It's likely that the next president will face at least one Supreme Court vacancy. Obama should promise Hillary Clinton, now, that if he wins in November, the vacancy will be hers, making her first on a list of one.
Obama and Clinton have wound up agreeing on nearly every major issue during the campaign; at the end of the day, they share many orthodoxies. Unless the Supreme Court were to get mired in minuscule details of what constitutes universal health care, Obama could assume that he'd be pleased with most Clinton votes, certainly on major issues such as abortion.
Obama could also appreciate Clinton's undeniably keen mind. Even Clinton detractors have noted her remarkable mental skills; she would be equal to any legal or intellectual challenge she would face as a justice. The fact that she hasn't served on a bench before would be inconsequential, considering her experience in law and in government.
If Obama were to promise Clinton the first court vacancy, her supporters would actually have a stronger incentive to support him for president than they would if she were going to be vice president. Given the Supreme Court's delicate liberal-conservative balance, she would play a major role in charting the country's future; there is no guarantee that a Clinton vice presidency would achieve such importance.
Despite its infatuation with "activist" judges, the right's response to the Clinton years was Scalia throwing the 2000 election, followed by Roberts and Alito.
This inspired idea has the delicious aroma of karma about it. Much better than VP — Justice Hillary Clinton!
Last night at the pub someone asked me what I thought Hillary was doing. Oddly enough, I've never actually seriously considered the question - mostly just thought that the theories I keep hearing (like that she wants to be McCain's runningmate!) don't sound right to me. And sure, I do think she's hanging in there just in case something does happen to change the terrain, no matter how slim the chance is, but it occurred to me at that moment that it's more than that. "I think she's running all the bases," I said. "She's the first woman in history to win a state primary, and she's won a lot more. She's running pretty close to the front-runner. It's a major historic moment." And the more I think about it, the more I think it has to be part of what's driving her. There's a bit of climbing the mountain because it's there, and wanting to be able to stand up in the end and say something like, "Never let it be said that a woman can't go the distance." It doesn't matter if someone else breaks the tape, just as long as she finishes the race. (And think how she'd feel if something did happen before Denver to tank Obama and she hadn't.) I've been unhappy with a lot of things about Hillary, but there's a part of me that kind of admires that. Because she wouldn't just be doing that for herself - she's doing it for every little girl who was ever told she can't.
This is the tragedy of this beautiful historic moment — there is so much at stake in the eyes of all American women and all American people of color. Hillary is not tearing the party apart; what she's doing is running a close race with tenacity (and occasional bad judgment) against a formidable opponent.
What's tearing the party apart is this country's history of sexism and racism. And the irony is that Democrats, more often than not, are the good guys in the struggles against both of these blights on our nation, a claim the Republican party cannot make. This election is about much more than these two remarkable and historic individuals. It's about the restoration of American values to our people and our government and our reputation around the globe — values and a reputation that have been hijacked not by bin Laden but by Bush-Cheney.
That's why we Democrats will unify behind our nominee no matter who he or she turns out to be. Meanwhile, Hillary should press on. This is no time for her to become a shrinking violet "for the good of the party." She's thinking much bigger than that.
What a sexist and inflammatory insinuation! It turns out that her rapid rise within the ranks of lobbyists is entirely justified by the richness of her background and experience. After all, wouldn't the senior partner of any top lobbying firm have started out as a receptionist with a degree in elementary education?
Ms. Iseman graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1990 with a degree in elementary education and ventured to Washington, where she was hired as a receptionist for Alcalde & Fay, a high-powered, high-profile lobbying firm based in Arlington, Va. She rose through the ranks to become a senior partner who, in 10-plus years, acquired a list of more than 30 clients including Carnival Cruise Lines, Paxson Communications, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Telemundo Network, and the cities of Miami and Palm Springs, Calif. The bulk of her work involved telecommunications.
Hopefully all that training in elementary education won't go to waste as she explains the economy, foreign policy, and the gas tax to McMaverick.
