Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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 1, 2010
Hooray for Congressman Peter King (R-NY) for his praise of the Obama administration’s handling of the attempted bombings of FedEx and UPS cargo planes last week. In contrast to recent shameful attempts by many Republicans, most prominently Rudy Giuliani, to politicize the ongoing battle with Al Qaeda, King passed up the chance to make hay on election eve over the issue.
Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, King, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, had this to say about the Administration’s actions:
“In the past…I’ve had differences with John Brennan [Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism], but let me make it clear: on this particular matter the Administration is handling it perfectly. They received actionable intelligence, they shared it with our allies, they did what had to be done, the FBI, the TSA—the TSA especially, under John Pistole. They did what they had to do. Everything was done right, they continue to do it right, I give them full credit.”
No equivocation, no hint that Republicans could have done it better, no nudge to vote Republican tomorrow. Just praise for federal workers doing their important jobs right. Reinhold Niebuhr would have applauded King’s contribution to “the temper and integrity of the political fight.
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Tags:al Qaeda, bombing attempts, Committee on Homeland Security, ethics, Face the Nation, FBI, federal workers, FedEx and UPS cargo planes, intelligence, John Brennan, John Pistole, Niebuhr, Obama administration, Peter King, Rudy Giuliani, TSA
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
October 24, 2010
California voters face two critical ballot issues, and have a chance to reward the person who has arguably had the most positive influence on California politics in a generation.
First, the ballot measures: Presently California legislators—members of the state senate, assembly, and U. S. Congress—don’t have to contest their general elections because of extreme gerrymandering*: the winner of the primary gets a free ride in the general.
Proof? In the last four election cycles (2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008) combined, only nine seats have changed parties in 648 California legislative and congressional races. Or looking at it like a betting person, the incumbent party has a 981/2 percent chance of holding on to each seat. Stalin and Mao would have been impressed.
In 2008, California voted to take the power to set state legislative district boundaries away from legislators and give it to an independent nonpartisan commission. Next week there are two ballot measures about drawing district boundaries:
Proposition 20 would do for congressional districts what the 2008 measure did for assembly and state senate districts—give the job to the independent nonpartisan commission established by the 2008 vote. This would remove from elected officials the power to choose their own voters and get re-elected at will.
Proposition 27 would reverse the 2008 reform and return the redistricting powers to the legislature.
Passage of proposition 20 and defeat of proposition 27 would transfer the choice of legislators from the party primaries to the general elections, where it belongs. This will have a beneficial effect far beyond justmaking lifetime incumbency rare. Nonpartisan redistricting will encourage candidates for office to run more civil campaigns, because they will need to attract voters from the center of the political spectrum. (more…)
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Tags:Abel Maldonado, California 38th Congressional district, California ballot measures, California election, civility, decline-to-state voters, district boundaries, ethics, general elections, gerrymandering, Grace Napolitano, Lieutenant Governor, lifetime incumbency, nonpartisan commission, open primary, Proposition 20, Proposition 27, redistricting
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 6 Comments »
October 22, 2010
In the search for diverse opinions on television I like MSNBC’s Morning Joe, an entertaining roundtable of people you would enjoy having at your next dinner party. Hosts Joe Scarborough—a conservative former Congressman—and Mika Brzezinski—a liberal daughter of President Carter’s National Security advisor—are politically balanced while being friendly and civil. Their guests span the political spectrum, and the conversations are usually spirited. Nobody on the show claims to be objective, they just bounce their opinions off each other. Fun and informative.
Today, in the wake of NPR’s firing of Juan Williams, there was some discussion of objectivity in the media. Mika had a proposal that would improve the credibility of reporters and commentators of all stripes:
“I would argue that nobody is objective in journalism: that we all come from our own world views and our own backgrounds and our own political affiliations, and we’ve voted for Presidents, and you know what! It’s time to be honest [about it}—and then we can be trusted.
Honesty: What a concept!
