Call It A Comeback
Few things could get a better laugh:
Maybe you remember little Bobby Gibbs. He and his brother John were born here, he went all the way through Auburn city schools, and he graduated from Auburn High in 1989.
And oh yeah, now he’s presidential candidate Barack Obama’s director of communications and one of his senior strategists, part of a tight-knit group of advisers who keep Obama on track.
McCain really hates those Freddie and Fannie Mae lobbyists. So much so, his campaign manager is one. He must be keeping his enemies very close….
For years McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was head of the Homeownership Alliance, a lobbying association that included Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, real estate agents, homebuilders, and non-profits. According to Politico, the organization opposed congressional attempts at regulation of Fannie and Freddie, along the lines of what John McCain is currently proposing. In his capacity of president of the group, Davis went on record in 2003 and insisted that no further reform of the lenders was necessary, in contradiction to his current boss’s sentiments. “[Fannie and Freddie] are subject to an innovative and stringent risk-based capital stress test,” Davis wrote. “The toughest in the financial services industry.”
At a campaign rally Wednesday morning in Fairfax, Virginia, John McCain said that the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ought to give back the millions of dollars they’ve earned. What about the lobbyists who helped Fannie and Freddie game the system? Maybe McCain can ask them — at the next campaign strategy meeting.
That’s the title of buttons some in the Alaskan Legislature during a special session she called, but stayed at home during. As I’ve said, those of us in Illinois have seen this before and it wasn’t terribly fun the first time.
Or the umpteenth time.
Her record in 19 months is quite funny and familiar.
She chose not to live in the Governor’s mansion which I’ve never held as a big deal. I do think not being around enough is part of Rod’s problem with the Lege–Jim Thompson didn’t have the same problems because he would go to Springfield and even go on the floor to talk and schmooze.
But the next part is what kills me. Imagine if Rod charged per diem to work out of his Chicago office? The Republicans and, let’s be honest, I would go crazy on the him for it.
She does exactly that. As the Washington Post pointed out, she claims per diem for nights that she spends in her home in Wasilla and works in her Anchorage office. Again, imagine Rod claiming per diem for working out of his Chicago office.
But that’s not the end of the story. When the Legislature held a Special Session in Anchorage, she complained about the costs. That was on June 26, 2007. If you look at the per diem reports and the expenses the Governor claimed from June 19, 2007 to July 16, 2007 includes travel to the Special Session in Anchorage which is about a 45 minute commute from Wasilla. So she claimed travel reimbursement for her regular 45 minute commute. For the same session she criticized for costing too much.
Now let’s fast forward to the Special Session she called for October and November of 2007 to deal with oil royalty tax rates. It was held from October 19th to November 16. She largely didn’t attend–sounds familiar, right? Apparently some of the Lege members made up Yellow Buttons with “Where’s Sarah?” on them.
During that heated session she claimed per diem for at least 14 days for staying in Wasilla and working in Anchorage while the legislature was in session in Juneau. She charged to commute 45 minutes. There are a lot of folks living in Elgin who’d love that deal for working downtown.
The state finance director, Kim Garnero, said Alaska law exempts the governor’s office from elaborate travel regulations. Said Leighow: “The governor is entitled to a per diem, and she claims it.“
Mind you, her travel is covered to Juneau and all costs including lodging are covered while in Juneau. She chose not to attend, but charged to continue working from Anchorage.
Adding to this, she called another Special Session for her push to get the natural gas pipeline constructed.
You might think it was called for Juneau to save costs…not so much:
Lawmakers spent the last three weeks holding hearings outside the capital, making stops in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Palmer, Kenai, Barrow and most recently Ketchikan. (AP July 9, 2008)
Even better:
Gov. Sarah Palin‘s gas line presentation will be held May 28-30, but it may take place before a sparse crowd.
House Speaker John Harris, a Valdez Republican, said Tuesday he will not cover travel and lodging expenses to the briefing in Anchorage.
Harris said money should not be spent on discussions that ultimately will take place in the special session that will begin just one week later in Juneau. (AP April 30, 2008)
The Lege actually passed something in the Anchorage meeting they had that Palin criticized.
Palin’s special assistant Joe Balash said using repetition as an excuse not to attend, “gives short shrift to the complexity and sophistication of work that’s been done.”
What’s even better–during the summer of 2008, many of the Lege members couldn’t find reasonable housing because the summer tourism started and Juneau became overrun with cruise ships in port. She largely stayed in Anchorage while pushing the Lege to get the deal done–and yet they didn’t even have decent housing. So….the Governor’s mansion was empty while Lege members stayed in town in places like an RV and their offices.
As I said, I’ve seen this play, and I didn’t like the ending the first time. For those not getting it–put Rod Blagojevich in for Sarah Palin.
Obama in 2004:
Obama was chairman of the Senate committee that voted along party lines to move along the measure, which ultimately went nowhere.
