Indicted: Ted Stevens' Series of Tubes

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' made headlines last week for an indictment over his concealing of gifts from an oil services contractor, including a garage for his vacation home, a Viking gas grill, and a trade-in for a new Land Rover. The gifts allegedly surpassed $250,000 in value, and while Senator Stevens maintains his innocence, I'm mostly interested in this as an occasion to post the now famous video of his understanding of the Internet: "It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

Stevens is likely competent at many things, but the Internet is not one of them. In a move reminiscent of FEMA's anointment of Mike Brown, whose experience consisted of being the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, Stevens spoke to his fellow senators regarding the Net Neutrality bill. Other gems from the speech include:
an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
Below, you can view his original speech as well as the more entertaining music video remix:

Original Speech:

Music Video Remix:
by Ryan Kane on August 9, 2008 7:53 PM

The Big Oil and Energy Policy Confusion (08 Edition) - by Barack Obama and John McCain

Over the past month, Barack Obama and John McCain have been trading attacks on energy policy, and, just like the earth, these seem to be heating up. In a new advertisement released on Monday, the Obama Camp is claiming that McCain, just like President Bush, is in the pocket of big oil.

Not sitting back and taking these charges lightly, John McCain's campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds fired back with a defensive attack on Obama, "Barack Obama's latest negative attack ad shows his celebrity is matched only by his hypocrisy. Also not mentioned is the $400,000 from big oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election".

Chipping in his two cents, Mitt Romney-a speculative VP pick for McCain and acting surrogate- claimed that Obama's recent ad is "dishonest". In the same interview Romney claimed that employees of these corporations contribute to the candidates, and the corporations are not allowed to give money directly to either McCain or Obama. According to Romney, both candidates have received money from these employees during this election.

To further complicate matters, Obama and McCain have hinted towards their accordance with the "senatorial compromise" that calls for off-shore drilling in certain states and a focus on higher renewable energy quotas. However, Obama, as part of his plan, has claimed that the government take some of the windfall profits away from the oil companies and give a rebate to consumers.

So, let's try to make this a bit clearer. The Obama camp claims that John McCain is in the pockets of big oil, the McCain camp says the same about Obama, Mitt Romney claims that in certain ways neither and both are in big oil's pockets, Obama and McCain agree to a compromise to give oil companies more profits by off shore drilling, but only with some of these profits going back to consumers according to Sen. Obama. For some reason, I don't think that helped.

The worst thing about this confusion over who-wants-what and who-does-what with respect to energy takes the most important issue of the day and makes it into a political football. Even more distressing is the fact that we don't know who will (or can) take that football and eventually score the touchdown that will make energy cheaper, clean, and domestic- what Americans from both political parties-and everything in between- want.

In order to do his part in clarifying this mess over energy policy-along with taking a few jabs at Sen. McCain-, Barack Obama spoke on the issue in Lansing, Michigan (full speech transcript here). This speech, coupled with the Obama advertisement released today, makes it obvious that energy is going to play a big part in the remainder of the election. What is not so obvious is if the candidates will refrain from using the issue in such a way that doesn't confuse the public and dilute the facts to the point of no return, in order to carry out their main agenda- getting votes. If this is the "new kind of politics" that each candidate has been so adamantly advocating since they have declared their candidacy, give me back the old kind. This kind doesn't seem that different in substance, and is a whole hell-of-a-lot more confusing.

John McCain's Energy Policy
Barack Obama's Energy Policy

(Images from WashingtonIndependent.com and VPHill of flickr)

by John D'Alessandro on August 4, 2008 2:20 PM

August 4, 2008

Over the Weekend...

One of the most notable critics of the Soviet government and 1970 Nobel Prize winner in Literature Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died on Sunday at age 89.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has called for the voters of Michigan and Florida's Democratic Primaries to be heard.

Israeli officials have allegedly denied ill Palestinians medical treatment in order to receive information.

World

Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of a chemical and biological weapons specialist in Pakistan.

Mexico City is holding a Global Aids forum, with former President Bill Clinton attending on Tuesday.

The New York Times reports on how rising fuel prices is affecting global supply chains.

US

Health and life insurance companies are now at liberty to use a health "credit report" in evaluating whether or not to cover customers.

According to a report released to NPR, government officials were still weeks away from indicting Dr. Bruce Ivans in connection to the 2001 Anthrax cases.

On the Campaign Trail...

John McCain and Barack Obama have made statements on the recently proposed compromised in the Senate to allow off-shore drilling in certain states.

Barack Obama has officially agreed to at least three debates with John McCain in the lead up to November's election.

