Archive for the ‘Government’ Category
January 11, 2011
At times of national tragedy there is sadness, mourning, and a search for someone to blame. In the case of Saturday’s shootings in Tucson that should be easy: 22-year-old Jared Loughner did it, with some help from whoever sold him a semi-automatic Glock 19 hand gun with extra large magazines.
But that’s not satisfying, to blame a crazy person for something so terrible. We want to pinpoint the cause of the evil, because if we have the cause we can prevent such things from happening in the future. Many on the left want to tag Sarah Palin and Fox News with at least contributory blame.
After all, didn’t Palin post a map showing Congresswoman Gifford as a target, complete with crosshairs? (see accompanying picture from her website and try to imagine whether seeing this might lead someone to murder.) And doesn’t Fox News regularly feature right wing rants by Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck?
Palin and Fox News head Roger Ailes seemed to grant some plausibility to the connection because Palin’s PAC took down the offending map on Saturday, and on Monday Ailes announced that his network would try to cool the heated rhetoric. But their moves toward civility are reasons to honor them, not to take the actions an admission of guilt.
Our greatest political commentator, Jon Stewart, put it best in his eloquent cry from the heart on his January 10 Daily Show: (more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:civility, Congresswoman Gifford, crosshairs, Daily Show, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Glock 19, hand gun, Jared Loughner, Jon Stewart, Kenya-born Muslim, national tragedy, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Second Amendment remedy, toxic political environment, Tucson, You lie
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
January 9, 2011
The new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives opened the new 112th Congress with a reading of the Constitution that they are sworn to support and defend. Some Members on both sides tried to make political hay out of the action, but for the most part it was a bipartisan effort that served to remind all of what they were there for.
But purposely the document they read wasn’t the Constitution of the United States, but an edited, modernized version. The original, housed in the Archives of the United States, spells out the method for apportioning congressional seats in Article I, Section 2:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
“Three fifths of all other Persons.” Those “other Persons” meant slaves. The formula was changed by the fourteenth amendment, which ended slavery and, eliminated the three-fifths language.
Why would anybody bowdlerize the Constitution? Simple—it’s to maintain the fiction that the founders had perfect foresight, and that their language—or their omissions—must be followed slavishly for all time. And so, for example, since they didn’t allow the federal government to require Americans to buy health insurance, then the health care law must be unconstitutional. And so, for another example (more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:112th Congress, Archives, Article I, ethics, founders, fourteenth amendment, health care law, health insurance, House of Representatives, Obamacare, original intent, political ads, reading of the Constitution, Republican leadership, Section 2, slavery, three fifths, unconstitutional
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Health care, Politics | Leave a Comment »
December 26, 2010
“Emails show Bloomberg office’s desire to get Ground Zero mosque built,” screamed the New York Post headline. The Wall Street Journal was just slightly calmer: “In e-mails, NYC pushes for mosque near ground zero.”
Alarming? Suspicious? Why is New York’s mayor taking sides in the controversy over the so-called Ground Zero mosque*?
Relax, he’s not. It’s just the Murdoch papers’ way of stirring up fears of a Muslim takeover of America. But read on—far below the inflammatory headlines, the Post piece ended with this explanation:
His [Bloomberg’s] spokesman Stu Loeser today said [the Community Affairs office’s] job is “to help groups navigate city government, and from helping prepare for a Papal visit to extending approval of a Sukkah in a midtown Manhattan park, this kind of assistance is typical of its regular work.” (more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:Anti-Muslim, Bloomberg, Community Affairs office, Emails, ethics, Ground Zero mosque, Murdoch papers, Muslim takeover, New York Post, Papal visit, Stu Loeser, Sukkah, Wall Street Journal, yellow journalism
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
December 18, 2010
Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show is very funny, but not Thursday night. He had four guests, 9/11 first responders from New York’s police and firefighters, explaining their cancers and other diseases caused by continuous breathing of toxic fumes for months as they labored heroically first to rescue survivors, then to recover remains of the 2750 who died at the World Trade Center.
