U.S. Politics

[prasen9]

Since I am having so much fun arguing mindlessly about policies, I decided to create a politics thread where we can all argue endlessly about nothings. Anyway, since some posts do not fit exactly in the US elections thread, I am creating this one. Feel free to delete it if it goes against the charter of the forum.

Here is the first post. This is reasonably big in my books. The US Department of Justice was highly politicized by the Bush administration. Mukasey got shamed into assigning an federal prosecutor to look into that. It seems the reports will come after Bush is out of power, so there may be no Bush pardons, though, there is a chance of McCain pardons for the criminals. Justice should remain apolitical for any country to flourish. Hope the culprits are punished or the innocents' names cleared.

[PKBasu]

I just watched an excellent interview with Colin Powell (on Fareed Zakaria´s GPS). What a genuinely decent man Powell is, and one who would have made a terrific President (although he was a bit of a failure as Secy of State, because of the poor quality of the man who was president then).

[prasen9]

I do not condone these actions and I am happy that it did not hit, but, one cannot stifle a chuckle because symbolically it could not have happened to a "better" person.

[prasen9]

No Change! They only talk about transparency in government.
Yes to drilling! Good talk on environmental causes.
No to prosecution Criminals will not be prosecuted.

If you really want to look forward, you have to prosecute criminal activities in the past, otherwise, we will have another administration in four to eight years time (if not this very administration) who will continue illegal activities without caring for the law. Congress should show some backbone and exercise oversight, Obama or no Obama, but, these political creatures do only what gets them votes and not what they are tasked by the constitution.

Change we can believe in. Good talk, no walk.

[jayakris]

I am completely in support of the Obama positions on EVERY one of those instances you listd, prasen.

Don't count out anything, but focus on the more important problems. The ACLU guys can wait for a few months. If there is state secrets that need to be kept secret, they must be. Prosecuting Bush administration atrocities won't put bread on people's dinner tables right now. If drilling is what is needed in the near-term, it should be allowed regardless of ideological leanings and long-term strategies. What is galling is when the republicans and democrats take their ideological stands (and carry out sound-bite politics) to run the country to the ground. There are grey areas in all these issues and extreme positions like those advocated or supported in those above blogs/articles, are often not productive for the country or its peoples.

Go Obama. Show the guts to take complicated positions and exlain it to the countries' people and to the sound-byte politicians in the congress, without thinking that everybody is dumb and can only understand extreme arguments in single phrases. You may fail at this, but I will respect you for trying the right middle of the road (pragmatic) path with solid understanding of what is right and what is wrong.

Jay

[prasen9]

I am completely in support of the Obama positions on EVERY one of those instances you listd, prasen.

There are more --- I will put them up later.

Don't count out anything, but focus on the more important problems. The ACLU guys can wait for a few months. If there is state secrets that need to be kept secret, they must be.

I thought there are multiple guys running the government. A government has to run multiple things at the same time. The ACLU will not be waiting for a few months, the case will be thrown out and a importance precedence will be set for ever or at least for a long time until there is a justice who decides to ignore stare decsis. The Obama administration wants entire cases to be throw out just by using the cover of state secrets. So, it boils down to why it is a state secret that needs to be kept. There is no convincing answer on the merits of the case. I could write why this is a wrong decision, but, Glen Greenwald does it better here. I would request you to kindly read that and tell me why this is not an alarming disregard for people's rights. To summarize, the government can do anything, put you and me behind bars and if any of our relatives want to bring it to court, they will just say state secret and throw the case out. I am approximating, but, the gist of the argument is that. I am not against keeping individual evidence wrapped under state secrets, but, throwing out entire cases from court arguing state secret is plain wrong and denial of rights to people --- the same rights on the basis of which this country was founded. Why is this abuse of power not alarming? Our entire way of living is founded on the rule of law. One cannot say that upholding the law is not important. It is one of the most important things that holds this society together. These are first steps in sliding towards communism and dictatorship if we go down this slippery slope.

