Rob Shvern on Politics

  As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.

In 2005, Roll Call calculated Feinstein’s wealth, including Blum’s assets, at $40 million, up 25 percent from the year before. That made her the ninth wealthiest member of Congress. Feinstein’s latest Public Financial Disclosure Report shows that in 2005 her family earned income of between $500,000 and $5 million from capital gains on URS and Perini stock combined. From CB Richard Ellis, Blum earned between $1.3 million to $4 million.

http://www.bohemian.com/metro/01.24.07/dianne-feinstein-0704.html

This is the $16,500,000 mansion the war bought:

And that’s exactly why the Bush administration is so darn bullet-proof. The Democratic leadership in Washington is just as crooked and just as callous.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank02282006.html

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D. Ohio) suggested today that President Bush’s comment about a nuclear Iran precipitating “World War III” is a sign of mental instability.

“I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health,” Kucinich, a back-of-the-pack candidate for president, said in an interview with The Inquirer’s editorial board. “There’s something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact.”

“You cannot be a president of the United States who’s wanton in his expression of violence,” Kucinich said. “There’s a lot of people who need care. He might be one of them. If there isn’t something wrong with him, then there’s something wrong with us. This, to me, is a very serious question.”

Tucker Carlson explains how Hillary Clinton and the Bush/Cheney administration have the same policies with only slight style differences. The Democrats and Republicans are effectively a single party with minor variations on unimportant issues.

Garry Kasparov rejects media cliches and states clearly how things appear.

Kucinich: “If Congress doesn’t impeach President Bush for intentionally misleading the public, the next president should hand over Bush and his administration to law enforcement officials”

“The way to end the war is this: The leaders of Congress must go to the president and say, ‘Mr. President, we are not going to give you another dime. Use the money you have to bring the troops home,”‘ the Ohio congressman said.

“Somehow war and strength became equated, but now war and stupidity are being equated,” he said. “We cannot buy into this mentality that the war is going to be with us for a long time.”

www.newsandpolicy.com

Mitt Romney’s new comedy approach to politics includes bits about jihadism, “freedom loving nations”, and the phone calls “Al-Qaeda makes into America.”

He’ll be appearing at the Funny Bone on Friday and Saturday at 8pm.

Calling it the “first genuine controversy” of the 2008 presidential campaign, Maher brings up last week’s “shocking news” that Democratic candidate, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, does not wear an American flag pin.

Obama came under media scrutiny after expressing to a reporter that wearing the pin seemed like a “substitute for true patriotism.”

One personality called it “too much information,” saying that Obama was showing a sign of insecurity by not simply saying he was making a fashion statement.

“This is typical press hypocrisy,” says Maher. “They say they want someone who doesn’t give pat political answers, but when they get one, they call them a loser. They say they don’t want safe robots like [Sen. Hillary Clinton], but they create conditions where only that species can survive.

Though the two committees have similar investigative powers and mandates to uncover waste, fraud and abuse of government funds, Waxman has held eight hearings on Iraq and contracting abuses this year, while Lieberman has held only one on reconstruction challenges in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

And though Waxman rarely has missed an opportunity to fire off angry letters to the administration over potential waste, fraud, abuse and misconduct among government contractors, Lieberman — along with his predecessor and current ranking member, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — has shown relatively little interest in tackling those issues.

A year ago, seeking re-election, Lieberman said this committee was his top priority, and he was desperate to return to the Senate so he could wield the gavel. And now that he has the authority he sought, he’s decided not to conduct any real oversight of the administration at all.

He seems to have desperately sought a chairman’s gavel just for the sake of having it — Lieberman wanted power he had no intention of using. Instead of a Senate Committee on Government Affairs that functions as it should, Lieberman just treads water, using his gavel as a flotation device. It’s an embarrassing waste.

After months of languishing as a second tier candidate, Ron Paul is flush with cash in the bank and rising in popularity. Though not expected to win, his standing ensures a platform from which he can promote the principles of his campaign. If this video is any indication of what to expect, the GOP race just got a hundred times more interesting.

This highly disturbing video shows how the voting process actually works in practice.