Justin's Political Corner

At this point in time, it’s difficult to think of the Romney campaign as anything but badly burnt toast. It’s not just Democrats and previously undecided voters who are turning on Romney and his never-ending series of gaffes and inartful glimpses into the psyche of the financial elite, it’s Republicans. Rachel Maddow talks about it here:

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. Richard Nixon - Who can tell a story of dirty Republican election tactics without first mentioning the modern day grandfather of slimy politics; “Tricky” Dick Nixon?

While Watergate is the most famous of GOP election scandals, it’s arguably the least interesting. Some of Nixon’s operatives broke into the Democratic campaign headquarters. They got caught. Some went to jail. Nixon was forced to resign in shame. By today’s standards, it sounds downright pedestrian, but at the Presidential level, it’s the only such scandal that had real accountability.

Nixon didn’t manage to steal that election, but not for lack of trying. Oh, but not so fast. In 1968, during the height of the Vietnam war and predating Watergate, Nixon committed a small crime we call treason. The achilles heel of then President Lyndon Johnson was the war. Nixon negotiated with the South Vietnamese to stay out of peace talks, at least until Nixon was in charge. They succumbed to his pressure and the war went on longer than probably necessary.

For those of us who are Obama supporters and political junkies, it’s tempting to grab the popcorn and watch an implosion that could be the envy of Hollywood action directors, but as in Hollywood, it wouldn’t be drama if the hero (or villain) didn’t have a last-minute plan, and if Republicans are known for anything, it’s their 11th hour, 59th minute talent for electoral shenanigans.

Just in case you or your friends are thinking this election is in the bag and are tempted to stay home, allow me to regale you with a cautionary tale, one of theft, manipulation and even international intrigue and–dare I say–treason. Just because the GOP chose a yawner of a Presidential candidate doesn’t mean they aren’t entertaining.

2. Ronald Reagan – The GOP’s poster boy for all that is good with America. He was charming, clean cut, handsome (all this according to my then swooning grandmother). He was full of optimism, hope, and boy, could he give a speech. 

1980 was a tough year for Democrats. President Jimmy Carter was viewed as weak and ineffectual. The economy was suffering a double whammy of high unemployment and high inflation. By the time voters hit the polls, prices were rising at a rate of over 13% a year. Currently, our inflation rate is very low, at less than 2%.

Perhaps even more importantly, almost exactly a year before the election, the American Embassy in Iran was taken hostage by students.

3. George W. Bush – Bush 43 might be our most illegitimate President ever (and I’m including Gerald Ford, who was never elected to either Vice President or President). In 2000, the Supreme Court overrode the state of Florida to install Bush as President. Even if the five conservative justices hadn’t decided that Bush should become President, the Republican party was busy making sure that Democratic votes didn’t get counted.

You would think an incumbent wouldn’t feel the need to cheat, but if there was one thing that the Bush administration learned from the Nixon administration, it was that they should always buy insurance. In this case, it was Ohio in 2004. Before the election, Walden O’Dell, CEO of Diebold (one of the electronic voting machine companies) said he was, ”committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.” O’Dell and Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State colluded to lock other voting machines out of the election. Exit polling showed that Bush’s competitor, John Kerry, should have won Ohio. Its 20 electoral votes would have given Kerry the election.

4. Barack Obama – No, he’s not a Republican and I’m not implying in any way that he stole the 2008 election, but there is absolutely no doubt that Republicans will be screaming “ACORN, ACORN – they registered Mickey Mouse!” Well, they did register Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and every other name that people outside of grocery stores pulled out of their smart asses, but Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck never got to vote. All organizations that registered voters are required by law to accept every registration. They are also required to report suspicious registrations, which ACORN did. The false registrations were quickly eliminated.

The real problem behind ACORN, of course, wasn’t about fictional characters who never made it to the polls, it was about the legitimate voters they were registering, African-Americans; people who vote Democratic. In the end, the GOP Mickey Mouse scheme worked. ACORN’s funding was pulled and they were forced to close their doors.

5. Mitt Romney – Obviously, we don’t know all the tricks up the GOP’s sleeve in this election, but they are numerous and undemocratic. Republicans are doing everything in their power to ensure that minorities, the poor, the elderly and the young are going to have a difficult time voting. Tactics range from requiring only certain photo IDs at the voting booths to restricting voting times and locations. The Brennan Center is reporting that the changes could affect up to five million people and up to 127 (out of a necessary 270) electoral votes. While some of the affected states will vote Republican, down ballot contests, like Congress and local legislatures, are at risk. Some of the states, like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, are considered swing states.

A quarter of a billion dollars have been spent so far in this election, the vast majority of it geared toward defeating Obama. Anti-Obama pockets are deep. The Koch brothers wouldn’t be throwing money at a candidate without at least a possibility he would win. At this point, all official polls, especially the all-important electoral polls, show that Romney has little to no chance. What do the Super PAC donors know that pollsters don’t?

As a last resort, there’s always treason. Was the release of the now infamous anti-Muslim movie trailer coincidental? Perhaps we’ll never know. Were the attacks on the US Consulate in Libya truly planned by Muslim terrorists? Again, we may never know. It might be far-fetched to pose the events in the Middle East as conspiracy theories, but Republicans have proven that they aren’t above sacrificing human lives and national security, all to win an election. As a game changer, if the unrest can be traced to a cynical ploy to try and sway an election, it has had little effect on Obama but Romney’s premature criticism of the Obama administration seems to have given him a lasting scar. With October just a few days away, it’s not difficult to imagine another pre-election surprise.

h/t: Wendy Gittleson at AddictingInfo.org/

LONDON — Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu called Sunday for Tony Blair and George Bush to face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for their role in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq

Tutu, the retired Anglican Church’s archbishop of South Africa, wrote in an op-ed piece for The Observer newspaper that the ex-leaders of Britain and the United States should be made to “answer for their actions.”

