It would be a violation of the Constitution to appoint Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State because the executive order raising the salary of Secretary of State was made while she was in office as a Senator.
The salary amount can be recinded ("fixed" as in "Saxbe fix"), but it doesn't change the historical fact that she was in office when the SoS salary was increased.
Therefore, she cannot be appointed to SoS without violating the Constitution.
Way back, when McCain picked Palin, I conjectured that she had been "bought" by the campaign. I was thinking that McVain figured he was gonna lose and he "hired" her ( bought her) to stimulate the base and lure in the disgruntled Hillary voters. Ever since then, I've been saying she was his Political Viagra. LOL!Anyway, I have always thought that she was told that being McCain's running mate would guarantee her political future, and she could have a lot of things in the way of perks, in exchange for firing up the base. McVain figured that if he lost, no biggie, she'd be gone. And if he won, he figured that he'd be able to wing it with her, and hand her off to his staff, while he engaged Lieberman as surrogate VP.There's no question she initially fired up the base. She definitely didn't seem to get many of the Hillary voters, however.I think she was also told that she'd have a lot more influence as VP, if she did her best to perform as required, and McVain somehow managed to get elected. That would account for her thinking that there were many more responsibilities involved with being VP, than there actually are. Far be it from her to think of looking in the Constitution, where the relatively few duties and privileges of VP are all laid out in plain language.As the negatives against Palin continue to grow exponentially, and McVain's prospects of winning shrink daily, Palin is realizing that her political future is seriously at risk. She's now fighting for her own survival, while at the same time, continuing to nurture her vain illusions of ascending to the Vice Presidency, and beyond. She honestly believes she's qualified to hold the highest office in the land, even as she politically bungee jumps closer and closer to the ground.
She is now a liability and an huge embarrassment to the campaign, and to McVain in particular. He can't wait to get this over with. He cares very much what people think of him. It is excruciating for him to have his reputation, honor, and integrity, such as it was, rapidly disintegrate into a steaming pile of dung. He absolutely hates being the butt of jokes, no matter how well he seems to take it.So, this news of Palin's $150K wardrobe and all the other perks she's getting, fits in pretty well with the picture of her being used, bribed, and basically poised for dumping at McVain's earliest convenience. It doesn't matter any more whether people or the press are good to her - McVain has realized that he's going down in flames. But he wants to make sure it looks like Palin is the reason for his failures, so he doesn't care if any of the negative stuff about her continues to sink his ship. The press is backing up this image; calling Palin "the biggest drag on the campaign" and blaming her for the continued downward slide of McCain's poll numbers.It wouldn't surprise me if he actually had known that there were a lot of skeletons in her closet when he picked her. At the point he picked her, his ratings were taking a nosedive. He was not on good terms with his staff or the Republican Party, apparently due to their denial of Lieberman as his first pick for VP. He clearly lashed out at everyone, including his supporters and donors, by picking Palin in an openly impulsive act of defiance. McVain calculated that, if he wasn't able to resurrect or maintain his campaign with doses of Palin Viagra, he could bring the skeletons out to effectively put his campaign out of its misery. Now that he can't ignore the train wreck that his campaign has become, the skeletons come marching out, one by one. "It's all Palin's fault" he can say. He certainly never did - and doesn't now - give a damn about her political future.
Today, Chuck Todd (CNN) was talking about how he observed no apparent chemistry between Palin and McVain. He was talking about how mystified he was by this. [These guys need to learn to ask the women what's going on, when a woman's actions are mysterious.]
Here's my take on it...From the beginning, McVain was drooling over Palin. In the film footage of the rallies, you can see him hanging on her every word, but trying not to appear so obviously infatuated with her. You can see him following her around, conscious of his proximity to her at every moment, anxious when she strayed out on her own, and eager to hug her and kiss her at every opportunity.
This type of touchy-feely behavior no doubt surprised Palin initially, and she rolled with it to be a good sport. But ultimately, all the drooling made Palin (and the First Dude) quite uncomfortable. Not only is it unprofessional, but McVain wanted to be too close in the hugs, and too affectionate in the kisses. You can see all this in the news footage. Palin has been able to choreograph more physical distance between her and McVain. The hugs are shorter and there is a definite projection by Palin of some boundaries - she is keeping him at bay because she does not want to have this old fart lusting after her! I mean, a woman can only take so much of this crap! And she certainly doesn't want to give him any encouragement. McVain probably thought he could basically have his way with her because he's (or his campaign or the RNC) is footing the huge bill for her presence and contribution to the campaign. He thought he could do with her what he does with all women - treat them like they are there for his pleasure, to do what he needs them to do, to serve him and to serve his agenda.When she started making a fool of herself in interviews, McVain soon insisted on accompanying her, chaperoning her, to act as a control, fill in the gaps when she obviously was clueless, and to prevent her embarrassing gaffes. At this point in time, his campaign was starting to spiral out of his control. It's totally gone now. No one can even successfully do damage control anymore.Tomorrow, Palin and her husband, Todd, are scheduled to give depositions in TrooperGate. The expectation is that there will be some negative repercussions on Palin's official position as Governor of Alaska. This, combined with the rest of the verdicts against Palin, will afford the McVain campaign an ideal opportunity to unload her - because unloading her is the only thing that might make a difference in the projected outcome of this election.
