Sen Graham Dies - This Is The Process To Replace Him

 From The New York Times:

South Carolina Republicans are facing a fast-paced scramble to replace him on the general election ballot. (Mr. Graham won the Republican primary by a wide margin this year.)

South Carolina law sets out a timeline for replacing him on the ballot. Its provisions suggest a special primary election will be held on Aug. 11, according to the schedule set out in the law. If no candidate secures a majority, a runoff between the top two finishers would take place two weeks later, on Aug. 25.

Candidates can file for the seat as soon as July 21, the second Tuesday after Mr. Graham’s death, and the filing period will close on July 28. State law says that the election must happen on the second Tuesday after that deadline.

Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, can appoint a replacement to serve out the rest of Mr. Graham’s Senate term, through Jan. 3, 2027, under state law. The replacement could choose to compete for the Republican nomination in the special primary.

Republicans Are NOT Fiscally Responsible - And They're Trying To Hide That

Catherine Rampell (The Washington Post) explains the nasty trick Republicans want to use to hide the cost of their tax cuts for the rich: 

Senate Republicans on Wednesday decided their party alone will control how math works. This is a pressing legislative question at present, because pretzeling budgetary outcomes into prettier shapes and sizes will determine whether Republicans can pass President Donald Trump’s promised tax cuts.

Those cuts are very expensive. They include not only extensions of the 2017 tax law provisions (set to expire this year), but they also lower corporate rates as well as carveouts for tips, auto loan payments and other goodies. In total, Trump’s preferred tax agenda could cost between $5 trillion and $11 trillion over the next decade.

This is inconvenient. Republicans like to pretend they’re fiscal conservatives (at least some of the time). They would prefer not to acknowledge the hefty price tag, and they also don’t want to fully offset it with unpopular spending cuts.

So, they’ve devised a cheat. Rather than admitting how much their tax agenda would cost, they are simply asserting that they get their first $4 trillion — free!

Here’s how: Republicans say that because some (expiring) tax cuts have been in place since 2017, extending them shouldn’t be recorded as costing anything, because they wouldn’t feel different. This is ... not how budgets work. As I’ve explained before, it’s like saying even though your car lease has ended, leasing another car should count as “free” because you got used to the convenience of having a vehicle around.

Normally, neutral referees are available to call out this kind of funny business.

First, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office “scores” significant legislation, to determine how much a bill would change revenue and spending in the years ahead, compared with what would happen if Congress allowed existing law to remain as it is. Then, a person called the Senate parliamentarian would confirm that the CBO number matches what lawmakers had previously agreed their bill would cost. If it doesn’t, the bill becomes much harder to pass.

Republicans have been trying to persuade the Senate parliamentarian to adopt their preferred math. So far, the parliamentarian has delayed making a ruling. But on Wednesday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) announced the parliamentarian won’t ever need to decide. He plans to do what the party wants either way.

“I have the authority to determine baseline numbers for spending and revenue,” Graham said in a statement. Under that authority, he said, he can use the special book-cooking math — a “current policy baseline” — that grants his party $4 trillion in freebies.

In other words: 2+2=5, if Republicans decree it so.

Senators Warren/Graham Want To Rein In Power Of Big Tech

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham have found something they agree on. They think Big Tech has too much power over the lives of Americans, and they want to do something about it. Here is the post they wrote together for The New York Times:

The digital revolution promised amazing new opportunities — and it delivered. Digital platforms promoted social interaction, democratized information and gave us hundreds of new ways to have fun.

But digital innovation has had a dark side. Giant digital platforms have provided new avenues of proliferation for the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, human trafficking, drug trafficking and bullying and have promoted eating disorders, addictive behaviors and teen suicide. Parents like Kristin Bride, whose teenage son killed himself after being mercilessly cyberbullied, have shared heartbreaking stories with Congress and the public about the potentially deadly consequences.

Nobody elected Big Tech executives to govern anything, let alone the entire digital world. If democracy means anything, it means that leaders on both sides of the aisle must take responsibility for protecting the freedom of the American people from the ever-changing whims of these powerful companies and their unaccountable C.E.O.s. Today we’re stepping up to that challenge with a bipartisan bill to treat Big Tech the way we treat other industries.

