Tag Archives: GOP

Live-blogging Iowa caucus day

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Live-blogging coverage of the Iowa caucuses: First voting of the new year, first voting in 2012, as we are often reminded.

Romney in Iowa

The unspoken refrain here btw is ongoing apologies for repeating things that have already been said, sort of like a continuing objection by defense attorneys in a deposition hearing.

Wish the network and cable commentators felt the same way. Some items from left-over Xmas stockings:

  • as ever, some network analysts are trying desperately to home in on their default analysis for every election cycle–the scenario boiling down to an establishment front-runner and an insurgent challenger from the wings of the party. This narrative has been applied to every GOP race and most Democratic races in adult memory. It seems not to be working this year, but that’s not stopping them.
  • commentators, guest interviewers and guest interviewees alike are by-and-large working to boost Mitt Romney. We’re seeing it right now, on the day of the caucuses, especially. The Reverend Mr. Franklin Graham weighed thus in last night on CNN, not endorsing any candidate including Romney but saying repeatedly that “We are not voting for a pastor-in-chief. We are voting for a commander-in-chief.” He used the word “qualified” more than once, too, generally shorthand for Romney among supporters. Graham said nothing to boost any Christian-conservative candidate against other candidates.
  • Trying to shoehorn this election season into a winnowing-the-field narrative. So far, the winnowing has not occurred.
  • Trying to figure out whether to characterize this primary season as a marathon or a sprint. Both are cliches. Neither illuminates much of anything.
  • Avoiding discussion, in a political context, that would shed light on what Republicans in Congress have actually done this year.
  • Legitimizing dreadful policies and mean statements.
  • Leveling out the differences between the parties, downgrading or burying the Dems and rehabilitating or dignifying Repubs.
  • Refusing to say directly that the GOP top crust in office is trying to break the middle class. You don’t hear that. You do hear NBC’s David Gregory saying, with straight face, that Mitt Romney has a message for the middle class.

Not once do regressive tax policies get brought up. Only infrequently do the costs of GWBush’s two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and unbridled incompentence and fraud on Wall Street get brought up.

Simple, but accurate–almost every Republican in federal office is working for one overarching trend: rich-get-richer.

Regardless of the wishes of ordinary people who voted for them, now being terrorized by rhetorical hammering on ‘the debt’, the function they fulfill in public office is to benefit the few who will hire/retain them in parasitic functions such as consulting and lobbying, once they leave office.

It is no demagoguery to boil down their message for the middle class: Drop dead!

Speaking of winnowing, Sarah Palin is trying to get into the game. Palin is calling on Huntsman and Bachmann to leave the race.

I see Huntsman (counter-intuitively) as vice-presidential material for Romney. None of these candidates has a very good shot against President Obama.

[added]

Commentators also tend to position ‘electable’ versus everything else including every kind of merit. There is more than a kernel of truth to the observation that politics is not for the perfect. But the gross differences between better and worse do not necessarily boil down to a difference between character and being ‘electable’. The large media outlets do not have a good track record when it comes to picking the electable candidate, anyway.

Of course, they have been on the receiving end of a lot of obfuscation themselves. Bush and Cheney did not run on a platform of assaulting the Middle East abroad and the middle class at home. If they had, presumably they would have been perceived as less electable even by the corporate media outlets.

Iowa caucus day, and Gingrich calls Romney a liar; Live-blogging the coverage

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Live-blogging the coverage on the media-saturated Iowa caucuses–

7:40 a.m. We’re not off to a good start. Newt Gingrich just appeared on CBS’ The Early Show, pitching for himself, and called Mitt Romney a liar.

Gingrich

The exchange with guest interviewers Norah O’Donnell and Bob Schieffer started ordinarily. Gingrich boosted himself, then criticized Romney’s super-PAC ads against him, then characterized Romney’s positioning as less than candid.

O’Donnell: “Are you calling Mitt Romney a liar?”

