Frost/Nixon Interviews: Full Interview About Watergate

Source:The New Democrat

I covered this last week, but the White House coverup of Watergate was about ending a story that the Nixon White House thought could explode in their faces. Which was an attempted burglary of Democratic National Headquarters. Even though the President, Vice President or White House Chief of Staff weren’t directly involved in the operation. But they were worried that this story would play in the media as if the Nixon Campaign in 1972 was involved in the Watergate burglary. When what they should’ve done was to say, “here’s this local Washington burglary of Democratic National Headquarters, lets let the Washington Police handle it. Because we’re not involved.”

Had Richard Nixon had a sounder more sober mind, not as far as intelligence, because he was really a brilliant man and perhaps the smartest president we’ve ever had, but a more sober mind in the sense that he could see things for what they are and act accordingly, he would’ve said, “Watergate is not our problem. And even if some of our people on the campaign are involved in it, the police will find those people and act accordingly.” Now President Nixon didn’t know that his own Attorney General John Mitchell was involved in Watergate. And I and others believed he ordered the operation when he was running the reelection campaign. But again the police would’ve figured that out and the President would’ve fired him.

But that is not what President Nixon and his White House team did. They played it like they were ones who not only knew about the Watergate operation, but ordered it. They acted as if they were the criminals in this story and because of their behavior they became the criminals and defendants in this story. All of the career lawyers and some of them former prosecutors who became defendants in this case and did time in prison. Like John Erlichman, John Dean, Chuck Colson and perhaps some others. Instead of just letting the story play to its natural conclusion and moving on with the business of the country.

AEI: Arthur Brooks & Robert Doar: Welfare Reform & Lessons From The United Kingdom

Source:The New Democrat

I don’t agree with U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions on much if anything. But C-SPAN was covering the Senate Budget Committee markup yesterday and I saw part of that as the committee was voting on amendments to Senate Republicans budget plan for this year. Senator Sessions Republican from Alabama had a Welfare amendment to the Republican budget. And his basic point which I think is sound was that its been about twenty-years since Congress passed Welfare Reform. And twenty years since they worked on major reforms to our social insurance system. And its time for Congress to reexamine our federal Welfare programs.

When Republicans won back the House of Representatives in 2010 and took over in 2011 there was that famous Ryan budget. Offered by Representative Paul Ryan then Chairman of the House Budget Committee and now he’s Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. A big part of House Republicans deficit reduction strategy had to do with the American safety net. They argued that since the Great Recession America has spent billions of dollars on our public assistance programs. And these programs have grown so much in size and since we now have this deficit and debt, its time to cut back on them. Of course not realizing or acknowledging that the reason for the growth in those programs has to do the Great Recession itself. Not because Americans have quit work to jump on Welfare.

I’m all for reducing the size and need of our social insurance system. But you don’t do that by cutting and running or slashing and burning. You just make the problems worst and make people desperate who are simply looking to survive. What you do is you move those people off the those programs and into the workforce with good jobs. You make work pay and pay more than not working and that means increasing the minimum wage for workers and making that higher than what would someone get whose on Welfare and is not working. You don’t just make education and job training available for low-income workers and non-workers. But you make them requirements that if you’re on Welfare that part of what you’re going to do while you’re on Welfare is finish your education. Whether you’re working or not.

The way to reduce Welfare spending is to have fewer people in poverty. You do that by having a larger middle class and more people who are economically independent. That comes through things like more economic development and infrastructure investment in low-income communities. Education and job training for low-income workers and non-workers. Making work pay and pay than not working. Increasing today’s minimum wage for workers and applying the old minimum wage to non-workers on Welfare. Which will send a great message to people especially with kids. That they can make more money working than not working even at service jobs and still collect the public assistance they need. Including education to be able to move up and get out of poverty. That is how you reform Welfare.

Secular Talk: Senator Tom Cotton First U.S. Senate Floor Speech

Source:The New Democrat

I saw about twenty-minutes of Senator Tom Cotton’s first U.S. Senate floor speech. (Thank God for C-SPAN) And twenty-minutes was about all as I could take from the freshman Senator, who sounded like a freshman in his first ever Senate speech. You would think a military veteran who served in the Iraq War, would have a hell of a lot more intelligence and knowledge about American foreign policy and national security. But maybe that is a topic of a different debate. But his first speech was about American foreign policy and national security. Which is perfectly legitimate especially from a military veteran. But all he had I guess thanks to the Heritage Foundation, was neoconservative talking points. Which I’m about to get into.