Prosecuting Bush administration atrocities won't put bread on people's dinner tables right now.

Again, different people could do different things at the same time. If you do not want to take that distraction now, you could say that you have not decided whether to prosecute and punt it for six months down the line or say that you will continue to evaluate the evidence and could keep stalling things for a year. Instead, these guys are saying that there will be no prosecutions period. That encourages future governments to dump another Bush III administration on us. These guys do not believe in the rule of law, do not want to take tough, correct stances, do not care for the future of this country. They care only about getting elected and increasing the democratic party's majority.

If drilling is what is needed in the near-term, it should be allowed regardless of ideological leanings and long-term strategies.

We should not do something that has little benefits now and can harm us much in the longer-term. Can you please make the case why this particular drilling is necessary and how it will help?

--pm

[prasen9]

Threat of Martial Law in the US: Reality Version
Classified: Version
"End of our political system" says Congressman (around the 3:00 min mark, but, you may have to hear from 2:00 mins to get the context) ...

[prasen9]

This issue is rather bizarre. Obama instructed to close down Guantanamo. It would have been easier to ask for more time to form an opinion in this case. But Obama (or Holder) decided to continue with the case. Greenwald has another post and his post has a link to the NY Times editorial that decries this decision. Greenwald's arguments seem reasonable and well constructed to me. Anyway, let us see if this is an aberration or another set of continued abuses against human rights.

[prasen9]

As I had said, there are some more questionable decisions by Obama. I will give him the benefit of doubt because he seems to have taken a lot of good decisions, but, one of the bizarre ones is choosing Ray LaHood for Transportation secretary. Presidents choose a token person from the other party. Obama had already decided to keep Bob Gates. He was considering Judd Gregg for Commerce secretary, though, Gregg later refused. Why choose another Republican for transportation? Transportation is going to be very important because it has to deal with the auto industry and public transport issues. If Obama wants to make America greener, those are important decisions to take. Let us take a look under the hood to discover what LaHood is. At best he is a dummy --- a ceremonial head. The guy knows nothing about transportation. Look at his resume. I did not see any link to transportation issues. Basically, yet another Illinois guy who Obama and Rahm knew and thought he would be harmless. Granted finding a harmless Republican is a hard job. However, this guy is also a pork-lover (one of the redeeming attributes of Republicans, at least on paper, is that they are anti-pork), and he does not even have the anti-pork virtue. Here is another article which outlines the problem with the appointment. Geroge W. Bush's cronies did enough harm to the government because they had no clue how to run the agencies they were heading. Remember "Heckuva job Brownie", an Arabian Horse Show executive running the Department of Homeland Security's FEMA division which was sleeping while New Orleans was sinking? That is the risk of putting unqualified people in top jobs. Now, I have to hope that they have some strong career civil servants at the Department of Transportations and his deputy is a strong guy and runs the department well. But, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth, if some bozo from somewhere is foisted into an important position. Whatever happened to the promise of appointing qualified people? I know a bunch of other appointments are very qualified, but, still why can it not be that all appointees are qualified? Surely, it is not too difficult to find someone to run the DoT?

[jayakris]

Yeah, that was a head-scratcher for sure, for those of us who follow the transportation area. Was totally unexpected, from Obama. On the other hand, it is also a department with tremendous inertia and the secretaries have hardly managed to change much as far as DoT itself is concerned - except some surprises like Nixon's secretary Volpe who did much more for environmentally-friendly transportation than for instance Carter's secretary who followed. Things are not that straight-forward to predict when it comes to the transportation secretary, and intuition does not always work, all thanks to the inertia I mentioned in the vast bureaucracy that the transportation administration has.

