GOP: It's Completely Different When We Do It, cont...

May 23rd, 2012

The recent decision by the Obama administration to grant a visa to Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of current Cuban strongman Raul Castro, allowing her to attend the Latin American Studies Association in San Francisco later this week where she is set to chair a panel on LGBT issues has set off a firestorm of indignation in GOP circles. It's quite the conniption.

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is "greatly distrubed."

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called it "outrageous and an enormous mistake." (Video HERE)

The ever-temperate Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) participated in an angry joint statement with fellow congressional Republicans and some Florida Democrats writing that "The State Department needs to wake up from its delusional love fest with the dictators in Havana. I urge them to immediately revoke these visas."

Ed Morrisey sees it as a possible tipping point that will send Florida to Romney in the general election:

"The Cuban-American community in Florida leans Republican, but they’re strongly anti-Castro. They won’t appreciate the decision by the Obama administration to give the dictator’s daughter a pass to the US, especially not for the purpose of politicking. Listening to lectures from the Castro family on the nature of political and cultural freedom is somewhat akin to having to sit through a seminar on graciousness by Morton Downey."

What's that you say? You've never heard of Mariela Castro Espín? That's funny because she came to the United States repeatedly under the last administration.

Where was the outrage then? There was none. Where were the screaming headlines on right wing blogs and breathless pronouncements of near-treason on Fox and talk radio? There weren't any.

It's always just "different" when they are in charge.

The Only Real Obama Administration Scandal

Jan 22rd, 2012
by F. Grey Parker

From day one, the GOP, the Fox News drones and the far right blogosphere have thrown a series of charges at the Obama Administration so manifestly ill-conceived that they are laughable upon strict scrutiny. Hundreds of hours have been spent on the "New Black Panther scandal," the "Fast and Furious scandal" and the "Solyndra scandal," just to name a few. In every case, the truth has been a far cry from the apoplectic insinuations hurled by the bottom-feeders.

This begs a question; why hasn't the only obvious and provable instance of high level corruption in this administration been addressed at all by the enemies of the President?

The answer is simple. It involves the Clinton State Department's handling of the Keystone XL proposal. We wrote about this last year HERE.

To sum up, one of Secretary Clinton's most trusted advisers poisoned the review process for a major foreign corporation's potentially hazardous use of American territory. This is a scandal which has everything:

Back room coaching of those the State Department is supposed to vet?
Check.

Lobbyists granted access to internal governmental operations?
Check.

Sweetheart relationships between foreign business interests and public servants who report directly to one of the most powerful people in modern government?
Check.

As the weeks have turned to months since I wrote about this last, this has begun to bother me a great deal.

Anyone who is familiar with my writing or activism knows that I support President Obama. I am not out to make him or his administration look bad. That said, this is basic stuff, the kind of stuff you dream of being able to use against your opposition.

If you are a junior-grade politician with half of a brain, you would know what to do with it.

Unless, of course, the people that are really in charge of every bloodthirsty, prevaricating and odious assault... have told you not to use it.

The GOP desperately needs to keep fighting on behalf of the Keystone XL issue.

It doesn't matter if you or I know that every pronouncement from them about the project's possible benefits is supreme bullshit. They don't care. The most powerful backers of the largest Republican sympathizing PACs have a vested interest in this one. Anything that might interfere with the GOP's slavish service to these puppet masters, even the only legitimate chance to undermine the current administration on the grounds of severe malfeasance, is off the table.

Remember this when Speaker Boehner comes out, very likely tomorrow, and tries to tie a resuscitation of the poisonous Keystone scheme to the passage of any piece of legislation that might actually benefit the United States of America.

Graft, Potential Catastrophe and The XL Extension

Oct 3rd, 2011
by F. Grey Parker

Throughout this past Summer, environmentalists protested the construction of an oil pipeline. 

So what? Right?

Most major media outlets portrayed the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline extension and the controversy surrounding it in just such an innocuous manner.

The failure to communicate with our citizens the scope of the project, the lack of transparency among the decision makers involved and the actual dangers posed by this industrial scheme run amok is staggering.