I’ve argued before that the Neoconservative is not conservative. Conservatives move cautiously and shows a lot of restraint, especially fiscally. One of the big points about being conservative is that you move, you know conservatively. The Neoconservative is right-wing Utopian. With all sorts of grand utopian ideas about how how great the world would be if America just ran it. And tends to see money as no object that their grand world strategy is such a wonderful thing that you don’t even have to pay for it. Because if anything it will pay for itself. The Iraq War and the Afghanistan War are excellent examples of that. For the first time America decided not to pay for its war operations upfront. And we’ve paid for it ever since on our national debt card.

The Neoconservative judges military strength by the size of the military budget. Doesn’t sound very conservative does it. That the more you spend on your military the stronger your military is. That it is not about what you spend when it comes to your military budget and what you spend it on and what you get from that spending, but how much you spend. And the Neoconservative also judges military strength by the size of the military budget in relation of gross national product. So the Neoconservative would say, “ten years ago we spend six-percent of our GDP on the military and now we spend 3.8%. So based on that our military is now weaker, because the budget is smaller.” Instead of judging the military by the capability of the military. What we are capable of doing now, as opposed to back when. Are we stronger and more capable in these areas, based on what we are actually able to do.

Senator John McCain, whose also a military veteran and a decorated one, is called and criticized by the Left, especially the Far-Left as a Neoconservative on foreign policy. And part of that is accurate as for as his belief in the use of force and military strength. But one of the reasons why he has so much bipartisan respect in Congress and on the outside is because he’s also one of the first members of Congress to point out military waste in the budget. Like when a senator or representative sticks in funding for a plane that can’t fly, that the military didn’t ask for, he’ll point that out and even name the member who put in that amendment on the Senate floor. That is why he can get away with a lot of his neo-con positions on the military, because he’s someone who knows what he’s talking about.

According to the Neoconservative, there’s no such thing as military waste. That every part of the military budget is sacrosanct. And even if there’s something not working properly with the military budget, it’s because its underfunded. I mean they almost sound like Social Democrats or Socialists even when it comes to how they prioritize the spending that they love. If a public school is not working well, or a social program is not performing well, the Socialist will automatically say, “it’s because its underfunded. That if we just spend more money on it and raise taxes that will fix the program.” The Neoconservative takes that same logic, but implies it to military spending instead of social welfare spending.

Just look at Senator Cotton’s speech and I suggest you watch the whole thing. That you could do either on C-SPAN’s website or go to the Senator’s website and you could watch it there. He goes through the military budget and how little we are spending here and there. And as a result we are now weaker when it comes to our national defense. Because back in the day we spent more money on this defense program or that one. According to Senator Cotton, instead of laying how capable we are here and there and what are military is physically capable of doing now. I’m sure a lot of Neoconservatives love him, Dick Cheney and others may encourage him to run for president in 2020. But that is not how you judge government budgets military or otherwise. You judge them based on capability and results. Not by how much you spend.

Frost/Nixon The Complete Interviews: Foreign Policy

Source:The New Democrat

The real genius of the Nixon Presidency was the foreign policy. President Nixon and his National Security Director, could simply see things happening twenty-years in advance. I don’t believe we’ve ever had two people that high up in the U.S. Government that knew so much about foreign policy and national security than Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. But President George H.W. Bush and his National Security Adviser, perhaps come close. Nixon/Kissinger, looked at both the world that they wanted and the world the way it was. And based on those two things tried to make the world as safe as possible.

Nixon/Kissinger, saw the Soviet Union, a country back then of around four-hundred-million people and physically the largest country in the world and the People’s Republic of China, already with a billion people back then and physically the fourth largest country in the world, just behind the United States, as trading partners. Even though we were enemies with both of them. But they believed the way you get bad guys to behave well is for their people to see what your country has to offer and how other countries govern themselves. I don’t believe the democratic awakening in the Slavic States in Eastern Europe like Poland happens in the late 1970s and 80s, without Russia being opened up in the early 1970s.

Nixon/Kissinger saw a day without the Soviet Union in the early 1970s. It happened twenty-years later, but they saw the end of the Soviet Union by the early 1970s. And wanted to open a relationship and dialogue between the two government’s and people’s before that day came and if anything to speed up that transition. While everyone else Left and Right was talking about containment of Russia in the early 1970s, President Nixon was interested in actually defeating Russian communism politically and economically. Let the Russian people know how bad their form of government and economic system is. And give them incentive to look at other systems around the world.

