1 Boring Old Man

SC gov used European charters
Associated Press
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and JIM DAVENPORT
September 17, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, already facing scrutiny for expensive taxpayer-funded flights, relied on charter jet services costing more than $63,000 when traveling in Europe on two state business trips, an Associated Press investigation has found. Sanford, his commerce secretary and two other state officials charged taxpayers more than $43,000 for use of a seven-passenger executive jet for several days of travel from France to Germany and Estonia during a June 2007 trip, state records show.

Also, taxpayers paid more than $20,000 so the governor and three state officials could fly a seven-passenger charter jet earlier this year when traveling from Poland to the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland, according to the records. Commercial flights readily available for those trips would have saved the state $41,223, according to the average of current ticket prices listed on a Web booking site. But state officials said the governor and others couldn’t fly commercial because their meetings in various locales were scheduled too close together…

There is, however, a point to the Mark Sanford story. The more we learn, the worse he looks. Recall that Mark Sanford is an author of the book, The Trust Committed to Me, and was to pen a second, Within Our Means. While in Congress, he made a great show of sleeping in his office – the paradigm of frugality. As governor, he famously marched into the statehouse carrying pigs to protest "pork." He wanted to refuse the Federal Stimulus money, and vetoed many State budget items [over-ridden 99% of the time].

 

And here we are again – confusing wars that have become disconnected from the reason they’re being fought; nightly harangues about racism and socialism on the evening news; conservative this and liberal that. One thing about those sixties that was different for me – I didn’t know the history that went with it. I mean I didn’t know it from the inside. I knew there had been a Great Depression and that there had been a labor movement and lots of singers and songs that came out of that time. I guess I didn’t know so much about the opposition to FDR and the New Deal. By the time I came along, it was World War II and FDR was venerated as the person who got us through the Depression and that horrible war, rather than the New Dealer that many called a communist or a socialist who waged war with those moneyed Americans that plunged us into financial ruin.

I’ve always said that the sixties was the only period when I ever really understood the world. Segregation was wrong; the War in Viet Nam was wrong; JFK and MLK and Pete Seeger [and me] were right. The world made sense. Fix the wrong things and everything would be just fine. By then, communism was a noble idea on paper, but it just didn’t work. It just deteriorated into Dictatorships. And anyway, American Democracy usually gets things right sooner or later. The pendulum just swings back and forth – and the middle prevails. "We shall overcome…"

Only now the history is my history, some things I was even a part of. It’s not some vague black and white photo of the dust bowl or FDR, or a scratchy record with Woody Guthrie’s nasal voice. And when I read these signs from last weekend’s march, I wonder what in the hell those people are thinking. Do they have any idea of what those historical references really mean? The symbols seems too dark for the topic [our symbols were pretty extreme too]:

I suppose we all overstate our causes. We feel and live as if the the issue of the moment is for all time, and if it doesn’t go our way, the cataclysm of centuries will befall us, never to be undone. That’s not right, of course. But that is the way things feel. And I suppose that’s what those hateful teabaggers’ signs are about. I doubt that Jane Fonda in Hanoi, "Flower Power", or the self-sacrifice of the Monk won many hearts and minds either.

Rush: … Therefore the question:  Can this nation really have an African-American president?  Or will the fact that we have an African-American president so paralyze politically correct people in the media that the natural scrutiny and process through which all of our presidents are put through and vetted do not occur because of the fear in the State-Controlled Media of themselves being called racist and the desire to be able to call everyone else racist.  In other words, we have a blank slate.  We have a president here who is not scrutinized, who is not examined.  There is no attempt to be suspicious of power anymore.  So is it possible that we really have an African-American president?  Or does having an African-American president paralyze the process by which people with that kind of power in our representative republic are kept, quote, unquote, honest?  I have a brief timeout here at which time I’m either going to explode in rage or I’m going to fix this audio problem, because I already started out in rage.  This racism stuff has got everybody boiling mad because it’s such a lie; it’s such a cheap shot; it’s so dishonest…

RUSH:  Victimization of people, grouping people, condescension toward average Americans exists primarily on the left.  They’re projecting.  You know, this is a great illustration of projection.  They‘re accusing us of behaving exactly as they do.  They are accusing us of thinking exactly as they think.

“They“? “us“?

Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton is focus of corruption probe
LA Times
By Jim Tankersley and Josh Meyer
September 16, 2009/div

The Justice Department investigation centers on a 2006 decision to award oil shale leases in Colorado to a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary. Months later, the oil giant hired Norton as a legal counsel.

The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to benefit Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that later hired her, according to officials in federal law enforcement and the Interior Department.

The criminal investigation centers on the Interior Department’s 2006 decision to award three lucrative oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary. Over the years it would take to extract the oil, according to calculations from Shell and a Rand Corp. expert, , the deal could net the company hundreds of billions of dollars.