A few Big Tech companies generate a majority of the world’s internet traffic and essentially control nearly every aspect of Americans’ digital lives. Platforms are protected from legal liability in many of their decisions, so they operate without accountability. Big Tech companies have far too much unrestrained power over our economy, our society and our democracy. These massive businesses post eye-popping profits while they suppress competition. Google uses its search engine to give preference to its own products, like Google Hotels and Google Flights, giving it an unfair leg up on competitors. Amazon sucks up information from small businesses that offer products for sale on its platform, then uses that information to run its own competing businesses. Apple forces entrepreneurs (and thereby consumers) to pay crushing commissions to use its App Store. A few Big Tech companies stifle all competition before it poses any serious threat.

Big Tech companies also prey on ordinary users. They vacuum up our personal data, often with little care for whether their practices are responsible or even legal. Some Big Tech platforms mislead us when we try to limit the data we share, and they regularly fall prey to massive data leaks that leave us vulnerable to criminal activity, foreign interference and disinformation. Adversaries in China and other countries often store or process our data. And if we want to know how our data is being used or why our posts are being taken down, good luck getting an answer. We’re usually in the dark about where our data goes or how it is used.

Enough is enough. It’s time to rein in Big Tech. And we can’t do it with a law that only nibbles around the edges of the problem. Piecemeal efforts to stop abusive and dangerous practices have failed. Congress is too slow, it lacks the tech expertise, and the army of Big Tech lobbyists can pick off individual efforts easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Meaningful change — the change worth engaging every member of Congress to fight for — is structural.

For more than a century, Congress has established regulatory agencies to preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Commission took on railroads. In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission took on unfair methods of competition and later unfair and deceptive acts and practices. In 1934 the Federal Communications Commission took on radio (and then television). In 1975 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took on nuclear power, and in 1977 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took on electric generation and transmission. We need a nimble, adaptable, new agency with expertise, resources and authority to do the same for Big Tech.

Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation’s biggest tech companies — like Meta, Google and Amazon — to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans’ privacy and protect national security. The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech.

Our legislation would guarantee common-sense safeguards for everyone who uses tech platforms. Families would have the right to protect their children from sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and deadly drugs. Certain digital platforms have promoted the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, suicidal ideation and eating disorders or done precious little to combat these evils; our bill would require Big Tech to mitigate such harms and allow families to seek redress if they do not.

Americans deserve to know how their data is collected and used and to control who can see it. They deserve the freedom to opt out of targeted advertising. And they deserve the right to go online without, say, some A.I. tool’s algorithm denying them a loan based on their race or politics. If our legislation is enacted, platforms would face consequences for suppressing speech in violation of their own terms of service. The commission would have the flexibility and agility to develop more expertise and respond to new risks, like those posed by generative A.I.

Our bill would set clear rules for tech companies and impose real consequences for companies that break the law. For the giant companies, anticompetitive practices — like exploiting market dominance, tying the sale of one product to another, charging customers different prices for the same product and preventing employees from working for competitors — would be prohibited. The bill would set a high bar for mergers and acquisitions by dominant Big Tech platforms and make it possible to block and reverse harmful deals.

Reining in tech giants will be hard, but it’s a fight worth fighting. If we win, Americans finally will have the tools they need to combat many online evils harming their children and ruining lives. And small businesses will have a fighting chance to innovate and compete in a world dominated by tech monopolies.

No company, no industry and no C.E.O. should be above the law. These reforms will ensure that the next generation of great American tech companies will operate responsibly while remaining on the cutting edge of innovation.

It’s time for Congress to act. 

Graham Makes It Official - GOP Doesn't Want An Ethical Court

 The following post is by Jordan Rubin at MSNBC.com:

In the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, ranking GOP member Lindsey Graham described Democratic-backed Supreme Court ethics legislation as “a bill to destroy a conservative court.”

If so, it’s a damning indictment of a court that the South Carolina Republican helped build.

