In my heart of hearts, I still harbor hope that John Kerry will be the Presidential nominee in 2004. Whether that’s realistic or not, I don’t know.
But what about the Vice Presidential nominee? The possibilities here are endless. In the spirit of good-time fun, I’m going to throw out a crazy prediction and let everyone out there pick it apart and/or tear it to shreds.
My current prediction for the 2004 Democratic Nominee for Vice President of these here United States is….
Eliot Spitzer.
Who the hell is Eliot Spitzer, you may ask?
- He is the Attorney General of New York.
- He has a reputation for being tough on business fraud. He recently won a $100 million settlement from Merril Lynch over their fraudulent Research Analysis practices. He is also considering going after Investment Banks who made huge fees from selling tanking stocks.
- He has a strong record of fighting for environmental matters. Especially the Clean Air Act. He has threatened to sue the federal government (middle of article) over relaxations of Clean Air made by the Bush Administration. Prior to the act being gutted, he sued power plants who violated Clean Air standards (in fact, I would bet that Spitzer’s suits were a reason why the administration gutted the act). In a less successful suit, he went after General Electric for PCB pollution of the Hudson River. Finally he has gone after the Ford Motor Company over environmental contamination caused by the mercury switches that are used in their automobiles.
- He won a settlement with Smith and Wesson, getting them to agree to install trigger locks on all the guns they manufacture. This settlement is important because he did not go after new laws, but compelled a manufacturer to act responsibly
- As a result of all of these things, especially his recent action against corporate fraud, he has gained great deal of national exposure. He has become a frequent talk show guest, appearing on Donahue last night. In those talk show appearances, he seems to fit the mold of the “straight-talker” in that he doesn’t repeat a canned message and seems to speak his mind. He was also recently profiled in Time.
- He is not without his critics, and has been accused of grandstanding for political gain. He is not afraid to answer criticism, however.
- He has a twinkle in his eye.
get donkey! Thinks Eliot Spitzer could be an interesting name to watch as 2004 election season approaches.
July 31st, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
12 comments
Hack journalist Howard Fineman dazzles us with yet another enigmatic piece of dreck.
He starts out saying how brave John Kerry is for being the first to assail the president on the foreign policy front. Almost, but not quite, admitting that Kerry’s criticisms have some merit…
Kerry is a serious fellow, and his argument is a serious one: that, despite its initial success in blowing the Taliban out of Afghanistan, the Bush administration has failed so far on every other count in the war Bush declared on terrorism after Sept. 11. By not using enough elite U.S. troops in Tora Bora, and by not sealing escape routes in Operation Anaconda, Bush and his war cabinet missed a crucial opportunity to kill the network before it could disperse. Meanwhile, Kerry argues, the U.S. has needlessly upset and confused its allies with tough talk on Iraq — and yet, at the same time, given the bad guys more time to prepare for whatever we decide to do.
At this point, I’m kind of into it. Someone in the “big media”, even someone like Howard Fineman, is starting to see through the Dubya smoke and mirrors show. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last, and we get this veiled attack of Kerry’s character:
Knowledgeable though he is, Kerry can be dismissed easily enough by the White House — for now — as just another presidential wannabe.
We get subtle digs at the “timorous” Europeans, the “wary” Turks, and those “divided” British. There is some brief mention of how some other groups and media outlets are attacking Bush. For a moment I hold out hope…
Then he begins the Presidential hand-job in earnest. Fineman hints of how the war on Saddam will provide yet another test for Bush’s mettle. Howard guesses that the White House has some extra-special, super-secret data on Saddam’s nefarious plans to destroy the world. He believes Bush will do the right thing and attack Saddam after winning approval from the UN (right!) and Congress. Finally he insinuates that even though he may be critical now, and even though he did not vote for the first Iraq war, Kerry will chicken out and vote in favor of the next war on Iraq.
Howard Fineman — Newsweek’s official booster for the Bush White House.
July 31st, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
2 comments
Tom Friedman says:
During the campaign, on Nov. 1, 2000, Mr. Bush, in one of his many trashings of the federal bureaucracy then and since, declared: “The I.R.S. just announced they’re going to hire an additional 2,079 bureaucrats. My opponent talks about fighting for the people against the powerful. But it works out a little differently under his plan. In his case, more audits for people, more power for the I.R.S. And that’s the heart of his agenda: a fundamental belief in the federal government, a lack of trust and faith in ordinary Americans. . . . I trust people; he trusts the government.”
That is the real George Bush — a man who trusts his C.E.O. cronies more than the bureaucratic regulators who oversee them. And that’s why he brought in the Harvey Pitts of the world to weaken that oversight.
Well, count me among those naïve fools with a fundamental belief in the federal government — not because I have no faith in ordinary Americans, but because I have no trust in ordinary Big Oil, ordinary Enron or ordinary Harken Energy to do the right thing without proper oversight.