Gingrich: “Yes.”

O’Donnell, flapped at getting a direct answer to an oversimplified question, pressed Gingrich to repeat. So he did. Schieffer ditto.

For the record, there is a difference between characterizing a statement as false, or even a lie, and characterizing the person as ‘a liar.’ This is a central distinction in ethics.

In politics on television, no difference. Gingrich could have said, “No. I’ve done no name-calling,” and gone on to make the distinction between lying–something everyone has done at some point–and throwing out the whole person. Of course, throwing out Romney Gingrich’s objective.

The GOP in Iowa; Live blogging the coverage

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GOP in Iowa –Live blogging the coverage

 

Gingrich

The last 48 hours leading up to results from the Iowa caucuses, and “every second counts” according to CNN. That principle does not apply to air time. Yesterday evening, minutes after saying repeatedly that CNN would be bringing you the candidates’ words, live and unfiltered, Candy Crowley cut away just when Ron Paul was heading to the podium.

CNN had been actively touting its direct presentations of the candidates, saying It’s as though you are there. You too will hear the candidates, just as if you were in Iowa. Et cetera. The audience out in televisionland, however, never did get into the room to hear Paul speak to his live audience. A split screen a little while later showed where each candidate was, Rep. Paul speaking at the podium, one visual in the graphic among six. No audio. Instead, more commentary from Crowley—repeating summations of the up-and-down already amply reported–more commentary from guest pundits, and a couple quick cut-aways to Newt Gingrich, in interview, and to Michele Bachmann on the campaign trail. Admittedly some humor value was there to be had. Bachmann said more than once, aiming in the general direction of the mic thrust into her face, that “thousands” of Iowans were switching to her. Bachmann has repeatedly declined to say that she would support the Republican nominee for president, whoever s/he was, always declaring that she will be the nominee. It could have been the diplomatic answer but was styled verbally with typical Bachmann ham-handedness. She did the same kind of thing when asked questions about the war, saying repeatedly, “I’m a mom.” Then she pushes herself as the one “genuine” candidate in the mix.

Crowley interviewed Paul on air today, with clips aired more than once. Since most of the air time in the interview went to Crowley rehashing attacks by opponents—mainly Gingrich–against Paul, the interview was not equivalent to live coverage of the candidate speaking. Paul’s answers tend to be terse and to the point, one source of his appeal. So Crowley ended up doing more of the talking in the interview.

 

Santorum reported as surging

As of this writing, Mitt Romney tops the polls in Iowa, followed closely by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Santorum is aiming fire at Paul. Paul validly responds that the overwhelming majority of Americans want us out of Afghanistan, as he does.* Gingrich and Rick Perry are closely fighting for 4th-5th. Michele Bachmann is consistently at the bottom.

One hesitates to be a mind reader, but somehow that last item feels—what is the word?—unsurprising.

One good thing about listening to television is that it makes you think about the language we use.

A phrase that should be retired, whether it comes from the candidates or the commentators, is “At the end of the day.” I am influenced in this wish partly by the late John Weiglein, a good man who wished the same thing.

Another candidate for retirement, aside from Gingrich and the rest: “If you will.” (Rick Perry is already retired.)

“If you will” is a phrase used when putting forth something a bit doubtful, or something not established, or something a bit risky. The phrase is what one offers when stumped for a final answer or a precise formulation, compelled by the exigencies of the conversation to provide an interim suggestion. It softens the overreach. It is a social gesture to reassure the hearer that one is not overreaching, or at least not wantonly or for the fun of it. It is not a phrase to be used when one is saying exactly what a thousand other pundits have already said, or when one is describing something in perfectly ordinary words. Example: “Michele Bachmann’s coming in last in GOP polls is unsurprising, if you will.”

 

*As does this writer.

“When I was in school . . .” Aren’t any GOP candidates parents?

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“When I was in school . . .” Aren’t any GOP candidates parents of students?