The bill at issue at Thursday’s markup is the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023, or SCERT Act. Among other things, it would make the justices adopt a code of conduct and establish procedures to receive and investigate complaints of judicial misconduct. The bill was introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

To state the obvious, the proposed law would apply to all Supreme Court justices, no matter which party’s president appointed them. The committee’s chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., even noted recent reporting about Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s staff pushing people to buy her books in the same breath as Justices Clarence Thomas’ and Samuel Alito’s undisclosed private jet adventures with conservative billionaires.

Of course, the Republican appointees’ conduct isn’t comparable to Sotomayor’s, but Democrats are still citing her relatively minor story in support of reform, the prospect of which has Republicans all worked up.

Indeed, the GOP’s hysterical reaction underscores the minimal ask here — that the justices, in some form, play by the same rules as their lower-court colleagues. 

That Republicans are effectively concerned about how their appointed justices would fare under binding ethical constraints speaks volumes.

Graham's Abortion Bill Is Ridiculous And Dangerous

 The following editorial is by the editorial board of The Washington Post:

Only months ago, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham wanted states to write their own abortion rules. Now, he has changed his mind: States should still write their own abortion rules, but only if those rules are harshly restrictive.

The South Carolina Republican introduced a bill Tuesday that would impose a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks — with the narrowest of exceptions for ending pregnancies that result from rape or incest and for procedures necessary to save the life of the mother. The hypocrisy is obvious coming from a legislator who insisted in May that the Supreme Court, when it handed down Roe v. Wade in 1973, committed a “power grab” by depriving local officials of the ability to decide when and whether abortion should be legal. Yet there was Mr. Graham on Tuesday, announcing his desire for Congress to grab the power to set abortion policy from those very local officials.

Unsurprisingly, his news conference was full of falsehoods and nonsense. Flanked by women — “This makes me look better already,” he quipped — Mr. Graham claimed his bill would place the United States “in line with the science and the civilized world.” Yet the science behind his arbitrary 15-week threshold is dubious; there’s no consensus on when a fetus begins to experience pain, the point at which Mr. Graham says abortion should be restricted. And his assertion that “47 of the 50 European countries” have similarly strict abortion rules is bogus. These societies Mr. Graham apparently considers “civilized” may have strict gestational limits on paper. But in practice, most of their legal regimesgoverning pregnancy termination are forgiving. Generally, exceptions for things such as economic hardship and fetal abnormalities mean that women can get abortions after topline time limits pass, so long as they surmount some bureaucratic obstacles.

What’s more, even if a hard-and-fast 15-week rule would align the United States with its peer democracies, Mr. Graham’s bill would not impose a consistent, nationwide policy. His legislation would allow conservative states to continue setting standards as draconian as they desire — which they’ve already started to do. Laws such as Mississippi’s, under which abortion is banned almost entirely, would be permissible. Those types of strictures don’t put the United States in line with most of Europe; they put it in line with parts of the developing world, many of them not democracies at all, where maternal mortality rates are soaring, just as researchers predict they could here.

Republicans have claimed ever since the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the decision merely makes room for a flourishing of a different kind of choice, whereby voters can choose through their representatives the abortion rules under which they want to live. Mr. Graham’s proposal presents an alarming alternative vision, in which there is little individual or community choice at all. In a tepid response to the bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated that other Senate Republicans are more reluctant to abandon their previous position.

For now, that is. The politics of abortion post-Roe are only just shaping up. Antiabortion crusaders will pressure GOP lawmakers for national restrictions for years to come. The real test of Republicans’ oft-stated commitment to federalism is only just beginning.

Graham Threatens Violence If Trump Is Prosecuted

 

The Republicans seem to believe that Donald Trump is above the law. And some of them are threatening violence if Trump is held responsible for his law-breaking. Linsey Graham is one of those.

Here's what the editorial board of The Washington Post had to say about Graham's threat of riots if his buddy (Trump) is prosecuted:

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham on Sunday said that if the Justice Department prosecutes former president Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, there will be “riots in the street.” A few minutes later, he said it again. There is no excuse for this irresponsible rhetoric, which not only invites violence but also defies democratic norms.

