Monthly Archives: February 2011

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no wonder aig needed a bailout

When you get a $173 billion dollar bailout from American taxpayers you don’t have to worry about making good financial decisions – especially when Congress and the Obama Administration aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing.  Ever since AIG got their enormous taxpayer bailout, they have been dragging their feet on paying back the money.  In Taiwan, AIG has flailed repeated in what should have been an easy sale of its local insurance unit, called Nan Shan.  Most recently, AIG inexplicably chose the low bidder in a deal that Taiwanese regulators may have to reject for the second time.  This is no way to run a company, unless you aren’t worried about the bottom line because you are owned and backed by the U.S. government.  The American taxpayer owns 92% of AIG but has no say in its decision-making process.

Last year, AIG CEO Robert Benmoche said, “I’m confident you’re going to get your money back plus a profit.”  But today, AIG remains one of the largest debtors under the TARP bailout program.  The Taiwan example may be the perfect illustration for why they haven’t been able to pay the U.S. taxpayer back.  As part of AIG’s original agreement with the U.S. government, it is required to sell off their assets.  U.S. regulators assumed that meant they would sell them to the highest bidder.  Since AIG is using our money, they have a responsibility to the American taxpayer to take the best price they can get, right?  Well, not really.  The financial wizards at AIG took the 4th highest price for their Taiwanese unit and left $800 million on the table.

AIG’s incompetence is on prominent display in Asia — and the Obama administration and Congress seem not to care.  In its first go-round, which began in May of 2009, AIG tried to sell Nan Shan to a consortium consisting of a battery manufacturer with operations in mainland China and a Hong Kong-based venture capital group.  Included in the consortium were people with official positions bestowed by the Chinese Communist Party.  Astonishingly, it didn’t occur to AIG that this might be a sensitive issue for Taiwanese regulators.  The deal was announced in September of 2009 and rejected the following summer by overseers.  But few people outside of AIG’s executive suite were surprised.

Round two does not appear to be going any better for the bailed out company.  Just last month, AIG chose a supermarket operator named Ruentex from 4 different bidders who wanted to buy their Taiwan business.  You’d think AIG would prefer a finance company be owned by a company with finance experience, right?  More stunningly, AIG reportedly left almost $1 billion sitting on the table—money that rightly belongs to U.S. taxpayers – in the deal.  They reportedly passed over three would-be buyers, offering up to $3 billion for Nan Shan, in order to take a $2.2 billion offer from a company that sells more wontons than insurance policies.  It’s no wonder AIG needed a bailout. 

The outcome, which surprised not only onlookers in Taiwan, but Wall Street analysts in New York, continues to defy serious explanation.  AIG claims the Ruentex offer was the most credible and best overall.  But the deal seems suspect.  Obama’s Treasury Department and Congress should be asking some serious questions.  But the Obama team hasn’t even instructed our de-facto embassy in Taipei to talk to the Taiwanese government about the U.S. interest the deal.  This means, nobody is watching what AIG is doing.  But since AIG is gambling with our money, someone in Washington should start asking some tough questions.

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jane harman should resign already

Today’s Washington Post calls out Jane Harman for missing 43 votes this year alone.  While Jane gives no excuse for why she isn’t showing up, she continues to collect her government salary and pension anyway.  Jane announced she is leaving Congress after 33 days of her 2 year commitment but said she would serve until March 1st.  Now word comes she isn’t even serving during this transition period.

Jane’s friend Kitty Felde, from the local NPR affiliate KPCC, has poked fun at people who are trying to get Millionaire Harman to pay for the special election she has created.  Harman, afterall, is worth millions of dollars and her husband owns Newsweek.  Kitty lives in Washington, DC and so we’re not surprised she doesn’t get the outrage we are feeling in the South Bay over being taken advantage of by a millionaire who resigned after telling us she would serve 2 years. Kitty and the rest of the LA media should find out if Jane is spending time at her new job while collecting taxpayer dollars.  In fact, the Woodrow Wilson Center should come clean and tell us when they started negotiating with Jane for their top job.  Additionally, the Woodrow Wilson Center should let us know if Jane has been showing up in their offices over the last few weeeks while collecting her Congressional salary.

When the Washington Post notices your absence, shouldn’t the LA media?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022408074..html

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susan rice skips un meeting on libya violence

At great personal risk to himself and his family, Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, pushed the UN Security Council to take up the violence in his home country.  Dabbashi said he could no longer support the regime of his boss Moammar Gadhafi and stepped out to condemn what he called “a genocide”.  The dramatic event prompted the first UN meeting of the 15 member Security Council on the uprisings sweeping across the region since the beginning of Tunisia’s revolution, Egypt’s violence and the developing protests in Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine and Iran. 

