Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Putting the 'con' in conservative

I thought I was over being fascinated with the blindingly ignorant state that is today's conservative specifically, and conservatism in general. I was mistaken.

For Democrats, the 2012 presidential campaign has produced some delicious ironies. For starters, Mitt Romney's share of the final vote will come in at a memorable 47 percent, the same figure he used to disparage half the electorate as self-described "victims" bought off by "free stuff" and "gifts" from President Obama.
But for pure schadenfreude, nothing approaches the cosmic payback of the Republicans' self-delusion on Election Day. That is, while most polling analysts predicted a comfortable Electoral College triumph for Barack Obama on Nov. 6, by all indications Team Romney and the GOP brain trust truly believed their own cooked-up numbers. That's what makes their subsequent shock and awe at Romney's crushing defeat all the more fitting. Because after years of slandering President Obama and misleading voters with myths about taxes, debt, health care, Iraq and so much else, on Election Day Republicans duped only themselves.

What follows is a not-too-lengthy treatise on the self-delusion, also known as the 'bubble', that burst on the night of November 6, 2012. (Personally, I prefer Reality Derangement Syndrome, because it's quite obvious that they have not learned anything from their beating.)

Yes, we know all this, and we're also aware that the corporate media mostly ignored the story of the lies and the cons and the scams the GOP perpetrated on the nation as well as itself, but that's still a story all its own.

"I can't recall a campaign where I've seen more lying going on -- and it wasn't symmetric," said (Norman) Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who's been tracking Congress with Mann since 1978.
Democrats were hardly innocent, he said, "but it seemed pretty clear to me that the Republican campaign was just far more over the top."
Lies from Republicans generally and standard bearer Mitt Romney in particular weren't limited to the occasional TV ads, either; the party's most central campaign principles -- that federal spending doesn't create jobs, that reducing taxes on the rich could create jobs and lower the deficit -- willfully disregarded the truth.
"It's the great unreported big story of American politics," Ornstein said. "If voters are going to be able to hold accountable political figures, they've got to know what's going on ... And if the story that you're telling repeatedly is that they're all to blame -- they're all equally to blame -- then you're really doing a disservice to voters, and not doing what journalism is supposed to do."

So what's really new here? Why, it's the realization that the Republicans really are only in it for the money, even when the scam is being run on their own. That -- going all the way back to folks like Richard Viguerie and Ralph Reed and especially Pat Robertson -- the conservative movement has never actually been about running government but owning a profitable franchise based on fleecing the gullible. And the most gullible have in recent years trended toward the older, the poorly informed... in other words, the average Fox viewer.

You have to watch the following segment from Rachel Maddow to pull it all together.

 
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The only peoples' lives the conservative elite have ever wanted to help improve is their own, even -- perhaps especially -- at the expense of their political base. Disaster capitalism is practiced on their own kind, with efforts likely to intensify in the wake of their November shellacking. Even the industry that is cancer research is not immune to the maximization of profit for one's cronies.

The con jobs are prevalent and rapacious; the coming Texas legislative initiative to privatize public education -- coordinated by Dan Patrick and Michael Williams -- looks like child's play in comparison. Well, almost.

There will simply be no end to the greed and corruption of Republicans and conservatives using government for their own personal financial gain until enough people who vote for them begin to either wise up... or die off.

That, after all, is what's happening with the opponents of gay marriage and marijuana decriminalization, so there's hope for the future.

Update: Eye on Williamson with more, including some historical perspective on the phenomenon of conservative chain email fever dreams, running right up to the present day. Those bizarre conspiracy theories your uncle forwards you? A proud legacy that goes all the way back to the time when it was mostly dirty jokes that filled up your inbox.

Monday, December 10, 2012

No Noriega(s) for SD-6 *updated

The Colonel has opted out.

Rick Noriega, the former East Side state representative and 2008 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator, has announced he will not seek the District 6 state senate seat left vacant by the posthumous reelection of Mario Gallegos.

In a letter dated Saturday, Noriega writes that after discussing the opportunity with his family, “the time is not right to take on this race, and the fundraising needed, for the Noriega family.” His wife, Melissa Noriega, is serving her final term on Houston City Council.

