Jeffrey McManus

Link: In Miami, Cuban Exiles Unmoved

"Senator McCain, Republican of Arizona, said that despite Mr. Castro’s action, ‘freedom for Cuba is not yet at hand.’ ‘We must press the Castro regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor union and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections,’ Mr. McCain said in a statement."

Dear Republicans,

Would it be possible to make all that stuff happen in the United States first before we sweat it with other countries?

Yours truly,

The Voters

Link: Ex - President Bush Says Attacks on McCain "Unfair"

"Former President George H.W. Bush urged disgruntled conservatives on Monday to rally around John McCain, calling their criticism of the Republican presidential front-runner ‘grossly unfair.’

The father of President George W. Bush said he was annoyed by attacks within the conservative wing of the Republican Party against the Arizona senator, the all-but-certain Republican nominee to face Democrats in November election.

Many conservatives distrust McCain because of his moderate views on illegal immigration and campaign finance reform and for having originally voted against President Bush’s tax cuts. Persuading them all to vote for McCain in November will be a central challenge. ‘His character was forged in the crucible of war. His commitment to America is beyond any doubt,’ the 41st U.S. president, flanked by his wife Barbara, told a joint news conference with McCain in a Houston airport hanger. ‘You know, if you’ve been around the track you hear these criticisms and I think they are grossly unfair. He’s got a … sound conservative record but he’s not above reaching out to the other side,’ he said."

Sort of sad that McCain has to suffer its slings and arrows, since he’s a reasonably principled campaigner, but wouldn’t it be ironic if the Republican swift boat slander machine were responsible for their party’s anointed candidate going down in flames in November?

It’s Super Tuesday; voters here in California and 23 other states will go to the polls to select candidates in their parties’ primaries.

I’m convinced that the damage that the Republican administration has done to this country will take a generation to repair. I lost my taste some time ago for the tenor of political debate in this country, and I have very little patience for the kind of candidate that will make equivocation and political gamesmanship the order of the day.

Although conventional wisdom states that the two remaining Democratic candidates are pretty much aligned on all the big issues, my vote is being informed by two things: 1) She voted for the war and 2) My discomfort with the notion of the White House bouncing back and forth between two families for decades on end.

This is not how government of/by/for the people was intended to work. At all.

So I’m voting for Barack Obama today.

In a related note, NPR began a story this morning by describing Bush as "the current occupant of the White House" which must have been a nod to the term that author Sarah Vowell uses to describe him. She can’t bring herself to use his name, ever: she calls him "the current president".

I don’t even think it’s necessary to comment about how perfect this photo is of Hillary in Las Vegas. Study it for a moment. There is absolutely nothing about it that is not hilarious.

From the NY Times’ election blog.

Link: Politics Wrapped in a Clothing Ad - New York Times.

"In a new series of ads, American Apparel is moving in a political direction. The cause is immigration reform, and the ads say in part that the status quo ‘amounts to an apartheid system’ and should be overhauled to create a legal path for undocumented workers to gain citizenship in the United States."

The piece goes on to quote a dessicated professor who is an expert on immgration, who states that the "apartheid" term can’t possibly be accurate because these people are breaking the law. Well, tiger, I gotta tell ya — apartheid was the law of the land in South Africa, too. If what we’re doing were not apartheid then we’d be building a big anti-immigrant wall on the Canadian border, too, wouldn’t we?

Link: Huckabee Sees Pakistan as Reason for Border Fence

"On Thursday night [Huckabee] told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: ‘We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.’ On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks. ‘When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,’ he told reporters. ‘And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.’
In fact, far more illegal immigrants come from the Philippines, Korea, China and Vietnam, according to recent estimates from the Department of Homeland Security.

Asked how a border fence would help keep out Pakistani immigrants, Mr. Huckabee argued that airplane security was already strong, but that security at the southern United States border was dangerously weak. ‘The fact is that the immigration issue is not so much about people coming to pick lettuce or make beds, it’s about someone coming with a shoulder-fired missile,’ he said."

Maybe he’s addressing a specific constituency here, but it sure seems to me that candidate Huckabee is fumbling the ball on the 1 yard line with these disingenuously Bush-esque pronouncements on immigration. Building a fence on the Mexican border to keep out Pakistani terrorists makes about as much sense as invading Iraq to punish 9/11 plotters.

Link: Obama’s Complex History With Lobbyists

"Disclosure reports show he rarely accepted gifts or meals from lobbyists, even though there was no limit on such freebies until Obama helped pass a law establishing one. For him, a big gift was $50 worth of tickets to a Rembrandt exhibit from the Art Institute of Chicago.

Some lobbyists were even a bit hazy on who he was, spelling his name ‘O’Bama’ in their reports."

Link: Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders

"The documents show that in 2002, the company’s goal for Barbara Fowler, Health Net’s senior analyst in charge of rescission reviews, was 15 cancellations a month. She exceeded that, rescinding 275 policies that year — a monthly average of 22.9."