(Image from BBC.com )

by John D'Alessandro on August 4, 2008 6:33 AM

Why the Olympics Don't Need China

Editors Note: This is a guest contribution submitted by Connor Kane on August 3, 2008. This view does not necessarily represent SemiPolitico

Beijing China Olympics 2008 A nation with an infamously poor human rights record, China is hardly the ambassador of liberty and good will the International Olympics Committee (IOC) claims the Olympics represent. Upon awarding the Games to Beijing in 2001, the IOC assured us it knew what it was doing and that discussions concerning China's human rights policies were soon to take place. And yet, in the last seven years little discussion-- let alone improvement-- has taken place.

The IOC seems to be convinced that the Olympics will (and have) served as a stimulus for change. It maintains that bringing attention to the situation, through the extensive media coverage synonymous with the Olympics, will necessitate change on the part of the host country. Rather than promote dramatic change, however, it promotes extensive cover ups of human rights abuses; rather than instigate political reform, it incites further oppression political reformers and dissidents; rather than bring light to a dire situation, it helps legitimize an abusive government.

In preparation for the games, China has taken a leaf out of repressive Nazi Germany's Olympic handbook. Beijing officials are allegedly removing street beggars as well as over a million migrant workers brought to the city to help with its $40 billion transformation-- apparently these aristocratic figureheads can't bear to have their city burdened by the people who made its Olympic effort possible. Furthermore, shops selling pirated DVDs have been shut down, city dwellers' ability to drive is dictated by their license plate numbers, and more than 50 well-known political dissenters have been incarcerated as pre-Olympics provisions.

The IOC has a history of choosing disreputable and unfavorable hosts for the Olympic Games, often in an attempt to keep the worldwide Olympic "family" intact:

"Trapped by its grandiose goal of embracing the entire “human family” at whatever cost, the IOC has repeatedly caved in and awarded the games to police states bent on staging spectacular festivals that serve only to reinforce their own authority. Of course, the most notorious example is the 1936 Berlin Games, which were promoted by a network of Nazi agents working both inside and outside the IOC."

Olympics China Opening Ceremony Besides Nazi Germany, the Committee has also awarded the games to a one party, politically oppressive Mexico in 1968, the Soviet Union in 1980 (only after it threatened to withdraw from any Olympic activity upon losing a bid for the '76 games), and the '88 games to South Korea in 1981-- hardly a year after dictator Chun Doo-hwan launched a massacre of the city of Kwangju, where civil demonstrations were taking place against the newly instated military government. Now, the 2008 Olympics have been rewarded to a Chinese government whose oppression of Tibetans and repression of political agitators is well known, and whose inaction surrounding the nation's immense wealth gap has left inland China behind while eastern China surges ahead to the center of the world economic stage.

And while great strides have been taken away from Mao Zedong's communist China, the country is far from free or democratic. Some recent government action has reflected China’s looming communist spectre: “The Coming Collapse of China”, a doomsday book about China’s great economic rise and fall, is banned on the mainland. The government in power does not want its people to doubt the stability or strength of the nation’s economy, and rather than injecting economic confidence by salvaging the 900 million facing economic hardship, it simply attempts to keep the rest of the population blind to the epidemic of poverty.

To suggest that these Olympics will catalyze change in China's oppressive system is to hope for the very best; as history has shown us, the incessant international media attention tends to incite governments to cover up scandal and controversy, rather than change or move away from it. Let’s hope that China proves history wrong-- it certainly hasn't so far.

(Images from Ibiblio.com, Xinhuanet.com)

by Connor Kane on August 3, 2008 10:45 AM

T. Boone Pickens' Natural Gas Push

Much as with America's policy on Cuba, our energy policy has been hit hard by special interests. As Cubans are to Florida politics, Big Farming is to U.S. "alternative" energy programs. Farming interests have tried to sucker America into the idea that corn-based ethanol is the ticket out, keeping willfully ignorant of the fact that corn has an energy yield of just 125%, while sugar cane provides up to 8 times that. Taking into account the billions of dollars available for corn ethanol production in the U.S., ethanol is not an energy program - it's a farm program.

Given these subsidies, it makes sense to question energy plans from those who have a financial stake in the matter. With this in mind, I saw with skepticism a natural gas proposal backed by T. Boone Pickens, a man with a name only a true Texas oil billionaire could get away with. T. Boone Pickens owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp, which is the sole sponsor behind Proposition 10 in California, a bill that would add state funding for a number of "clean energy" initiatives. Clean Energy Fuels Corp runs natural gas fueling stations, and the natural gas industry would be one of the main benefactors of this energy bill.

The proposition is shady, and smacks of the same kind of pork benefits that are sneaked to farmers under the guise of more reasonable purposes. For instance, it's named "The California Renewable Energy and Clean Alternative Fuel Act," quite similar in name to the defeated "California Clean Alternative Energy Act" of 2006. The difference is that the 2006 proposition would have been funded by taxes on oil companies and on oil extraction, while the current bill will be funded with taxpayer dollars.

