Posts by Christy Hardin Smith

Christy Hardin Smith is a former attorney, who earned her undergraduate degree at Smith College, in American Studies and Government, concentrating in American Foreign Policy. She then went on to graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the field of political science and international relations/security studies, before attending law school at the College of Law at West Virginia University, where she was Associate Editor of the Law Review.

Joe Biden: Experience With a Big Heart Is a Winning Combo
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on October 2, 2008 at 11:14 PM.

This moment, when Joe Biden talked about being a single parent unsure whether his sons would make it after his wife and daughter were tragically killed in a car accident?

Most real thing I've seen in politics in a long, long time.

When Biden was speaking about the folks he grew up with in Scranton and Wilmington -- their fear about how to pay for the heat in the winter, and groceries, and medical bills? You could feel the empathy pouring out of the television.

He wants to help those folks. They are his neighbors, whether they live next door or across the continent.

Sarah Palin has clearly been on camera enough to hit her marks, and deliver her rote, frenzied lines for that closing speech or to launch into yet another hyperactive filibuster. I give her credit for having a great camera presence, but so much of it felt scripted, manic and manufactured -- down to the newly caramelized color of her highlights that they toned down with a color rinse from the usual brassier version for the stage lighting tonight.

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Michelle Obama Cooks Up Quite a Political Dish on the Food Network
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on September 22, 2008 at 4:31 PM.

Michelle Obama scored a huge coup, with an appearance on Paula's Party on Food Network, taking her "home cooking mama" appeal straight to the most sought-after demographic this year: women.  Get this from People Magazine:

"She was everything I thought she would be: Smart, great sense of humor and loves to talk about family," Deen told PEOPLE of meeting Mrs. Obama.

The pair prepared fried shrimp for Deen's show and Deen said, "I can tell she spends time in the kitchen – she was very relaxed when we cooked. And that lady is a good eater."

Not that it shows. "Did I tell you she is in the best shape ever? Everyone was staring at her amazing arms!" said Deen.

Food Network doesn't allow political ads, so this was huge in terms of reach-out.  Both campaigns have been running ads designed to hit female viewers -- during talk shows, soap operas, you name it.  Demographic strategery.

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The GOP Thinks Organizing in Your Community is Worthless
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on September 4, 2008 at 9:34 AM.

Well, I suppose we should all just throw up our hands and let local children starve, let civil rights problems fester, and shut up and accept every problem for what it is:  our lot in life.  

Screw the poor.  To hell with women being allowed to vote.  Rollback the end of slavery.  And get yer hazmat suits, because your environment is about to be sold off piecemeal to the highest bidder -- hunters, fishermen, and wildlife enthusiasts be damned.

Welcome to Republican world, where trying to make things better in your hometown makes you something they laugh at proudly.  How's that feel America?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but without community organizers like Martin Luther King, Jr., we'd all still be dealing with separate water fountains for coloreds and Jim Crow Laws.  And I mean the old ones, not the new poll tax crap that Hans Von Spakovsky keeps trying to sneak in through the sewers.

Oh, and ladies?   No community organizers means that your voice doesn't count for shit.  No vote for you!

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McCain Campaign in Bed with Abramoff Buddy Ralph Reed
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on August 15, 2008 at 6:16 AM.

John McCain is like a moth who just can't stay away from the corruption flame, given the sheer number of lobbyists and other questionable cronies, big money bundlers buying corporate inroads by funding his Presidential run, and other issues that have cropped up ... including serious questions about what all that money has bought from the sinking maverocity sham.

But this is a new low for the McCain Corruption Express, even for a campaign that has sunk pretty far into the ditch as it is. To wit:

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Gitmo Alert: Bin Laden's Driver Acquitted of Serious Charge, Found Guilty of Another
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on August 6, 2008 at 11:04 AM.

News has hit that Hamdan was just found guilty of the lesser charge of material support for terrorism by the military tribunal in Gitmo. Hamdan was acquitted on the more serious charge of conspiracy by the same jury, which is a blow to the Bush Administration's hopes for a full vindication of its methods. That they could not secure a conviction from a hand-picked military jury on a terrorism charge they dearly wanted a guilty on will be picked over for days to come, I'm certain. Via NYTimes:

The military commission conviction of the former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was part of a select group of drivers and bodyguards for Mr. bin Laden until 2001, was a long-sought, if some what qualified, victory for the Bush administration, which has been working to begin military commission trials at the isolated naval base here for nearly seven years.