The interminable cable conversation on Iowa continues in Iowa. Today there’s another “C’mon, Man!” moment. This time it’s Newt Gingrich, out on the stump talking about education.

Gingrich, in happier days

First Gingrich says, predictably, that we have to shrink the federal Department of Education. Then he says, rightly, that we have to move away from standardized testing that can lead to teaching to the test.

Nobody’s wrong all the time.

Then he adds that we also need to reduce state regulation of education. Not just the federal government but also the states need to move out of the way, so parents can take over. Gingrich:  we need to go “back” to a time when parents were in control, when parents worked things out with their local school board.

This was my Huh? moment. I do not recall parents’ having any power, or any to speak of, in the schools back in the years Gingrich refers to.

Indeed, Gingrich then goes on to have it both ways. “Back when I was in school,” he says, a kid who got into trouble at school got into trouble again at home. Point being, parents tended to back up the teacher.

For what it’s worth, that is the way I remember it, too.

The difference between me and Gingrich–among others–is that I have experience with education more recent than my childhood. Setting aside their own high school and college years, aren’t Gingrich and the rest parents? It never comes up when they’re talking about education, somehow. The line is always “When I was a kid/in school . . .”

Never, “When I was dealing with my kids’ teachers . . .”

Or, “When my own kids were in school . . .”

Or, “Dealing with my kids’ school/s . . .”

Much less, “My own kids were fortunate enough to have good teachers, good camp counselors, good coaches. I feel for . . .”

Side note: Having failed to get on the GOP primary ballot in Virginia, Gov. Rick Perry is suing the VA Republican Party.

As said, nobody’s wrong all the time.

It is always a bit funny to watch another of our anti-litigation, pro-“tort reform” Republican candidates take to the courts, though. Perry is also adding to the taxpayers’ cost for funding the federal courts. He might even arguably expand federal government. We’ll see whether he inveighs against activist judges, should he win in court.

Rick Perry doing in private what he does in public

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That Rick Perry retirement pension

Rick Perry resignation

On top of more important questions, it really will be interesting to see whether Rick Perry can live this one down. The Texas Tribune reported Friday that Perry is drawing his state retirement pension as well as his governor’s salary. Filings with the Federal Election Commission show that the combined incomes mean Perry gets an annual $240,000 from Texas citizens, rather than just $150,000 as governor. Perry filed the FEC report yesterday.

Admittedly, Perry is an empty suit anyway. The Texas governorship is historically among the weakest in the nation. The state constitution has yet to be updated, partly because the process of a state constitutional convention and ratifying a new constitution has not been feasible. The city of Austin is a canyon of lobbyists, as befits a governor who is basically a walking set of pressure points. But Perry’s public career of mouthing fiscal pieties about budget and austerity, etc., makes his double-dipping noteworthy even among other GOP corporate shills running for the White House as fiscal puritans. What makes it worse if possible is that Perry has gone gunning for exactly this kind of double-dipping among Texas state employees who make far less, while working far more, than he.*

Perry in public

As widely reported, Perry has also repeatedly attacked government workers in general. Like the other GOP candidates selected by themselves for the White House, he has also worked steadfastly to undermine pensions, pension funds, pension guarantees, medical benefits, benefits for seniors, and retirement protection in general. Simultaneously, and again like most other GOPers, he has been stalwart in protecting large companies’ treatment of employees, however egregious, along with management’s ability to offshore jobs and taxable assets, to evade contracts through bankruptcy and other measures, and to avoid prosecution for fraud and civil lawsuits for incompetence, waste and lack of due diligence.

Donald Trump

Watching the GOP in the current election cycle was already a continuing indulgence in Schadenfreude. Anyone who cares about either mental health or human goodness has to be careful about witnessing too much of it. Pity the ‘political reporters’ who have to pretend that the bunk we’ve been hearing has any claim to credibility as public policy, any at all. But even in a field featuring Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, Newt Gringrich and Herman Cain, Perry’s performance takes the cake. No mean feat.