Using compressed natural gas as an alternative energy source is by no means a bad thing; certainly, any and all alternative energy sources should be explored and used in conjunction to reduce the country's energy problems. But when big money influences like Pickens or like the farm lobby use their pull to greatly emphasize natural gas or corn ethanol for financial gain, they often do so at the expense of more promising technologies such as advanced hybrid technology and sugar cane ethanol.

My hope is that energy research and innovation, now on overdrive due to high gas prices, will blaze a clean path to energy independence. There are a number of clean energy ideas that just seem loony - using termites to make energy, for one - but putting money towards research is better than the protectionist subsidizing of American industry under the banner of energy independence.

(Image from Profile.com )

by Ryan Kane on August 1, 2008 10:03 AM

August 1, 2008

World

According to U.S. government officials, Pakinstanis aided an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in early July.

The U.N. Security council has renewed the mandate allowing forces to stay in the Darfur region of Sudan for at least one more year.

US

The U.S. GDP grew at 1.9% over the past quarter, mainly due to the one time economic stimulus bump.

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens pleaded not guilty to 7 counts of lying on Senate disclosure forms.

On the Campaign Trail...

The leaders of an online campaign to push for an Obama/Clinton ticket have finally conceded.

The McCain camp claimed that Barack Obama used the "race card in reference to John McCain's new advertisement

In Iowa on Thursday Barack Obama revealed his true feelings on John McCain's energy plan.

(Image from The Washington Post)

by John D'Alessandro on August 1, 2008 6:47 AM

July 31, 2008

World

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has stated that he will resign in September.

After taking over two former military buildings, ex-Haitian soldiers surrendered to the government on Wednesday after a day long standoff.

US

U.S. Immigration officials will give fugitive-aliens incentives to surrender in certain cities throughout August, CNN reports.

In an unreleased report, Defense Secretary Robert Gates claims that winning in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end the "long war" against terror, and claims that the U.S. should ally with Russia and China in fighting terror.

On the Campaign Trail...

John McCain released a new advertisement that likened Barack Obama's celebrity status to that of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The New York Times reports on this new-old way of attacking the Democrats

The Obama Campaign is looking to take advantage of disgruntled members of the G.O.P.

(Image from the BBC)

by John D'Alessandro on July 31, 2008 6:43 AM

Obama's Vice President- The Case for Tim Kaine

As all the talk around the Obama Campaign has been about Virginia Governor Tim Kaine for VP, SemiPolitico has decided to take a general look at the pros and cons of the possible Obama-Kaine ticket. Of course, no official word has come out of the Obama Camp, and the AP has reported that Tim Kaine is "mum" on the issue, so we can't really be sure. All we know is that there are some ups and downs to choosing Tim Kaine as the Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate (your welcome for the obvious statement).

One of the biggest criticisms of Barack Obama is his inexperience, and a lot of this has to do with the fact that he is a senator (in his third year). For a number of reasons, the American public has not been so keen on choosing senators as Presidents. In fact, only two senators in history have ever moved directly from the Capitol building to the White House, Warren G. Harding in 1921 and JFK in 1961 (neither man finished their first term in office). The last Senator to be elected president was Richard M. Nixon in 1969, but this was after serving only 3 years in the Senate, and then 8 years as VP. When it comes to senators, we don't like to put them in the White House unless they have had other practical experience such as a governorship or holding the office of VP (Truman, LBJ, Nixon).

Obviously, with John McCain and Barack Obama the "presumptive" nominees (Hillary is still alive in hearts and minds), we will be forced to add a third name to the list of senators who made the direct move to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but that doesn't mean the public will be comfortable doing so without some reassurance. In this context comes Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. Although Kaine has only held the position for almost 3 years, that title may do a lot to ease talks (or mostly feelings) of Obama's inexperience in running a country. Even though Kaine is inexperienced himself, three years of being governor, four as Lt. Governor, and two as a mayor of a state capital (Richmond) is a lot more experience to a lot more people than three years as a U.S. Senator (of which one and a half have been spent campaigning), seven as a state senator, and three as a community organizer. Although, it isn't clear that a lot of the country would use this manner of thinking, so the opportunity cost of picking Kaine over someone such as Bill Richardson, Evan Bayh, or Kathleen Sebelius could be high.

It's hard to say that the fact of Tim Kaine being from Virginia isn't one of the main reasons the Obama Campaign has decided to focus on him as of recently. If you take a look at money spent in the south, Obama has been running uncontested commercials for a month in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. Most of the talks surrounding these ads have been speculative on their intentions, the question being if they are being run to legitimately compete in these states or only to force the McCain campaign to spend resources in places that are notoriously left untouched by presidential elections. If Obama were to pick Kaine (even though Kaine has an approval rating of 56%), it would be hard to argue that Virginia would not lean Obama (it is a virtual tie right now), and that states such as North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri would not be up for grabs.

