Posts by Steven Reynolds

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone

Cost of Putting Lipstick on a Pit Bull?
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on December 6, 2008 at 8:54 AM.

$68,400. That's the total of figures being reported in campaign finance reports by the Republican National Committee. The figure went for makeup for vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. From the New York Times:

 

Gov. Sarah Palin's traveling makeup artist was paid $68,400, and her hairstylist received more than $42,000 for roughly two months of work, according to a new campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Ms. Palin's makeup artist, Amy Strozzi -- who was nominated for an Emmy award for her cosmetics work on the television show "So You Think You Can Dance?" -- was paid $32,400 by Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign between Oct. 16 and Nov. 24, the period covered by the most recent reports filed with the commission.

This amount came on top of the $36,000 she had already been paid in previous reports, dating back to September.

In addition, Ms. Palin's traveling hair stylist, Angela Lew, was paid a total of $42,225, with $23,400 coming during the period covered by the latest reports to the commission, which were due at midnight on Thursday.

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GOP Legacies: Bush, McCain, Stevens
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on November 18, 2008 at 4:11 AM.

This isn’t about the legislative accomplishments of these three GOP posterboys for corruption and ineptitude, but about what future generations will make of them. Even Chester A. Arthur had schools named after him. They could ironically rename K Street for McCain, or rename earmarks as “Stevenses?” Bush, of course, will get a Hurricane.

What will the legacies be for three of the most powerful Republicans over the last dozen years or so? That’s pretty easy to figure out, surely. Bush will be remembered for torture and spying on his own citizens, for perverting our system of justice and for getting us into a war on false pretenses. Heck, Bush is himself looking for even more ways he can ruin the country before he can leave office. McCain will be remembered for campaign finance reform that is already obsolete, and for the rash and reckless campaign he ran this year. Stevens, of course, will be remembered for the extreme positions he held, for his corruption, and for signing a hat. But I’m talking of neither corruption nor accomplishments here. I’m wondering what public structures will be named for them.

Bush? So far he’s got a school named for him in Stockton, CA, and a road in Waco, TX, according to the Seattle Times. That’s it. That’s how I predict it will remain. In California they failed to name a sewage plant for him, maybe figuring the plant was too valued by the community to take that name. But you can all suggest other honors for Mr. Bush. A hurricane in his name would be nice. That’s too easy. Please, one of you give a shot at this one.

Ted Stevens is easier, I suppose. Jim DeMint of the Repubs has already called for Stevens to resign, whether he wins against Begich or not. Maybe we could name a fish statue after him. The guy has become pathetic. Though he knows that his conviction means he automatically loses his license to practice law, Stevens and his team are going to fight that action. Hey, maybe the Republicans will oust him from the Party altogether, and that action will be named something like “getting Stevensed.” It would be an exciting action, the Republicans actually recognizing the corrupt practices of one of their own, so such a naming would likely go down in history.

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The GOP Asked People Online How to Rebuild ... The Results are Interesting (and Sometimes Hilarious)
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on November 12, 2008 at 6:12 AM.

The GOP gives a party on the internet and asks for suggestions on how to rebuild itself. No screaming Christian conservatives responded. The site was overwhelmed by the Ron Paul wing of the GOP. Well, there's also a Todd Palin fan in the top ten ideas, too. What a funny list, and it shows such incompetence by the GOP planners, too.



Rebuild the Party is a forum where they are seeking ideas on how to rework conservative ideas so as to, well, rebuild what is broken ... the Republican Party. They've finally allowed their folks on the internet to have their say. Republican constituents can also vote on the best ideas out there. So what are they saying, you might ask? Or, rather, what are they voting for in the realm of ideas? Let's see, we've got a top five thing going here, I think. From ideas.rebuildtheparty.com:



10. Step Away From the Drug War with 503 votes.
Evidently the libertarian wing of the Republican Party has spoken. The writer suggests that the Republican Party should be about FREEDOM! I think he's channeling Braveheart or something.



9. Embrace the FairTax as sponsored by Rep John Linder with 516 votes.
This author got the John McCain tax message.

8. Step away from the religious right with 636 votes.
Hey, it's a guy posting on a Republican web site who listens to me, a smart Republican who knows exactly what has ruined the Republican brand, the hate of the social conservatives. I think I'm going to teach him to say Radical Right Wing Conservative Clerics.

7. Enact The Fair Tax HR-25 3 with 775 votes.
These fair tax guys are really the radical fiscal conservatives, the Ron Paul types, don't you think? They want to tax consumption. I'll bet they don't call for taxes on internet porn and plastic sex dolls, though.

6. Small "c" Conservatives with 973 votes.
One more in the top ten deciding he's had it with the religious right. I have to say I don't disagree all that much with small "c" conservatives, as long as their goal is bringing more freedoms and rights to our citizens.

