The Attack Machine - Recent Comments

Parker Griffith

Aubie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:01:56 GMT

Parker Griffith wouldn't be the only Democrat changing positions since election. All one has to do is look at Barack Obama's cabinet choices thus far to realize that "change" ain't coming. I'm having serious trouble figuring out if this is Clinton III or Bush III though.

Joe Biden
There was no stronger sign that Obama's foreign policy would follow the hawkish tradition of the Democratic foreign policy establishment than his selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.

Rahm Emanuel
Obama's appointment of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff is a clear sign that Clinton-era neoliberal hawks will be well-represented at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Clinton was an ardent defender of her husband's economic and military war against Iraq throughout the 1990s, including the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which ultimately laid the path for President George W. Bush's invasion.

Madeleine Albright
While Obama's house is flush with Clintonian officials like former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Defense Secretary William Perry, Director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning Greg Craig (who was officially named Obama's White House Counsel) and Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, perhaps most influential is Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of State and U.N. ambassador.

Richard Holbrooke
Like Albright, Holbrooke will have major sway over U.S. policy, whether or not he gets an official job. A career diplomat since the Vietnam War, Holbrooke's most recent government post was as President Clinton's ambassador to the U.N. Among the many violent policies he helped implement and enforce was the U.S.-backed Indonesian genocide in East Timor.

Dennis Ross
Middle East envoy for both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Ross was one of the primary authors of Obama's aforementioned speech before AIPAC this summer. He cut his teeth working under famed neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon in the 1970s and worked closely with the Project for the New American Century.

Martin Indyk
Founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Indyk spent years working for AIPAC and served as Clinton's ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, while also playing a major role in developing U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran.

Anthony Lake
Lake began his foreign policy work in the U.S. Foreign Service during Vietnam, working with Henry Kissinger on the "September Group," a secret team tasked with developing a military strategy to deliver a "savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam."

Lee Hamilton
Hamilton is a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and was co-chairman of both the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission... "Whenever the Republicans have a touchy national-security scandal to put to rest, their favorite Democratic investigator is Lee Hamilton. ... Hamilton's carefully honed skill for balancing truth against political comity has elevated him to the status of a Washington Wise Man."

Susan Rice
Former Assistant Secretary of Sate Susan Rice, who served on Bill Clinton's National Security Council, is a potential candidate for the post of ambassador to the U.N. or as a deputy national security advisor. She, too, promoted the myth that Saddam had WMDs... Rice has also been a passionate advocate for a U.S. military attack against Sudan over the Darfur crisis.

John Brennan
A longtime CIA official and former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Brennan is one of the coordinators of Obama's intelligence transition team and a top contender for either CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence. He was also recently described by Glenn Greenwald as "an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity."

Jami Miscik
Miscik, who works alongside Brennan on Obama's transitional team, was the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. She was one of the key officials responsible for sidelining intel that contradicted the official line on WMD, while promoting intel that backed it up.

John Kerry and Bill Richardson
Both Sen. Kerry and Gov. Richardson have been identified as possible contenders for Secretary of State. While neither is likely to be as hawkish as Hillary Clinton, both have taken pro-war positions. Kerry promoted the WMD lie and voted to invade Iraq...
Richardson served as Bill Clinton's ambassador to the UN. In this capacity, he supported Clinton's December 1998 bombing of Baghdad and the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq. "We think this man is a threat to the international community, and he threatens a lot of the neighbors in his region and future generations there with anthrax and VX."

Robert Gates
Washington consensus is that Obama will likely keep Robert Gates, George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, as his own Secretary of Defense. While Gates has occasionally proved to be a stark contrast to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he would hardly represent a break from the policies of the Bush administration. Quite the opposite; according to the Washington Post, in the interest of a "smooth transition," Gates "has ordered hundreds of political appointees at the Pentagon canvassed to see whether they wish to stay on in the new administration.

Ivo H. Daalder
Daalder was National Security Council Director for European Affairs under President Clinton. Like other Obama advisors, he has worked with the Project for the New American Century and signed a 2005 letter from PNAC to Congressional leaders, calling for an increase in U.S. ground troops in Iraq and beyond.