A Kaine VP selection also fits in with Obama's campaign message from the beginning, which is the notion of change. Recently, the Obama camp has stated that they would like to choose a Washington "outsider" for VP. Kaine is exactly that, being that he is a governor and has never served in a Washington post, which is compounded by the fact that he is a "new guy" as well. But, this notion is much related to the experience factor of both men, and there is, of course, a trade off. Being an outsider means no Washington experience, a concept that has hurt Obama so far, in both the primaries and what have been the first months of the general election campaign. Kaine can be viewed as a good outsider, somone not jaded and compromised by the inside wheelin' and dealin' that goes on in our nation's capital. On the other hand, he could be an outsider in respect to the knowledge of the ways to get things done, an argument that Hillary Clinton used to her advantage in the 100 years primary.

When taking a look at Tim Kaine the politician, rather than what Tim Kaine would mean for electoral votes, there are some important considerations that are probably being scrutinized over at Obama HQ as we speak. In fact, Barack Obama has stated that the most important consideration in choosing a VP candidate will be a "shared vision", compatibility, and most importantly someone who can "help [Obama] govern". In the 2005 VA gubernatorial election, Kaine's opponent Jerry W. Kilgore criticized Kaine's stance on the death penalty and used this to play on the general notion of being "super-liberal". However, Kaine's views on a couple "litmus test" items don't really prove this to be the case. Due to faith based (Kaine is a devout Catholic) reasons, Tim Kaine is a staunch opponent to abortion. Also in the 2005 election, Kaine claimed the 2nd amendment to

"strongly support the Second Amendment. As the next Governor of Virginia, he will not propose any new gun laws. Instead Tim Kaine will guarantee strict enforcement of our existing criminal laws. He will also expand the use of such enforcement strategies as Project Exile that target criminals who use guns rather than law-abiding gun owners."

These two stances don't scream super-liberal, or even liberal at all in the many eyes, but the issue that Kilgore was most likely referring to was Kaine's stance on the death penalty. From the 2005 campaign website, Kaine stated that he was an opponent of the death penalty "until it is far". In his time as governor, eight people have been executed on death row. During this same time, however, Kaine has passed legislation to ban the electric chair as a medium of execution.

With Obama's alleged recent "shifts" to the center (FISA, Iraq), it may hurt more than help to have an anti-abortion VP who promotes the 2nd amendment. In the effort to obtain voters who were Clinton supporters, an anti-abortion VP may not go over so well with the many women Obama is courting (politically).

However, Kaine could prove to be valuable to another key group of voters that Obama had trouble with during the primary, which is the Hispanic vote. In a year long break from Harvard Law, Tim Kaine was a Jesuit missionary in Honduras, during which he became fluent in Spanish. Being a catholic and fluent in Spanish could court Hispanic voters in the mega-important state of Florida, as well as many other places in the country with a large Hispanic voter base. According to recent polls, Obama is already doing well with Hispanics, and Kaine's addition will not hurt this trend.

Whoever the Democratic VP candidate is, there will no doubt be some trade offs between the candidates. Whichever issue(s) the Obama camp decides is(are) most important (red state appeal, outsider/insider, voting groups, liberal/more moderate, etc) will have to be balanced out in some way. Because of how quickly the focus of an election can change and shifts in issues can happen, it seems that the Obama (and McCain) camp will have to wait a little bit longer to decide who and what they are after. But, if recent talks have any merit, Tim Kaine is definitely on Barack's (extremely) short list.

(Images from Truthout.org and Puente-Latino.com )

by John D'Alessandro Updated on July 31, 2008 12:36 PM

July 30, 2008

World

Scientists in the United Kingdom have discovered a new drug that "may halt the progression of an early stage of Alzheimer's"

Officials have blamed China, India, and the U.S. in ending the WTO talks of Geneva in failure.

A report released on Tuesday by the C.I.A. links Pakistani spies with militant groups responsible for violence in the border region with Afghanistan.

US

Senator Ted Stevens (R. Alaska) was indicted on charges of failing to report gifts and income.

President Bush promised a group of 5 chinese dissidents that he will "carry the message of freedom" while attending the Olympics in Beijing.

Congress has "laid ground" for 2009, according to TIME.

On the Campaign Trail...

Some in the GOP are worried that John McCain's recent negative attacks against Barack Obama could end up hurting McCain.

On Tuesday, Barack Obama met with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in order to discuss risks and troubles of the U.S. economy.

(Image from Dailymail.co.uk)

by John D'Alessandro on July 30, 2008 6:41 AM