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Tags:ethics, Joe Scarborough, Juan Williams, Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe, MSNBC, objectivity in the media
Posted in Entertainment, Ethics-general, Media, Politics | Leave a Comment »
October 19, 2010
Christine O’Donnell is the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware. When asked why she thought she was qualified to be a Senator she gave this as her chief qualification:
“I have a graduate fellowship from the Claremont Institute in Constitutional Government, and it is that deep analysis of the Constitution that has helped me to analyze and have an opinion on what’s going on today.”
At today’s candidate forum in Wilmington O’Donnell challenged her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons about where in the Constitution did it say anything about separation of church and state. When the audience gasped and laughed she grinned, thinking she had him there. She went on to demonstrate shock and surprise when Coons told her about the First Amendment. It was news to her.
O’Donnell will likely lose on November 2: not so sure to lose is Sharon Angle, Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, who believes that Sharia law reigns today in Dearborn, Michigan.
What does this say about the Republican voters who voted for such people?
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Tags:Chris Coons, Christine O’Donnell, Claremont Institute, Constitution, Dearborn Michigan, ethics, First Amendment, Nevada, Senate Delaware, separation of church and state, Sharia law, Sharon Angle
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
October 18, 2010
Chris Matthews and Chris Wallace each earned a (mythical) Reinhold Niebuhr award* for bringing good temper and integrity into the political fight. The highest level of political ethics is to call out members of one’s own party, or people whose politics you’re in general sympathy with. We expect to see MSNBC commentators like Matthews ripping Republicans, just as we expect to see Fox News commentators like Wallace ripping Dems. Ho hum, no surprise there, and no contribution to the integrity of the political fight.
But when California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina came on Fox News Sunday Wallace grilled her about her plan to close California’s huge budget gap, finally exposing her as an empty suit. And when Kentucky Democratic Senate Candidate Jack Conway came on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show, Matthews grilled him about his campaign ad questioning his opponent’s Christianity, exposing Conway’s ad as baseless and scurrilous.
Our civic society is being ripped by the bitter antagonism between left and right, the worst since the bad old days of Senator Joe McCarthy, red hunts, and leftish defenses of Soviet spies. It’s made worse by the ease of getting all one’s news from a kind of “Daily Me,” an assortment of media that reflect only one’s own bias. Fox News Sunday and MSNBC’s Hardball took a step away from the cartoonish view of them as mouthpieces for liberalism and conservatism. The two Chris’s interviews are in the highest traditions of Niebuhr’s goal of a healthy society.
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*Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
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Tags:Carly Fiorina, Chris Matthews, Chris Wallace, Daily Me, Fox News, Fox News Sunday, Hardball, Jack Conway, MSNBC, political ethics, Reinhold Niebuhr, Senator Joe McCarthy
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | 3 Comments »
October 6, 2010
EthicsBob recently slammed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for his failure to denounce Israel’s former chief rabbi for calling for death to all Palestinians: his office merely issued a statement that the rabbi’s views “don’t represent” Netanyahu’s. But when Jewish settlers set fire to a West Bank mosque this week the Israeli Prime Minister quickly ordered Israeli security forces to “act firmly to quickly uncover the criminals and bring them to justice.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak went further, calling the perpetrators “terrorists in every sense of the word.”
It’s beyond my memory that any senior Israeli official publicly called violent religious settlers terrorists. Hooray for Barak; hooray even for Netanyahu.
Sadly there are people on both sides of the Jewish/Arab divide who use the incident to inflame. The UK-based Middle East Monitor headlined its coverage, “Israeli settlers burn yet another mosque in occupied Palestine.” It implied that the crime had the assent of the Israeli establishment, saying that “In the current climate of global Islamophobia these uncivilised and intolerant acts will evoke little or no condemnation or censure.”
Not true. Netanyahu and Barak are siding against the Israeli terrorists. That’s a good thing. There’s no excuse for failing to credit it.
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Tags:chief rabbi, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Islamophobia, Israel, Jewish settlers, Jewish terrorists, Middle East Monitor, mosque-burners, Netanyahu, Palestinians, West Bank mosque
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
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? 
Ethics Bob 