To which get donkey! replies with a hearty, “Huzzah!”
via the excellent Brad DeLong
July 30th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
one comment
According to this AP piece President Bush is pushing his 40-hour welfare recipient workweek again.
Bush faulted legislation passed last month by Democrats, who control the Senate Finance Committee, because it does not include the stiffer work requirements he seeks, would not produce as much money as he wants for programs promoting marriage, and would increase funds to help working welfare parents pay for child care.
“They’re saying we got to spend a bunch more money in order to make us feel better and to make things work better. We don’t need that,” Bush said.
“Why should we need to feel better?” the president didn’t add, “”These people should know their place. They should be happy we give them anything at all.”
“There are so many exceptions, so many loopholes, so many ways out of holding people to high standards that fewer people would actually be moving from welfare to work,” Bush told an invited audience at Charleston’s West Ashley High School.
…
“Under the way they’re kind of writing it right now out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years — there’s a five-year work requirement — on welfare going to college,” Bush said
“Why should these people need to go to college, “ Bush didn’t continue, “Why what would happen if my maid in Crawford, Rosaria, wanted to cut time off her duties as my servant to go take classes? Who would make my tortillas and fill my pretzel bowl? What could these people possibly learn, anyway? I mean for God’s sake they’re on Welfare?”
I’d almost be willing to support the war on Iraq if it would get this “Compassionate Conservative” to shut up already.
July 30th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
one comment
An Austin, TX man by the name of Thomas Van Orten filed a federal lawsuit to have a monument depicting the Ten Commandments removed from the state capitol. The argument is that the monument signifies a state endorsement of Christianity and therefore violates separation of Church and state.
I guess I don’t find the statue itself, which I have never seen, offensive. I mean it is Texas after all. What else would I expect? What really irritates me is the attempted argument made by the State:
The state counters that the 5-foot-tall stone slab is more historical than religious because key segments of law are founded on the moral and cultural ethics provided by the commandments.
“(The case) represents the right of our government to honor things that have been significant in our history as a country and a state,” said Jeff Boyd, deputy attorney general.
So the state’s initial argument is that the 10 Commandments are actually a secular legal document and do not have that much religious significance. That’s a new one. The more I think about it, that viewpoint may actually be more offensive to religious practitioners than to the intelligence of those fighting for Church/State separation.
Of course, under cross examination in the US District Court Hearing over the matter, executive director of the State Preservation Board, Richard Crawford, eventually acknowledged that the Ten Commandments have a teensy-weensy bit of religious significance as well.
July 30th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
6 comments
I know every liberal blogger worth their salt points out the weekly Krugman NYT column, but I was busy last week and missed out on the fun. Plus I just love the Krugman, so…
If you’re playing Paul Krugman’s “Skewering the President” home-game, last week’s column about what could be behind Bush’s continued, nonsensical support for privatizing Social Security was a beauty.
Here’s my favorite zinger-laden passage (especially the last sentence):
Mr. Bush first proposed privatizing Social Security back when people still believed that stocks only go up. Even then his proposal made no sense; as I’ve explained before, it was based on the claim that 2-1=4, that you can divert the payroll taxes of younger workers into personal accounts and still pay promised benefits to older workers. But now even the nonsensical promise that individual accounts would earn stock market returns looks pretty unappealing. So why does he keep pushing the idea?
One reason is ideology: hard-line conservatives are determined to build a bridge back to the 1920’s. Another is Mr. Bush’s infallibility complex: to back off on privatization would be to admit, at least implicitly, to a mistake — and this administration never, ever does that.
As always, it’s worth the read.
July 30th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
no comments
Today my host asked that I upgrade to MT 2.21. That is all well and good, but I also had to upgrade to using the mySQL storage system instead of the old BerkleyDB system. I also think this is a good thing. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, I have to test the new DB system to make sure I can still post properly. Of course, I am doing this at 11:45PM CDT, and I have nothing to write about. Hence, I am boring you with this verbose test post. I could have written a post that simply said, “test”, but what’s the fun in that? Good Night!
July 29th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
General comments |
no comments
James Gordon envisions a line of wind towers off the southern coast of Cape Cod, like a stand of Norway pines in the middle of the sea, quietly producing clean, renewable electricity.
I don’t know, this plan sounds good to me. There are others that disagree. It also sounds like those in disagreement are using alarmist tactics to voice their opposition.
July 29th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Science! |
no comments
Work is taking up all of my time today (darn, stupid work)! As a result, I doubt if I will be blogging much! Bygones.
July 29th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
General comments |
no comments
According to this Village Voice article it looks like people’s willingness to participate in a TIPS-like program isn’t too far fetched. Apparently, after September 11, in a “misguided fit of patriotism”, an employee of an un-named grocery store chain sent the data collected from the chain’s preferred customer card to three government agencies thinking they might be able to use the data to catch a terrorist.
