Monthly Archives: December 2010

Reaction of a Sanctimonious Purist

09 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by in budget, Congress, economy, Obama, Politics, Taxes

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In response to President Obama’s Tuesday hissy fit press conference:

Mr. President,

At the risk of going all sanctimonious and purist here, and not wanting to sound like an ungrateful pie-in-the-sky idealist who fails to recognize your greatness and the magnitude of your accomplishments, excuse me for being so bold as to assume I have even a smidgen of your knowledge and grasp of the issues and humbly offer a few points of “hope”fully constructive criticism.

The overall problem with your Grand Compromise is not so much the parts but the sum of the whole. You have surrendered to (oops, I mean compromised on) the Republican notion that tax cuts somehow equals economic stimulus. If that were true….well, no need to beat that long-dead supply-side horse.

You say that you were forced into this “deal” because Republicans pretty much had you backed into a corner and were holding middle-class tax cuts “hostage.” Maybe if you hadn’t waited until the last 2 weeks of this session of Congress to do something about the expiring Bush tax cuts (you were aware of the expiration date prior to this month, I assume) that wouldn’t have happened.

You said that your Republican “friends” (those “friends” who have stated their top priority as doing everything in their power to make you a one-termer) had to “swallow some things they didn’t like” in this deal. What would that be? The goal of most Republican policy in oh, say the last 30 years or so, has been two-fold—look out for the rich and….look out for the rich. Seems to me with the permanent temporary extension of the Bush tax rates on income, capital gains, dividends, and the unexpected gift of lower estate taxes thrown into the pot, they just about achieved their nirvana.

The overall numbers might look like you got the best of your “friends,” but on closer examination, not so much. The tax cut measures you wanted total out to $216 billion as opposed to the $125 billion in cuts the Republicans got. But that $125 billion goes to 1% of the people and the $216 billion gets divided among the other 99%. We get a few hundred, they get a few hundred thousand, if not more.

Obviously, you’re still not over the public option debate, and how your sellout of compromise on that aspect of health care reform was somehow misinterpreted by the “purists” as a sign of weakness and not an accurate measure of your “core principles.” Maybe if you hadn’t continued to voice your support for it months after cutting a secret deal with hospitals and insurance companies to not include it in the final legislation, we might have had a better idea of what those “principles” were and taken that into account in the search for “purity.”

Speaking of that, sir. You seem to not miss an opportunity and take great pleasure in browbeating and chastising members of your own party and those who supported you in 2008. I guess it gives you a warm, fuzzy, bi-partisany feeling all over. Good luck with that strategy paying off in 2012.

Mammoth Cave Straight Ahead

03 Friday Dec 2010

Posted by in Congress, Democrats, economy, Obama, Politics, Republicans, Taxes

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The old Mammoth Cave:

The new Mammoth Cave:

“White House negotiators and congressional Republicans have the outlines of a deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and federal unemployment benefits, which would end a partisan stalemate on Capitol Hill. Under the prospective deal, all the Bush tax cuts would be extended for two years and unemployment benefits would be extended for one, according to congressional sources.”

But the extension of unemployment benefits comes with a caveat:

“Senior Senate Republican aides said that an extension of all the income tax cuts was a foregone conclusion, but that a deal on jobless aid was possible if Democrats agreed to cover the cost.”

So Democrats agree to extend the tax cuts for 2 years in exchange for an extension of unemployment benefits–provided the unemployment extension is paid for. No mention of paying for the tax cuts. What great negotiators those Democrats are, huh?

This comes a day after the House Dems take what they admit was a “symbolic” vote on only extending tax cuts for those making under $250,000 (a vote Senate Democrats are expected to take today) so as to make Republicans go on the record as being protectors of the rich—a month after the mid-term elections. A vote they refused to take before the election.

With strategery like that it’s hard to understand why they lost 60+ seats in the House.

There are some Democratic dissenters:

“I am opposed to extending any tax breaks for anybody over $250,000, period. That’s where I am,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “I would hope that the president would stand firm on what he campaigned on in Iowa.”

Hold on to that hope, Tom. Personally, I’m hoping to get a pony for Christmas. I think we have equal chances of having those hopes fulfilled.

What E.J. Dionne said:

“…every signal out of the White House is that it is prepared to cave in to Republican demands for a temporary extension of all of the Bush tax cuts, including those for millionaires…What we are witnessing here is the political power that comes from the Republican Party’s single-minded focus on high-end tax cuts and the strategic incoherence of a Democratic Party that is confused and divided — and not getting much help from its president.

Obama seems to have decided that showing how conciliatory he can be is more important than making clear where he stands. The administration’s strategy is rooted in a fear of what the Republicans are willing to do, which only strengthens the GOP’s bargaining position.”

Medical Experimentation on Gitmo Detainees

02 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by in Obama administration, terrorism, torture, war on terror

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Paging Dr. Mengele, Dr. Josef Mengele.

Truthout has a report taken from Department of Defense documents showing that detainees at Guantanamo were given massive doses of an anti-malarial drug which was known to have serious psychological side effects before they had even been tested for malaria, and in spite of the non-existence of malaria in Cuba:

“The Defense Department forced all “war on terror” detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial anti-malarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called “pharmacologic waterboarding.”

The US military administered the drug despite Pentagon knowledge that mefloquine caused severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and anxiety. The drug was used on the prisoners whether they had malaria or not.

All detainees arriving at Guantanamo in January 2002 were first given a treatment dosage of 1,250 mg of mefloquine, before laboratory tests were conducted to determine if they actually had the disease…The 1,250 mg dosage is what would be given if the detainees actually had malaria. That dosage is five times higher than the prophylactic dose given to individuals to prevent the disease.

The drug was administered to Guantanamo detainees without regard for their medical or psychological history, despite its considerable risk of exacerbating pre-existing conditions. Mefloquine is also known to have serious side effects among individuals under treatment for depression or other serious mental health disorders…In 2002, when the prison was established and mefloquine first administered, there were dozens of suicide attempts at Guantanamo. That same year, the DoD stopped reporting attempted suicides.”

But never mind all that, let’s look forward, not back. Speaking of looking forward:

“The Obama administration went to the mat to defend its predecessors from a torture prosecution in Spain last year, a leaked State Department cable shows.

The cable, released by WikiLeaks this week, shows that senior US diplomats teamed with Republican lawmakers — including a former Republican Party chairman — to put pressure on Spanish officials to drop a criminal investigation into the Bush administration’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Ain’t bi-partisanship great.