Though Noriega did not join the battle between former Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia and State Rep. Carol Alvarado, he did not refrain from commenting on the tone of the campaign. (Republican R.W. Bray, who took 29 percent of the November vote, also is running again.) 

I'll excerpt a smaller bit of Noriega's letter than the Chron did.

Senate District 6 needs leadership, not a bitter battle for a plum elected office. You, as leaders, need to challenge the candidates to rise above self interest and put forth plans that create real change, real opportunity in SD6. 

That's a most interesting challenge. It could be in response to Marc Campos, who has a poll from Bob Stein at Rice indicating his client, Carol Alvarado, is leading a head-to-head matchup with a certain former Harris County commissioner. I'm hearing that there's a lot of back-channel rumor mongering and sniping, but haven't heard any directly.

Update (Tuesday 12/11): So much for that. Despite Noriega's call for civility, the gloves are off. Garcia fired this salvo and Alvarado promptly threw this counterpunch.

Charles had this letter last Friday Saturday, and Robert Miller weighed in today with his prediction on the date of the special election: Saturday, January 26. We'll see if the governor goes along.

There is also a Green candidate running in the special: Maria Selva, who stood against US Rep. Gene Green of CD-29 in the last cycle and garnered just under 9%.

I lunched Friday before last with Sylvia Garcia and her team and a few other bloggers and will have a post about that later. Big Jolly and Stace have some additional thoughts that include the word 'negative'.

More developments to follow in the next few weeks.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is waiting for Rick Perry to call the special election in SD-6 as it brings you this week's roundup.

Even though the economy in Texas has improved, the next legislative session will be very similar to the last. WCNews at Eye on Williamson has this take: Thoughts on the upcoming session.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger knows Texas is still among the United States of America ... until further notice. The DOHA COP-18 Conference established a legally-binding plan for combating global warming. The big players, the US (including Texas), the EU and China accepted the agreement with varying degrees of reservation. They have stopped short of accepting responsibility for damage caused by climate change: Reluctance and Reality at DOHA Climate Change Conference.

 Off the Kuff notes the next step of the redistricting lawsuit has begun.

The legacy of Jack Brooks, who served southeast Texas in Congress for 42 years, is remembered by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know that the oligarchs have brought their propaganda outfit 'Fix the Debt' to Texas.

Neil at Texas Liberal noted that Houston mayor Annise Parker is forwarding possible incidents of misconduct by Houston police officers to the federal government for review. This oversight is welcome, as there have been a number of recent cases of Houston police either shooting or using significant levels of force on unarmed persons.

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Sunday Funnies

"A lot of dissension among conservatives. One of the leaders of the Tea Party has resigned after a major split in the movement. The Tea Party is now divided between angry whites and even angrier whites."
-- Conan O'Brien

Chris Cilizza on NBC News: "To vote for anything that is even perceived to be granting the U.N. power [like this United Nations Disabilities Treaty] is a dangerous game for a Republican senator, because the U.N. is so unpopular among the Republican base."

Jon Stewart: "It's official: Republicans hate the United Nations more than they like helping people in wheelchairs."
-- The Daily Show


"You've been warned, Harry Reid! Take away Mitch McConnell's filibuster and he will strike back by obstructing everything you do! Or let him keep the filibuster so he can obstruct everything you do!" 
 -- Stephen Colbert

Friday, December 07, 2012

The fiscal slope and you

First of all, it ain't no cliff.

But it might feel like a brick wall, especially for the working poor. This story by Tom Abrahams at ABC-13 does a good job of explaining things in layman's terms.

It means some Texans could pay as much as 44 percent of their income in taxes, and it could come from the four elements of the fiscal cliff:

  • The Medicare tax, which affects mostly wealthier taxpayers
  • The payroll tax, which affects everyone
  • The AMT, which impacts most taxpayers
  • The Bush cuts, which are set to expire

[...]

The Tax Policy Center says the increase ranges from a few hundred dollars for the working poor to thousands for the so-called middle class. The White House estimates here in Texas, 8.7 million middle-income earners will see an average increase of about $2,200.