That’s not the most frightening thing, however:
As John Ashcroft’s Citizens Corps spy program prepares for its debut next month, it seems scores of American companies have already become willing snitches. A few months ago, the Privacy Council surveyed executives from 22 companies in the travel industry—not just airlines but hotels, car rental services, and travel agencies—and found that 64 percent of respondents had turned over information to investigators and 59 percent had lowered their resistance to such demands. In that sampling, conducted with The Boston Globe, half of the businesses said they hadn’t decided if they’d inform customers of the change, and more than a third said outright that they wouldn’t. Only three said they would go public about the level of their cooperation with law enforcement.
The final destination of all that data scares Ponemon and other civil libertarians, defenders of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure. Ponemon, for one, suggests federal authorities are plugging the information into algorithms, using the complex formulas to create a picture of general-population trends that can be contrasted with the lifestyles of known terrorists. If your habits match, expect further scrutiny at the least.
“I can’t reveal my source, but a federal agency involved in espionage actually did a rating system of almost every citizen in this country,” [Larry Ponemon, CEO of the consulting firm Privacy Council and a former business ethics professor at Babson College and SUNY] claims. “It was based on all sorts of information—public sources, private sources. If people are not opted in”—meaning they haven’t chosen to participate—”one can generally assume that information was gathered through an illegal system.”
After crunching those numbers through the algorithm, he says, its creators fed in the files of the 9-11 terrorists as a test. “The model showed 89.7 percent accuracy ‘predicting’ these people from rest of population,” Ponemon reports.
Oddly enough, “one of the factors was if you were a person who frequently ordered pizza and paid with a credit card,” Ponemon says, describing the buying habits of a nation of college students. “Sometimes data leads to an empirical inference when you add it to other variables. Whether this one is relevant or completely spurious remains to be seen, but those kinds of weird things happen with data.”
That just sucks. I frequently order pizza and pay for it with a credit card (actually my bank card which doubles as a Visa). I guess that explains the black van parked across the street from my house every day.
This is an intersting article guaranteed to keep the paranoid up at night.
Via Tom Tomorrow
July 26th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
3 comments
This is good news for anyone who enjoys internet radio:
A trio of federal lawmakers introduced a bill Friday that would eliminate potentially steep royalty payments for small Internet radio stations, many of which have said the fees would force them to close.
The bill, which had been expected for several weeks, follows a controversial June decision on rules for Webcasting in which stations were ordered to pay about .07 cent per song, per listener for the rights to play music online. Although record labels criticized the sum as too low, small Webcasters said the fees would quickly add up to thousands of dollars, driving many out of business.
Dubbed “The Internet Radio Fairness Act,” the bill would exempt from royalties any business that makes less than $6 million in annual revenue, a group that would include the vast majority of online radio stations unaffiliated with a larger Internet or broadcasting company.
I’m so glad to see this legistaliton being introduced. It’s about time someone in Congress stood up to the greedy RIAA.
July 26th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Interesting stuff |
no comments
One conservative viewpoint that infuriates me is the myth that the founders of the United States were religious zealots who endeavored to create a Fundamentalist Christian theocracy.
What makes me even angrier is how many people believe this myth to be true.
I have tried several times to write posts debunking such myths, but I usually discard them because I get too emotional and start dropping f-bombs like a bombardier over Dresden, and that’s not good for anyone.
Anyway this morning I stumbled upon a blog by a fellow Houstonian who goes by “Dominion”. On Monday Dominion wrote an absolutely awe-inspiring deconstruction of the “The Myth of the Separation between Church and State” argument (You’ll have to scroll down to read it). In the post Dominion looks at quotations commonly used by religious wing nuts to prove the religiosity of the founding fathers. Dominion demonstrates, through thorough documentation, that nearly all of these quotes are misattributed, taken out of context, suspiciously altered , or simply made up. the post is definitely required reading.
Go read it now!
July 26th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
one comment
Yes, I know it’s still early and the sample was small, but Zogby’s latest poll still shows that Al Gore has a strong lead over all comers for the 2004 nomination — 30 points strong to be exact.
This is good for Gore, I guess, especially if you consider what Joshua Marshall said about Gore yesterday.
I’m still not getting all gung-ho for the Bush/Gore rematch, however. And it’s not that I dislike Gore or even harbor some kind of resentment for him because he may have “blown it” in 2000. I’m still just tantalized by all the new choices and possibilities out there. If Gore really came out swinging. If he was able to consistently act like the guy I saw at the rally in Chicago right before the election, then I would be all for him. Growing the beard back would help too.
July 25th, 2002
Posted by
Rob |
Politics |
2 comments