Neither has volunteered for the war their party started for reasons that have yet to be explained five years on. They are a disgrace to our nation, and a slap in the face of every American man and woman in Iraq and Afghanistan — not to mention every taxpayer who has financed Daddy's private grudge match with Saddam (and Jenna's granddad).
According to the Houston Chronicle, they will be honeymooning in Europe instead of central Asia.
I'm speaking specifically of ABC, NBC, and Fox News and all the other television outlets who magically use our broadcast air (which we own as a common good) and cable bandwidth (which we pay cash for) to receive $3 billion in campaign advertising revenues while they produce such inescapable monstrosities as Stephanopoulos, Gibson, O'Reilly, Hannity, Russert, and the endless parade of sewage-spewing "guests" and "correspondents" like Pat Buchanan and Cokie Roberts.
Unlike my coming tax rebate, which is obviously going to BP and ExxonMobil by design, I refuse to allow my political contributions to go to ABC, NBC, and Fox News.
WASHINGTON — KBR employees working in Iraq stole weapons, artwork and even gold to make spurs for cowboy boots, former company workers told Senate Democrats today.
Appearing before a Democrats-only panel looking into allegations of contracting abuses in Iraq, the one-time employees accused their co-workers of widespread improper activity.
Linda Warren, a 50-year-old Texas woman who worked as a laundry foreman and recreation director for the Houston-based contracting giant in Iraq, told lawmakers in a prepared statement that her co-workers doing construction in Iraqi palaces and municipal buildings stole wood carvings, tapestries, crystal "and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots."
Warren told lawmakers she was reprimanded by a supervisor in 2004 for giving water to Iraqi workers laboring in a sweltering laundry building.
"You can take their gold and silver, rip their tapestries off the wall, but I can't give them a drink of water," Warren, in a prepared statement, said she told the supervisor.
Warren said she was reminded that she had signed a confidentiality agreement and then told that an American woman "wouldn't last very long on the streets of Baghdad."
Looting, fraud, rape — it's just Houston business as usual.
To mark the occasion (and to help them overcome the abstinence education prescribed by their elders), we present some of the most important Republican sexual positions that have served their ancestors so well in creating an atmosphere of endless privilege, practiced ignorance, and lifelong irresponsibility.
Missionary Accomplished
Backdoor Recount
Walking the Elephant
Paging Senator Craig
De-Baathification
Reverse Cowboy
Congratulations, Jenna and Henry! Consider this your early wedding present from everyone in Skimbleland!
Natural-gas prices in the U.S. have risen 93% since August as power-hungry nations compete in a global market that scarcely existed five years ago. The trend has profound implications for the troubled U.S. economy.
Natural gas doubles in eight months. Gasoline is approaching four times the price it was when the first Clinton left office. Our all-energy-crony White House is determined to squeeze every last penny from the economy they sought to destroy.
Given the evidence of the economy, Iraq, and New Orleans, I suppose Republicans don't believe in leaving a campground in better shape than you found it.
Choosing just the right look for the wedding party can be such a risky business! I guess the young white Texas Republican chickenhawk theme is the safe choice.
Would it be asking too much to review candidates for the presidency with the objective of excluding those with a tendency to commit to 100 years in Iraq?
The irony is that the absolute peak of American optimism occurred during the years Republicans were actively impeaching President Clinton over a blowjob.
Therefore, fellatio shows positive correlation as an economic stimulus package. With fellatio in the White House, American optimism is firm and vigorous.
What we have learned since then is that White House war crimes and borrowing from China to invade Iraq stimulate only recession, i.e., economic flaccidity caused by Republican MBAs and CEOs.
On the optimistic-pessimistic scale, which would you rather see in the American economy: Democratic vigor or Republican flaccidity?
For super-rich fliers in search of the ultimate status symbol, the big problem isn't plunking down $50 million to $250 million for a new, full-size jetliner from Boeing or Airbus. It's finding someone to turn that plane into a flying palace.
These purveyors of customized interiors, called "completion centers," are increasingly sold out for years to come as demand for transport-size personal aircraft has soared from a handful a year to dozens. That means lots more work designing and installing mother-of-pearl vanities, gilded ceilings, exotic wood cabinets, hand-made carpeting, multihead showers -- even throne rooms and gyms. Some vendors design the china, crystal and sterling silver that travel on board, and a few have installed missile defense systems on the aircraft.
