I Don’t Think “Accountability” Means What Obama Thinks It Does

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Obama’s statement on FISA:

I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who oppose my decision to support the FISA compromise.

This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn’t have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush’s abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That’s why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.

But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I’ve said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility

The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.

The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I’m persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe — particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I’ve chosen to support the current compromise. Read more →

“She May Switch To An American Designer”

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If she becomes First Lady.

I guess that’s SugarMomma’s idea of sacrificing for her country, swapping her $3000 German suits for $3000 American ones. Perhaps, as someone who doesn’t wear $3000 suits, I don’t understand the point, but if it would be important for the First Lady of the United States to stick to American designers, don’t you think the woman auditioning to be First Lady ought to do the same?

Anyway, I don’t know why, but I find these examinations of Cindy McCain’s wealth fascinating, in a train wreck kind of way. The country is heading into (at best) a deep recession and people are having trouble paying for food, yet this woman has–sometime in the last year–spent $500,000 in one month on her Amex Card.

Their credit card bills peaked between January 2007 and May 2008, during which time Cindy McCain charged as much as $500,000 in a single month on one American Express card and $250,000 on another, while one of their two dependent children had an AmEx card with a monthly balance as large as $50,000.

And in an era when millions of people are losing their homes, the McCains have raised the "budget" for servant salaries from the price of a modest home in many parts of the country to the price of a really nice home.

The McCains increased their budget for household employees from $184,000 in 2006 to $273,000 in 2007, according to John McCain’s tax returns.

(For the record, "budget" is the Politico’s term, not the McCain’s. I rather suspect they don’t use that word, much less the concept.)

And Cindy’s solution to the problem of fighting with her kids to get into the Coronado condo is to simply buy a second one.

Cindy McCain, through another family corporation, spent about $4.7 million in 2004 and 2008 on two condos in an exclusive building in Coronado, Calif., an affluent San Diego suburb noted for its high percentage of military retirees.

In her recent Vogue interview, conducted from the newer Coronado condo, McCain explained that her husband, a Navy veteran, initially wasn’t keen on the idea of a pied-à-terre in Coronado.

"When I bought the first one, my husband, who is not a beach person, said, ‘Oh, this is such a waste of money; the kids will never go,’” she told Vogue. Read more →

Gitmo Will Be this Year’s Campaign Issue

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Via Laura, ABC reports that Bush is considering closing Gitmo.

President Bush will soon decide whether to close Guantanamo Bay as a prison for al-Qaeda suspects, sources tell ABC News. High-level discussions among top advisers have escalated in the past week, with the most senior administration officials in continuous talks about the future of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay–and how it will be dramatically changed and/or closed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that gave detainees there access to federal courts.

Sources have confirmed that President Bush is expected to be briefed on these pressing GTMO issues–and may reach a decision on the future of the naval base as a prison for al Qaeda suspects–before he leaves for the G8 on Saturday.

As a number of people have pointed out, the Boumediene decision basically eliminates the reason for Gitmo. BushCo had used Gitmo because Cuba technically retains sovereignty over the land, so–they claimed–the US military could evade US habeas corpus laws. But Anthony Kennedy didn’t buy that logic, meaning the entire reason for Gitmo has now been invalidated. So why keep it open?

Particularly when you can turn Gitmo into a campaign issue. ABC notes, in passing, that subsequent to making a decision on Gitmo, Bush will basically dump the whole festering problem into Congress’ lap.

Bush has not decided whether he will announce that GTMO should be closed, sources say. But at the very least, sources say, he will soon announce a host of these legal and policy changes that will force Congress to come up with a solution–including where to imprison those detainees if GTMO does, in fact, shut its doors. [my emphasis]

I guess it’s not enough to time the Gitmo Show Trials to coincide with the election. Now, Bush is going to demand that Congress legislate on Gitmo during election season. In 2002, we had the AUMF. In 2006, we had MCA. I guess this year it’s Gitmo’s turn.

Lovely. Congress always thinks so clearly when Bush plays this trick.