The commission acquitted Mr. Hamdan of a conspiracy charge, arguably the more serious of two charges he faced, but convicted him of a separate charge of providing material support for terrorism.

Sentencing will take place in a separate hearing to begin this afternoon. I keep thinking back to Ben Wizner's post from over the weekend from "Camp Justice:"

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The Pentagon's Shameful Record On Rape
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on August 6, 2008 at 5:00 AM.

As long-time readers know, I am a rape survivor. It isn't something I talk about often because, frankly, reliving a terrifying and brutal moment of my life isn't exactly high on my list of favorite things. But sometimes, news comes up that brings those memories crashing back.

I cannot stop thinking about LaVena Johnson.

Last Thursday, the House Committee on Government Oversight And Reform held hearings on sexual assault in the military. Rep. Jane Harman detailed some horrific statistics (PDF):

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FISA Vote Tomorrow
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on July 7, 2008 at 7:17 AM.

Tomorrow is the vote on the FISA bill. What say we welcome back Senators and their staffs from the 4th of July holiday with a rousing bit of patriotic support for the rule of law?

Last week, Blue America launched a call tool to help you get in touch with Senators regarding the FISA bill. We'd like you to put it to some serious use today.

We are asking Senators to vote IN FAVOR of the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy Amendment (S.A. 5064 to H.R. 6304). We're asking for a NO vote on cloture, and a NO vote on the final bill as well.

We also launched a tool last week to help you track activity and elected official public appearances in your area.

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Liberals "Deselected" for Plum Jobs at the Department of Justice
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on June 24, 2008 at 11:29 AM.

The Office Of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice have issued a joint inspection report regarding two of the most prestigious fast track programs to DOJ career hire status -- and the politicized hiring selection process that has been in place for the last few years. Readers will recall testimony from Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales, Bradley Schlozman, Kyle Sampson and many others on these issues.

The full report is available as a PDF here.  From the report summary, beginning on page 92:

...[W]e concluded that McDonald committed misconduct and violated Department policies and civil service law by considering political or

ideological affiliations in assessing Honors Program and SLIP candidates. (93)

[W]e concluded that Elston violated federal law and Department policy by deselecting candidates based on their liberal affiliations. (94)

We also concluded that Elston committed misconduct, and violated federal law and Department policy, when he deselected candidates and denied appeals based on his perception of the political or ideological affiliations of the candidates. (96)

We also concluded that OARM Director DeFalaise did not adequately or timely address the concerns that were brought to his attention concerning the Screening Committee's deselections. (96)

Finally, we concluded that Acting Associate Attorney General Mercer did not adequately address the concerns

that were brought to his attention by several senior Department officials that the Screening Committee's deselections appeared to have been politicized. (97)...

[A]n OARM employee ... recalled that one of the [deselected] candidates she raised to DeFalaise's attention was first in his law school class at Georgetown University, had clerked for a federal district court judge, and was currently clerking for a Second Circuit judge. [footnote 41: This candidate also had worked as a law clerk for Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat, and for Human Rights Watch, but the OARM employee does not recall pointing out the candidate's political or ideological affiliations to DeFalaise at this time.] (59-60)...

  [Records of applicants destroyed] 

The Committee used paper copies of the applications on which Fridman and McDonald made handwritten notations about the applicants, but those documents were destroyed prior to the initiation of our investigation. (68,69)  (emphasismine)

Allow this to soak in for a moment: documentary evidence in personnel files at the US Department of Justice was destroyed, including notes on hiring decisions and other pertinent documents which are generally kept in all cases for review by employers nationwide should there be discrimination or other claims which require later review. They were destroyed. As in missing, taken out of the files, not there...before the OIG and the OPR could look at them.

There will be a lot more on this to come, but that stood out like a big flashing sign to me -- people at the department of justice destroyed evidence in a matter being investigated within the department by the OIG. Jeebus, we are going to have a lot of work to do cleaning up after these asshats.

Fisa Fiasco, Continued
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith on June 20, 2008 at 9:14 AM.

Debate on the FISA bill on the floor of the House will be coming up shortly. It will begin with a rules vote and then debate onthe bill itself will proceed after that. The rules vote is critical on whether the bill vote will proceed -- and I have no good idea where folks stand on the rules vote, although Pete Hoekstra seemed pretty confident about its outcome this morning on C-Span.