Ronald Reagan did not win the Cold War. No one President can win a war like that by themselves. President Reagan presided over the end of the Cold War in the 1980s and put in policies to see that happen. Like continuing with the military buildup, which actually started under President Gerald Ford and continued with President Jimmy Carter. And with the nuclear arms agreements with Russia. And with President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, putting in economic polices to move Russia passed Marxism economically.

The ending of the Cold War started under the President Nixon. And even Russia did have a military buildup in the late 1970s and were on the move in the Middle East and Central Asia, like in Afghanistan, they weren’t economically strong enough to sustain that. Their economy was already collapsing then because they were spending so much on defense and were going through economic shortages as a result. Not saying that President saw all of this happening, but opening up a country that huge and letting their people see your country, gave the Russian people a chance to see what a wealthy free country looks like. And President Nixon and Henry Kissinger deserve a lot of credit for that.

Frost/Nixon The Complete Interviews: Watergate

Source:The New Democrat

Richard Nixon being the very smart if not brilliant politician that he was, knew about the dangers of Watergate as soon as he heard about it and what the burglars were breaking in to. I mean think about it, you have Republican operatives who are at the very least connected with the Nixon reelection campaign accused of breaking in to the Democratic National Headquarters. Richard Nixon is President of the United States at the time of course and obviously a Republican, so of course the media is going to want to know what involvement did the Nixon White House have if any in the burglary.

So what President Nixon wanted to do at least early in the story, was to get the story finished and over with. So no one could make it look like someone in the White House ordered the operation, especially the President. And that the Nixon Campaign wasn’t breaking into Democratic Headquarters illegally to steal information and use it against the George McGovern Campaign. President Nixon saw Watergate as a time bomb that could blow up his reelection campaign and turn what was a runaway blowout victory, into a close election with Senator McGovern and perhaps even hurt his presidency.

So when President Nixon tells his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman to tell the FBI, “not to go into Watergate any further, period”, he was trying to put an end to the story and get the country passed Watergate and back to the issues that his administration was focusing on. And his reelection campaign and back on pace to his forty-nine state victory and winning 3-5 of the popular vote in 1972. The facts are, Watergate didn’t hurt President Nixon at all in 1972. Its early 1973 when Watergate becomes a big story and when Congress gets involved in it starting in the Senate with their bipartisan investigation of the story in the summer of 1973.

The Washington Post led by Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were focused on Watergate from the beginning. And to a certain extent CBS News and The New York Times. But The Post was really where the action was in this story from the beginning. And when they started breaking stories and getting hard information about the story, the other major national news organizations, network news and the papers and Congress as well started looking into this story. And the more facts that came out about it and the fact that the White House was trying to cover it up, the worst President Nixon looked.

The American Mind: Charles Kesler Interviewing Francis Fukuyama: The Meaning of Life

Source:The New Democrat

There’s an obvious reason why people from at best developing countries, but in some cases come from countries where the economy is barely moving at all and come to America or Canada and Europe to a certain extent, but generally America. Because they want a quality life for themselves and their kids if they have any. They are looking to escape poverty or authoritarianism and in come cases both. And live in freedom and have the opportunity to build good lives for themselves and their children. Which I think is one of the points that Frank Fukuyama was making here.

You don’t many people emigrating from free developed countries, to move to some place where they won’t be able to find a job. Or if can get a job it would be less than what a minimum wage worker would work for in America. Or because they are trying to escape freedom of speech and assembly, or believe they have too much privacy. They in a lot of cases are tying to escape countries where they don’t have those things at all, like in the Middle East to be able to live in a country where they can have basic levels of freedom and human rights at least. And the opportunity to build a good life for themselves.

That is a big reason why America has ten-fifteen-million illegal immigrants in America and why we take in somewhere around a million new legal immigrants each year. Because there are so many people around world and not just in Latin America, but Africa, Middle East, Asia and yes still Europe, people who want to move to America to build good lives for themselves and their families. They aren’t looking escape freedom and a middle class way of life to live in poverty and under a superstate that is going to try to manage their own affairs for them. But to live in a country where they can do those things for themselves.

U.S. News: Peter Fenn: 'The Rapid Radicalization of the Republican Party'

Source:U.S. News- U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (Republican, Ohio) one of the members of the Tea Party Caucus, in the House of Representatives.