Predictably, the most recent disclosure means that Perry is being accused of hypocrisy. Once again, calling this kind of thing ‘hypocrisy’ is not political analysis. It is just an insult to hypocrites. Perry is drawing all he can from a long-suffering public while calling on more poorly paid public employees to draw less. He has stayed in office in Texas as long as possible while calling for many thousands of public employees to be fired. He is drawing a large pension for work he is no longer doing—if he ever was–while calling on most people, poorer than he, to tighten their belts. Above all, he himself is driving up the cost of government, directly, in first person, and by choice, while railing against government cost and government ‘spending’.

This is not hypocrisy. It is imposture. It is like railing against ‘regulation’ (mine safety) and ‘government spending’ (courts to prosecute child abusers). It is rapaciousness masquerading as fiscal prudence. It serves the same purpose this imposture always serves: It removes public assets and public resources from the public, and diverts them into the hands of a grasping few. Rick Perry is just the non plus ultra, an individual sterling example but by no means alone. Perry, in short, is not actually doing in private what he opposes in public. He is doing in private—grasping from the public—what he does in public.

Rich tax cuts

As written before, this was the fiscal and monetary policy of the Bush administration, the centerpiece of the Bush years, almost unreported in the political press. It went so far as to include war as fiscal and monetary policy, it was and is reverse-Robin-Hood, and its consequences remain the mess for everyone else to clean up.

Note:

Gov. Perry’s income from the Texas state pension alone is now $7,698 before taxes, or $6,588 net, in retirement benefits–$92,376 per year gross, or an annual net income of $79,056.

For perspective, average per capita money income in the U.S. (previous twelve months, 2005-2009) is $27,041. From the U.S. census, median household income in 2009 was $50,221.

This information is yet another reason why the cardboard robber barons are always hot to trot to abolish the census.

*Full disclosure: my mother, who suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s, draws retirement as a longtime Texas state employee. Hers is considerably less than Perry’s, for considerably more work, far more worthwhile. Admittedly the comparison might be considered inexact, since she did not work for decades to sell out Texas resources and the public for political advancement.

Governor Palin’s Ride

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Palin on Harley

Governor Palin’s Ride

 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of Palin’s requital for snubs severe

From electable candidates, in 2008:

Hardly a politico can now relate

He remembers that famous time and year.

 

She said to her friends,–“If Romney announce

By land or sea from the town tonight,

Tweet a message, or text, don’t let it bounce,

To me or a fan if we lose the limelight,–

One if by land and two if by sea;

And I on somebody’s Harley will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every sex-messaging village and farm,

For the knuckleheads to be up and to arm.”

 

Then she said good-night, and with muffled oar

Silently rowed to Max Factor’s shore;

Meanwhile, her friends, through alley and street

Wandered and watched with eager ears,

Till in the silence around them they hears

The muster of men at the green-room door,

The clink of mugs, and the tramp of feet,

And the shuffling of photo-grenadiers

Slouching down to their marks on the floor.

 

Palin in greenroom

Beneath, they could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,

The watchful night-wind, as it went

Creeping along from tent to tent,

And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”

A moment only they feel the spell,

For suddenly all their thoughts are bent

On a shadowy something far away,

Where the river widens to meet the bay,–

Like literacy, but it’s still the GOP—

A line of black, that bends and floats

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and to ride,

 [another “Meanwhile,” Henry, really? Seriously?]

Alarmed that somebody’s boat might be raised by a tide,

Black-jeaned and leathered, with heavy stride,

On a different coast walked Governor Rear

Now she patted the Harley’s side,

Now gazed on the landscape far and near,

But mostly she watched with eager search

The twinkling monitor of the old iPod.

 

Palin and Harley fan

And lo! As she looks, on the menu site,

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

She springs to the back seat, the angle she turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on her sight

A second light on the monitor burns!