The United States was represented by Foreign Service officer and Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo.  The Obama Administration’s appointed Ambassador, Susan Rice, skipped the Libya meeting and instead flew to South Africa to attend a UN panel discussion on global sustainability.

Missing the only Security Council meeting on the Middle East revolution was not Rice’s first absence from high profile UN business.  Rice was absent when the UN held an emergency Security Council meeting on Israel’s raid of a ship headed to Gaza and when Iran was elected to the UN Women’s Commission.  Rice also failed to speak out when Libya was elected to the UN Human Rights Council in May 2010. 

While Rice was traveling to South Africa, the State Department ordered Embassy family members, non-essential personnel and other Americans out of Libya.  The evacuation of roughly 600 Americans is being done via ferry from Libya to the small island of Malta.  The urgent evacuation coincided with more violence and bloodshed and emphasized the seriousness of the developing situation.  Human Rights Watch reported that at least 230 people have been killed in the fighting while Italy’s government puts the number at 1,000.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the bloodshed “completely unacceptable” and said that the U.S. will take “appropriate steps” to deal with the escalating situation.  Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-MA, called for strong action by the United Nations Security Council.  “While it’s true that America has less influence in Tripoli than elsewhere in the region, we’re not without options, particularly in partnership with the broader international community,” Kerry said.  Secretary Clinton also called for the U.S. “to work in concert with the international community.”  But the directives from Kerry and Clinton were ignored by the U.S. Ambassador to the UN who failed to attend the meeting and rally the world body.

Rice’s prioritization of the global sustainability meeting over the Libyan crisis sent a terrible signal to American allies at the UN.  Rice’s absence was not lost on foreign ambassadors and highlighted the inconsistencies of the Obama Administration’s handling of the Middle East crises.  One Arab diplomat told me, “Egypt’s violence could hardly be compared to Tripoli’s but the (administration’s) reaction was much harsher.  We aren’t sure what Washington is thinking.  Ambassador DiCarlo was very strong but more needs to be done.” 

Rice’s interest in South Africa was highlighted in a wiki leak produced cable from November 3, 2009.  U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Donald Gips mentioned Rice’s interest in hosting an event with South Africa during his first courtesy call meeting with Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane in Pretoria.  Ambassador Gips noted that “US UN Ambassador Susan Rice would like to host the Minister for an event when she next visits New York.”   Now Rice can deliver the message in person.  State Department sources tell me she will have a courtesy call with Minister Mashabane while in town for the global sustainability discussion.  Rice will also speak to the international Chamber of Commerce before heading home to Washington.  Rice’s spokesman said the Ambassador will use her travels as an opportunity to ask South African business and civic leaders to serve as an example by speaking out when they see oppression and brutality.  But Rice would be more effective at this time asking South Africa to facilitate such actions back home and staying in New York to push the UN to take the strongest stands possible.

Meantime, the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva, where Libya is a member, today struggled to issue a condemnation on the Libya violence.  The draft HRC statement is being watered down by Cuba, Russia and China and may not even pass.  If Susan Rice felt the need to travel, she should have flown to Geneva to lobby the UN Human Rights Council not to South Africa to speak on a panel discussion about global sustainability.

The escalating violence in Libya and throughout the region has also spiked oil prices for Americans and given the crisis a blatant U.S. economic angle.  Daniel O’Connell, vice president of energy at MF Global, said if gas prices continue to accelerate ahead of May, when “driving season” picks up, “it will cripple the economy.”  Rice’s absence from the UN meeting neglects not only an events-changing revolution and unspeakable violence, but also an issue that will impact Americans’ pocketbooks.  She belongs in New York, not South Africa.

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hillary’s advocate

The Advocate’s cover story by Kerry Eleveld on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is riddled with inaccuracies, hype and spin.  Eleveld’s piece and The Advocate’s continuous partisan political coverage contributes to the erroneous and dangerous assumption that all Democrats are good and all Republicans are bad on LGBT issues.  Eleveld failed to quote one single dissenting opinion from the spin Clinton staffers spun her.  While there is no question that Clinton has built on the changes made by Secretary Condi Rice for LGBT staffers at State (and should be applauded for that progress), the premise that the Bush State Department team was hostile and the Clinton team has done all it can do is flat wrong.  A more nuanced and balanced piece would have given it greater credibility.   