The comments the South Carolina Republican made on Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America” imply that there is no plausible case against Mr. Trump based on his taking sensitive White House documents to store, unsecured, at Mar-a-Lago. This has been a continuing suggestion from the right wing, usually paired with a comparison to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state. Yet already, differences between these cases are apparent, and more still could emerge: from the number of documentsimproperly kept, to the intentions behind keeping them, to the harm that holding this material could have done to national security. The possibility of obstructive behavior mentioned in the FBI affidavit unsealed last week can’t be discounted.

Because pursuing the investigation remains worthwhile, Mr. Graham’s comments are especially dangerous. His spokesman defended the interview to The Post as “predicting/forecasting what he thinks will happen.” But some predictions are also threats. And in this case, giving a forecast on national television might make it more likely that this vision of the future comes to pass. Mr. Trump promptly shared the clip on his platform Truth Social, which he has peppered with myriad ravings about the search of his property of late. Meanwhile, menacing messages from angry supporters are inundating the National Archives, and one man attempted to attack an FBI facility. The Jan. 6 insurrection showed the country how readily some voters will interpret a leader’s words as a call to arms — and then action.

Mr. Graham, a former prosecutor who has chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, should understand how his comments could heighten the risk of unrest. He should know that the Justice Department does, too. By talking about the possibility of violence without condemning it, Mr. Trump’s sympathizers play a game of intimidation: daring Attorney General Merrick Garland to bring a case and face the consequences. As wary as Mr. Garland and his colleagues should be of overusing their power in tumultuous times, federal prosecutors must not allow themselves to be bullied out of doing their jobs. References to riots, civil war, banana republics or so much else we’ve heard in recent weeks make it more dangerous for the government to uphold the rule of law. “I worry about our country,” Mr. Graham said at the end of Sunday’sinterview. His reckless words and others like them are cause for the greatest concern.

Graham May Regret Becoming A Trump Sycophant

 

Once Donald Trump became the choice of Republicans in 2016, Lindsey Graham quickly jumped on board and became one of Trump's most reliable sycophants. He may be regretting that now. The following is part of an op-ed by Ja'han Jones at MSNBC.com:

A federal judge on Monday rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s attempt to evade testifying before a special grand jury as part of a criminal investigation into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis requested the special grand jury back in January to assist in her investigation. The panel issued the subpoena to Graham, a South Carolina Republican, last month — and he's been trying to get out of it ever since.

He's argued his post-election telephone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, reportedly about striking so-called “fraudulent” (read: pro-Biden) votes from the official count, was part of his job as a senator. For that reason, his lawyers argued, he should be able to skirt the subpoena.

U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May in Atlanta strongly disagreed. 

“[T]he Court finds that there are considerable areas of potential grand jury inquiry falling outside the Speech or Debate Clause’s protections,” May said, citing the constitutional protections for lawmakers conducting their official duties. 

May also said sovereign immunity, a doctrine that protects the government from civil and criminal lawsuits, doesn’t shield Graham from having to testify. 

“[T]hough Senator Graham argues that he is exempt from testifying as a high-ranking government official,” May said, “the Court finds that the District Attorney has shown extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham’s testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia’s 2022 elections.”

May said Graham can try to argue particular lines of questioning are protected under the speech and debate clause, but he can’t quash the case completely on those grounds. That makes two judges nowwho have torpedoed Graham’s effort to avoid offering testimony. He's scheduled to testify on Aug. 23.

Graham is learning the pitfalls of being a Trump loyalist. Attaching yourself to Trump’s hip may earn you currency among conservatives — but doing so may very well lead you to engage in nefarious activity. And outside the conservative movement, that is still considered a bad thing. Graham's been in on the “MAGA” grift for several years now, but his testimony in the Fulton County case will be the closest he’s come to facing accountability for it. 

Poll Shows Lindsey Graham Could Lose His Senate Seat

These charts are from the Change Research / Post and Courier Poll in South Carolina. They polled 998 likely primary voters between between December 6th and 11th, with a margin of error of 3.1 points. For the Democratic nomination, 392 likely Democratic primary voters were questioned, with a 4.9 point margin of error.

When Jaime Harrison declared he was running to unseat Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, I didn't give him much chance of success. I could have been wrong. This poll shows him only 2 points behind Graham (within the poll's margin of error). Are South Carolina voters unhappy with Graham's continuous lying to protect Trump?