 

A hurry of Harleys in a village-coast,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a Hog that flies fearless and fleet:

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

The fate of a career was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that hog, in her flight,

Kindled the launching of Romney to toast.

 

Romney launches bid for president

It was one by the village-clock

When she rode into Lexington.

She saw the gilded weathercock

Swim in the moonlight as she passed,

Like a tweety bird already staring aghast.

 

It was two by the village-clock

When she came to the bridge in Concord town.

She heard the bleating of the flock,

And one at the bridge would be first to fall,

Pierced by his own tweeted photo-ball.

 

Former Rep. Weiner

You know the rest. In the books you have read

How the former governor fired and fled,–

How the GOP regulars gave ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,

Chasing other knuckleheads down the lane,

Then crossing the fields to emerge again,

While Governor Palin denied it all.

 

 

So in the spotlight did not ride Revere;

Through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,–

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,–

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

As long as people try to get it right,

Through all our history, if we read,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,

And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

 

 (“The liars are winning! The liars are winning!”)

The State of Arizona–What is Jamestown Associates doing in Arizona?

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What is Jamestown Associates doing in Arizona?

 View the folksy ad on YouTube . . .

 

As most of West Virginia knows by now, Jamestown Associates is the Republican consultantship responsible for that infamous ‘hicky’ ad boosting the GOP candidate for senate in West Virginia. Like most populist appeals from the GOP, the image of two shirt-sleeved guys boosting the party of corporate conglomeration and secrecy in WV turned out to be fake.

 

Hicksville (WV) ad

Statements by Jamestown Associates—which touts its efforts on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and Republican candidates around the nation—to distance itself from the ad by blaming the casting agency for the language were also false. The original email from Jamestown Associates calls explicitly for actors with a ‘Hicky’ blue collar look. The H-word is capitalized like the name of a sect.

Attorney Charles Graber says on behalf of Kathy Wickline’s casting agency only that “we are still considering our options, going forward”; Jamestown Associates and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which eagerly disavowed the ad, have apologized to Wickline. Jamestown Associates has not responded to questions.

 

One obvious question is whether Jamestown Associates employs that hicky attitude elsewhere in the United States, and if so, where. The company’s website lists four locations: “With offices in Washington, DC, Princeton, NJ, Baton Rouge, LA, and Dallas, TX, our clients benefit from the combination of a national firm’s experience and a regional firm’s knowledge of local issues and techniques.”

 

Jamestown illustrates its Baton Rouge website with a photograph of the Louisiana state capitol building; the office, however, is located on Jones Creek Road in Baton Rouge. Local and Internet directories do not turn up the name Jamestown Associates—which is registered as active and in good standing with the Louisiana Secretary of State—at that or any address. The Jones Creek Road office offers instead a few names of attorneys and an entity called ‘Capitol Consulting Inc,’ not in good standing in Louisiana.

 

Jamestown Associates also has company locations not referred to on its website, including at least one listed in public record in Arizona. Both the Dun corporation database in LexisNexis and the Arizona secretary of state’s office give the address as 6670 E. Edgemont Street, Tucson 85710. Listed personnel dovetail with the list of persons given on the main Jamestown Associates website, starting with Lawrence or Larry Weitzner as president, owner and CEO. No current phone number is accessible; the real estate website Zillow indicates that the property was foreclosed and sold. Calls placed to the house at the street address or to persons listed at that address have returned no information on the company. Dun and Bradstreet lists sales for the Arizona location of Jamestown Associates at $52,000. There is no mention of the AZ office on Jamestown Associates; the man listed as Vice President of Jamestown’s Arizona company, George M. Gobble, is not available for comment.

 

Jamestown Associates advertisement

The Capitol Consulting entity is also found in Arizona, although the only address given is a post office box, with no telephone number and no personnel listed. “Business type”: “providing political solutions.” “Owner”: same name, Capitol Consulting, but as an LLC rather than a corporation.