Here are a few of the facts you didn’t get from Eleveld.  I feel compelled to correct the record:

- Clinton has the same stance on gay marriage as Rice and Dick Cheney.  Eleveld’s excuse-making for Clinton’s stance by saying “she wasn’t taking any political bait” or was trying not to cross her boss is ironic given that Bush Administration officials were not allowed the same courtesy or treatment for their differing views.

- Changes to passport regulations for transgendered people were designed and begun under Bush and Rice.  DAS Brenda Sprague says it but Eleveld gives Clinton the credit.  Eleveld’s use of the word “apparently” to refer to this fact is offensive to those of us who worked at State under Bush and made progress on LGBT issues.  Give credit where credit is due.

- Mark Bromley is a Democrat who worked for liberal Senator Russ Feingold.  His characterization of his conversation with an unnamed Bush Administration official three years ago is presented without evidence because it isn’t true.  Eleveld failed to check the facts on his assertions.

- Pat Kennedy is a friend of mine whom I have worked closely with for several years.  While I fought to make changes at State during the Bush years to extend certain rights and privileges for my partner, Kennedy was part of the team that stonewalled and ultimately denied my repeated demands and ignored my follow–up requests.  It’s also important to note that neither Bromley nor any other LGBT activist helped my cause at the time.

- Eleveld’s characterization of Clinton’s weak Ugandan response is laughable and defies logic.  Clinton’s State Department handled the Ugandan situation as Rice’s State Department handled most every LGBT issue that arose in Africa – through quiet diplomacy as not to offend another government.  To subscribe pure motives to Clinton’s hushed strategy but not to Rice’s is fantasy and beguiles decades of State Department practices.  Cheryl Mills may think back-channeling is something new but I can assure you it is not.

- Highlighting the fact that Clinton knew a staffer’s name carrying her bags for a week hardly seems remarkable or note worthy.  The story was gratuitous.

- Claiming that the highest ranking openly gay official under Clinton is a deputy assistant secretary level employee is embarrassing given the premise of the article and the excuse making Eleveld does for Clinton’s failed promise to appoint one person to her senior team to cover LGBT issues.  Rice’s State Department had higher ranking openly gay officials than this State Department has.  They were just never highlighted by The Advocate.

Over the last months, conservatives have complained to The Advocate for its inaccurate and glowing coverage of Obama Administration official Susan Rice, its lack of coverage of John Bolton’s support for DADT and gay marriage, and it’s whitewashing of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s failed 2 years of dominance.  The Advocate has never responded to the questions raised. 

This past week, singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins three times reached out to The Advocate to highlight the gay conservative group GOProud’s event in Washington, DC where Hawkins performed.  All phone calls and emails from Hawkins and her team were systematically and completely ignored.  This disregard for conservative activism by Advocate staffers has sadly been the norm and only further distorts the political problems LGBT people face.  It’s time The Advocate stop painting Democrats with a perfect brush and start highlighting the efforts of gay conservatives working to limit government’s involvement in LGBT people’s lives.  Haven’t the last 2 years of total Democratic domination in Washington proven that the recycled stories and tired headlines of how wonderful Democrats have been on LGBT issues are wrong?

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susan rice fails to convince the palestinians and offers a rebuke to israel

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice announced to the UN’s Arab group that she will support their statement condemning Israel for its settlement construction after failing to convince the group to support her language.  Rice previously offered the Arab group a plethora of U.S. government compromises in exchange for different language – language they rejected outright.  The Arab group immediately responded to her acquiescence by announcing that they will turn the statement she is supporting into a legally binding and more serious UN resolution to be voted on soon.  Rice’s failed UN engagement strategy highlights the dangerous slippery slope of bringing delicate foreign policy crises to the 15 member Security Council.  Her actions also perilously miss the message of Egypt’s protesters who are demanding economic reform from their dormant and manipulative leaders.

The incentives Rice offered the Arab Ambassadors at the UN included a harsh condemnation of the Israeli settlements in a future statement from the mid-east Quartet negotiators (comprising of the U.S., UN, Russia and the EU) and an official UN organized tour of the Middle East.  But as foreign policy experts hail the region’s recent democracy movement and its’ “Berlin Wall moment”, Rice is at the UN agreeing to condemn the Middle East’s strongest democratic government.   