Changes in terms of transportation becoming greener etc, are things that DoT secretary may not have much to do with immediately. As for spending on green technologies, I think much of that would go to other departments because things are not ready for the Transportation secretary to do much. In fact, to some extent I am happy that the "treehuggers" and "green" extremists would not manage to waste oodles of money on pointless rail projets (hint: rail is NOT the answer for green transportation; some of the biggest pork projects are rail and transit projects which won't solve ANYTHING!) .. Let the transportation department spend the next 2-3 years on fixing problems in the exitsing infastructure, which is much more shovel-ready and stimulus-worthy (and we DO have a really crumbling transportation infrastructure right now). Much more needs to be done in the energy area and R&D in battery technology etc before the good old Transportation department can make much of a dent on the environmental front, in my humble opinion. As for handling the car companies, again, much more important are other policy deicisons with hardly much input/influence from the Transportation secretary.

On the other hand, a "green" man may cause utter waste of taxpayer money on 30-year old transit ideas (which the environtal activists have still not learned to be not an answer to anything!), and even more boondoggles called BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) etc which are there only for companies to rip off governments with 1.5 times longer buses which cost 5 times than usual buses,and even buses requiring drivers/workers who earn twice as much as they should, thanks to unionization. Though LaHood is not knwn as anti-transit, strangely and in a very counter-intuitive way for a slightly left-leaning guy like me, this know-nothing republican gives me some comfort that we would not start seriously wasting money. Who knows - perhaps that is exactly what Obama was thinking! Obama seems to be able to think more deeply about many things than almost everybody around him, so far. May be he knows that we are not ready for massive changes just yet, till a few other puzzles (alternative energy, better power grid, etc etc) are in place - and he wanted to stay safe as far as DoT was concerned.

Jay

PS: preasen, forgot to reply to your above post. I can see why the issue seriously annoys you. At least on throwing out cases completely on the basis of "national security", my opinion above does stand somewhat changed. I would still say we should give Obama a bit more time to breath - may be they are only taking a safe approach initially - hopefully.

[prasen9]

Though LaHood is not knwn as anti-transit, strangely and in a very counter-intuitive way for a slightly left-leaning guy like me, this know-nothing republican gives me some comfort that we would not start seriously wasting money. Who knows - perhaps that is exactly what Obama was thinking! Obama seems to be able to think more deeply about many things than almost everybody around him, so far. May be he knows that we are not ready for massive changes just yet, till a few other puzzles (alternative energy, better power grid, etc etc) are in place - and he wanted to stay safe as far as DoT was concerned.

I think he got this guy as (i) a ceremonial head, and, (ii) to increase his bipartisanship score. They know they can run the show around him. If you want to stop wasting money, LaHood is not your guy. I quote from Wikipedia:

LaHood received a 0% rating from the conservative and anti-earmark Club for Growth 2007 RePORK Card.[7] He received an 11% rating from Citizens Against Government Waste for 2007 and holds a lifetime 49% rating from the group.

He was the biggest bringer of pork to Illinois: see this. I agree with the other things you said and I agree that we should cut Obama some slack. Maybe he is too shrewd and needs a puppet to do what he wants. Let us wait and see. Initially, administrations cannot control everything perfectly; maybe that is why some things slip. They will get more organized.

I thought trains and public transit work. I am fully with you wrt large buses and waste. But, can you please point to information that shows that trains are a waste (at your own time, I know you are busy).

[prasen9]

Maybe there are some decent judges after all ...

[Kumar]

Insane. Childish. Disaster. And those were some of the kinder comments from political pundits about Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and his response to President Barack Obama's speech to Congress on Tuesday night. Jindal, 37, a Rhodes scholar and son of Indian immigrants, is considered a rising star in Republican ranks and a likely 2012 presidential candidate.

Republican's Democrats criticize Jindal's speech

[prasen9]

Jindal & Creationism

[prasen9]

Those of you who followed the American elections last Nov may have heard of Joe the Plumber. This luminary decided to write a book and cash in. It got polarized reviews on Amazon.com. Either 5 stars or one star. Read some of the five star reviews , e.g., the one by Gen. J.C. Christian, patriot: JC's review. And the others here. Hilarious!