The poll also showed Biden may have lost some support in the state. But he still has a significant lead - beyond the poll's margin of error.

Senate Republicans Put On A Shameful Bit Of Theater

The Senate Judiciary Hearing was held on Thursday, and both Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testified. Dr. Ford was credible and believable. Kavanaugh was not. But none of it makes a bit of difference anyway.

This was not an effort to get the truth. If it had been, they would have asked the FBI to investigate the new charges against Kavanaugh. They would have had other accusers testifying. And they would have had witnesses testifying that could corroborate their stories (or disprove them). But they didn't have any of that.

They didn't have it because this was nothing more than a bit of political theater. It was just an attempt by the Senate Republicans to try to provide some cover for what they have intended to do all along -- ignore all evidence and confirm Kavanaugh. Graham (pictured) made that very clear when he spent his time trying to turn Kavanaugh into the victim (he's not) and vilifying Democrats for trying to get the truth (even though all their efforts were blocked by the Republicans).

Kavanaugh's nomination will go to the Senate floor, and he will be confirmed. It's just false hope to think that Collins, Murkowski, Corker, or Flake will block the nomination. They are Republicans, and they will toe the party line. None of them have the courage to vote their convictions. That type of Republican hasn't existed since the death of John McCain.

I hope I'm wrong, But I wouldn't put any money on that remote possibility. I just hope decent Americans were watching -- and will punish the Republicans in November for putting a sex abuser on the Supreme Court.

Obamacare Repeal Rears Its Ugly Head Again

 If you thought the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, and take health insurance away from millions of Americans, was dead, then you are wrong. Republican senators Cassidy (Louisiana) and Graham (S. Carolina) have come up with a new plan -- and this one might be the worst one yet.

Their new plan eliminates the federal insurance subsidies, and federal medicaid payments. Instead, it sends block grants to each state for that state to come up with their own health plan. It also lowers the amount of money that the states that expanded Medicaid will get, and raises the amount the states that didn't expand Medicaid will get.

This is an admission by Washington Republicans that they are incapable of coming up with a plan to provide Americans with health insurance, so they are punting the ball to the individual states. You can bet the Republican states will continue to deny heal insurance to many of their citizens, while Democratic states will have to drop many from their insurance programs (or increase their state budgets to cover them). The plan also gives states the right to petition to remove any of Obamacare's requirements -- like coverage for pre-existing conditions.

This is a very bad plan, and will undoubtably raise significantly the number of Americans without any health insurance. Can it pass? Maybe. About 48 of the 52 Republicans have said they'll vote for it according to Cassidy. He and Graham needs two more votes. Rand Paul (Kentucky) has already said he would vote against it (because he wants a repeal with no replacement). That means it's down to Murkowski (Alaska), Collins (Maine), and McCain (Arizona). If two of those three vote for the bill, it will have 50 votes, and Pence will break the tie to pass it.

The GOP has until the end of this month to pass the bill. After that, they'll have to start all over (and that means it couldn't come up again until at least well into next year.

Frankly, I don't understand why the Republicans are doing this. They could have moved on to other issues (tax cuts, immigration, infrastructure, etc.) and maybe gotten some people to swallow their lies. But passing this bill, which is certain to take insurance away from millions will just hurt them in the 2018 election -- and may hurt state GOP governments also.

They have two weeks to get the bill passed. Millions of Americans will be holding their breath.

Graham Awakes To Reality And Drops Out Of GOP Race

(This caricature of Lindsey Graham is by DonkeyHotey.)

A few months ago, there were 17 Republicans who thought they should be the GOP nominee for president in 2016. That number is now down to 13. Rick Perry, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal had already dropped out -- and on Monday, Lindsey Graham joined them. He has suspended his campaign after months of failing to get more than 1% support from his fellow right-wing Republicans.

Graham had based his presidential hopes almost exclusively on calling for a wider war in Iraq and Syria, spearheaded by a huge influx of American ground troops. Evidently he learned nothing from George W. Bush's ill-fated invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But his campaign never caught fire. I don't know whether it was because even the Republican base doesn't want another huge war with American ground troops, or whether they just don't want Graham as president.