Sarah Sewall
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance during the Clinton administration, Sewall served as a top advisor to Obama during the campaign and is almost certain to be selected for a post in his administration. In 2007, Sewall worked with the U.S. military and Army Gen. David Petraeus, writing the introduction to the University of Chicago edition of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

Michele Flournoy
Flournoy and former Clinton Deputy Defense Secretary John White are co-heading Obama's defense transition team. Flournoy was a senior Clinton appointee at the Pentagon. She currently runs the Center for a New American Security, a center-right think-tank. There is speculation that Obama could eventually name her as the first woman to serve as defense secretary. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported: "While at CNAS, Flournoy helped to write a report that called for reducing the open-ended American military commitment in Iraq and replacing it with a policy of 'conditional engagement' there.

Wendy Sherman and Tom Donilon
Currently employed at Madeline Albright's consulting firm, the Albright Group, Sherman worked under Albright at the State Department, coordinating U.S. policy on North Korea. She is now coordinating the State Department transition team for Obama. Tom Donilon, her co-coordinator, was Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff at the State Department under Clinton. Interestingly, Sherman and Donilon both have ties to Fannie Mae that didn't make it onto their official bios on Obama's change.gov website. "Donilon was Fannie's general counsel and executive vice president for law and policy from 1999 until the spring of 2005, a period during which the company was rocked by accounting problems," reports the Wall Street Journal.

Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert
Co-coordinators of the Obama foreign policy team. From 2000 to 2005, McDonough served as foreign policy advisor to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and worked extensively on the use-of-force authorizations for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which Daschle supported.
Mark Lippert is a close personal friend of Obama's. He has worked for Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Democratic Policy Committee. He is a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve and spent a year in Iraq working intelligence for the Navy SEALs.

http://www.alternet.org/audits...

Is it too early for buyer's remorse?

Duplicity

Aubie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:16:56 GMT

Silverado & Sierra

Mercury Grand Marquis

Ford Crown Victoria

I'd assure Congress that the cookie cutter approach would stop.

Parker Griffith

Aubie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:53:11 GMT

Prediction: Parker Griffith, who was anti-bailout, will support the auto bailout, if they need him too.

There's good reason why. Just as Dick Shelby is seen as protecting his Alabama constituents, the same could be said for Parker Griffith in the 5th District. We have a large employer in the Tennessee valley who is dependent on GM for business. A collapse at GM would shutter the Delphi plant in Athens.

There are also a large number of people in this district who are retired from either GM or Chrysler. They are well aware of what is happening in Washington right now. If Parker Griffith voted to let the Big Three go under, well, let's just say he won by 4% in the last election. All it would take is for 2% to change allegiances.

Not my thoughts

Aubie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:42:47 GMT

Those are not my thoughts. That's why I put them in a quote bracket. My contention is that the Big Three are already making changes and as that quote pointed out, there are more changes that can be made that would drastically help them; such as dropping duplicitous makes.

Let's look at Ford for a second. They make a Ford Taurus and a Mercury Sable. These two cars are the same car but with a different grill and tailights.

Let's look at GM. The Chevrolet Silverado and the GMC Sierra are the same truck. The Silverado has a Chevy Bowtie in the middle of the grill, whereas the Sierra has a GMC emblem.

In each of these cases and more, the Big Three has excess capacity. They could bring more people back to work by eliminating the dupicitous cookie cutter cars and trucks and making a different vehicle at the other plant.

Example: Increase the production of the Silverado and phase out the Sierra. Use the freed up space at the Sierra plant to make something different, maybe an electric car or a smaller fuel-efficient CUV.

The reality is though that to do this, they need capital. The money market is frozen right now and there is no credit to be had. That's why the Big Three is asking Congress for a loan. They have indicated that they will show Congress all that they have done in the past few years and what their plans are for the immediate future when Congress reconvenes on December 8th.

On another note, many people are clamoring for the Big Three to go into bankruptcy. I honestly don't see that happening. They have two other, more desirable options. They can approach the Canadian government for the loans, with the stipulation that these auto jobs would eventually all end up in Canada or they can sell the companies to the Chinese.

I don't see bankruptcy as a desirable option because of the UAW. If the bankruptcy courts voided the union contracts, the Big Three would still have to agree to a new contract before they could emerge from bankruptcy. A long protracted strike by the UAW would shut down the Big Three, their parts suppliers (probably bankrupting them) and could close the entire domestic auto industry, domestic and import. It could also be the death knell of the entire auto industry in this country.

The best option for everyone involved, if congress doesn't act) is to get the money from the Canadian government and slowly move all operations north of the border where their universal health care would greatly reduce the Big Three's costs.

Sounds like your making the argument...

Dale Jackson — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:59:15 GMT

that throwing good money after bad doesn't make sense.

If the government coughs up some "bridge" money to tide them over for a few months, there's no reason to think much would change.

WOW!!!!