Excellent L.A. Times investigative piece describing how HealthNet assigned its analysts quotas for how many sick people to deny health coverage to, and paid them bonuses for hitting those quotas.

The next time someone comes up with an idea for expanding health care and it gets shouted down with McCarthy-era bogeyman phrases like "socialized medicine," remember that capitalized medicine is what we have now. Denying health insurance to cancer patients and poor children is what capitalized medicine is all about.

Link: Bobby Jindal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Afterwards, [Louisiana governor-elect Bobby Jindal] received a master’s degree in political science from New College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. While at Oxford, he wrote an article for the New Oxford Review claiming he personally witnessed a friend being possessed by a demon. After Oxford, he joined McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm."

Link: Chertoff: Illegals ‘Degrade’ Environment

"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it’s actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line. ‘Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I’ve seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas,’ Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ‘And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment.’"

Finally, we get a rock-solid explanation about all this immigration hysteria. It’s not because we’re xenophobes, it’s because we’re environmentalists. We’re keeping out immigrants because they’re dirty. Letting in more immigrants is the absolute worst thing you can do to the environment, in fact. And that, dear citizens, is why they’re building the border fence out of plutonium.

Link: Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants

"The business district is fairly vacant now, but it’s not the legitimate businesses that are gone," [the former mayor of Riverside, N.J.] said. "It’s all the ones that were supporting the illegal immigrants, or, as I like to call them, the criminal aliens."

How inspiring it must be to have a completely culturally pure downtown business district, completely devoid of both immigrants and businesses. I can see why this dude is the ex-mayor.

Link: American Farmers Cross the Border for Labor

"In the past, some Americans have planted south of the border to escape spiraling land prices and to ensure year-round deliveries of crops they can produce only seasonally in the United States. But in the last three years, Mr. Nassif and other growers said, labor uncertainties have become a major reason why more farmers have shifted to Mexico.

While there are benefits for Mexico, as American farmers bring the latest technology and techniques to the rich soil of its northern regions, American farm state economists say that thousands of middle-class jobs supporting agriculture are being lost in the United States. Some lawmakers in the United States also point to security risks when food for Americans is increasingly produced in foreign countries."

They said I was nuts a few months back when I argued that building walls and deporting immigrants is only going to suck jobs out of the U.S. economy. But here’s some evidence that that is happening.

Link: Bush Opposes Raising Gas Tax for Bridge Repairs

"President Bush said today that he would be opposed to any steps by Congress to increasing the gasoline tax to raise revenues for national bridge repairs in the wake of last week’s bridge collapse in Minneapolis. ‘Before we raise taxes, which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities,’ Mr. Bush said."

Earth to meathead: Astoundingly, people perishing in floods, bridge collapses, etc., affects economic growth.

Cars, trucks, trains and other heavy equipment that were part of the national economy also perished in the bridge collapse, too. If that helps you any.

Link: Bush Is Firm as Criticism Over Iraq Mounts

"Mr. Bush said he would talk about ‘the war on terror and our need to succeed in Iraq.’ He has long called the military campaign in Iraq part of a global struggle against terrorism. ‘And I’m going to remind the people in the audience today that troop levels will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington, D.C., and that we’ve got a plan to lead to victory,’ Mr. Bush said, again echoing remarks he has made before. ‘I fully understand that this is a difficult war, and it’s hard on the American people, but I will once again explain the consequences of failure to the American people, and I’ll explain the consequences of success, as well.”

There are so many classic turns of phrase in this single brief quote that it’s difficult to know where to begin (I’m going to set aside the bit where he declares that troop strength is under the purview of those nebulous, traitorous "politicans" instead of the Commander in Chief — which is to say, him).

But this notion of the "consequences of success" has got to be the most unintentionally brilliant political term ever coined. Mull that one over for a second: the consequences of success. It’s almost like Bush knows that we know that Iraq is going to be screwed whether we "succeed" or not, and he’s explaining it to us in his own little secret code. You’re the schoolyard bully, and you’ve successfully stolen the lunch money of every other kid on the playground. Now, my dear bully, you get to deal with the consequences of success.

I would be stunned if both Tom Clancy and Noam Chomsky were not both planning to name their next tomes The Consequences of Success after reading this.

Link: Legal, intense hallucinogen raises alarms

"Unlike well-known illicit drugs such as marijuana or cocaine, salvia is not in widespread use. It hasn’t caught the attention of state or local health departments. San Francisco police said that while they’re aware of salvia, it’s not yet a problem."

People don’t believe it when they learn that this kind of hysterically prissy story runs in the San Francisco Chronicle all the time, but it does. (If you’re looking for the sort of leftist rag that better suits the political temperaments of The City, you have to turn to the SF Weekly, which is usually too liberal even for me.)