Graham's campaign never got off the ground, and every poll noted his support was between 0% and 1% support. He complained about being relegated to the "kiddie table" in the GOP debates, but really was lucky to even be allowed there. He couldn't even get the Republicans in his own state to support him -- a sure prescription for a disastrous campaign.

Here is some of what he said in withdrawing:

Today I am suspending my campaign for president. I want to thank everyone who has taken this journey with me. You have honored me with your support. I believe we’ve run a campaign you can be proud of. We’ve put forward bold and practical solutions to big problems by retiring our debt and fixing our broken immigration system. This has been a problem solvers campaign.

However, the centerpiece of my campaign has been securing our nation. I got into this race to put forward a plan to win a war we cannot afford to lose and to turn back the tide of isolationism that was rising in our party. I believe we made enormous progress in this effort. Four months ago, at the very first debate, I said that any candidate who did not understand that we need more American troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria to defeat ISIL was not ready to be commander-in-chief. At that time, no one step forward to join me. Today, most of my fellow candidates have come to recognize this is what’s needed to secure our homeland.

I’m more confident today that our party will reject the Obama doctrine of leading from behind and will provide the strong leadership America needs to restore our military and take the fight to our enemies and do what it takes to make our country safe and preserve our way of life. This is a generational struggle that demands a strategy and the will to win. I will continue to work every day to ensure that our party and our nation takes on this fight.

I am suspending my campaign but never my commitment to achieving security through strength for the American people. God bless our fighting men and women and God bless America.

Which Candidates Are Ignoring One Job To Get Another ?

 There are five of the presidential candidates that currently hold a seat in the United States Senate -- Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, and Bernie Sanders.

Both being a senator and being a presidential candidate are time-consuming jobs. How well are these candidates doing both of those jobs? Are they ignoring their elected position to run for a bigger elected position, or are they doing both fairly well. It turns out that three of them are missing a lot of votes to campaign for their party's nomination (Rubio, Graham, and Cruz), while two are doing a very good job of being both a senator and a presidential candidate (Sanders and Paul). Here's the tally by NBC News:

Marco Rubio

• Announcement: April 13, 2015
• Missed Votes: 59
• Percentage: 42%

Lindsey Graham**

• Announcement: June 1, 2015
• Missed Votes: 39
• Percentage: 48%

Rand Paul 

• Announcement: April 7, 2015
• Missed Votes: 4
• Percentage: 3%

Ted Cruz

• Announcement: March 23, 2015
• Missed Votes: 57
• Percentage: 29%

Bernie Sanders

• Announcement: March 26, 2015
• Missed Votes: 7
• Percentage: 4%

It turns out that Rubio has missed the most votes (closely followed by Cruz), while Graham has missed the highest percentage of votes since declaring his candidacy. Both Sanders and Paul, no matter what you think of their politics, should be commended for missing very few votes while running for president.

(The caricatures above of Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham are by DonkeyHotey.)                                                                

Lindsey Graham Has Another Stupid Idea

I swear some of our politicians don't bother to think before they speak. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has decided he knows what to do about document leaker Edward Snowden being in Russia (and possibly being granted asylum there). He thinks the United States should punish itself by boycotting the next Winter Olympic games (scheduled to be held in Russia).

Does he really think Putin will care very much whether we show up to compete or not? He really doesn't strike me as the type of ruler who can be forced to capitulate by a country acting like a three year old (who wants to hold his/her breath until the parents give in).

The only thing that would be accomplished by refusing to participate in the next Winter Olympics would be to disappoint hundreds of athletes who have been preparing for that for many years -- and deny some of them the only opportunity to compete on that stage that they will ever have.

Doesn't he remember the last time we tried something that ridiculous, back in 1980. It accomplished nothing -- except to embarrass this country before the world and deny hundreds of athletes the opportunity to compete. We need to nip this idea in the bud -- before some other idiots in Congress start thinking it's a good idea.

