WaPo analyzes HRC as SecState and as Methodist

Posted on November 26, 2012 by markinaustin

HRC

Most of you know that before her current stint as SecState I was not a fan. I had serious reservations about her as an unelected person with the sway of an elected one in the West Wing and I truly despised her health care plan upon reading through the 1200+ pages in 1993. That episode, and hearing her defend it, and her insistence that M.D.s play no part in the design, marked her as hopelessly arrogant, even reckless, IMHO.

Further, I remain convinced from the evidence that surfaced for me on Frontline, and from what I know commonly occurred with S&Ls in the southwest in the late 80s and early 90s, that she had indeed participated in fraud on behalf of her client. I have discussed this here and probably linked at other times. Suffice to repeat, I was not a fan, and would not have voted for her for POTUS under any circumstance.

She showed restraint and the ability to enter coalitions in the Senate, and I gave her points for progressing in that way, but my strong reservations remained.

The linked attempt to explain her, written with an uncritical eye, I think, probably contains much truth, and I do respect the job she has done as SecState.

The article suggests she will always want the power to actually do the UMC’s social gospel. It hints that this might lead her to run for POTUS. I, for one, think if the article has any truth to it, that she should get on with the Gates Foundation, an effective and focused charity. I think, if the article has any truth to it, she would do well using her skills in that way.

There are many Americans suitable to become POTUS. True, I have argued that former SecsState, SecsDef, NSAdvisors, flag officers with broad foreign theater experience, persons like Huntsman who had multiple experiences as a key ambassador and as a governor, and probably former CIA Directors, have a better chance at first term success than typical senators or governors or lawyers, or doctors, or businesspersons. That is b/c FP is the first concern of the POTUS. Thus HRC is among the group I nominally consider most qualified.

Qualified, but also disqualified, to pervert a phrase from probate law.

I cannot buy off on HRC for POTUS. I have not forgotten either her arrogance, when she thought she had a free hand, or what I believe to have been her criminal misconduct as an attorney. Let her be a force for social justice as she sees it. Let her career be golden. Just don’t try to do it in the White House.

Please?

Filed under: 2013 and beyond, hillary clinton | 7 Comments »

Cutting Waste at DOD – Really!

Posted on November 20, 2012 by markinaustin

Department of Everything

Filed under: budget, dod | 4 Comments »

THE TRASH NOVEL WE SHOULD BE WORKING ON

Posted on November 15, 2012 by markinaustin

Characters: 1] The evil but seductive twin sisters.

Imagine that they are sleeper agents for Hizbollah. One marries an Irish-American MD who is a sympathizer with the IRA and took a quickie course in intel gathering from Hizbollah. One marries the chief trader for American interests in Iraq, but sheds him when the Iraq War has no more useful intel.

2] The well meaning, but over-sexed former HS athlete and valedictorian, WP grad, reserve Major, and scholar/author, who we imagine learns of the evil twins through her time embedded with the CIA chief, who is too blind to have seen through them.

3] The we imagine honorable but manipulable CIA chief and generals who protect our land.

4] Jack Reacher [tm], who brings everyone to their senses, probably by slaying the evil twins, turning the Irish doctor, bedding the oversexed scholar, and redeeming the reputations of the honorable men, in some way I can’t figure out yet.

5] The Real Housewives [tm] of Tampa.

Some possible connections and plot turns:

Hizbollah was floating the couple in Tampa to lavish living in order to gain access to Central Command, but cut them off because of the War in Syria, or because they were not getting enough good stuff from the couple, who were having too good of a time.

Evil twin got so many wheels involved in her custody battle that Hizbollah shifted its financing to her.

Reacher [tm] first met the oversexed athlete/scholar/author when he was guarding a missile base in ND and she was a curious HS valedictorian. Didn’t have sex with her then but did have to remove her from the missile base.

Reacher [tm] is not Tom Cruise.

All twists and turns and perversions are welcome.

Filed under: fun stuff | 14 Comments »

George McGovern, RIP

Posted on October 22, 2012 by markinaustin

Sam Houston Clinton chaired the D State Convention in ’72. He was General Counsel to the AFL-CIO and the TCLU. He was a “lawyer’s lawyer” who had won three notable cases in the US S.Ct., one of which you may remember; the reversal of Jack Ruby’s conviction. Sam looked like John Wayne and was a hero to most young lawyers in Austin.

In August 1972, the McGovern Campaign asked to meet with Sam. He set the meeting for my firm’s conference room and invited my partner and me to sit in, but not to speak unless spoken to. The Campaign wanted Sam’s views on how to carry TX.

Taylor Branch and a black woman whose name eludes me represented the Campaign.

Sam told them that the rural/small-town weeklies had not yet weighed in and they could be “had” for McG. He suggested a column ad, topped by a photo of McG stepping out of his B24, captioned “decorated WW2 bombardier”. The ad would stress that McG was the son of a Methodist minister, had won the DisFlyingCross, had always voted for gun rights, and would close with the pledge to help [D nominee for] Gov. Briscoe eradicate screw worms in TX.