Over the last several days Rice has been negotiating with Lebanon, the UN Security Council’s Arab Group representative, to find settlement language acceptable to both sides.  But after offering her compromises, Rice agreed to language saying the U.S. “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity” and that the settlements are “a serious obstacle to the peace process.”  The agreement sharply diverges from previous U.S. government statements insisting that the Israelis and the Palestinians negotiate directly to decide for themselves what issues are obstacles to peace.  Shouldn’t we spend what little political capital we have left pressuring both sides to sit down face to face?

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) called Rice’s compromise “too clever by half”.  Weiner said, “Instead of doing the correct and principled thing and vetoing an inappropriate and wrong resolution, they now have opened the door to more and more anti-Israeli efforts coming to the floor of the U.N.”

Arab experts have long believed that Americans need to re-think their relationship with Israel in order to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict.  But with the youth revolution moving quickly throughout the Middle East, it is the traditional Arabists who are scrambling to understand the largely peaceful and economically driven coups on non-democratic regimes.  Arab leaders have consistently framed the Palestinian-Israeli issue as an Arab-Israeli issue.  They have spent considerable capital trying to convince their publics and Americans that Israeli settlements and Palestinian border issues are the highest priority issues for Arab youth throughout the region.

But the recent tumult in Tunisia and Egypt have proven that Arab youth, like their counterparts in America and elsewhere, want economic freedom and good paying jobs first and foremost.  Arabs want and deserve economic and political freedom.  And the silent majority must have a stronger voice than the loud radicals trying to take advantage of the current chaos.  Washington must stand solidly with the strongest democracy in the region, Israel, and make clear that economic freedom, individual human rights and security are our priority goals. 

To understand why her UN engagement strategy was destined to fail, Susan Rice only needs to watch the news to grasp the universality of the impassioned people pleading for greater freedom in the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Bahrain and even Palestine.  Maybe then she wouldn’t fall for the canard we consistently hear at the UN that if we could only settle the Israeli problem then all would be right in the region.  America should be standing with the Arab youth demanding an end to the status quo.  Rice’s actions play into the hands of the self-interested leadership and their UN based support system hoping it all stays the same.  If the Arab group brings forward their promised resolution, the U.S. will have to decide if it will veto the resolution or not.  The predicament the U.S. finds itself in is much of Rice’s own making.

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sign the petition to tell millionaire jane harman to pay for the special election she created

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/janeharman

Former Representative Jane Harman was the second-wealthiest member of the United States Congress, with a fortune estimated at nearly $300 million. And yet she served only 33 days of a 730 day commitment after winning re-election in November 2010.

Now, California voters will be forced to foot the bill for a special election – at a price tag in the millions of dollars. She hasn’t been upfront about when she started looking for a new job and it seems unlikely she didn’t know she’d be leaving Congress before the election.

Why should Californians pay for her cavalier attitude towards public service?

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joe biden on the wrong side of middle east history

George W. Bush must be smiling. It started with Afghanistan, then Iraq, Tunisia and now Egypt. The Arab youth are defying Joe Biden and the rest of the American foreign policy “establishment” and proving that their demands are legitimate. Egyptian students, doctors, lawyers and the unemployed are showing that democracy is attainable for the Middle East and that Arabs, too, deserve to live in freedom and prosperity. Tunisia’s revolution was quick, Egypt’s was forceful and resolute. All eyes are on Algeria, Palestine, Yemen and Jordan whose youth seem to be simmering in the same way. Like it or not, George Bush was right and Joe Biden was wrong. President George W. Bush’s vision for democracy in the Middle East may be coming true. Bush spoke often about how generations of committed freedom fighters worked together to bring down Communism throughout Eastern Europe. And Bush used it as an example to suggest that the Middle East could also experience the same freedoms. It seems ironic that the same month in which we celebrate President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday and his forceful demands in Berlin to the Communist leader to “Tear down this Wall”, the Obama Administration missed the chance to support the Middle East’s Berlin moment. President Obama’s flowery Cairo speech in June 2009 tried to carry Bush’s vision for the region forward but subsequently failed to deliver any White House support for the democracy seekers in Iran, Tunisia or Egypt when they needed it. One Arab diplomat on Twitter said today, “President of the free world to speak about freedom from tyranny today at 1:30. You’re 17 days late Mr. President.” When the Egypt protests started eighteen days ago, Vice President Biden immediately took to the airwaves to question the legitimacy of the protesters, claim that Mubarack was not a dictator and to de-link the situation in Tunisia from what was beginning to happen in Cairo. JIM LEHRER: Some people are suggesting that we may be seeing the beginning of a kind of domino effect, similar to what happened after the Cold War in Eastern Europe. Poland came first, then Hungary, East Germany. We have got Tunisia, as you say, maybe Egypt, who knows. Do you smell the same thing coming? JOE BIDEN: No, I don’t. I wouldn’t compare the two……I think it’s a stretch to compare it to Eastern Europe. And later in the PBS interview… JIM LEHRER: The word — the word to describe the leadership of Mubarak and Egypt and also in Tunisia before was dictator. Should Mubarak be seen as a dictator? JOE BIDEN: ….I would not refer to him as a dictator. JIM LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, should we be — should the United States be encouraging these protesters, whether they’re in Tunisia or Egypt or wherever? They want their rights. And should we encourage them to seek them, if it means going to the streets or whatever? JOE BIDEN: …We’re encouraging the protesters to, as they assemble, do it peacefully. And we’re encouraging the government to act responsibly and to try to engage in a discussion as to what the legitimate claims being made are, if they are, and try to work them out. Watching the thousands of young people take to the streets throughout the Middle East to demand government reforms and greater freedoms is inspiring. The Vice President must be embarrassed by today’s remarkable change in Egypt since he was the first Administration official to take to the airwaves to try and hold up Egypt’s Berlin Wall. The historic departure of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the thousands of Arab youth in the streets of the Middle East just isn’t Change Biden can believe in.