Source:The New Democrat

"This is a blog, not a history lesson. But I can’t resist trying to make some sense of the current Republican desire for self-immolation.

Where has this so-called “Hell No Caucus” come from? Whether it is refusing to pass bills to fund the government, approve increases in the debt ceiling or provide money for the Department of Homeland Security, the Republican Party has an increasingly apparent and growing antagonism to pragmatic solutions. It has drifted so far right that it is truly in danger of self-destruction. As New York Republican Rep. Peter King, put it on ABC’s “This Week,” “[T]here’s a wing within the Congress which is absolutely irresponsible – they have no concept of reality.” Speaking with MSNBC’s Luke Russert on Friday, he added, “I’ve had it with this self-righteous, delusional wing of the party.” 

From U.S. News

If it wasn’t for the fact that John Boehner had a choice in whether or not to run for House Minority Leader back in late 2006 after Congressional Democrats won back the House and Senate and then later run for Speaker of the House in 2010 after House Republicans won back the House, I would probably feel sorry for the man. Because he’s the head, but not leading a caucus of Republicans that doesn’t believe in governing. They believe in their principles and their tactics and their ideas and anything less than that is worse than actually governing and moving the ball forward on whatever the issue is at the time.

The House Republican Conference, which is what House Republicans call their team in the House, Democrats call their team the Democratic Caucus, but the HRC especially its Tea Party and Republican Study Committee are the main reasons why Congress doesn’t work. Not the only reasons, plenty of issues over in the Senate especially in previous Congress’s, where Senate Democrats would bring their own bills to the floor that generally wouldn’t even go though committee and Leader Harry Reid would bring them to the floor and not allow amendments. At least not any Republican amendments because Leader Reid didn’t want his members vote on things that could hurt them in their reelection campaigns. And as a result Senate Republicans led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would simply block from consideration anything that Senate Democrats would try to pass themselves.

But House Republicans would say they passed all of these bills over in the House and say they did their jobs. Not mentioning that most of the legislation they passed was passed with mostly Republican votes without any Democratic input and would even lose several of their own members on their bills. And a lot of the stuff they would pass like having to do with the Affordable Care Act and cutting benefits there to pass other things wouldn’t even get a vote in the Senate because Senate Democrats would view it as unacceptable. And all these crisis’ would develop because House Republicans would pass their own bills and think everything they did was all the work they needed to do. And when the crisis is broken in the Senate thanks to Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell with a compromise from both sides, they would pass it and send it back to the House and House Republicans would say, “hell no!” Because it isn’t their bill.

The 2011 debt ceiling crisis where House Republicans attached an ObamaCare rider to the debt ceiling increase is a perfect example of that. The so-called fiscal cliff in 2012-13 where House Republicans wouldn’t accept any tax cut extension that had any increases on the top tax rate, even if the bill extends tax cuts for everyone else in the country. They would’ve rather have seen tax cuts expire on everyone, than to see tax rates on the top go up. Then go up to the government shut down in the fall of 2013 where the government is shut down for a month. Because House Republicans wouldn’t pass a budget and the appropriations unless the Affordable Care Act was repealed. And the last almost government shutdown involving Homeland Security, where House Republicans attached an immigration rider involving President Obama’s executive order on immigration.

The Tea Party Caucus or the Republican Study Committee there, looks like to me anyway the audience of right-wing if not Far-Right talk radio in America and the publications and blogs that they follow. These people don’t believe in governing or government. At least not divided government, which means if they don’t get their way all the way all the time, nobody gets anything. And as a result some crisis gets created because this group in the House won’t compromise. Which is how divided government works. You can say this all started the day that Barack Obama became President of the United States, a man this group and their followers I’m sure hates for obvious reasons, which I won’t get into. But they gave President George W. Bush headaches over things like immigration and education reform as well.

One might say that these Republicans would be better and more responsible if they had a united government. Republican President, with a Republican Congress both House and Senate. But as the early days of this new Republican Congress has started, controlling both the House and Senate instead of just the House hasn’t improved their ability to even pass basic bills that government has to have in order to function. Like Homeland Security and later we’ll see if House and Senate Republicans can come together and pass a federal budget on their own. Because House and Senate Democrats won’t work with them on that, if the Republican Leadership doesn’t work with them. Meaning both sides work together and pass a united budget, instead of one side agreeing to pass the other’s budget. Give Republicans the whole government and they’ll just fight among themselves. Creating a hell for a mainstream Republican President