Anyway, this amusing/sad piece goes on to discuss the public health concerns regarding saliva, to whit: people might get in their cars and crash them while on the drug, maybe, and somebody heard of a story about a guy that stabbed somebody somewhere while on the drug, one time, supposedly.

Clearly, on this basis, it is time to alert the riot squad.

I should say that I am not a huge drug-using guy myself, except for the occasional vodka martini. But you’ve got to scratch your head at the reasoning here. Even if hallucinogens killed 10 people per year, which they don’t, that’s a tiny fraction of the people killed by alcohol and cigarettes — to say nothing of straight-up sober highway driving (which kills more Americans than fifteen September 11 attacks each and every year).

If you want to get hysterical about something that’s injurious to public health right now, start there.

Link: Bush’s Stance on Immigration Has Roots in Midland

"Ms. Brannon, the local [Republican] party chairwoman who has known Mr. Bush for decades, said [Bush] did not understand the new realities of illegal immigration. She said the friends he made in the Hispanic community when he lived in Midland were "not here illegally and taking freebies."

"I love George and Laura dearly, and I respect him," she said, "but this immigration thing is going to ruin our country."

Excellent piece in today’s NY Times about Bush’s progressive attitude toward immigration contrasted against the old-guard racist swine that form the Republican base down in Texas. Attention racist swine: if immigrants were really capable of ruining the country, they would have done it by now. Immigrants won’t ruin the country, they freaking created it.

I’ve been watching with interest the drama of Mayor Bloomberg of NYC leaving the Republican party this week, along with the rumors that he’ll run for president. It looks like a few NYC tech bloggers greeted this with enthusiasm which I suppose stems from his success in running that city.

I think that more centrist technocrats and fewer partisans at the national level would be a very good thing, as I’m sure people in places like New Orleans would agree. But Bloomberg (and Hillary Clinton, for that matter) are not likely to get my vote based on their positions on Iraq. Bloomberg was a cheerleader for the war early on; he’s parroted the totally hokey Bush position that Iraq is just another battle in a war that started on Sept. 11. Knowing what we know today, I can’t believe that a single American with a triple-digit IQ still buys into this, but there you go. Have fun justifying your position on the campaign trail, Mike.

Today the NY Times has an excellent roundup of Bloomberg’s positions on various issues. I sure wish they’d do this kind of piece on the actual presidential candidates — every time I see Wolf Blitzer breathlessly obsess over which dark-horse candidate may be getting into the race and who their running mates might be without saying anything at all about what each candidate stands for I want to yack.

Link: Suit Sheds Light on Clintons’ Ties to a Benefactor

"When the C.E.O. of a publicly traded company can say with a straight face that the shareholders benefit from having a yacht with an all-female crew stationed in the Virgin Islands, then you’ve got a problem."

It could be that somebody needs to get a dictionary so they can look up the definition of the word "problem".

Link: Wolfowitz Said to Push for Deal to Quit

"After six weeks of combating efforts to oust him as president of the World Bank, Paul D. Wolfowitz began Wednesday to negotiate the terms under which he would resign, in return for the dropping or softening of the charge that he had engaged in misconduct, bank officials said.
Mr. Wolfowitz was said to be adamant that he be cleared of wrongdoing before he resigned, according to people familiar with his thinking."

Yet another example of the way that neoconservatives, when chanting the mantra of "personal responsibility," are referring to anyone but themselves.

It looks like astroturfers from a Virginia-based lobbying/PR outfit that calls itself "Hands Off the Internet" have been busy this week, posting the telco/cable company party line on various bloggers’ comments, including mine.

It surprised me that these people found my blog — I’m in favor of net neutrality, but I don’t blog about it much here, mainly because others do it much better than I could. I just happened to mention net neutrality in a quote from an unrelated NY Times article I quoted earlier in the week. They must have Technorati alerts set up for phrases like "net neutrality," and when they see someone post something with that phrase in it, they dump a bunch of nonsense in their comments.

You can see he (or they) are doing this on other peoples’ blogs by doing a web search for "HandsOffPlease".

The fact that the astroturfers are comment-bombing blogs is interesting not because of their dazzling rhetoric — they’re falsely trying to position anti-net-neutrality as a way to foster more internet innovation by removing the evil spectre of government regulation. The fact is that the industry is more interested in forcing government to step aside so telcos and cable companies can screw over consumers any way they want. If you want to start putting a quarter in a meter every time you download a video, I suppose that  kind of "deregulation" is what you want. But if you want to keep paying for access to the net the way you do today, with a flat rate for a specified amount of bandwidth, then you’re pro-net neutrality, it’s as simple as that.

Even more interesting to me than the sloppy, intellectually dishonest rhetoric is the fact that the telcos are now paying somebody to troll the net and tell lies in bloggers’ comments. The telcos must believe that the blogosphere is a front in the net neutrality fight.