Senate Republicans are filibustering the Zadroga bill, which would provide for the health coverage that most of the men have lost. These Senators, after having wrapped themselves in the flag and praised the unimaginable courage and dedication of these heroes, are now refusing to help them alleviate the suffering that’s the direct result of their heroism. And now the Senators are raging at the possibility that some of their weeks of Christmas vacation will be interrupted by such trivia as first responders health benefits or the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Watch the seven minutes of the show here. You won’t get many laughs, but you’ll see some of America’s greatness and smallness, and you’ll change your opinions of all involved—Stewart, the responders, the Republican Senators, and the news media who have abandoned this issue to The Daily Show
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:9/11 first responders, cancers, Daily Show, ethics, FDNY, filibuster, Jon Stewart, news media, NYPD, possibility that some of their Christmas vacation, Senate Republicans, START, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, toxic fumes, World Trade Center, Zadroga bill
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Health care, Media, Politics | 2 Comments »
December 11, 2010
When Elizabeth Edwards died I thought of a phrase I learned long ago in Latin class, “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,”—Of the dead, nothing unless good. And I read and watched on TV all the paeans to her courage and heroism. And gritted my teeth.
Until I read the piece on EthicsAlarms.com with the above title. Jack Marshall writes about how her fierce ambition led her to cover up her husband’s lying and cheating at the risk of “catastrophe to her country.” If you admire her, read the piece. It’ll remind you, as it reminded me, how easy it is to misjudge a person’s character from her (or his) public appearance.
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:De mortuis nil nisi bonum, Elizabeth Edwards, ethics, EthicsAlarms, Jack Marshall
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
December 8, 2010
The White House calls it the Tax Agreement on Economic Expansion and Job Growth. Keith Olbermann likens it to the sell out to the Nazis at Munich. Bill O‘Reilly says “Good for President Obama.” What’s going on?
Just this: many Republicans have such an intense lust for tax breaks for billionaires that to get them they gave Obama all he could dream of asking for in the way of tax breaks for the poor and the middle class, and for government stimulus for the economy.
Meanwhile many Democrats have such rage over the tax breaks for billionaires that it spills over to Obama, who agreed to it, even though he picked the Republicans’ pockets and increases his and his fellow Dems chances for 2012.
Here’s what Obama gave to the Republicans:
· extension of the Bush tax cuts for everybody. He wanted to extend the breaks for only those earning under $250,000 per year; the Republicans wanted it for all.
· A smaller estate tax increase than they were demanding
Here’s what he got for his agenda:
· The middle class tax cuts that were the centerpiece of his tax policy
· An extension of unemployment benefits for 13 months, averting the loss of benefits to 2 million workers in December alone, and protecting benefits for up to an additional 7 million workers over the next year.
· A reduction of up to $2100 in payroll (Social Security) taxes (more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:Bill O‘Reilly, Bush tax cuts, CNN, estate tax increase, ethics, investment tax cut, Keith Olbermann, middle class tax cuts, Munich, Obama, payrolltaxes, stimulus, Tax Agreement on Economic Expansion and Job Growth, tax breaks for billionaires, tax compromise. unemployment benefits, tax credits, tax policy
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 4 Comments »
December 2, 2010
Barack Obama ran for President on a platform of hope and change. While he’s delivered a lot of big things—saving the economy, delivering near-universal health care, beginning to restore America’s reputation abroad, and beginning an end to two wars—he hasn’t begun to change the ways of Washington. His latest attempt lasted only a few hours, before the Republican leadership announced its determination to stop everything unless it got what it demanded in the form of a $700 billion tax break for the rich and super rich.
So what’s an ethical President to do when his attempts at compromise and progress are blocked by House minority leader John Boehner and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who announced on the eve of the 2010 election, ‘The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term President.”
More important than the managing the budget crisis, more important than ratifying the START Treaty with Russia, more important than reducing the obscenely high unemployment rate, even more important than tax relief for billionaires!