The black woman laughed. “SCREW worms?” Sam patiently and colorfully described how these larvae were hatched in the nostrils, worked their way to the brain, and destroyed not individual cows, but herds. He explained that Briscoe and the TX D Admin were getting a cold shoulder from Nixon’s USDA, and that ranchers throughout the plains were suffering.

Then Branch said “We cannot say that about gun rights.” Sam pointed to McG’s voting record, which was pure SD and against gun control. Branch explained that it would not fly in L.A. Sam allowed as how he had been asked how McG could win in TX; polls showed Nixon would carry CA no matter what. The meeting ended and so did McG’s prospects of running a competitive race in TX.

Another of my mentor lawyers was Will Davis, a conservative D who, for example, wrote insurance law for the insurance lobby. Will authored the [in]famous McGovern Rules which changed the national D Party from boss run to unmanageable in that election, but which have survived pretty much in tact to this time. Even the Rs have copied some of the McG Rules reforms.

Those were my connections to that campaign. Also, I met his wife, who was gorgeous and charming. This is not apparent in photos on the net, btw. She was petite with curves in the right places and sparkling eyes and short honey blonde hair and a dazzling smile.

LaterSummer of ’78, he co-sponsored a bill with Goldwater to intervene militarily in Cambodia or Laos, I don’t recall. It was beaten down in the Senate as badly as the two men had been beaten for POTUS. McG was asked by someone how a former anti-war candidate could support an intervention war. He explained he was not anti-war. Some wars are just.

Filed under: Democrats | 10 Comments »

I DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE THEY ARE THIS STUPID

Posted on October 11, 2012 by markinaustin

Letting us in on a secret
By Dana Milbank, Published: October 10

When House Republicans called a hearing in the middle of their long recess, you knew it would be something big, and indeed it was: They accidentally blew the CIA’s cover.

The purpose of Wednesday’s hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee was to examine security lapses that led to the killing in Benghazi last month of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others. But in doing so, the lawmakers reminded us why “congressional intelligence” is an oxymoron.

Through their outbursts, cryptic language and boneheaded questioning of State Department officials, the committee members left little doubt that one of the two compounds at which the Americans were killed, described by the administration as a “consulate” and a nearby “annex,” was a CIA base. They did this, helpfully, in a televised public hearing.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was the first to unmask the spooks. “Point of order! Point of order!” he called out as a State Department security official, seated in front of an aerial photo of the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, described the chaotic night of the attack. “We’re getting into classified issues that deal with sources and methods that would be totally inappropriate in an open forum such as this.”

A State Department official assured him that the material was “entirely unclassified” and that the photo was from a commercial satellite. “I totally object to the use of that photo,” Chaffetz continued. He went on to say that “I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today.”

Now that Chaffetz had alerted potential bad guys that something valuable was in the photo, the chairman, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), attempted to lock the barn door through which the horse had just bolted. “I would direct that that chart be taken down,” he said, although it already had been on C-SPAN. “In this hearing room, we’re not going to point out details of what may still in fact be a facility of the United States government or more facilities.”

May still be a facility? The plot thickened — and Chaffetz gave more hints. “I believe that the markings on that map were terribly inappropriate,” he said, adding that “the activities there could cost lives.”

In their questioning and in the public testimony they invited, the lawmakers managed to disclose, without ever mentioning Langley directly, that there was a seven-member “rapid response force” in the compound the State Department was calling an annex. One of the State Department security officials was forced to acknowledge that “not necessarily all of the security people” at the Benghazi compounds “fell under my direct operational control.”

And whose control might they have fallen under? Well, presumably it’s the “other government agency” or “other government entity” the lawmakers and witnesses referred to; Issa informed the public that this agency was not the FBI.

“Other government agency,” or “OGA,” is a common euphemism in Washington for the CIA. This “other government agency,” the lawmakers’ questioning further revealed, was in possession of a video of the attack but wasn’t releasing it because it was undergoing “an investigative process.”

Or maybe they were referring to the Department of Agriculture.

That the Benghazi compound had included a large CIA presence had been reported but not confirmed. The New York Times, for example, had reported that among those evacuated were “about a dozen CIA operatives and contractors.” The paper, like The Washington Post, withheld locations and details of the facilities at the administration’s request.

But on Wednesday, the withholding was on hold.

The Republican lawmakers, in their outbursts, alternated between scolding the State Department officials for hiding behind classified material and blaming them for disclosing information that should have been classified. But the lawmakers created the situation by ordering a public hearing on a matter that belonged behind closed doors.

Republicans were aiming to embarrass the Obama administration over State Department security lapses. But they inadvertently caused a different picture to emerge than the one that has been publicly known: that the victims may have been let down not by the State Department but by the CIA. If the CIA was playing such a major role in these events, which was the unmistakable impression left by Wednesday’s hearing, having a televised probe of the matter was absurd.

The chairman, attempting to close his can of worms, finally suggested that “the entire committee have a classified briefing as to any and all other assets that were not drawn upon but could have been drawn upon” in Benghazi.