GOP Won't Learn From War Mistakes

It is now ten years after the ridiculous invasion and occupation of Iraq. Over 4,000 Americans were killed and many more thousands wounded (not to mention the untold numbers of innocent Iraqis killed, wounded, or driven out of their country). In addition, the war created about $1.6 trillion in debt (which could balloon to $6 trillion in coming years), because Bush/Cheney decided the war could be fought without paying for it.

Was it worth it? Are we safer because we invaded and occupied Iraq? The American people don't think so (and neither do I). And that opinion is verified by two recent polls. The YouGov Poll (done on March 14th and 15th of 1,000 nationwide adults -- with a 3.4 point margin of error) shows that 54% of Americans now believe the Iraq War was not worth fighting. The ABC News/Washington Post Poll (conducted on March 7th through 10th of 1,001nationwide adults -- with a margin of error of 3.5 points) shows an even larger percent (58%) believe the war was not justified. And that ABC/WP poll shows that 56% of Americans also don't think the Afghan War was worth fighting.

Now a reasonable person would conclude that Americans are tired of foreign wars. They want what little money we have to be spent to rebuild this country -- a country that is still reeling from the Bush recession that has cost millions of jobs. But the Republicans can't seem to see that. They want to entangle the United States in more foreign wars -- wars that have the same propensity for a never-ending involvement. The neocons in the GOP are now ready to either bomb or invade Iran. And at least one Republican senator wants to invade Syria.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina) said yesterday that he wants the United States to send ground troops into Syria. His excuse is that they are needed there to secure weapons of mass destruction, and keep those weapons (if they exist) from falling into the hands of "extremists". What he doesn't seem to realize is that sending troops into another country to seize property, without that country's permission, is an ACT OF WAR.

If another country sent troops into the United States to seize property (regardless of what that property was), we would consider it an act of war and we would justifiably attack those soldiers. Could anyone expect the Syrian government to do anything less? And when the first bullets start to fly, we will be in another war. Even worse, the Syrian government has a powerful ally that has been supporting them in their civil war (and that's what that conflict is). What would Russia do if we invaded Syria? Frankly, invading Syria sounds like a great way to provoke an international crisis!

I don't think Senator Graham has thought this through. And he has also not bothered to tell us how he thinks we should pay for this new war. He and his fellow Republicans are busy trying to cut the budget and lower taxes for their rich friends -- and their sequestration cuts actually cut military funds. Now he wants to start a new war, and evidently like Bush/Cheney, he wants to do it on credit. Wouldn't this just balloon the deficit and debt they claim to be so worried about?

The GOP never seems to learn from their past mistakes -- either with ridiculous and unnecessary wars or with the country's economy. Returning them to power would be a disaster for this country.

Graham Is Just Another GOP Liar

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is upset about the "sequester" cuts that will soon become a reality if Congress doesn't find another way to reduce the budget deficit. It's not the cuts that will hurt American citizens that he's upset about. He's fine with cutting education, food stamps, school lunch programs, Headstart, environmental cleanup, unemployment compensation, and a variety of other programs that would further devastate already hurting Americans.

It's the defense budget he's worried about. He thinks the automatic cuts to the military budget (which would amount to about 7.5% according to some experts) "would destroy the military". And he has a solution to save the military -- restore all of the cuts and replace them with about $1.2 trillion in cuts to Obamacare (over a 10 year period). In short, he's willing to let many millions of Americans go without health insurance as long as the corporations in the military-industrial complex can continue selling overpriced and unnecessary weapons systems to the government.

The chart above shows how ridiculous his "destroy the military" statement really is. The United States spends over 45% of all the money spent on the military in the entire world. This chart shows the top five spenders on their military among all nations (in U.S. dollars). Note that the United States military budget could be chopped in half (reduced by 50%), and it would still be twice as large as the spending by any other nation.

The truth is that the military cuts included in the "sequester" are the only cuts that make sense. The other programs that make up discretionary spending have already been severely cut. It is time for the military, especially the military-industrial complex, to get its share of the budget-cutting -- and there is a lot of fat in the bloated military budget that could be cut without harming national defense at all.

Senator Graham doesn't really care about the budget or the American people. Like his Republican comrades, he is simply acting to try and put more government (taxpayer) money into corporate coffers. And he doesn't mind telling outrageous lies to accomplish that.