"It could be your Catholic school tuition's payment for your child, so it's not a small amount of money," said Joe Birkhofer, a partner at Legacy Asset Management.

Birkhofer says the part of the cliff that impacts everyone is the expiring Bush tax cuts. "People in the lowest tax bracket, 10 percent, will go to 15 percent. And people in the highest tax bracket will go from 35 percent to 39.6 percent," Birkhofer said. At just 3 percent a year, that's the equivalent of no less than a tank of gas every two weeks.

"I don't think that's fair to pay 3 percent more. We all can't afford three percent more," Houston taxpayer Judy Madison said.

Then everyone can tack on another 2 percent -- the amount of the payroll tax holiday which, ends this year. It's money that goes to Social Security and Medicare.

"The problem is the money needs to go back into Social Security and Medicare, and there's not a lot of support on either side of Congress to make that tax holiday stay," Birkhofer said. Add that 2 percent to the pile, and you've lost money for your electricity bill every month.

 "And I don't have a lot of confidence that both sides are really eager to fix the problem," Houston taxpayer David Gaw said.

Then there's the alternative minimum tax, or the AMT, which needs adjusting every year or it costs millions of taxpayers millions of dollars. "It strips away deductions so that your tax rate is higher," Birkhofer said. Throw those away, and there go your groceries every week.

"I'm worried not about 3 to 5 percent but more about 10 to 15 percent," Houston taxpayer Christopher Barron said. 

Obama and the Democrats seem content to let the Republicans push the country off the cliff down the hill, as polling indicates the GOP gets most of the blame. Boehner is under pressure again from his right to stand his ground.

Informal polling suggests many Americans still aren't paying much attention, despite Abrahams' man-on-the-street interviews above. That is likely to change suddenly, when the first payday after the New Year takes the hit. People who aren't getting paychecks, of course -- that would be the very rich and the very poor -- won't notice much.

For vastly different reasons.

Washington legalizes weed and gay marriage

Scenes from a revolution.


At around 1:30am, Larry Duncan, 56, left, and Randy Shepherd, 48, from North Bend, Wash. got their marriage license. The two plan to wed on December 9th, the first day it is possible for them to wed in a church in Washington State. They have been together for 11 years. Originally from Dallas, Texas, they moved here 7 years ago because it's more gay friendly. Randy is a computer programer and Larry is a retired psychology nurse.


How long do you think it will be before Texas catches up?

Update: Charles thinks it will be a long time for one of the two.

Update II: Man- and woman-on-the-street interviews reveal some Texans' responses. One sample...
A lot of people’s lives in that state just got a whole lot better. Makes me sick.
-- Gillian Manifold, systems analyst

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Jack Brooks 1922 - 2012

Jack Brooks, an irascible, cigar-chomping former Texas congressman who over 42 years defied fellow Southerners to support civil rights, investigated abuses by Presidents Nixon and Reagan and repeatedly attacked government waste, down to the cost of wrenches, died on Tuesday night in Beaumont, Texas. He was 89.

This was my congressman, for as long as I can remember, growing up. In actuality he wasn't; we lived in the district next door, and my brother served as a page in DC for our actual representative, John Dowdy, in the late '60's. But even Charlie Wilson -- who succeeded Dowdy, and certainly in Wilson's early political career -- paled in comparison to Brooks. When I was in college in the late '70's, my fraternity hosted him as guest speaker. Long before I was a Democratic activist, I was a huge fan of Jack Brooks.

Brooks ascended to the legislative pantheon under the tutelage of two legendary Texas Democrats, House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Lyndon B. Johnson, both as a senator and as president, and became a swashbuckling Texas character in his own right. His politics were pro-labor, pro-gun, fiercely partisan and boldly unapologetic, particularly when it came to funneling federal funds to his East Texas district.

He played a supporting role in one of the most famous news photographs of the 20th century, that of President Johnson being sworn in as president on Air Force One in Dallas after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. Brooks, who had been in the presidential motorcade, stands behind Jacqueline Kennedy.