The answer for the President is staring right at him: give McConnell what he wants most of all, in return for the change Obama promised. Here’s how this grand compromise might work: Obama promises not to run for re-election. In exchange McConnell and Boehner promise to work with the Democratic leadership to achieve:
- Long-term deficit reduction equivalent to that in the report of the bipartisan deficit commission
- An economic package, including extension of the Bush tax cuts for (more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:budget crisis, Bush tax cuts, carbon dioxide emissions, comprehensive immigration reform, compromise, deficit commission, deficit reduction, ethics, gays in the military, Guantanamo, health care, hope and change, infrastructure, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Obama, Obama re-election, one-term President, Republican leadership, START Treaty, tax break for the rich, unemployment, unemployment compensation, ways of Washington
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Health care, International, military, Politics | Leave a Comment »
November 11, 2010
Nancy Pelosi is labeled an “ethics dunce” by Jack Marshall, in his Ethics Alarms blog: “Pelosi’s refusal to step aside places her own ego above the needs of public service and country, and is as blatant an example of power corrupting judgment as one can imagine. At a time when all ethical considerations argue for her to swallow her pride and let others take over, she is willing to jeopardize not only her party’s comity, unity and image but her own legislative achievements.”
Marshall reserves the dunce label “for those individuals and organizations who display a complete ignorance of ethics through their persistence in, defense of, or comfort with blatantly unethical conduct.”
But Pelosi’s behavior this week is even more deserving of the “ethics dunce” label than her unseemly clinging to her leadership position. Yesterday, within minutes of the release of the President’s deficit commission’s draft report, she blasted it as “simply unacceptable.”
(more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:deficit, deficit commission, ethics, Ethics Alarms, ethics dunce, federal budget, Jack Marshall, Medicare, Nancy Pelosi, National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Social Security
Posted in Ethics-general, Finance, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
November 9, 2010
Tonight’s Rachel Maddow show ran a clip from Matt Lauer’s interview with George W. Bush, telecast tonight to coincide with the roll-out of Bush’s book. Maddow had an early “teaser” to hook viewers into staying around until the Bush interview ran, near the end of the show. The teaser urged viewers to stay to see Bush’s “whopper.”
Sure enough, here came a whopper. Lauer asked, “Did you ever ask yourself, ‘What more could I have done to prevent this [9/11] from happening?’ “ Bush responded, “We just didn’t have any solid intelligence that gave us some warning on this.”
Maddow followed this clip with video of Condoleezza Rice admitting to the 9/11 Commission that the President’s Daily Briefing for August 6, 2001, was entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” Maddow punctuated the segment this way: “George W. Bush is trying to sell the same kind of spin he tried to sell when he was President.” That is, in her words, “a whopper.” For extra emphasis she repeated the clip of Bush saying no intelligence and Rice reading the title of the PDB.
But the whopper was Maddow’s, not Bush’s. For she had carefully truncated Bush’s answer. Here’s his full, undoctored answer to Lauer’s question: (more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:9/11, 9/11 Commission, Bin Laden, Condoleezza Rice, Fox News, George W Bush, intelligence, Keith Olbermann suspension, Matt Lauer, MSNBC, Obama, President’s Daily Briefing, Rachel Maddow, whopper
Posted in Entertainment, Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | 3 Comments »
November 5, 2010
President Obama leaves Friday for a ten-day trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. His trip will cost $200 million a day, or $2 billion for the trip, on which. he will be escorted by 34 warships, twelve percent of the United States Navy. All this according to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Except it’s as false as Obama’s Kenyan birth, his Muslim faith, his secret importing of “small quantities of Muslims,” and the death panels in his health care act. The story was reported in an Indian newspaper, quoting an anonymous provincial official.
The White House response was that the “numbers are wildly inflated.” The Pentagon dismissed the report as “absolutely absurd” and “just comical.” And the non-partisan factcheck.org summarized its findings this way:
“This story has spread rapidly among the President’s critics, but there is simply no evidence to support it. And common sense should lead anyone to doubt it. For example, the entire U.S. war effort in Afghanistan currently costs less than that — about $5.7 billion per month, according to the Congressional Research Service, or roughly $190 million per day. How could a peaceful state visit cost more than a war?” (more…)
34.064458
-118.451661
Tags:Afghanistan war cost, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, death panels, ethics, factcheck.org, Fair and balanced, Fox News, Glenn Beck, health care act, India, Kenyan birth, lies, Michael Savage, Muslim faith, Newsweek, Obama Asian trip, Pentagon, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, talk radio, warships
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media | 3 Comments »
At times of national tragedy there is sadness, mourning, and a search for someone to blame. In the case of Saturday’s shootings in Tucson that should be easy: 22-year-old Jared Loughner did it, with some help from whoever sold him a semi-automatic Glock 19 hand gun with extra large magazines.
Ethics Bob 