If you're an Obama supporter, as I have been for the last two years, this post may bother you. On the other hand, you may have perceived many of the same ideas while listening to Obama address the Senate yesterday, concerning the bailout bill.
Frankly, I was very disappointed with Obama's support of the bill. I was even more disappointed with his speech! To my ears, Obama used a rusty formulaic structure for his speech, with an unusual amount of fear and guilt lathered on the American people.
From the beginning of the speech, he was talking about blame for the state of the economy - but he didn't mention the Iraq War, outsourcing of jobs, or the plummeting employment rate. He used an analogy of putting out a fire now (by passing this bill in a hurry), but he failed to mention the other truthful part of that analogy - that some fires actually need to happen in order to destroy things so that new things can take place. Example: some of the moldy houses that Katrina visited had to be allowed to burn down, so new ones could be rebuilt. Many people have commented on the similarity between the devastation caused by Katrina, and the destruction to our economy.
Obama went on to accuse the House of failing to act. This is a blatant mischaracterization. The House DID act, just not the way Obama and others wanted it to. This is partisanship, pure and simple. I was surprised to hear Obama go there. He also connected the stock market drop to the House decision to vote down the original bailout bill. I was watching the stock market going down before the voting even started. Plus, it is simply inaccurate to attribute the activity in the stock market to anything other than investors' willingness to invest. Period. There are a multitude of reasons why investors choose to buy and sell stocks. Most of those reasons have nothing to do with what is happening at the same time in Congress.
Bottom line, Obama used fear and guilt in large doses in an attempt to persuade the American people to approve of this bailout bill created in the Senate. The bulk of his speech is chock full of talk about dire consequences, dangerous situations, threats of what will happen if we don't act now to rescue Wall Street. It was horrifying to hear him use causes near and dear, such as mortgages, car loans and college tuitions, payrolls, and bills, to convnce fellow Senators of the viability of this bailout bill. To plead the case for the bill based on a fear of a recession - that most of us already know we're in - well, that was an insult to our intelligence.
Obama also erroneously appropriated credit to the bailout bill for things that the bill simply doesn't guarantee, such as real protections for taxpayers, oversight, accountability, help for homeowners, elimination of golden parachutes, and profits or returns on our taxpayer contributions to this bill. Yes, those things are mentioned in the bill (I've read all 106 pages) - but every condition has a giant loophole for the Treasury Secretary to slide through, without any obligation to Congress, taxpayers, or anyone at all.
There are absolutely NO guarantees that the provisions of the bill will be managed correctly, that any money will be gotten back by the taxpayers, or that there will be any profits whatsoever. Obama clearly stated this in his speech. But didn't he also say previously that he would NOT support a bill that didn't have those guarantees built in?
One key item in the bill, which Obama mentioned in his speech, concerns the possibility Obama described by saying, "If we fall short, we will levy a fee on financial institutions so that they can repay us for the losses they caused." There's a clause in the bill about this, true. However, there are many more clauses in the bill, which indicate the very real possibility, even intention, that the Treasury Secretary will buy up assets and then dismantle the financial institutions. There would be no entity to "bill" a fee to, no financial institution from which to obtain reimbursement for our losses.
Another Senator has called this bailout bill "legislative blackmail."
The conclusion of Obama's speech exhorted the American people to do more to help our economy, to take more action to prevent the economic downfall we face. From this soapbox, Obama launched his familiar stump speech - blaming the runaway spending of the Bush Administration, and saying that many important programs will be delayed or abandoned, in spite of our great sacrifices.
The best line of his speech came at the very end, where he said, "...our destiny is not written for us, but by us." That rang true. Unfortunately, that truth was cloaked in thick political rhetoric, the likes of which has a real potential to derail Obama's voting base.
This blog post is in response to "Biden's Strategy: Go easy on Palin" by Roger Simon in today's Politico.com Ideas feature.
It seems to me that the Obama camp isn't listening to the undecided and Republican voters, whose votes must be swayed towards Obama, in order to win this election. According to Roger Simon, the Obama Campaign is pursuing what I call a "Biden-Lite" approach to debating Sarah Palin tonight.