"We have more work than we can handle," says Jon Buccola, chief executive officer of outfitter Greenpoint Technologies Inc. of Kirkland, Wash. Greenpoint, which specializes in interiors on new Boeing 737 business jets, has won $100 million in new business since the start of the year and is talking to a potential client who won't even get his or her new aircraft until 2014, he says.
"An increasing number of wealthy individuals and heads of state are buying commercial-sized planes and are spending even more to have them customized with everything from master suites to gymnasiums." And did you take note of the private missile defense systems?
The only growth area in the American economy is the enhancement of stratospheric status symbols — the equivalent of shoe polish for plutocrats.
In its creation of a stateless über-wealthy parallel universe, the pluto-Republican view of the economy is not a chicken in every pot. It's a gym in every jet. And woe to all of you who have no jet.
Just as recent books like Jacob Weisberg’s “Bush Tragedy” have underscored the role Oedipal rivalries may have played in George W. Bush’s presidency and his decision to go to war against Iraq, so this volume underscores the role that Freudian family dynamics may have played in Mr. bin Laden’s radicalization and his declaration of war against America.
Over the past 200 years, the stock market's steady upward march occasionally has been disrupted for long stretches, most recently during the Great Depression and the inflation-plagued 1970s. The current market turmoil suggests that we may be in another lost decade.
The stock market is trading right where it was nine years ago. Stocks, long touted as the best investment for the long term, have been one of the worst investments over the nine-year period, trounced even by lowly Treasury bonds.
Sharply reduced standards of living for America's seniors, due to significantly reduced investment returns during a crucial decade, will be another of the major long-term effects of the Bush-Cheney administration, its tax policy, its wastefulness, and its insane adventure in Iraq.
It is also worth noting that during the eight years of the Clinton administration, the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 went up over 300 percent. Neither of these indexes includes major amounts of Internet stock like the Nasdaq, so the Internet "bubble" didn't affect them as much.
It doesn't matter if you look at the president as the metaphorical or literal portfolio manager of the American economy. The choice is clear. Another Clinton is running for president this year: that's who I want in the White House.
Five years ago the White House was evidently expecting company in the thousands, when they built twenty-three state of the art autopsy stations: "WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2003 – Military officials this week opened a new $30 million mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Del."
"The mission of a mortuary is to prepare remains with dignity, care and respect," [Meg Falk, director of the Defense Department's Office of Family Policy] added. "If we expose that process to the media we lose that."
Really, Meg? A hell of a lot more than dignity, care and respect has been lost. With all due respect to the extremely difficult work of the mortuary workers, the least you can do is name the place after the people who will keep it populated well into the foreseeable future.
Add another institution to those getting squeezed by America's economic crunch: soup kitchens.
Across the country, groups that provide food to people in need are scrambling to make up for a loss of government-provided surplus items as commodity prices have soared. Surpluses have dropped as some commodities, like corn, are being turned into alternative fuels and others are going overseas as the weak dollar makes U.S. exports more palatable to other countries.
At the same time, food banks and soup kitchens say that people struggling with mortgage woes, rising gas prices and layoffs are increasingly turning to them for help. [...]
When his family ran out of food last week, Daniel Wheelus went to Prodisee Pantry, in Spanish Fort, Ala., for the first time. He received a full shopping cart, including a ham, that he said would last a week for himself, his wife and three children, ages 16, 12 and 10.
"They even gave my boy some clothes for school," he said. "They really, really helped."
Mr. Wheelus, 39 years old, earns $13.60 an hour working in an oil field 45 miles from his home. But it costs him $30 a day to fill up the Dodge Dakota pickup he drives to work. His utility bills have doubled to $400 a month from last year, he says. He says he lost his house in October after missing mortgage payments following knee surgery and now owes back taxes.
Permit an all-oil, all-war, all-crony agenda in the White House and Congress, and this is what you get.
