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And HEEEERE we go…

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

From FOX News:

Former President Bill Clinton’s foundation has raised at least $46 million from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments that his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit created by the former president to finance his library in Little Rock, Ark., and charitable efforts to reduce poverty and treat AIDS. Other foreign government givers include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Italy and Jamaica. The Dutch national lottery gave $5 million to $10 million.

Those bastards! Clearly, they anticipated that Mr. Clinton’s wife would someday hold a position of power, and in order to curry favor with her, they calculatingly donated millions of dollars to reduce poverty and treat AIDS. Damn – we should have seen that coming…

Sometimes, I wonder how far this can go before someone calls out the media on it. Isn’t it beneficial for the Secretary of State to have previous dealings with foreign governments (even if they are through her husband)? Wouldn’t it be logical for the people who design our national energy policy to have some practical expertise in the energy industry? Shouldn’t a guy like Henry Kissinger, one of the most experienced foreign policy experts in our country, be allowed to chair the 9/11 commission charged with understanding what happened on that horrible day?

When did past experience become a detriment to taking a job? When did prior dealings with those you’ll be working with in your new position become a potential conflict of interest, as opposed to an advantage that could lead to smoother transition and increased productivity?

With the Clintons, of course, it’s magnified even further. Not only can news organizations call her credibility into question before she even gets confirmed, but she and her husband have negotiated a deal that will lessen the flow of money to deserving charities as long as she’s in office:

[Bill] Clinton agreed to release the information after concerns emerged that his extensive international fundraising and business deals could conflict with America’s interests if his wife became Obama’s top diplomat. The foundation has insisted for years that it was under no legal obligation to identify its contributors, contending that many expected confidentiality when they donated.

According to the memorandum negotiated by the foundation and top Obama advisers, Bill Clinton agreed to publish the names of all past and future contributors to his foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

The former president also agreed to step away from direct involvement in the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual charitable conference where businesses and many foreign governments pledge donations to help ameliorate AIDS, poverty and other social ills. He will continue serving as CGI’s founding chairman but will not solicit money or sponsorships. The CGI will cease accepting foreign contributions and will not host events outside the United States.

So in order for Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, we are willing to:

I assume, by the way, that Bill Clinton will be perfectly free to raise funds for Democratic politicians (including his wife) in future elections, right? No conflict of interest there…

None of this is necessary. It’s all done to avoid the appearance of impropriety, in order to stave off the media hounds. Notice how no one is drafting disclosure agreements or communication plans that would allow Bill Clinton to continue his good work while simultaneously proving that Hillary Clinton is acting independently as the Secretary of State. Because then there would

Categories: News and/or Media, Political Rantings | 1 Comment »

The Root of All Evil is Money

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

This was the front-page article in the New York Times this past Thursday. Here are some quotes:

In all, Merrill handed out $5 billion to $6 billion in bonuses that year. A 20-something analyst with a base salary of $130,000 collected a bonus of $250,000. And a 30-something trader with a $180,000 salary got $5 million.

But Merrill

Categories: Money Talk, News and/or Media | 1 Comment »

The Argument Against Universal Voting Rights

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Colleague Dave Sohmer sends along this gem:

Categories: News and/or Media, Political Rantings, The World Wide Weird | 1 Comment »

Crossing the Bridge to Nowhere

Friday, September 19th, 2008

As you are no doubt aware, we have moved into that phase of the campaign where anything either candidate says is a “bald faced lie” and the “a new low in presidential campaigning.” I ignore most of these stories because they usually turn out to be just as untruthful (if not moreso) than the incident they’re describing, and both campaigns have figured out that no one ever gets eviscerated for lying about their opponent’s lying.

The one story that caught my eye, though, was the “Bridge to Nowhere” story. Each side has their talking point slogan (Democrats: “She was for it before she was against it,” Republicans: “I told Congress ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ on that Bridge to Nowhere’), and of course, each side is shocked…SHOCKED!! at how untruthful and negative the other side has become. But isn’t this an easy thing to check out? After all, we’re not talking about some abstract position on an issue that someone changed their mind about, we’re talking about the allocation of dollars from party to party and how/when it was spent. What a strange thing to lie about then, no?

Anyway, I checked it out. What follows is, in my humble opinion, an excellent case study in how politicians (on both sides of the aisle) lie.

Read the rest of this entry »

Categories: News and/or Media, Political Rantings | Comments Off on Crossing the Bridge to Nowhere

Putting Lipstick on a Flip-Flop is a Choice

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

OK, I need some serious help. I’ve resolved to stop posting so much about politics, and I can’t seem to make it stop. I promise to pepper in some lighter topics along the way, but please bear with me through November. The first step is admitting you have a problem, or so I’m told.