“Nobody’s suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,” Obama said. “If they ask a teacher ‘where do babies come from,’ that providing information that the fact is that it’s not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that’s going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards.”
More like this please.
“It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Here in St. Louis I don’t get to do that often and …
Pat Quinn starts talking. Now, it wasn’t so bad that he was on promoting a charity to support the troops–that’s good of him. But he started talking baseball.
There is a dent in my dashboard from me punching it.
All of us who blogged the 2004 race with Keyes really are just recycling posts at this point.
When you go to the Keyes well, you might qualify as a Maverick but not in the way you want to…
Recycles the silly claim that Obama wanted to teach kindergartners all about sex. I dealt with this in October of 2004 when Alan Keyes tried the same crap:
Of the many carnards that Alan Keyes has tried to use during this race, the one that disturbed me most was his rant that no sex education for Kindergartners is appropriate (video to come–this was in Collinsville). He then went on a rant about how this showed some moral depravity. Barack reminded me of it today in a story where he explains the issue of storks versus birth which is a decent example.
But there is a far more serious side to this–relevant sex education at that age also includes information about how to deal with good and bad touches. IOW, how to teach children to appropriately deal with people who want to touch them in personal places. AKA child molestation. This can be an important defense against child sexual abuse and is not in any way promoting sex-in fact it does the opposite–it can protect children from abuse.
I have little use for demagoguing on this issue. Having dealt with kids who have been abused a little, the notion of boundaries is one of the most difficult issues with which those kids deal. I am not naive enough to think that such education is enough to stop sexual abuse of children, but it can be an important component of reducing it.
The Brody Files also addressed the issue quite well in 2007
“Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is ‘age-appropriate,’ is ‘the right thing to do.’ ‘But it’s the right thing to do,’ Obama continued, ‘to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools.'”
Here’s what Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki is telling The Brody File this morning:
“Barack Obama supports sensible, community-driven education for children because, among other things, he believes it could help protect them from pedophiles. A child’s knowledge of the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching is crucial to keeping them safe from predators.”
So, at this point at least, what Obama is referring to is teaching five year olds about inappropriate touching. The Obama campaign also tells The Brody File that parents would be able to opt out. As for further details, the touching aspect seems to be the main idea here. Obama doesn’t want to hand out condoms to five year olds. He doesn’t want cucumber demonstrations as part of show and tell. The legitimate reasonable discussion here is whether the federal government and/or local school boards should get involved in providing these five year olds information about inappropriate touching or should it be left up to families only.
Still, The Romney campaign is already ripping Barack Obama. The campaign is sending out this You Tube video where Mitt Romney spoke about this last night in a Colorado Springs speech. Watch it here.
I must say that Romney’s comments suggesting that Obama wants to teach sex education to kindergarteners is a little misleading. Because he didn’t put in the proper context, many in the audience probably left thinking that Obama is ok with the condoms and cucumber approach.
The Brody File found a Chicago Daily Herald article from October of 2004 that shads some light on this latest episode. Read below:
Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Barack Obama, addressing college students Tuesday in Lisle, moved to clarify that he does not support teaching explicit sex education to children in kindergarten.
The sex-education question, from a student who identified herself as being part of an anti-abortion group at Benedictine University, mirrors a charge Republican candidate Alan Keyes has leveled at Obama.
The legislation in question was a state Senate measure last year that aimed to update Illinois’ sex education standards with “medically accurate” information. At one point, the legislation included a provision to allow students from kindergarten through fifth grade to be added to the middle and high school students receiving sex education.
Obama was chairman of the Senate committee that voted along party lines to move along the measure, which ultimately went nowhere.
“Nobody’s suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,” Obama said. “If they ask a teacher ‘where do babies come from,’ that providing information that the fact is that it’s not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that’s going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards.”
Also, in October of 2004 during a debate with Alan Keyes, below is the exchange they had with regards to this topic:
KEYES: Well, I had noticed that, in your voting, you had voted, at one point, that sex education should begin in kindergarten, and you justified it by saying that it would be “age-appropriate” sex education.
But then on another vote, when they wanted to put internet filters on computers for the schools and in the libraries, you voted to oppose that, which made me wonder just exactly what you think is “age-appropriate.”
For instance, do you think that, in the first and second grade, we ought to be teaching from books like Heather Has Two Mommies, where we will be presenting, whether or not parents agree with it, a lifestyle that many folks in the state of Illinois believe is not advisable? Is that the kind of sex education you mean?
OBAMA: Actually, that wasn’t what I had in mind.
We have a existing law that mandates sex education in the schools. We want to make sure that it’s medically accurate and age-appropriate.
Now, I’ll give you an example, because I have a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and one of the things my wife and I talked to our daughter about is the possibility of somebody touching them inappropriately, and what that might mean.
And that was included specifically in the law, so that kindergarteners are able to exercise some possible protection against abuse, because I have family members as well as friends who suffered abuse at that age. So, that’s the kind of stuff that I was talking about in that piece of legislation.
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