If the Obama campaign really believes that the voters aren't paying attention to the bottom of the ticket, then why is Palin so popular? Why was John McCain's campaign starting to sink, until it got a dose of "political viagra" in the form of Palin joining the ticket? ("Political Viagra" is a term coined by me. Feel free to use it as often as you like, as long as you give me credit for it.)
I am convinced that the bottom of the ticket is WAY more important to the Republicans this time. They don't have anything else to brag about!
Simon says that Biden is going to let Palin's blunders slide. That's fine. He's going to be calling her "Governor Palin", which will do a lot to reinforce her electability and experience, if only through the conveyance of stereotypes that we all have about authority figures with important titles.
Biden is being coached against condescension. He's still going to appear condescending, and maybe even arrogant. That's his personality. No amount of coaching is going to rid him of the trait he developed as a survival mechanism for the last 55 years.
He WILL go off-script. He is impulsive, especially when emotionally wounded. And he will feel wounded, because he can't help it. Part of his personality is to defend his dignity at all costs. It is reflexive. He thinks it is beneath his dignity to NOT respond with equal force to a personal or professional hit. He won't be able to resist pouncing on the lies and misscharacterizations Palin throws at him. He will forget about Barack long enough to be willing to sacrifice all that he has gained through the Obama campaign, in order to assert his pride.
The Obama camp is maintaining that McCain is the target, not Palin. How wrong, wrong, wrong that is. We all know who McCain is, and we're tired, bored, and disgusted with him. Alone, he can't even get 200 people to a rally without paying them. McCain is old news. But when we see Biden going after his friend of 25 years, suddenly we will feel sorry for McCain, the "underdog", who is getting attacked.
The "focus on McCain" strategy carries with it an extreme danger of backfiring on Biden, to the point of injuring the Obama ticket.
Palin IS the most vital component of the McCain ticket, and she is the most important opponent tonight. Millions of viewers will be watching this debate just TO SEE HER. She is, after all, only a heartbeat away from the presidency, if McCain gets elected.
The Obama campaign owes it to every voter to expose Palin for the unprepared, unqualified, inexperienced, radical right-wing, religious fanatic that she is.
The most recent suggested bill for the Rescue Plan has posted the (printable) bill at: http://www.cspan.org/pdf/marketsbill_draft.pdf
CSPAN.ORG/pdf/marketsbill_draft.pdf Earlier in the day, Representative Gregg (R) briefly outlined the main points of the bill, and it sounded like the Treasury Secretary is still getting way too much unregulated and unsupervised power. PLUS, the "oversight panel" they are constructing, he said, includes SEC Chairman Cox, FED Chairman Bernanke, CEOs from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and Treasury Secretary Paulson. The congressional oversight is only done by monthly reports from the above mentioned people, who are directly involved in receiving funds, profits, and other money from the deals they do to "save" the economy.
Initial reviews of the "new" bill say that it's basically the same thing Treasury Secretary Paulson proposed the first time! (See CSPAN Washington Journal for September 28, 2008: guest speaker from Freedom Works, Matt Kibbe.)
Cindy McCain, at the Republican Convention, asked that donations of money for Gustav survivors be sent to "CauseGreater.com"The following information shows that the registration for that domain is secret. The identity of the true owner is hidden; protected by Domains by Proxy, Inc. The info shows that the site was opened August 29, 2008 and is set to expire August 30, 2009.If this is a legitimate site to provide relief for disaster victims, why is the administrator's name and information not disclosed? How can those who make donations be sure where their money and credit card information is going?
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)Domain Name: CAUSEGREATER.COMCreated on: 29-Aug-08Expires on: 30-Aug-09Last Updated on: 31-Aug-08Administrative Contact:Private, Registration CAUSEGREATER.COM@domainsbyproxy.comDomains by Proxy, Inc.DomainsByProxy.com15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353Scottsdale, Arizona 85260United States(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598Technical Contact:Private, Registration CAUSEGREATER.COM@domainsbyproxy.comDomains by Proxy, Inc.DomainsByProxy.com15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353Scottsdale, Arizona 85260United States(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598
NOTICE: this identity-hiding company is located in Arizona. It was established on August 29, a few days ago, and is set to expire August 30, 2009.
Internet donations cannot be traced. Where are the donations really going?
When I think about Tim Russert not being physically present to cover this historic election, his death seems so untimely and tragic.
I have since come to realize that Tim's spirit is now spread far and wide, enriching our hearts and minds. Part of him is with all of us, and so we are now more able to cultivate the qualities Tim shared with us: authenticity, truthfulness, loyalty, and celebration of each others' successes.