Anyway, three things triggered the “I gotta blog that” switch over the last few days, so in short bursts:

First I thought the American Flag Lapel Pin was the dumbest thing we’d hear about leading up to this election. Then, we started talking about who eats arugula salads vs. “common” salads and I was proven wrong. This morning, we have a new winner. “Lipstick on a pig” is an extremely common expression. The context was a discussion of McCain’s policies and the policies of George W. Bush and the GOP in general. He didn’t mention Sarah Palin in his talk, nor did he imply that he was talking about her. There are only three ties to Sarah Palin in this story at all: 1) she used the word “lipstick” in her convention acceptance speech, 2) she’s female, so she occasionally wears lipstick, and 3) the media will not miss a chance to news catalog a popular story no matter how stupid it is, and Sarah Palin is the story du jour. So shame on the McCain campaign for manufacturing scandals with what Barack Obama called “phony outrage,” but also (a lesser degree of) shame on the Obama campaign for accusing McCain of playing “the gender card.” This isn’t about gender, it’s just stupid.

>——————–<

I’ve read in a few places now that Sarah Palin’s statement that she’s “proud of the choice that Bristol made” to keep her baby is inconsistent with her abortion stance. The standard line seems to be, “Sarah Palin doesn’t want women around the country to have the same choice her daughter had.” This isn’t as dumb as lipstick on pigs, but it’s still pretty disingenuous. Pro-life advocates, like Palin, believe that abortion is murder and, as such, want to make it illegal. Pro-choice advocates stress that a pregnant woman’s body is her own, and she should make the choice about what happens if she becomes pregnant. In this case, though, the pro-choice group seems to be implying that abortion is the only choice worth fighting for, by suggesting that if it were taken away, women would have no choice at all. This, of course, isn’t true. I’m sure the choices Palin were talking about for her daughter included things like adoption, foster care, surrogacy, etc.. I disagree with Palin on this issue, and I have other problems with how she handled the public disclosure of her daugther’s pregnancy, but I don’t think she’s being hypocritical about it.

>——————–<

Finally, we have Barack Obama’s latest “flip-flop,” this time on the use of 527 groups. 527 groups are third-party groups that run campaign ads on behalf of a candidate, but aren’t part of (or contributing directly to) his campaign, and therefore aren’t restricted by those pesky $1,000 limits on campaign contributions, etc.. For the past year, Obama has been discouraging Democrats from forming these groups and telling donors not to contribute to them, so that he and he alone could control his message. Now that John McCain has seen a bump in the polls (and a bump in his ability to raise money), Obama has suddenly stopped discouraging them, and his campaign has made casual comments that seem to encourage them, like “I assume with [Republicans’] 527s stirring, some [Democratic] ones will as well.”

I’m not so fussed about whether he uses 527 groups or not. They’re legal, and the events above suggest nothing more to me than someone who was idealistically promising more than he could give and is now backing off that promise to be just like everyone else. What does bug me about this (and the similar situation regarding campaign funding) is the pattern I’m noticing with Obama about making and keeping promises. He seems convinced that if conditions change around him, and he feels he has a good reason to break a promise, then somehow it’s OK that he does so. This might be idealism run amok, but it also might be a tendency to paint himself into corners & then walk all over the nicely painted floor when he does. That kind of behavior will not help in his quest to rebuild our reputation with our allies, create open dialogue with hostile leaders, etc..

Think of this as not so much of a complaint as a concern. George W. Bush has a habit of stubbornly sticking with his original plan even when conditions around him suggest a change, and we see how well that played out in places like New Orleans and Iraq. If Obama has the opposite problem, the effects could be just as damaging…

Categories: News and/or Media, Political Rantings | Comments Off on Putting Lipstick on a Flip-Flop is a Choice

The Beijing Olympics – a never ending source of stupid controversy

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Man…every time I think I’ve done my last post on a quasi-controversy coming out of the Summer Olympics, something new comes up.

Categories: News and/or Media, Sports Talk | Comments Off on The Beijing Olympics – a never ending source of stupid controversy

President Bush gets spiked by volleyball team, media

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Jason Bennion directed my attention to these two

Categories: News and/or Media, Sports Talk | 6 Comments »

More Fakery in the Olympic Opening Ceremonies

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Just yesterday, I posted about how some of the fireworks in the Olympic opening ceremony were computer generated for television.

Categories: News and/or Media, Sports Talk | 18 Comments »

Fireworks that are really fake (or fakely real)…

Monday, August 11th, 2008

This story raises those kind of technology vs. morality questions that we see quite often these days, as our ability to do things gets ahead of our laws deciding what we should or shouldn’t do.

Categories: News and/or Media, Sports Talk | 1 Comment »

Jason Lezak Enables NBC to Continue Hyping Michael Phelps

Monday, August 11th, 2008

I’m not what you’d call a swimming fan, watching the sport only during the Summer Olympics, but what Jason Lezak did yesterday (last night? this morning? the timezones here are confusing enough to drive Doctor Who insane) was amazing regardless of whether you’re a fan or not.

Categories: News and/or Media, Sports Talk | 3 Comments »

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