The investigation’s main focus is whether Norton violated a law that prohibits federal employees from discussing employment with a company if they are involved in dealings with the government that could benefit the firm, law enforcement and Interior officials said…

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary dead at 72
Associated Press
By JAY LINDSAY
September 16, 2009

 

BOSTON — Mary Travers, who as one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary helped popularize such tunes as "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" and "If I Had a Hammer," died in a Connecticut hospital Wednesday after battling leukemia for several years. She was 72…

Obama Disagrees with Carter Statement on Racism
Washington Post
By Krissah Thompson
September 16, 2009

A day after former president Jimmy Carter said that race is at the heart of much of the opposition to President Obama, President Obama said through his spokesman that he disagrees.

"The president does not believe that the criticism comes based on the color of his skin," Gibbs said Wednesday. "We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by this administration. . . . The president does not believe that it’s based on the color of his skin"…

They Don’t Even Disguise The Race-Baiting
The Atlantic
by Andrew Sullivan
September 15, 2009

Limbaugh echoes Malkin:

"In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on… I wonder if Obama’s going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard."

I’m sorry but this is outrageous. The story was a classic schoolbus bully incident; it could happen anywhere any time and has happened everywhere at all times with kids of all races, backgrounds and religions. To infer both that it was racially motivated and that this is somehow connected to having a black president is repulsive. I know that is almost de trop with Limbaugh, but sometimes you have to regain a little shock. This man is spewing incendiary racial hatred. He is conjuring up images of lonely whites being besieged by angry violent blacks … based on an incident that had nothing to do with race at all. And why, by the way, does someone immediately go to the racial angle when looking at such a tape?

These people are going off the deep end entirely: open panic at a black president is morphing into the conscious fanning of racial polarization, via Gates or ACORN or Van Jones or a schoolbus in Saint Louis. What we’re seeing is the Jeremiah Wright moment repeated and repeated. The far right is seizing any racial story to fan white fears of black power in order to destroy Obama. And the far right now controls the entire right.

Do they understand how irresonsible this is? How recklessly dangerous to a society’s cohesion and calm? Or is that what they need and thrive on?

Cheney gets praise and protest at Wyoming event
By MEAD GRUVER [AP]

^{LARAMIE, Wyo. — Praise and protest greeted former Vice President Dick Cheney as he visited his alma mater Thursday for the dedication of a new international center bearing his name. About 100 protesters heckled Cheney throughout the dedication ceremony for the University of Wyoming’s Cheney International Center. Cheney and his wife Lynne donated $3.2 million for the new center for foreign students and for scholarships for Wyoming students to study abroad. Protesters made up about a fifth of the crowd of about 500 and hoisted critical signs: "Shame on UW" and "We don’t want your blood money."}

^{"They violated international law. They had no respect for other countries," Jennie Boshell, a senior at the university, said of the Bush administration. "To put Cheney’s name on an international center is ridiculous and it makes the university look stupid." Another protester, Dan Depeyer, said he is studying democratization in the former Soviet republics and may well have received some of the Cheneys’ money to study abroad. "If I were ever to study in a Muslim society — say, Saudi Arabia — I wouldn’t tell anybody over there I was funded by money that came from Dick Cheney," Depeyer said.}

^{Dick and Lynne Cheney both spoke at the event. Dick Cheney said his time as a student at the University of Wyoming laid the foundation for an "extraordinary career." "We hope that this center will provide the kind of support for Wyoming students to travel overseas, to travel internationally, to learn a lot of the lessons that we’ve learned over the years," he said. The former vice president endured shouts from the protesters gathered around the back of the crowd but got a standing ovation from those in front.}

^{Another well-known Wyoming political figure, former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, rose to Cheney’s defense in introducing his longtime friend. "This is a proud state, this is a proud family, and we’re proud of them," Simpson said. The last three presidential administrations, he said, all endured a lot of petty criticism. "It is easy to second-guess. It is easy to protest — takes no brains," Simpson said. The Cheneys’ gift came with no strings attached and the university doesn’t subject its donors to a public referendum, university President Tom Buchanan said afterward. "Everyone has a different take on the Cheney vice presidency. I think he is by far the university’s most accomplished alum, both in this state and in national politics," Buchanan said. "Whether you agree with him or not, he certainly is a sincere gentleman and we’re very glad he came back to visit his campus."}

In many ways, I’d like to leave Cheney alone, to let him make graduation speeches [and donations]. It’s what elder Statesmen do. As a matter of fact, it’s what Vice Presidents do too. I want not to be infected with the same kind of "an eye for an eye" mentality he’s lived by throughout his life. It seems good etiquette to give former Presidents, Vice Presidents, etc. some peace after the kind of scrutiny they receive while in office. But his blatant political attacks on his successor are such bad form – like Joe Wilson’s outburst at Obama’s speech – it sure makes it tempting to dog Cheney even in his retirement.