Aubie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:26:51 GMT

The UAW got a $6/hr. raise since yesterday!!! I'll bet they wish the wages did go up that fast. The fact of the matter is that the wages of UAW autoworkers and import autoworkers aren't that different. In fact, the UAW surrendered some wages and benefits in the past contract, especially for new employees.

New hires and future employees will make half of what UAW workers make today. Current employees gave up a lot of their health care coverage and are responsible for paying a much higher co-payment for doctors visits and prescription drugs.

Some people see the UAW as greedy, but the UAW members don't have anything that the import autoworkers don't have. Here's the rub.

Health care costs: The average UAW member has been working at his job for a much longer time than the import autoworkers in this country. Thus, they're a much older group and costlier to insure. This is something that will average out over time as more UAW workers retire and are replaced by much younger workers and the import autoworkers age.

Pensions: Pensions were given in lieu of salary to these workers and also as an incentive to get them to retire early to lower the workforce. Many of these retirees are younger than 62 and not qualified for Social Security because of plant closings, early and forced retirements and other reasons. Again, as they age and become eligible for Social Security benefits, the Big Three's responsibility to the former workers will be greatly diminished. Their monthly check will be lowered by the amount of Social Secuirty that they draw.

Imports: Most of the import cars sold in the United States are just that, imports. A car made in Japan, Germany or Korea has no added costs for employee health care because their countries have universal health care. America is like a third world country in that we're the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't guarantee health care for our citizens.

The Big Three and UAW have already been working on these issues and the outlook was that all of the Big Three would be profitable by 2010 or 2012... that is until the GOP recession.

All three Detroit automakers have slashed costs and closed factories over the past few years, in aggressive but methodical efforts to become profitable once again. If we still had the 2006 economy, they might make it by 2010 or 2012. But obviously we don't. What the Detroit Three haven't done is something dramatic that would send the silverware flying, like killing off overlapping divisions such as Mercury, Pontiac, and Saturn, closing redundant dealerships, or demanding universal healthcare to help manage soaring medical costs. If the government coughs up some "bridge" money to tide them over for a few months, there's no reason to think much would change. But if the automakers land in bankruptcy, plenty will change-and self-help will no longer be an option.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/fl...

Hmmm

Dale Jackson — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:48:21 GMT

Here's the scenario, with the Big Three out of the way, the Japanese and Germans are suddenly free to build their vehicles anywhere. With very limited access to auto parts in this country and the Chinese building quality cars at much lower prices in Southeast Asia, how compelling is the argument to keep those jobs here in America? If it costs them $45/hr. per employee to assemble a vehicle here but $2-3/hr.

Couldn't that argument be used against 80 dollar an hour union jobs as well?

The Flaw

Aubie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:11:54 GMT

I know this comment doesn't belong in this thread but please forgive me this one time.

I told you before the election that Barack Obama's health care had a flaw and that I'd tell you what it was once the election was over. His health care plan is not a universal health care plan but one of groups of people who can move from insurance company to insurance company without penalty if they decide to upgrade their policy or can find a lower rate. You also can't be turned down for existing conditions. Sounds like a great idea for controlling costs. Right?

Well, if I'm smart, I'll get the most basic health plan I can find; one that covers nothing but doctors visits, emergency treatment and needed tests. If I'm diagnosed with a major illness, such as cancer or AIDS, then, since I can't be turned down for existing conditions, I either upgrade my policy or switch to another company that is not legally able to turn me down because of my "existing condition".

Sarah Palin... just won't go away

Aubie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:32:48 GMT

Sarah Palin pardons a Thanksgiving turkey and while she's giving yet another TV interview immediately after, the rest of the turkeys are being slaughtered just behind her. Great political ad moment there, Governor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Perception

Aubie — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:32:27 GMT

Is Sen. Shelby looking out for Alabama?

He probably thinks he is.

Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to acquire GM and Chrysler, China's 21st Century Business Herald reports today. [A National Enquirer the paper is not. It is one of China's leading business newspapers, with a daily readership over three million.] The paper cites a senior official of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology- the state regulator of China's auto industry- who dropped the hint that "the auto manufacturing giants in China, such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and Dongfeng Motor Corporation, have the capability and intention to buy some assets of the two crisis-plagued American automakers." These hints are very often followed with quick action in the Middle Kingdom. The hints were dropped just a few days after the same Chinese government gave its auto makers the go-ahead to invest abroad. And why would they do that?
A take-over of a large overseas auto maker would fit perfectly into China's plans. As reported before, China has realized that its export chances are slim without unfettered access to foreign technology. The brand cachet of Chinese cars abroad is, shall we say, challenged. The Chinese could easily export Made-in-China VWs, Toyotas, Buicks. If their joint venture partner would let them. The solution: Buy the joint venture partner. Especially, when he's in deep trouble.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake....