 

Back in Louisiana, Laura B. Lancaster, listed at LinkedIn as Media Director for Jamestown Associates in Baton Rouge, is also President of Magnolia Media LLC (not connected with a company of the same name in Mobile, Ala.) listed as inactive by the Louisiana Secretary of State. Its Registered Agent (RA) is attorney Frank D. Blackburn, whose office is the Jones Bridge Road address.

The Democratic Party in New Hampshire has filed a complaint that Magnolia Media LLC, in Baton Rouge, is a shell company. Laura Lancaster of Magnolia Media LLC, of the Jones Bridge Road address in Baton Rouge, is also listed among personnel at the Arizona Jamestown Associates in Dun and Bradstreet.

So what if anything is Jamestown Associates or Capitol Consulting doing in Arizona? The Arizona state campaign finance database lists no monetary donations from Jamestown Associates, and only one from Capitol Consulting: Capitol Consulting gave $1K Sept 29 2010 to push Proposition 302, billed as “Kids First” by interest groups. As The Arizona Republic reports, “Proposition 302 seeks the repeal of First Things First, an early-childhood health-and-development program that voters approved in 2006.


If voters approve Proposition 302, the program’s $345 million fund balance would be funneled into the state general fund for lawmakers to use as they want. Legislators already have earmarked that money for deficit relief.” The “Kids First” campaign spins its campaign to destroy the early childhood program as a way to save kids’ programs. However, as AZCentral points out, some programs named by the Prop 302 boosters have already been cut, frozen or capped. “And it’s not certain the passage of Prop. 302 would protect the programs from cuts or reverse the freezes,” since Proposition 302 does not compel the state legislature to save specific programs.

As noted above, Gobble, of or formerly of Jamestown Associates, is also on the Board of Advisors of the Aidchild Foundation, along with Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). Jamestown Associates has handled reelection campaigns for Kolbe, and Gobble was a congressional aide to Kolbe before joining Jamestown Associates in Arizona.

Capitol Consulting also gave $1K to the AZ Republican Party in 2008—a modest amount suggesting that it may not have been among Sen. John McCain’s strongest supporters. No in-kind contributions are listed for either election cycle, either from Capitol Consulting or from Jamestown Associates. The Tucson Weekly published some good articles a few years ago on action pertaining to Jamestown Associates in Arizona. This piece from 2003 and this from 2002 are particularly illuminating. Kolbe is entrenched, if his former aide is not, and the one-hand-washes-the-other culture in higher-up GOP circles in Arizona demonstrates the effectiveness of cooperation between candidates, consultants and ‘nonprofits’.

N.b. As of now the top GOP money recipient in AZ, for U.S. House races, is Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle.


More on Jamestown Associates and other states to follow.

Tucker Carlson says it aloud: The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals

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Tucker Carlson says it aloud. The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals.

Tucker Carlson

The Sunday morning talk shows today, October 8, 2006, included some refreshingly frank or realistic discourse, for a rarity.

Probably most attention tomorrow will be devoted to Bob Woodward narrating how Vice President Cheney used the bullshit word and hung up on him. Possibly some attention will go to the congressional tin ear from Illinois, GOP Congressman Ray LaHood, talking about the Foley scandal: “The real disservice was done to the speaker.”

 

Mark Foley

But for my money, the real jaw dropper this morning was Tucker Carlson finally saying publicly what millions of us have known for years: “The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals.”



Carlson opening up on air

The commentary centered around the Mark Foley scandal and attendant ironies–that a member of Congress who for years ostentatiously paraded his concern for children and for youth has solicited, also for years, the sexual attentions of teenagers, and not just any teenagers, but teenaged pages specifically under the protection of Congress. Furthermore, all signs indicate that the entire top GOP leadership of Congress, even while campaigning aggressively in some bogus morality posture, either covered up for Foley or at best deliberately avoided knowing enough of his activities to do anything about them.