Banana Republicans: $1.7 Million to Right Wing Death Squads, $2 Million to McCain

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I did a whole series of posts on how Chiquita Banana paid off a right wing (and before that, a left wing) terrorist group in Colombia rather than pull out of the country. Here’s a good summary post, that shows that:

  • Chiquita had been paying protection money going back to 1989–including two and a half years of payments to the right wing AUC after it had been declared a terrorist organization (and, yes, those payments came after 9/11 changed everything)
  • In spite of warnings from outside lawyers that Chiquita "Must stop payments," Chiquita continued those payments
  • Michael Chertoff reported told Chiquita he would "get back to them" on the funding terrorists issue (which he never did)
  • A subpoena for the Republican-linked Chiquita may have mysteriously never gotten served by the Bush DOJ
  • Chiquita may have been shipping cocaine back to the US in its freighters as part of its deal with the right wing death squads

Which is just another way of saying that Chiquita is just as corrupt a company as it has been for the last century.

Today HuffPo points out that not only was Chiquita a very Republican company, the CEO of that company from 1984 to 2001, Carl Lindner, happens to be a big McCain donor.

The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Lindner must like McCain slightly more than he likes those Right Wing Death Squads: whereas he oversaw $1.7 million in payments to the AUC, he oversaw $2 million in payments to McCain from just one recent fundraiser.

Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain’s Ohio Victory Team.

Maybe Lindner is more generous with McCain because the Senator has done political favors for Lindner in the past:

However, in the past, McCain has done favors on Lindner’s behalf. Last May, the Washington Post reported that in the late 1990s, McCain "promoted a deal in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates."

Read more →

Webb and McCain’s Attacks and the GI Bill

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A number of people have noted that McCain is now trying to give Jim Webb the same treatment he has given General Clark.

If you didn’t think this was a coordinated attack on John McCain’s credentials before, it’s clear now that it is. Barack Obama’s surrogates are telling the McCain campaign to "calm down" about attacks on his military record? Seriously? Now somehow Wes Clark’s attacks are John McCain’s fault? It’s absurd. If Barack Obama can’t control his own surrogate operation, how can he be trusted to run the country?

I would respond to McCain’s baseless attack on Webb by noting that someone in McCain’s camp must be making a panicked effort to inoculate himself against any questions that getting shot out of an airplane doesn’t automatically qualify you to be President.

But it’s more than that, isn’t it?

This attack on Webb (and Clark, for that matter) comes right on the heels of one of McCain’s most cynical moves–out of many cynical moves–thus far this campaign season. After opposing Jim Webb’s GI Bill (mostly because he thought it was generous enough that it might make it harder to keep people in the military because they don’t have better options and because they can’t get an education), Bush and McCain have been claiming credit for Webb’s GI Bill.

Yesterday, House leaders in both parties struck a deal on a war supplemental bill that includes expanded college benefits for veterans. The GI Bill is Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) version, as well as a provision allowing troops to transfer the benefits to family members. President Bush has promised to sign the legislation.

Now, however, Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — the two most vocal opponents of Webb’s bill — are trying to take credit for it. They are claiming that they always supported the generous benefits — their main concern was just ensuring the benefits’ transferability:

At a time when (if we were really good at our jobs) we would be attacking McCain for opposing veteran benefits, he has, instead, turned and starting attacking Webb. Presumably, at least in part, to prevent any attacks on him for his cynical stance on the GI Bill.

Me, I’ve never served. I respect all three men–Clark, Webb, and McCain–for having done so. Like John Cole, I think not every fighter pilot would make a good President. Read more →

McCain: The Presidency Is All in My Head

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The Great Orange Satan points to John McCain, admitting that offshore drilling will provide nothing but "psychological" benefits:

At a town hall in Fresno, CA, McCain admitted that the offshore drilling proposal he unveiled last week would probably have mostly “psychological” benefits, NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy notes. “Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial." Uh oh.

But this isn’t the first time that McCain has treated his presidential campaign as an exercise in tilting at windmills psychological affirmation. As a Mid-Western gal, I still cannot believe McCain flew his Sugar Momma Express into Youngstown, Ohio and told a bunch of struggling manufacturing workers that the shitty economy, like the benefits of offshore oil drilling, is just psychological. Here’s McCain telling that to Fox News:

"But I think psychologically – and a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological – the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home," he added.