The Iraq war “has destabilized and polarized the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history,” wrote Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984.

“Those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague,” he added.

The Hague, Netherlands, based court is the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal and has been in operation for 10 years. So far it has launched prosecutions only in Africa, including in Sudan, Congo, Libya and Ivory Coast.

Tutu has long been a staunch critic of the Iraq war, while others opposed to the conflict – including playwright Harold Pinter – have previously called for Bush and Blair to face prosecution at the Hague,

“The then-leaders of the U.S. and U.K. fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the specter of Syria and Iran before us,” said Tutu, who last week withdrew from a conference in South Africa due to Blair’s presence at the event.

While the International Criminal Court can handle cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, it does not currently have the jurisdiction to prosecute crimes of aggression. Any potential prosecution over the Iraq war would likely come under the aggression category.

The U.S. is among nations which do not recognize the International Criminal Court.

h/t: Huffington Post

TAMPA, Fla. — President George W. Bush didn’t attend Mitt Romney’s Republican convention here this week, but he had a strong defender in his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Thursday night.

The kind words about the former president didn’t appear in advance remarks of Jeb Bush’s speech, though he hinted he would be speaking about him in TV appearances earlier in the day. When he stepped to the mic, he delivered an addition to his original text that took on President Obama for blaming George W. Bush for the nation’s economic woes.

“Mr. President, it is time to stop blaming your predecessor for your failed economic policies,” Bush said. “You were dealt a tough hand, but your policies have not worked. In the fourth year of your presidency, a real leader would accept responsibility for his actions, and you haven’t done it.”

h/t: Evan McMorris-Santoro at TPM

GM stopped production at its Janesville, Wisconsin production facility in 2008, when George W. Bush was still president, but according to Paul Ryan the person to blame is President Obama.

As you can see in the video at the top of the post, Ryan told a crowd in North Canton, Ohio yesterday that the president’s energy policies had led to the factory’s closure in 2009. Ryan delivered the attack in personal terms, saying he had high school buddies who worked at the factory. “A lot of my high school buddies worked at that GM plant,” Ryan said. “One of the reasons that plant got shut down is $4 gasoline. You see, this costs jobs. The president’s terrible energy policies are costing us jobs.”

But despite Ryan’s emotional story, GM announced the plant’s closure in June of 2008. In October of 2008, the date was accelerated from 2010 to the end of the year. And on December 23, 2008 the last SUV rolled off the line.

Bottom line: Without the benefit of facts, Ryan’s story sounded compelling, but once you learn what really happened, you quickly realize Ryan was telling a tall tale that was just too perfect to be true. And with that kind of thing starting to become a pattern with Ryan, it’s no wonder that Mitt Romney likes him so much.

H/T: Jed Lewison at Daily Kos

In 2009, Michael Steele, then chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC,) called President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul health care “socialism,” at a National Press Club event.

Mr. Steele obviously was not aware of the fact that his very own party- the GOP helped Iraqi lawmakers to draft and pass their constitution with a single-payer guaranteed healthcare system for all Iraqis, in 2005.

Article 31 of the Iraqi Constitution, drafted by the Bush administration in 2005 and ratified by the Iraqi people, includes state-guaranteed (single payer) healthcare for life for every Iraqi citizen.

Operation Enduring Freedom has cost USA tax payers trillions of dollars, nearly bringing our economy to its knees. It has also brought single-payer healthcare coverage for all Iraqis.

Most senior members of the Republican establishment have gladly spent more taxpayer funds to ensure health care as a Constitutional right in Iraq than they are willing to spend to give you any level of guaranteed coverage to their fellow citizens.

H/T: Emine Dilek at AddictingInfo.org

Here’s solid irrefutable proof that Dumbya destroyed the economy.

Indeed, the country is still reeling from Bush’s disastrous economic stewardship. His irresponsible tax cuts and deregulatory policies have contributed significantly to the slow recovery and are partly responsible for the nation’s economic plight. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. Deregulated Wall Street: It was a great time to be a Wall Street executive during the Bush administration. Sweeping financial deregulation helped build the housing bubble and allowed financial institutions to pursue risky trades unchecked. In fact, Bush eliminated the rules that allowed Wall Street to cause the financial crash that plunged the nation into the Great Recession.

2. Cut Taxes For The Wealthy: The Bush tax cuts — over 50 percent of which benefited the richest 5 percent of American taxpayers — cost about $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were enacted. Ten years later, Bush’s tax cuts are still the main driving factor of the national debt:

3. Ran Up A Tab On Two Wars: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the country trillions of dollars. Combined with Bush’s tax cuts, war spending was amain factor in blowing up the deficit and spending the surplus accumulated under Clinton. Lawmakers now use the deficit as an excuse for inaction.

4. Left Homeowners In A Lurch: While Bush was happy to help out the banks in the wake of the housing crisis, he did little to assist struggling homeowners.Hope For Homeowners, Bush’s proposal to assist those struggling with their mortgages, was a colossal failure; in its first six months, it helped just one homeowner renegotiate his mortgage. Many mortgage holders — 15.7 million or, one in three — are still underwater today.

5. Weakened Workers: Bush weakened worker safety regulations and collective bargaining rights under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Department of Labor throughout his time in office. Today, corporations are back to making record profits, while workers’ incomes are falling.

h/t: Tara Culp-Ressler and Annie-Rose Strasser at Think Progress Economy