A great gift that Tim Russert's death has given to all of us bloggers, and especially to the media reporters, commentators, correspondents, pundits, executives, and personnel in all of journalism, is a powerful inspiration to go on and do our very best with our coverage of this election.
The Obama blog forum is being used as a chat room. This defeats the purpose and efficient use of the blog format. Blogs are utilized most efficiently when they are NOT used as chat rooms. A blog, by definition, is a web log of essays, basically, to which people post comments. The comments are displayed in chronological order, as they come in. All comments appear in a linear order, placing the most recently received at the bottom of the comment section. New topics are written about on new blogs.
The blog format set on this Obama website is actually a series of combined blog posts, set up to have comments posted after each post. It is more like a live discussion list, with posts threaded together depending on the subject line. As we've seen, people write comments on blog posts that may or may not be related in subject matter to the specific original blog post...thereby defeating the concept and purpose of a blog.
When someone writes on a topic that is not related to the topic originally blogged on, the thread is hijacked. This makes it very difficult to keep a thread topic and all related posts congruent.In a blog that is functioning as intended, a poster does not have to keep scrolling up and down the blog to find their posts and related comments. More importantly, the time of each post is sequential, with the most recently received posts showing up at the bottom of the comment section.It is contrary to the concept of blogging for posters to have to chase the new threads to find comments related to their posts. What is starting to happen on the Obama blog is that there are regular posters who are having conversations. At some point, their conversation moves to a "new thread", and many posters are left behind. The whole idea of having to go back to a previous blog to make sure that "no blogger is left behind" is a function of a chat room, not a blog.I see that the Obama blog is becoming less and less effective, as a core group of chatters start to dominate the flow of the blog. This will, in time, alienate a significant number of would-be contributors, who come to feel that their blog "essay" posts will not be read or commented upon because active posters (those currently logged on) have migrated to a new blog "thread", the existence of which is not evident until one reads the posts at the bottom of the window.
A significant number of posters have commented that they can't keep up with the blog. Others have expressed that they do not wish to discuss trivialities.
How HQ could make this blog more effective;Program it so that the posts are displayed in chronological order, with the first one first, and each successive post following after that, with the last one last.
This would eliminate the need to scroll up to the top of the blog to look for new posts or new comments, as all posts would be in "real time". A contributor would get immediate feedback on their posts, and not have to return to previous blogs to check for comments. The dialog would be improved, and flamers or "trolls" would have less opportunity to dominate a conversation.
When you log on to the blog, you would know exactly where you are in the blog, in real time.
Although the blog would, in essence, be functioning as a chat room, this simple programming change would make communications more effective, efficient, and streamlined.
I burst into tears after the first three seconds of today's Meet the Press. When the camera panned in to Tim Russert's empty chair, it was so poignant and still so shocking. I'm still incredulous about Tim's sudden death.
There is a great article on Politico.com about the show, but there were some details not mentioned. The guests on the show were Mike Barnicle, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Betsy Fischer, Gwen Ifil, and James Carville with his wife, Mary Matalin. Tom Brokaw hosted this memorial show in Tim's honor. The table, where Tim made history week after week every Sunday, loomed in the background, dimly but adequately illuminated with gold lighting.
Each guest had many comments, anecdotes, and words of admiration to offer about Tim. Mary Matalin soon had a scrunched up tissue clinched in her hand. It was clear that everyone was making a brave effort to hold back tears. No one succeeded...there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
I especially enjoyed hearing everyone recount how inspirational, loyal, authentic, curious, and passionate Tim was with everyone and with his work. Much was said about how Tim enthusiastically and sincerely encouraged, supported, advocated for, and celebrated everyone's success.
One quote of his that will stick with me for the rest of my life is this, shared by Gwen Ifil, "The best exercise for the human heart is to bend down and pick someone else up."
Mary Matalin and James Carville, the Republican and Democrat husband-wife political consultant team, were holding hands for most of the show. Tom Brokaw, usually quite composed, audibly choked up when he repeated one of Tim's favorite expressions, "What a country!"
Like many of us, I planned my Sunday around watching Meet the Press, and often watched it a second time online late at night before the day was done. He was impeccably prepared for every show, covering vital details, leaving no stone unturned. Tim asked the questions and got the answers we all wanted to hear, with an almost infallible success rate. There was so much to learn from watching Tim on Meet the Press. I will miss him more than words can describe.
Tim will remain for me, and for so many others, a superior role model as someone who selflessly cultivated and generously shared his loyalty, humor, compassion, insight, intelligence, and love. Go get 'em, Tim!