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multi millionaire jane harman should pay for the special election she is creating

The idea that Jane Harman is quitting Congress because she is a frustrated moderate is absurd.  Harman is worth an estimated $300 million and so she thinks she can dine and dash at taxpayers’ expense.  She has been missing in action from our 36th district for years.  She didn’t hold a single public forum before the government healthcare vote despite her constituents’ pleadings and protests.  She has consistently ignored the people of the South Bay and is only seen when there is an election at hand.  Harman has been aloof and disconnected for years.   

She quit Congress because the Democrats were no longer in control and millionaires don’t like to toil away in the minority.  Why would she run for a new term if she really had no intention of finishing it?  What changed so abruptly?  Lee Hamilton announced May 3, 2010 that he would be leaving the Woodrow Wilson Center job that Harman is now taking.  Harman and the Woodrow Wilson Center should come clean on exactly when their conversation started.  If it is found that Harman was already making inquiries to take the Center’s top job before her November election then she owes the voters an apology.  Harman resigning a few weeks in to a two year term is offensive to the voters.  In fact, Harman served all of 33 days of her 730 day commitment before announcing her departure – that’s a cost to taxpayers of $126,575.34 of wasted time when you figure her annual office budget is $1.4 million. 

Sadly, we are not surprised by her lack of respect for us – it’s been a pattern.  Millionaire politicians think they can do what they want without facing the consequences of their actions.  Unfortunately, Los Angeles taxpayers also have to foot the million dollar special election bill to pay for Harman’s selfishness.  Harman should pay for the election to fill her vacancy with her personal fortune and reimburse the taxpayers for her ego-centric decision.  After all, Harman can afford it; Los Angeles taxpayers already have a huge budget deficit.

The person who replaces Harman should be someone with real world experience, not some re-cycled politician with tired ideas seeking higher office and creating more special elections.  Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen are career politicians that have been so unimpressive that it would be a mistake for voters to send them to Washington.  Hahn helped create the financial mess that Los Angeles finds itself in and Bowen hasn’t produced the changes at the DMV she promised.  Why send uninspiring bureaucrats to do the same thing in Congress?  We’ve seen what they deliver and we should say, “No thanks.” 

Isn’t there someone in the South Bay that knows how to balance a budget and make the necessary tough decisions that we expect of our representatives?  Is there someone in the 36th District that could bring new ideas to Washington without maneuvering for their next gig?  How about we find someone that will also come back home to the South Bay after serving and live under the same laws that they helped create?  Thomas Jefferson is asking for someone to stand up – and the voters are asking the same ‘ole politicians to sit down.

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huffpost purchased by aol

The Huffington Post may have been founded as the liberal answer to the conservative Drudge Report, a place for progressive wound-licking in the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election.

But on Monday, Arianna Huffington was distancing herself from the lefty label as she announced the sale of HuffPost to AOL for $315 million.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49006.html#ixzz1DJSx7nLn

Arianna Huffington is pictured. | AP Photo

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