McCain explained that his proposal to eliminate the federal gas tax for three months would provide Americans the necessary ‘psychological boost’ to deal with their economic problems.

Given McCain’s professed ignorance about economic issues, I guess this isn’t really surprising. But jeebus–isn’t it time for him to admit that his chief domestic policy is to fool Americans with a bunch of psychological hocus pocus?

Obama in Flint, MI

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Update: Here’s the remarks live-blogged below as prepared for delivery. 

Hello everyone. I’m blogging from Flint, MI, where Obama will hold a town hall starting at 12EST. The town hall will be a big unity event–with some of our Congressional delegation (I’ve seen Dingell’s folks) and Governor Granholm joining Obama to unify the Democratic Party. This follows our State Central Committee meeting–which was held Saturday–at which the same message of unity was emphasized. Blue America-endorsed candidate Mark Schauer closed the meeting on Saturday with one such message of unity.

"We’ve got the best workers in the world right here in Michigan, but we need a president who will fight for fair trade polices and solve the health care crisis to make sure they can compete on a level playing field," said Schauer. "With Michigan Democrats working together this year, we can elect a president who will bring about the change our country needs and fix what’s broken in Washington. And next January, I’ll be the first Congressman in line to help hand him the toolbox."

As I understand it, the balance of our delegation was chosen on Saturday, based on the allocation that came out of the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on May 31. I’ve been told that Obama will announce (I believe he’s making that announcement to the big state press as we speak) that he will seat the full MI delegation in Denver, with full-strength vote.

I’ll update as fun things happen.

11:43 The crowds’ in their seats and are beginning to do the wave. The national media is showing up–one reason they’ve made this the Unity event in MI, rather than Obama’s big rally at Joe Louis "Home of the Stanley Cup Champions" Arena tonight is so it’ll get in today’s media cycle.

Oh, and for those worried, Kwame will not be attending any of the events today, so Detroit’s Boy Mayor will not be rubbing any of his bad karma off on our Presidential candidate.

granholm-et-all.JPG

Photo thanks to Todd Heywood of the Michigan Messenger, which is also liveblogging the event. Check out MM for pictures of the wingnuts protesting outside.

12:06 As I said, many of MI’s Democratic dignitaries are here: this picture shows Representative Dale Kildee, Governor Granholm, Senator Carl Levin, and Lieutenant Governor John Cherry is hiding next to Levin. I know Chairman and Mrs. Dingell are also here somewhere. I understand Levin will introduce Obama.

12:12 Carl Levin on stage now. Introduces Dale Kildee, John Dingell, Read more →

$225,000 in Credit Card Debt

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Cindy McCain is carrying more debt on credit cards than 80% of Americans’ total net worth.

Mr. McCain and his wife had at least $225,000 in credit card debt and that Mr. Obama and his wife had put more than $200,000 into college funds for their daughters.

The bulk of the McCains’ obligations stemmed from a pair of American Express credit cards that are held in Cindy McCain’s name. According to the disclosure reports, which present information on debts in a range rather than providing a precise figure, Mrs. McCain owed $100,000 to $250,000 on each card.

Another charge card, held by what was described as a “dependent child,” had also accumulated debts of $15,000 to $50,000. In addition, a credit card held jointly by the couple was carrying $10,000 to $15,000 in debt, the filing indicated, at a stiff 25.99 percent interest rate.

I know she’s a rich heiress and all. I know she tends to be well coiffed and nicely dressed. But this strikes me as an astounding amount of money.

And it raises several questions for me:

  • Are some of these expenses campaign fees? That would explain the high balances, obviously, but wouldn’t that be another case of McCain riding the Sugar Momma Express? (And I’m curious, is the "dependent child" the 23-year old Meghan McCain, in which case that credit card would also be campaign expenses?)
  • Are these monthly expenses? Again, if they’re campaign related, I guess they wouldn’t be a surprise. But if Cindy McCain is spending $200,000 a month on luxury goods … well, at least she’d be doing her part to keep the American economy afloat.
  • Or are these credit cards carried balances (normally on Amex, you can’t do that, but they tend to make exceptions for people who spend that much)? In which case you’d think the McCains would spend of that $225,000 on an accountant who would help them pay their bills monthly.
  • Does anyone else remember the $2,500 campaign credit card charge at Barney’s? The campaign explained away the charge to a stolen credit card. Funny, though, the way both the stolen credit card and the one still in possession have such expensive tastes, huh?