How's that bridge loan looking now, Richard Shelby? You want your Japanese manufacturers to be competing against cars assembled in China?

Here's the scenario, with the Big Three out of the way, the Japanese and Germans are suddenly free to build their vehicles anywhere. With very limited access to auto parts in this country and the Chinese building quality cars at much lower prices in Southeast Asia, how compelling is the argument to keep those jobs here in America? If it costs them $45/hr. per employee to assemble a vehicle here but $2-3/hr. in Sri Lanka or Vietnam, where do you think the manufacturing base is going? If you think that's a ridiculous notion, find a pair of shoes or any clothing made in the U.S.A.

Suddenly, automobiles will be like oil. We'll be dependent on foreign governments to provide our transportation needs and they can then set their own prices, and the profits from these vehicles will then go to overseas corporations, creating even more of a trade deficit, much fewer tax revenues, even more of a budget imbalance and a larger shortfall in Social Security and Medicaire.

Parker Griffith will not keep his word

flashpointblog — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:49:30 GMT

Of course he will vote FOR a bailout. He told us that he opposed bailouts and we know what his track record with the truth looks like.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that Ron Paul is now a religion.

I never called my self anything...

Dale Jackson — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:52:19 GMT

...but I don't think they are "what's wrong with this country."

They disagree with Democrats on philosophy and they express that disagreement daily and vice versa with liberal pundits.

Both groups of pundits go for the "lesser of two evils" philosophy whereas they may not agree 100% but they agree more than they would with the other side.

Rush and Hannity are pundits, I don't agree with them on everything. The problem with the Republican brand is that they did not stand up for the smaller government, less spending platform Rush and Hannity preached. Had they lived up to their mantra this election could have been a rejection of conservatives principles as opposed to a rejection of a Republican President.

Last comment on this thread

Aubie — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:41:41 GMT

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and their kind are what's wrong with this country and why we'll never see bipartisanship. It doesn't matter what the Democrats propose, when Rush Limbaugh talks about it, it's either a socialist program or a sign of impending Nazism. As long as the GOP continues down the road of divisive politics and allows a radio comedian to dictate policy, they'll never heal what's ailing their party, much less what's ailing our government.

As for Chuck Hagel, he fell out of grace with Limbaugh because he recognized the folly of the war in Iraq and criticized those in power who shoved that boondoggle down our throatrs. Right or wrong, you weren't supposed to criticize the leader of the GOP. Looking back at the Bush legacy and what it's done to your party, don't you wish there had been more like Hagel, who were willing to have their voices heard, instead of the "Bush is always right" crowd?

You can point the finger of blame at Bush for ruining the Republican brand but it was a majority Republican Congress that was more than willing to give him everything that he wanted and every move was applauded by Limbaugh and Hannity. That's a large part of the reason that Bush isn't the only one in the GOP that is leaving Washington in January.

You call yourself an independent thinker and not of the Limbaugh and Hannity brand. Do you honestly believe that what I'm saying is wrong?

Boo hoo, he's being criticized...

Dale Jackson — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:04:00 GMT

Of course individuals like Rush are going to be critical as are guys like Olberman. Hagel's job is to listen to the people, govern as he sees fit and take the criticism.

The American people aren't mad at Hagels of the world because of Rush, they listen to Rush because they are mad at Hagels of the world.

Clarification

Aubie — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:15:27 GMT

The repudiation of conservative principles is not simply because of the 52% that Obama got. I don't believe one position on the ballot says that much. What I based it on was the GOP losing seats nationwide, from the presidency to the Senate to congressional seats to governorships and it being the second national election in a row that this has happened.

Here's what Republican Senator Chuck Hagel said about the political climate in Washington yesterday and why the GOP needs to work on a consensus instead of as obstructionists.

"We are educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh. You know, I wish Rush Limbaugh and others like that would run for office. They have so much to contribute and so much leadership and they have an answer for everything. And they would be elected overwhelmingly. [The truth is] they try to rip everyone down and make fools of everybody but they don't have any answers.
The American people don't like what is going on... they want us to start doing what leaders are expected to do, address the problems, find some consensus to governing. Get along. There will be disagreements, sure... but in the end we can't hold ourselves captives to this raw, partisan, political paralysis."