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Poll: Republicans Want Palin in 2012
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on November 1, 2008 at 2:00 AM.

The latest Gallup poll of Republicans and self-identified Republican "leaners" is out. They asked the respondents who they wanted to run for President in 2012. Sarah Palin was the runaway winner. Here it is from Tampa Bay Online:

No sooner had Barack Obama won the presidential election than pundits started looking to 2012 and possible Republican challengers. A Gallup Poll asked people to rank the top 10 candidates they would like to run. Topping the list: Sarah Palin (67 percent), Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Second to last: Gov. Charlie Crist (23 percent), one below former Gov. Jeb Bush (31 percent).

Perhaps the Republicans who responded to this can understand Palin’s sentences, while the rest of us just stare in wonder as she speaks. Or maybe they are concerned for Tina Fey’s livelihood?

I suppose what is most interesting here is the poor quality of the rest of the named field. Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush? Both have substantial problems getting nominated. Otherwise, this list is a rehash of this last election and primary, a whole bunch of uninspiring choices.

Talk About Bad Planning: McCain to Speak Tonight, the Start of Football Season
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on September 4, 2008 at 1:51 PM.

I see around the net all sorts of Republicans are getting ready to watch John McCain’s acceptance speech tonight. They think they’ll be energized or something, and they even think that McCain will make his pitch to independent voters. Oh, yeah, like that will work after choosing a religious whack job who thinks a pipeline is “God’s Will” as his running mate. Be that as it may, McCain’s real problem is getting anyone to pay attention, because he’s got bigtime competition tonight on the TV dial.


First, while not in direct competition, Barack Obama will be appearing with Bill O’Reilly tonight at 8:00. If Barack speaks well, which is quite likely, then he’s going to attract a whole bunch of comments from the talking heads covering the RNC, if not before McCain’s speech, then in the aftermath of it. FoxNews is going to get ratings for the O’Reilly show, no doubt. In fact, I’m willing to be FoxNews gets higher ratings for the O’Reilly Factor than it does for their coverage of McCain’s speech.

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The McCain Junior High Reaction to Obama's Choice of Joe Biden
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on August 25, 2008 at 10:02 AM.

The McCain campaign ran two advertisements in response to Obama picking Biden for Veep in front of 35,000 wildly approving voters. All attack, no McCain policy to be found in the ads. Every time Obama makes a major move, there will be similar whiney responses by the McCain camp, to their detriment. They should choose their own Veep carefully.

While I predicted the choice of Joe Biden by Barack Obama several days ago, I need to say that was a prediction, not my choice. As a prediction, it makes sense to me. I’m sure Joe Biden will fight real hard in the campaign and all that stuff, but he’s not my favorite guy to represent “change.” I’m more likely to agree with my colleague Richard on that score.


Still, this is about spin, and I’m all about examining the John McCain reaction to the Biden choice. And that reacdtion so far has been straight out of Junior High. What’s the first thing the McCain camp did? They talked about Barack Obama’s misstatement. Here’s Obama’s slight gaffe: Obama, in introducing Joe Biden, said “the next President,” then immediately corrected himself to say “the next Vice President of the United States.” How many gaffes have we seen where McCain has completely misstated something and never corrected himself, waiting for his staff to say something like, “it doesn’t matter whether John McCain knows his ass from a hole in the ground, he was a POW!” Purely a Junior High reaction on the McCain camp’s part, and McCain himself should wake up soon to what these folks are doing on his behalf, or he’s going to get the votes of all those AV nerds and about nothing else. No, this wasn’t the only Junior High style reaction by the McCain camp. Check out his ads.

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FEC Decides that the First Amendment Actually Applies to Bloggers
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on August 20, 2008 at 6:25 AM.

We bloggers are media! We get to exercise our rights to free speech! Who knew? Well, since we’ve had those rights for a couple hundred years, so I knew. The Federal Election Commission, however, has seen fit to confirm my rights as a blogger to write about . . . politics! Yes, even if I commit the sin of favoring a candidate!


Heck, you can even be political and all that stuff. Nope, you don't need any stinking "freedom of speech" to give you these rights. The FEC has assured them. The whole case evidently extends from a whine by the Clinton campaign against a blog in Iowa advocating for Barack Obama. The report on this action is from mediapost.com:

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Is Helping Big Oil the New Third Rail in American Politics?
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on August 8, 2008 at 11:46 AM.