 

To call this hypocrisy is just an insult to hypocrites.

 

As I have said before, this is not hypocrisy. It is deliberate imposture. It is analogous to the current White House policy of pouring gasoline on the flames in geopolitics, under the guise of fighting terrorism, when as it well knows, its policies ignite terrorism, from which it profits. In the ratios of the Miller Analogy Test, Mark Foley is to protecting children what George W. Bush is to protecting Americans. If they really wanted less terrorism, they would eliminate cluster bombs and land mines.

 

But of all the commentators on all three major television networks, none to my knowledge has made the basic connection, until today. Carlson made the basic, direct statement that for years has needed making. “Everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals,” he continued under questioning. When asked, “How do you know?” in response to his initial claim about the GOP, he gave the unequivocal answer: “Because I see them.” As Carlson said, he works with them, meaning members of the power elite or the opinion makers. He has moved among them for years. “They live on my street.”

Following up the statements that “The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals,” and “Everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals,” he continued, “and everybody knows that. The evangelicals are beginning to figure it out.”

 

What came home for this viewer is that on a more modest scale I have seen the same thing. Certainly not all Republican women, or all women who sometimes vote Republican, feel the same way on social issues. And some of the most rock-ribbed longtime Republican women voters, at least those of my acquaintance, who also tend to be economically well off or affluent, are exactly the individuals most dismissive of the party line on social issues. They let the men talk, but if a woman or girl they care about or to whom they are related wants an abortion, they are highly unlikely to let the men stand in the way. Or even to let the men know, if that’s the way to play it.

As for the public pronouncements of their party, and the most prominent of their professional religious spokesmen, they roll their eyes. I have seen them do it. You do not get more eye-rolling about the Reverend Mr. Pat Robertson or about the unreverend Ralph Reed anywhere than in the nearest lunch of Republican women at the local country club, and the only people who seem not to know it are the people whose faithful votes keep the corporate hogs in office. So the GOP agenda accomplishes its real objectives such as keeping plaintiffs out of court, letting insurance companies off the hook on large claims, raiding or undermining pension funds, bailing out the top management of mismanaged industries, and preventing any progressive taxation whatever for billionaires.

Meanwhile, the rare genuine voter of rightwing conscience who gets into office, like GOP Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, could not be more sidelined if he were a high schooler trying to play in the NFL. I have said it before. The only real purpose regarding abortion for this administration is to splinter what would otherwise have been moral opposition to its policies, domestic and foreign.

Ron Paul

There could have been a clue to the nature of the faith typically espoused by the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. One clue could have been Cheney, come to think of it. But the broad clue could have been the policies of this White House and of the top crust of this administration. Look at current policies and practices and try to find the gospels in there anywhere. Try to find the New Testament in a takeover attempt on a historic scale, in careers of relentless self advancement and relentless exploitation of others, lying, bullying, bragging, whining, bribery and corruption. A little reading, the merest reminder or thought of comparative religion, would have gotten the idea across.

Instead, ironically, it took a Mark Foley to clarify the disconnect.

If this had happened on stage or in film, in the words of Shakespeare, it would be condemned as most improbable fiction.

 

Note: The post above was re-posted after being deleted by the system.

Update on Mark Foley, hobnobbing with Grover Norquist at the 2012 Republican convention, here.

Foley, Norquist at convention

Offshore Tax Havens

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Offshore tax havens

Map of tax haven hot spots

The gutsy Senate investigation into offshore tax havens has produced explosive material. Too bad there wasn’t more of an explosion in the big media outlets. On August 1, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released its 370-page report with an equally thick stack of primary documents, in conjunction with a five-hour hearing and often dramatic testimony recorded by four or five television cameras. CNN chose that day to spend its air time on Fidel’s “ceding power,” running repetitive footage of sweaty Miamians honking their automobile horns and saying deleterious things about Castro.

