Jackson coverage. “The message is very clear, if you criticize Michael Jackson, you hate black people,” said O’Reilly. He, however, then injected race into the discussion by telling Fox News analyst Marc Lamont Hill that blacks shouldn’t look up to Jackson:
O’REILLY: Okay, then why is he being held up by the African-American community as a pillar of black America when he blanches his skin? [...]
But answer me this, if he is such a black American icon, why did he have his kids with white men?
HILL: That’s a personal matter. That doesn’t make him less black. There’s no blackness meter here. You don’t become less black when you have a white kid.
O’REILLY: You don’t become an African-American icon when you do something like that.
HILL: No, you become an African-American icon for producing the greatest music and being the greatest entertainer ever for being extraordinary humanitarian and for.
O’REILLY: No. You just become an American icon for that, not a black American icon. [...]
HILL: It’s not — oh, he is an American idol — icon. He is quintessentially American, but he’s also undeniably black. You can’t take black from him just because he has white kids.
Watch it:
That’s right — O’Reilly, who has said he is “terrified” about interacting with African-Americans and is amazed that a restaurant “run by blacks” is like “any other restaurant in New York City,” is now dictating whom people of color should hold up as icons.
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