Another Republican incumbent has lost an election, this time a primary in Tennessee. He was painted as beholden to Big Oil, and that's what led to Dave Davis' loss. Meanwhile, John McCain is in opposition to the New Energy Reform Act of 2008 precisely because is scales back Big Oil subsidies. This is the stuff of political ads against McCain.

courtesy of Think Progress

So it seems. There was a primary in Tennessee yesterday, and the incumbent Republican lost. David Davis, who represented the Northeastern part of the state, was upset by the Mayor of Johnson City, Phil Roe. While this one is going to be in the Republican column come November, Roe worked hard to tie Davis to Big Oil, and the pundits are reporting that is why Davis lost. RawStory has the scoop, as does Ben Pershing at the Washington Post:

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McCain Running Scared: Arizona is a Battleground State
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on July 25, 2008 at 5:18 PM.

John McCain, by all indications, may have troubles winning his own home state of Arizona. And this appears to be not because Bob Barr is leeching votes from McCain, but more because of McCain's flip flopping on immigration issues, thus abandoning the Hispanic vote.

Even the McCain camp is now seeing Arizona as a swing state. Heck, they've been viewing it as such since at least June 10th. Man, that has to rankle Senator McCain (R-Irascible). Here's what the story was then, from the Washington Independent:

In a clear signal that Arizona's 10 electoral votes are up for grabs, the McCain campaign has added Arizona to its list of 24 "battleground states" with their 242 electoral votes.

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Measure to Memorialize George W. Bush with Sewage Plant is on the Ballot
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on July 18, 2008 at 10:11 AM.

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco gathered far more signatures than they needed to get a measure on the ballot renaming the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. I love the smell of democracy in the morning.

We reported this story here in April. The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is advocating for the renaming of the prize winning Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Dana Perino isn't talking, as you can see in this report from June 25th. But we've got the full story from the San Francisco Chronicle, and here's an excerpt:

San Francisco voters will be asked to decide whether to name a city sewage plant in honor of President Bush, after a satiric measure qualified for the November ballot Thursday.

Backers of the measure, who for several months circulated a petition to place the measure on the ballot, turned in more than 12,000 signatures on July 7, said organizer Brian McConnell. The Department of Elections on Thursday informed those supporters, the self-proclaimed Presidential Memorial Commission, that they had enough valid signatures - a minimum of 7,168 registered San Francisco voters - to qualify for the November ballot.

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Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch Fall Down Bush Admin's Memory Hole
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on July 16, 2008 at 7:39 AM.

It turns out that an outbreak of amnesia has beset current and former Bush Administration officials when they are asked about the propaganda they put into place concerning Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. Call in the CDC to investigate. Or name the pandemic here. No, not “Bird Flu.” How about “Rumsfeld Syndrome?”



OMG! Can the amnesia spread to the whole population? Someone contact the CDC and get them on the case now! This amnesia could be the work of some insidious drug passed into the sewers there at the White House, or somesuch. And we’d never know, except for some clever work on the part of the Congressional Committee investigating the propaganda tales about Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch. Here’s a bit from ABCNews:

The committee says that in their quest to find out when officials first knew about the possibility that Tillman’s death was not due to enemy fire, they were “frustrated by a near universal lack of recall,” according to the report.


The committee interviewed several senior White House officials including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, communications director Dan Bartlett, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, and chief speech writer Michael Gerson.


“Not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response,” says the report.


Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers told the committee that he learned by the end of April that Tillman’s death was possibly due to friendly fire, but that he could not remember whether or not he passed that information to Rumsfeld.


Members of Tillman’s platoon, however, knew “almost immediately” that Tillman had been killed accidentally by fellow Rangers, according to the report. Within days of his death, Colonel Craig Nixon, a top officer in Tillman’s battalion, passed on that information to the commander of the joint task force in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChyrstal, who in turn sent a message to top generals, including General John Abizaid, commander of CENTCOM.

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HUD Secretary -- Yet Another Corrupt Bush Crony, Resigns in Disgrace
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on April 1, 2008 at 7:10 AM.

Mr. Jackson is just the latest in a long line of Bush appointees who has resigned to go spend more time with his family. He may need that time, as the DOJ is investigating him for giving out contracts to friends. Yes, the culture of corruption is alive and well and living in the Bush Administration still. Here’s the skinny from the New York Times:

"There comes a time when one most attend more diligently to personal and family matters," Mr. Jackson said. " Now is such a time for me."

"Seven years ago, President Bush gave me an extraordinary opportunity to serve HUD and the nation," said Mr. Jackson, who first joined the department as deputy secretary in 2001. "As the son of a lead smelter and nurse midwife, and as the last of 12 children, never did I imagine I'd serve America in such a way. I am truly grateful for the opportunity."

Mr. Jackson said that he had worked hard to keep families in their homes, to revitalize public housing and to preserve affordable housing. "During my time here, I have sought to make America a better place to live, work and raise a family," he said.

He left the room without taking any questions.