Good idea. Too bad he didn’t think of that before putting the CIA on C-SPAN.

danamilbank@washpost.com

Filed under: Congress | 55 Comments »

A Primer on War with Iran

Posted on September 30, 2012 by markinaustin

THIS DOCUMENT IS EASILY READ BY CLICKING THE FULL SCREEN ICON IN THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER.
 – Mark

Filed under: 2013 and beyond, budget, IRAN, Islam, Middle East, nuclear proliferation | 10 Comments »

Taxation Ideas – publish yours here!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by markinaustin

I don’t believe in moral arguments about taxation, except at the fringes.

This is a governmental function, burden, and necessity which we can choose or scrap, and the principles should be transparency and honesty, while raising only the revenue necessary to the functions we choose our government to perform. At the fringes, where I think an element of morality can be injected, we cannot have a tax system that destroys or seriously injures anyone, or that treats similarly situated taxpayers quite differently. No one likes taxes, but we all should be able to live with them, and the power to tax, abused, is the power to destroy.

Were I the God of Tax, I would scrap personal and corporate income taxes for a system that relied on:

1] V.A.T. – competitive rate with Canada
2] automated transfer payment tax – agreed rate by treaty among North America, EU, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, at a fraction of 1% on every single transfer in and out of a reporting institution
3] tariffs and excise taxes subject to change from time to time, as policy trade and commerce tools
4] leasing public land for private use at realistic economically viable rents
5] a carbon tax, but only if set by agreement among our trading partners and ourselves

I would scrap the Gift and Estate Tax.

I would keep the payroll tax and attempt to preserve the [partial] insurance nature of SS/Medicare.
———————————————————————-
The above will not occur in my lifetime. So I would tweak the current system as follows, in the interim.
———————————————————————
Corporate tax: flat rate 30% on net taxable income. I would allow the deduction of dividends in the calculation of net taxable income.

Personal income tax: No itemized personal deductions, but a standard deduction for all roughly equivalent to the minimum wage: say, $15K single, $30K married. Then a flat 30% rate above that. Dividends and interest would be taxed as ordinary income. CG holding period would be extended to 5 years as a prerequisite to get the benefit of 15% rate. Less than five year hold = short term CG, and taxed as ordinary income. No carried interest exception, and hedge fund managers would be treated like real estate investors.

Retain the current Gift and Estate tax scheme with $5M exclusion.

Tweak the payroll tax to produce more revenue for SS/Medicare AND raise the retirement age, but keep early retirement option, at reduced bennies, at 62.

No AMT. No EITC. No CTC.

I have tried here for minimal tweaks that lead to simplification and ease of computation and collection. It seems to me that almost everyone would be paying more tax than we do now under my interim proposal. If that is a function of the arbitrary rate I assigned, and if a lower rate would balance the budget at 7% unemployment and produce surplus below that number, I would be all for the lower rate.

Enjoy!

Filed under: taxes | 30 Comments »

שנה טובה ומתוקה‎

Posted on September 17, 2012 by markinaustin

A good and sweet year to you all.

Today is a happy celebration for me and my family. But it begins the ten days of penitence, in which I am to find the people I mistreated during the previous year and ask their forgiveness. I am to do this so that I can seek God’s forgiveness ten days from now on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. If I have not honestly sought forgiveness from those I have injured first then it is thought my prayers for forgiveness to God will not be heard.

This exercise has been mirrored in the Twelve Steps of AA, btw.

Let me add that I have only once seriously pursued this outside my family and close friends in 69 years. It is difficult, and not so much for the reason one would anticipate, the discomfort in making the request. It is difficult because we never know whom we mistreated inadvertently unless they tell us, and then we clean it up at the time, as best we can. Further, it is difficult to recall whom we mistreated purposefully if the emotion that caused the outburst or action is long gone, or if we don’t think of what we did as “mistreatment” at all.

We only trade words here, so I do not recall mistreating any of you save one, and that was inadvertent. I offered my regret at the time. You are welcome to correct me on my faulty memory of mistreatment of others by email to me.

In the Jewish version, it is unnecessary that the the one I mistreated forgives me. It is, however, required that the request by me be sincere.

Filed under: religion | 4 Comments »

WHERE WERE YOU?

Posted on September 11, 2012 by markinaustin

I was eating breakfast in Nau’s Pharmacy in Austin. The TV was on behind the counter. A moment of consternation. I looked up. The tail of an airliner was sticking out of one of the WTC towers. The next hour passed in a fog. No one left for work. We talked quietly among ourselves. We shed tears. We knew war would follow.

In the days that followed, I learned that my bro-in-law had been making an engineering presentation in Manhattan in the 30s and the building he was in went onto an automated lockdown. My friend’s daughter stepped up from the Metro, a bit late for work at the Pentagon, when that plane hit. There were many more stories from friends. It is still with me.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: | 20 Comments »

Dem Convention Open Thread

Posted on September 4, 2012 by markinaustin

Comments are welcome.

Booker? Castro? First Lady?

Your thoughts. Please. I missed it, in favor of time with grand daughters, and will continue to do so.

I rely on the beneficence of strangers.

Filed under: 2012, Democrats | 107 Comments »

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