Wonder which network offshores its assets in the Caymans.

Cayman Islands beach

Because someone has to do so, this blog recaps some of the pertinent numbers (page numbers in parentheses):

  • The Subcommittee report begins, “Offshore tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions today harbor trillions of dollars in assets.” (1)
  • “Experts estimate that Americans now have more than $1 trillion in assets offshore and illegally evade between $40 and $70 billion in U.S. taxes each year through the use of offshore tax schemes.” (1)
  • “In 2000, Enron Corporation established over 441 offshore entities in the Cayman Islands.” (2)
  • “A 2004 report found that U.S. multinational corporations are increasingly attributing their profits to offshore jurisdictions, allocating $150 billion in 2002 profits to 18 offshore jurisdictions, for example, up from $88 billion just three years earlier.” (2)
  • “The British Virgin Islands is a group of islands in the Caribbean and an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It has licensed 11 banks, 90 trust companies, and 90 registered agents. The British Virgin Islands has over 500,000 registered offshore corporations, apparently the most of any offshore jurisdiction.” (15)
  • “The Isle of Man . . . is home to 171 offshore service providers, including banks, trust companies, and company formation agents. Together these firms managed about $57 billion in bank deposits, $12 billion in collective investment schemes, $33 billion in life insurance funds, and $11 billion in non-life insurance funds.” (15)
  • “In early 1990, John Staddon, Chris Donegan, and Rajan Puri moved from UBS to European American Investment Group (“Euram”). Euram is a financial services provider with offices in six cities, including New York, London, and Vienna. It was founded in 1999 by professionals from UBS, Deutsche Bank, and McKinsey. Euram employs ninety full-time staff working in areas including securities brokerage, investment advising, and wealth management.” (61)
  • “The paper portfolio was “created” by having two Isle of Man companies with no apparent assets exchange contracts with each other. Under these contracts, Jackstones, which owned no stock, would “sell” stock to Barnville in exchange for cash that Barnville did not have, and Barnville would “loan” the stock, which it had not received, back to Jackstones in exchange for the payment of cash collateral, which Jackstones did not have. Because these transactions were undertaken simultaneously, the two obligations to pay each other equal amounts of cash and stock would be offset. No stock ever changed hands, and no money ever changed hands.” (63)
  • ‘The records show that Barnville was incorporated . . . with one share of stock each subscribed to by Paul Moore on behalf of Claycroft Limited and Paul Moore on behalf of Dalecroft Limited. Annual returns . . . show that . . . its authorized capital was 2,000 British pounds (of which 2 pounds had been paid in).” (69)
  • “As of September 24, 2001, HSBC estimated that its total fees on the transaction would be $8,890,000.” (104)
  • “Quellos’ total compensation for the Saban POINT trade was $53,909,930 . . .” (112)
  • “The following case history shows how, over a thirteen-year period from 1992 to 2005, two U.S. citizens, Sam and Charles Wyly, guided by an armada of attorneys, brokers, and other professionals, transferred at least $190 million in stock options and warrants to a complex array of 58 offshore trusts and shell corporations.” (113)
  • “Section six shows how about $85 million in untaxed dollars were used to acquire U.S. real estate and build houses for use by Wyly family members. It also shows how untaxed dollars were used to finance real estate loans that supplied millions of offshore dollars to Wyly family members for their personal use in the United States.” (118)
  • “In provisions that became effective in 2002, the Patriot Act explicitly required U.S. banks and securities firms that open a private account with at least $1 million for a non-U.S. person to “ascertain the identity of the nominal and beneficial owners” of the accounts.” (118)

An eye-opener, all around, and a window onto the cowardly maneuvers employed by people who don’t need the money in the first place to deny tax dollars that pay for–among other things–federal courts, where their high-priced legal help can argue before judges that they shouldn’t have to pay those taxes.

Cayman courts find hedge funds