Well, that didn’t tell us anything, did it? The Times was going to quote Mr. Jackson, which is fair, but they led off with the charges. They’re a bit exotic. Contracts in sweet places going to friends, threats to the Philadelphia Housing Authority if they won’t sell land they own to politically connected friends of Jackson. This seems a bit bald-faced, on the surface:

Housing secretary Alphonso R. Jackson resigned on Monday, saying that he needed to devote more time to his family. The announcement came as federal authorities were investigating whether he had given lucrative housing contracts in the Virgin Islands and New Orleans to friends.

His resignation, effective April 18, also comes as the Bush administration is increasingly relying on the department's Federal Housing Administration to help stanch the widening foreclosures.

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Will Gay and Lesbian Voters Swing Philly for Obama or Clinton?
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on March 31, 2008 at 12:04 PM.

There’s an article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer about how both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are courting the gay vote in PA as they square off for the primary here in just three weeks. It mentions how both campaigns value that voting bloc, and how Chelsea extended her campaign visit to Woody’s, a major gay bar here, in order to visit with the largely gay and lesbian crowd. I’m thinking this is a good thing. Neither Clinton nor Obama seems to have a lock on this segment of the voting population, but they sure are energizing the gay and lesbian voters here in Philly. Here’s a little of the piece from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

You don’t see many women at Woody’s, but Chelsea Clinton popped in last week.

To a packed house of screaming supporters, the 28-year-old former first child led a presidential pep rally for her mother at one of the oldest gay bars in Philadelphia.

“We love your highlights!” a man yelled from the crowd, referring to Chelsea’s tresses. “Wow,” she said, temporarily bumped off message, “that’s something I never heard before.”

At the end of an exhausting day of nonstop events, Chelsea was supposed to leave after 10 minutes. She ended up staying 25.

A few years ago, such a scene would have been unthinkable. But with an eye on the April 22 Pennsylvania Democratic primary, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are fervently courting the gay vote.

In Philadelphia, gays constitute an estimated 5 percent of voters, according to Malcolm Lazin, president of Equality Forum. That is not an inconsequential percentage in a race as tight as this one.

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Who's the Bigger Criminal: Woman Boarding Plane with Nipple Ring or Bush Admin Official Who Misused Grant Money?
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on March 31, 2008 at 5:54 AM.

You make the call. First up is the woman airline passenger from Texas whose sole problem was she tried to get on an airplane with jewelry on. On her nipple, sure, but it was merely jewelry. They made Mandi Hamiln remove the mipple ring with pliers. From the AP wire:

A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. “My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.”

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The women then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

“Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her,” said Hamlin’s attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties.

The guards, evidently the male ones, ended up snickering as Ms. Hamlin was forced to remove the nipple ring with a pair of pliers in order to board the flight. This is America in the age of Bush — no civil rights, and snickering while you endure pain if you decide to protest that you have rights. We should be surprised that they didn’t try to waterboard the woman.

Now our next example, a Bush aide, Felipe Sixto, who has had to resign in the last day due to some financial improprieties that he’s going to be charged for. No, he didn’t commit these alleged crimes while working for Bush. That isn’t alleged. The Bush people are merely incompetent in screening their workers. Again, this is from the AP story:

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Why Republicans Should Be Scared of Don Siegelman
Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone on March 28, 2008 at 9:31 AM.

Donald Siegelman has been freed from jail. As many know, Siegelman was Governor of Alabama and was prosecuted for giving a position on a Board in the state to a major contributor, Richard Scrushy. I suppose if we were doing a tit for tat thing, that would mean every major contributor President Bush appointed to Ambassadorships is up for investigation, but that’s not how the US DOJ was working under President Bush and Alberto Gonzales. Nope, they prosecuted only Democrats for that sort of thing, even when Senior preosecutors in their office counseled otherwise. Scott Horton in Harpers, over a year ago, noted, basically, that miscarriage of justice should be seen as obstruction of justice on the part of the Bush appointed US Attorneys.

A couple of interesting things here. First, Siegelman would not be released unless there were a strong possiblity his appeal would go through. From the Birmingham News:

The judges wrote that Siegelman met both requirements for an appeal bond: He is not a flight risk and his appeal raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal or an order for a new trial.

“After thorough review of this complex and protracted record, we conclude Siegelman has satisfied the criteria set out in the statute, and has specifically met his burden of showing that his appeal raises substantial questions of law or fact,” the judges wrote.

It’s going to be overturned, and we should have an investigation, a real one, into the role of the Bush Administration, Karl Rove in particular, in the prosecution here. I’m guessing the motive behind this selective prosecution was that the GOP felt threatened in their electoral bastion, the deep south. Be that as it may, the GOP claims they had not political role here, that Siegelman was prosecuted on the merits. Then why the heck do they have to act as if this is so godalmighty important to them, to the extent that they’re protesting the judge’s order? They’re protesting a whole whale of a lot for folks who claim they had no interest in the case. From WSFA in Alabama:

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