The truth, however, is that Spitzer's biggest, most lasting impact came in the [mutual] fund industry, and in a lot of ways that ordinary investors don't think about and fail to appreciate. Moreover, by uncovering the fund scandals when he did, he saved Wall Street from a much larger problem that, in hindsight, would appear to have been an inevitable consequence of the bad behavior that was happening in the fund world.
You mean Spitzer was preventing the kind of bad behavior that is ruining the world economy? Why would we want anyone like that working on our behalf?
Evidently we would rather have the pot-smoking, bridge-playing CEO of Bear Stearns and his criminally negligent management team rewarded while Spitzer's career goes up in smoke. Sex is such a vivid distraction from the nitty gritty of "privatized gain, socialized loss" — also known as GOP welfare.
All of these Wall Street CEOs — Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Goldman Sachs — were staunch and generous Bush-Cheney supporters. So who do you think will pay for their unforced errors?
You, if you're an American middle class taxpayer. The Republican position is to let them off the hook and bail them out no matter how stupendously they fuck up the entire economy. This smells a lot like the climax to the sequel of Neil and Poppy's S&L Crisis, Son of the WASP: The Legacy of the Turdblossom.
Meanwhile, Republican CEOs run wild and free, financial watchdog Spitzer is out of office for bedding a hooker, and Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island has been duly chastised by law enforcement for her pot smoking, in direct contrast to the public pot smoking of Bear Stearns's CEO James Cayne. The Republican perversion of justice marches on!
That's exactly how I felt about Enron, FISA, Iraq, subprime credit, Katrina, the national deficit, Halliburton, stop-loss, Diebold, the firing of US attorneys, Valerie Plame, social security privatization, the crashing dollar, the tripling of gas prices, and Rumsfeld's handshake with Saddam Hussein. That's excluding the other obvious GOP-related sex scandals of Larry Craig, Vitter, Jeff Gannon, etc.
All of these topics are so tricky to explain to children. And so selective of Yahoo to frame the headline in quite that way.
Kenneth Langone, the target of former New York State Attorney General Eliot G. Spitzer's lawsuit regarding the hefty compensation package for former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso, felt little remorse for the Empire State's embattled governor, who is charged with having dealings with a prostitution ring.
"We all have our own private hells," Mr. Langone said in an interview with CNBC television on Monday night.
"I hope his private hell is hotter than everyone else's."
When asked if Mr. Spitzer should be forced to resign, Mr. Langone, a former director of the New York Stock Exchange and co-founder Home Depot, said: "Absolutely. He is a hypocrite. He destroyed reputations of people with good reputations and deserved reputations."
Well, gosh, that sounded sincere, until you realize that Langone was defending his role in giving former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso $187 million, about which Spitzer had made the wild claim that it wasn"t "fair and reasonable."
Governor Sex Fiend Spitzer made powerful enemies and is paying the price for it. Senator Sex Fiend Larry Craig, meanwhile, is free to go about his business of enacting the Republican agenda because he refused to resign over a trifling airport men's room blowjob.
Wall Street has bigger priorities than fighting Al Qaeda, despite its having attacked their clubhouse in lower Manhattan. They have grudges, you see, and payback is obviously a higher priority than security.
According to a survey by Russ Alan Prince, president of Connecticut-based wealth-research firm Prince & Associates, in his book “The Sky’s The Limit,” a sizable percentage of the super wealthy use escorts. He surveyed 661 people who owned private jets. It found that 34% of males and 20% of females had paid for sex.
The most popular reason was “unique experiences” (71%), followed by “higher quality experiences” (57%). Conventional wisdom says that the rich visit escorts to avoid messy break-ups or extra demands for cash. But the study shows otherwise: “No strings attached,” ranked last as a reason.
“With the wealthy,” Mr. Prince says “it’s all about power and control and new experiences.”
Over one-third of male private jet owners admit to hiring escorts for "power and control and new experiences.”
Such beautiful motives! Let's give them more tax breaks — pronto! After all, somebody's got to wiretap Democratic governors, and it might as well be private jet owners and their Republican employees in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and on Wall Street.