I’m obviously just a DFH blogger, so I can’t really fathom how much I could spend if I put my mind to it. Does this strike anyone as excessive?

It’s Not about the DNC–It’s about the GOP

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You’ve heard, by now, that Obama just threw the lobbyists out of the, er, fundraising pool.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the Obama for America Campaign today announced that the DNC will no longer accept Washington lobbyist donations, making the same commitment as Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

As Phoenix Woman pointed out to me via email, that’s no big deal for the DNC. The big lobbyist money comes in through the DCCC and DSCC, which is one of the reasons those organizations are kicking their Republican counterparts’ behinds, whereas the DNC fundraising lags the RNC.

Which is the whole point, isn’t it?

McCain, you’ll remember, can’t match Obama’s personal fund-raising ability. Rather, he’s already sucking at the GOP teat.

Mr. McCain is likely to depend upon the party, which finished April with an impressive $40 million in the bank and has significantly higher contribution limits, to an unprecedented degree to power his campaign, Republican officials said.

[snip]

Mr. McCain, who abandoned public financing in the primary but has indicated he would employ it in the general election, is aggressively building a joint fund-raising operation with the Republican National Committee and state party committees in four battleground states. These committees can raise money far in excess of the $2,300 limit imposed on individuals giving to Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign. Donors can write a single check of almost $70,000 to the committees that is divvied up to various entities.

But whole bunch of that money comes from lobbyists. To be fair, McCain’s already pretty happy to take money for lobbyists (he’s getting everything else for them). But if Obama can taint the GOP money that will be funding McCain’s campaign, it’s going to strike another blow at the McMaverick.

Goldwater and Kennedy, or Lincoln and Douglas?

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You’ve probably heard that McCain’s campaign challenged Obama to do a series of town hall debates starting next week. It’s an interesting idea, down to McCain’s suggestion they fly together to the first one (but I gotta warn McCain–I don’t think Michelle will let Obama fly on the SugarMomma Express, not even if McCain proposes it in the interest of civility).

What’s more interesting to me is the imagery both campaigns are appealing to with their competing proposals. McCain pitched the town halls as a repeat of town halls that Goldwater and Kennedy planned to do–no doubt appealing to Obama’s self-conscious appropriation of the Kennedy legacy, not to mention McCain’s fanciful notion that he inherited the Goldwater legacy, and not just his seat.

In 1963, Senator Barry Goldwater and President John F. Kennedy agreed to make presidential campaign history by flying together from town to town and debating each other face-to-face on the same stage. In Goldwater’s words, those debates "would have done the country a lot of good." Unfortunately, with President Kennedy’s untimely death, Americans lost the rare opportunity of witnessing candidates for the highest office in the land discuss civilly and extensively the great issues at stake in the election. What a welcome change it would be were presidential candidates in our time to treat each other and the people they seek to lead with respect and courtesy as they discussed the great issues of the day, without the empty sound bites and media-filtered exchanges that dominate our elections. It is in the spirit of President Kennedy’s and Senator Goldwater’s agreement, in the spirit of the politics of change, and to do our country good, that I invite you to join me in participating in town hall meetings across the country to discuss the most important issues facing Americans. I also suggest we fly together to the first town hall meeting as a symbolically important act embracing the politics of civility.

(Incidentally, no one, thus far, has created a media firestorm suggesting that McCain has wished ill on Obama by referring to JFK’s assassination.)

McCain’s pitch for a town hall format, of course, is an attempt to get Obama on his–McCain’s–preferred turf. Small venues, pollsters pick the audience, unscripted exchanges. It’s an attempt to avoid the disaster of the green ghoul speech from last night.

Read more →