Will be following this as it happens here. Ryan Singel sums up my disgust this morning. If you haven't called your Representative, please do so now.

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Pentagon Puppets: Where is the Accountability?
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on June 6, 2008 at 11:30 AM.

It has been close to two months since the NYTimes story about the retired general Pentagon propaganda program broke. What followed was a tiny smattering of outraged statements from a few politicians, some outrage from retired military and active media folks not on the DOD dole, and very little media coverage or self-examination. (This Democracy Now report being a notable exception.)

Along with Free Press and others, we are pushing for more oversight, more information and more action on this issue. You can help here.

What little to no coverage or oversight means is that the program -- which is not exactly on sound legal and ethical footing under current US law and regulations -- may have simply morphed into something else. Even though the Bush Administration knows that this sort of "psy-ops" activity is prohibited, because they have been caught with their hand in the propaganda jar before:

...Since 1951, Congress has enacted an annual, government wide prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for purposes of "publicity or propaganda." For instance, in 2005, the prohibition stated:

No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-447, div. G, title II, 624, 118 Stat. 2809, 3278 (Dec. 8, 2004). (The language of the prohibition has remained virtually unchanged since 1951.)

All of these ginned up propaganda programs started hitting the public consciousness in 2005, causing a public outcry and Congressional calls for an investigation, which was undertaken by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO issued a formal report in February 2005 indicating that the Bush Administration efforts to shape the news via the prepackaged video news releases were inappropriate. The GAO subsequently issued similar opinions on the other Bush propaganda programs....

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Enron and UBS Lobbyist is McCain's Economic Advisor
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on May 29, 2008 at 4:57 AM.

For a Presidential candidate whose own allies say a McCain presidency would be another Bush economic term (oh, doesn't that fill the country with glee...), the further exposure of self-serving, curmudgeonly Phil Gramm as McCain's main economics guru is timely. The YouTube is from last night's Countdown report on Gramm's lobbying activities for banking giant UBS -- if you missed it, it's worth a watch.

But who exactly is Phil Gramm? Let's take a peek:

According to the lobbyist filing records MSNBC produced in its report, Phil Gramm has taken McCain's "Charlie Black Sweet Talk Expressway bus" to Lobbying Town all the way to the bank...literally.

Gramm only stopped lobbying for international banking giant UBS officially on April 18, 2008, well after McCain clinched the GOP nod -- but also well after Gramm had written and shaped the McCain campaign's banking policies in response to the subprime mortgage crisis...in which UBS is also embroiled, and for whom Gramm continues to be employed as a UBS vice chairman regarding investment banking. Yes, you read that correctly.

Who is UBS, exactly, that they have now restricted their international banking staff from traveling to the US during their pending SEC investigation? And why are they in legal trouble for allegedly running a tax-evasion arm out of their US branch? Josh has some background, including this link on McCain's speech on banking policy fully a month before Gramm quit lobbying for UBS. Funny how that speech calls for banking folks to decide how to handle things amongst themselves rather than tightening regulation -- wonder whose idea that was? Things that make you go "hmmmmm," indeed. Hilzoy has a good thumbnail sketch.

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VA Ignores PTSD in Women
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on May 27, 2008 at 4:00 PM.

As a female soldier or Marine, you prepare for service with a lot of training with your squad, a lot of extra time in the gym, a lot of mental and physical preparation. But nothing could prepare you for an assault ... a sexual assault ... from one of your fellow soldiers.

What do you do, as a female soldier, when the VA folks in charge of your treatment don't think you merit psych care in the wake of this trauma? Via AnchorageDailyNews:

I asked the briefer, a VA psychiatrist, whether the VA also considered Military Sexual Trauma an experience that can lead to PTSD. He replied "no."

I looked at the physician with amazement. Many peer-reviewed journal articles assert that Military Sexual Trauma, or MST, is especially associated with PTSD. That the Veterans Administration continues to disassociate MST with PTSD is remarkable.

But it may be understandable, considering the military is a culture that ostracizes and ridicules women who "rock the boat" by reporting incidents of sexual assault and violence.