Presto! VP’s Home Re-appears on Google Earth
Huffington Post
by Marlene H. Phillips
January 28, 2009

^{Sure have been a lot of changes this month. Some of the changes were swift and expected, and sent a strong signal to the world that things in D.C. had changed: the closing of Gitmo, the pay freeze for all White House senior staff, the insistence that transparency be the new order of the day for the government of the United States.}

^{And then there were changes like this one, small and trivial compared to the events I just listed but marvelously, gloriously symbolic of the difference between the previous administration and the new administration. You can see it for yourself:}

1. ^{Go to Google Earth.}
2. ^{Enter the address ‘One Observatory Circle’}
3. ^{Behold the home of the Vice President of the United States.}

^{If you tried doing that during the last four years (since Google Earth went live), you would have seen a blurred and obscured image where the house should be. Because when the residence was the home of Dick Cheney it was a Google Earth non-entity; like some strange and unnatural life form, Dick Cheney hated the light of day, and his obsession with operating in darkness even extended into the relatively benign world of Google Earth. The White House? No problem on Google Earth. The Pentagon? Clear as day. The VP’s house? Forget about it…}

I think this blog, this post, are ways for me to do just that. I didn’t read that article about Cheney’s dedication in Laramie Wyoming as a routine morning news catch-up. I obviously googled "cheney" and found it. I remember thinking [maybe hoing] that I would curtail my incessant blogging when Obama was inaugurated. I don’t think I actually need to publicly weigh in on Obama’s healthcare program or a lot of other things that are going on now. What I’m drawn to are the unsettled things from the Bush Administration – the remnants of that period [like the Republican bloc opposition, or Fox News, or almost anything Cheney]. It’s as if keeping that focus allows me to think more sensibly about the present. If I "forget," the current news becomes discolored and gloomy, or gloomier than it really is.

What was so traumatic for me about the last eight years? I didn’t feel this way even in the darkest of the Civil Rights days when Orvil Faubus, George Wallace, and Ross Barnett where at the top of their game. I didn’t feel it when LBJ was so stuck in dealing with the Viet Nam War, or when crazy Dick Nixon was doing his Watergate dance. I didn’t even feel it when Ronald Reagan was laying the groundwork for the ultimate destruction of our economy. And surprisingly, I don’t feel it about the ever goofy George W. Bush.

^{Klan March on Washington in 1925 [400,000]}

Ku Klux Klan

The first Klan was founded in 1865 by Tennessee veterans of the Confederate Army. Groups spread throughout the South. Its purpose was to restore white supremacy in the aftermath of the American Civil War. The Klan resisted Reconstruction by assaulting, murdering and intimidating freedmen and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871 the federal government passed the Force Acts, which were used to prosecute Klan crimes. Prosecution and enforcement suppressed Klan activity. In 1874 and later, however, newly organized and openly active paramilitary organizations such as the White League and the Red Shirts started a fresh round of violence aimed at suppressing Republican voting and running Republicans out of office. These contributed to white Democrats regaining political power in the southern states.

In 1915, the second Klan was founded. It grew rapidly in a period of postwar social tensions, where industrialization in the North attracted numerous waves of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and the Great Migration of Southern blacks and whites. In reaction, the second KKK preached racism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Communism, nativism, and anti-Semitism. Some local groups took part in lynchings, attacks on private houses, and carried out other violent activities. The Klan committed the most numerous murders and acts of violence in the South, which had a tradition of lawlessness.

The second Klan was a formal fraternal organization, with a national and state structure. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization included about 15% of the nation’s eligible population, approximately 4–5 million men. Internal divisions and external opposition brought about a sharp decline in membership, which had dropped to about 30,000 by 1930. The Klan’s popularity fell further during the Great Depression and World War II.

The name Ku Klux Klan has since been used by many independent groups opposing the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, they often forged alliances with Southern police departments, as in Birmingham, Alabama; or with governor’s offices, as with George Wallace of Alabama. Several members of KKK-affiliated groups were convicted of murder in the deaths of civil rights workers and children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, and the assassination of NAACP organizer Medgar Evers, and three civil rights workers in Mississippi. Today, researchers estimate that there may be 150+ Klan chapters with 5,000–8,000 members nationwide. The U.S. government classifies them as hate groups, with operations in separated small local units.

No, I don’t think it’s the Klan that marched on Washington last weekend, but it’s the same idea – in particular, the threatening signs like "We came unarmed [this time]." It’s a trend in the American body politic that has been with us from the beginning, one that we Southerners know more intimately than others, but is operative throughout the country. For some it’s an identification with some pure race [Aryran Nation], with others it’s White Power [Skinheads], but it comes in the more subtle forms like we saw this weekend.