Category: Politics

Lieberman to Endorse McCain

Regarding this particular piece of news …. both McCain and Lieberman are increasingly irrelevant, so to some degree, who cares whether or not he is endorsing a Republican?

Sen. John McCain, trying to build momentum toward a reprise of his 2000 New Hampshire primary victory, is piling up high-profile endorsements, including one from another political maverick, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

The Connecticut senator, an independent who was the Democrats’ 2000 vice presidential nominee, was scheduled to announce his support for McCain at a town hall meeting Monday morning in Hillsborough.

A Lieberman adviser said the senator decided to back McCain despite being a Republican because he believes his colleague from Arizona “has the best chance of uniting the country in its fight against Islamic terrorism.”

I have to add, though — of all the reasons he could have given for crossing party lines to make his endorsement, that’s the best he can do?

Pathetic.

Why "The Valley" Should Like Obama

Barack Obama is getting support for a lot of reasons, but his new set of proposals for integrating technology into government is another good reason for folks in this neck of the woods to pay attention to his candidacy.

VentureBeat has a rundown on Obama’s “technology platform”. Here’s a few takeaways:

  • Obama wants to open more of the governmental process. For example, the public should able to comment on the White House website before legislation is signed.
  • He calls more aggressive government support of broadband access.
  • He supports network neutrality.
  • He want to open the wireless spectrum so that winners of the 700 MHz band auction don’t just camp the spectrum in a bid to lock out competition.

Slightly less praiseworthy is his proposal to raise sanctions against companies offering “indecent” content. Fining networks $250,000 for dropping an f-bomb on TV is not going to make a more child-friendly society. Still, on balance, it’s a solid plan.

Nitpicking "The Big Picture"

It’s a rare day that I get to say something like this, but I think Barry Ritholtz missed the point a little in his smackdown of the WSJ Doctor the Dollar? article today:

When a currency falls as precipitously as ours has, it is, in no small part, a referendum by foreign governments (and their private investors/traders) on a country and its government. We know that the current administration is not particularly popular overseas. Its no coincidence that since they took office on January 20, 2001, the dollar has fallen ~35%.

The dollar has not fallen because foreign governments don’t like George W Bush (although he’s undoubtedly unpopular). It’s the policies this administration has implemented that have caused the dollar to weaken.

How is This Helping?

After reading this USA Today piece, the phrase “needle in a haystack” comes to mind:

The [US] government’s terrorist watch list has swelled to more than 755,000 names, according to a new government report that has raised worries about the list’s effectiveness.

The size of the list, typically used to check people entering the country through land border crossings, airports and sea ports, has been growing by 200,000 names a year since 2004.

[snip]
Leonard Boyle, director of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the list, says in testimony to be given today that 269 foreigners were denied entry in fiscal 2006.

If This is “Keeping Us Safe”…

then I’d really like to know what “aiding the enemy” looks like. Just as with Valerie Plame, the Bush administration doesn’t seem to care how much intelligence work they compromise as long as they can get off a cheap shot at Democrats or a spot of fear mongering on Fox News.

Here’s the lede from the Washington Post:

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network

How much more pathetic can this administration get?

Shame On Us

It’s bad enough that the US is involved in a massive, costly and ultimately unwinnable war. It’s even worse that, despite the lessons learned from Vietnam, we don’t take good care of the ones who pay a fearful price when fighting that war.

Read this rundown on returning vets.

“Your broke it, you pay for it” is the rule at Pottery Barn, shouldn’t it be the rule for the Army too?