This is not an isolated opinion, unfortunately. Sen. Patty Murray, who has personal experience working with Vietnam vets in the VA system and understands the long-term ramifications of not doing this work properly, has been trying to give this issue a much louder voice on the Hill. Kudos to her. But it's going to be a long road to change.

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The Impact of Our Nation's Choices
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on May 16, 2008 at 11:31 AM.

Wednesday, John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama. There is no shortage of articles digging into the endorsement, the potential attached strings (nothing substantiated), the potential split between John and Elizabeth's support (again nothing substantiated), and what it means for the Democratic party horserace in highly broad, speculative terms.

What none of the reports really address is the substance -- the gut and heart level issues -- that Edwards spoke about, which got an incredible reaction from the Michigan crowd.

Which, frankly, is altogether too familiar in political reportage given the dismissive and superficial tone of so much of the coverage of him when he was a candidate. I, however, refuse to just let it be -- because the speech was a barn burner, and listening to it was like taking a long, cool drink of water on a parched day...and it is one that we need to hear, loud and clear.

I've attached a YouTube of the speech in its entirety. If you missed it, do take the time to watch it in full. You'll thank me later.

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The McCain Economy Will Be Like Bush's Third Term
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on May 12, 2008 at 11:30 AM.

Can America afford a presidential candidate who has to bring along an economic adviser in order to be coherent on the subject? Not after the last few years of Bush Administration arrogance in the face of failures, it can't.

Especially when that adviser (and rumored to be a leading contender for a McCain Treasury Secretary spot) is former Senator Phil Gramm (TX-Enron), whose out of touch tendencies led to many a Molly Ivins ribbing back in the day?

So what is McCain's economic strategy? Hell if I know -- or anyone else for that matter -- because it's one big mish-mash, other than the fact that he likes to throw out "spend less and tax the wealthy less for trickle down" platitudes like some magic fairy dust. Sounds like someone has a case of Jack Kemp-itis, without actually comprehending its ramifications on anyone not living in a gated community (YouTube) with deep water yacht slips.

What I do know, though, is that the GOP has put this country in a world of shit. And it seems that most Americans understand that all too well:

More than three-quarters of respondents say the country is heading in the wrong direction, up from 63 percent at the start of the year. The last time more than 70 percent of respondents said that was in 1992.

Among respondents with more than $100,000 in annual household income, 68 percent said the country is on the wrong track. Those with annual income under $60,000 had the highest levels of dissatisfaction, with more than eight in 10 saying the U.S. is going in the wrong direction.

There is a partisan divide in the way people view the country. Slightly more than half of Republicans say the U.S. is headed the wrong way, compared with 87 percent of Democrats.

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New FEC Maneuvers: Von Spakovsky To Get Separate Vote
Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake on May 7, 2008 at 10:44 AM.

In a bid to end the stalemate caused by his own stubborn intransigence, President Bush re-worked his FEC nominations and has apparently cut a new deal with Senate leadership that would allow for a separate vote on the divisive Hans Von Spakovsky nomination. This follows the prior reach out that Sen. Harry Reid did at the end of April to try and move things along to fill the multiple FEC vacancies in a presidential election year.

For those who need background on just why Mr. Von Spakovsky is so reviled among decent people who value a fair election, see here, here, here, here, here, here here, here, here and here for starters. Just a peek into the GOP's odious voter suppression void.

Up until now, the Bush Administration -- and their personal administration toady, Mitch McConnell, who has ties to Von Spakovsky himself -- have vehemently prevented a separate vote on the controversial Mr. Von Spakovsky. But no longer.

Which makes me wonder a number of things. What does this mean for the federal election law-breaking McCain? Especially if Von Spakovsky doesn't get through the process -- which is much more likely on a separate vote? What does this mean in terms of a head count -- Mitch McConnell is highly competitive and hates to lose at anything, so what is he promising to gain the votes he needs to foist a voter suppression tactic guru onto the FEC? And what, if anything, is the Democratic leadership doing to counter this?

Or, in the alternative, is Von Spakovsky still on the list as a sop to the wingnuttiest, knowing that his nomination will likely go down in a vote -- but allowing the Bush Administration to save face by saying that they tried? And, if so, what has Von Spakovsky been promised as a pay off at the end of this for going through the public humiliation motions and taking one for the team? Is Scooter about to get a new pal at the Hudson Institute or some other wingnut welfare shop? Inquiring minds and all that...

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