He had run Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign in his district, where Kennedy won by 40,000 votes. In October 1963, he was the only one of nine Southerners on the judiciary committee to vote for the Kennedy administration’s civil rights bill. When President Johnson took up the bill after Kennedy’s murder, Mr. Brooks was one of 11 out of 92 Southerners to vote for it on the House floor in 1964. 

Brooks was ousted from Congress in 1994, by Steve Stockman, among other reasons because he voted in favor of a crime bill that restricted sales of assault rifles. That's a story all its own; go back to the NYT link to read it.

This video of Lamar University history professor Robert Robertson compresses into a couple of minutes the legacy of Jack Brooks and his witness to the history of the Kennedy assassination and the civil rights movement.


If there were still any fighting Democrats around like Jack Brooks, I might not be a Green today.

Update: The Bayou...

This was back in…September.  I’m pretty sure.  September of 1992.  It was hotter than Hell that day.

Bill Clinton was running for president and he sent Senator Al Gore, his running mate, down here to Beaumont for a rally at Lamar University.

Both of the candidates were good-looking and Southern.

Young.

The youngest men I would remember in the White House after all of the “old men” who followed Nixon.  Something about all of them seemed so stiff and artificial.  Especially Reagan with his hair dye and Hollywood glitz.

Poor Senator Gore was sweating like a pig.  He kept wiping at his brow with a handkerchief and he finally had to take his jacket off.

Gore was introduced by the giants of Southeast Texas politics.  Carl Parker, Charlie Wilson and Jack Brooks.  He didn’t hold a candle to them.  The ‘wonkishness’ that became more exaggerated as he moved up in politics and got older was evident.  He was boring.  But who wouldn’t be after such a grand display local of wit and charm.

Monday, December 03, 2012

The high cost of business incentives (especially in Texas)

This series in the New York Times over the weekend is most searing report ever on how much "doin' bidness" is costing us. From Part I...

A Times investigation has examined and tallied thousands of local incentives granted nationwide and has found that states, counties and cities are giving up more than $80 billion each year to companies. The beneficiaries come from virtually every corner of the corporate world, encompassing oil and coal conglomerates, technology and entertainment companies, banks and big-box retail chains. 

The cost of the awards is certainly far higher. A full accounting, The Times discovered, is not possible because the incentives are granted by thousands of government agencies and officials, and many do not know the value of all their awards. Nor do they know if the money was worth it because they rarely track how many jobs are created. Even where officials do track incentives, they acknowledge that it is impossible to know whether the jobs would have been created without the aid. 

[...]

A portrait arises of mayors and governors who are desperate to create jobs, outmatched by multinational corporations and short on tools to fact-check what companies tell them. Many of the officials said they feared that companies would move jobs overseas if they did not get subsidies in the United States. 

Over the years, corporations have increasingly exploited that fear, creating a high-stakes bazaar where they pit local officials against one another to get the most lucrative packages. States compete with other states, cities compete with surrounding suburbs, and even small towns have entered the race with the goal of defeating their neighbors. 

Which state pays the most incentives and has the least to show for it? Why, Rick Perry's Texas.

Under Mr. Perry, Texas gives out more of the incentives than any other state, around $19 billion a year, an examination by The New York Times has found. Texas justifies its largess by pointing out that it is home to half of all the private sector jobs created over the last decade nationwide. As the invitation to the fund-raiser boasted: “Texas leads the nation in job creation.”
Yet the raw numbers mask a more complicated reality behind the flood of incentives, the examination shows, and raise questions about who benefits more, the businesses or the people of Texas. 

Along with the huge job growth, the state has the third-highest proportion of hourly jobs paying at or below minimum wage. And despite its low level of unemployment, Texas has the 11th-highest poverty rate among states. 

“While economic development is the mantra of most officials, there’s a question of when does economic development end and corporate welfare begin,” said Dale Craymer, the president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a group supported by business that favors incentives programs.

$19 billion annually. That is more than enough to solve the state's budget woes. 

Eliminating these tax breaks would mean that the Texas legislature would not have to gut education, public health programs like Medicaid, and all the rest. All they would have to do is just ask businesses to pay what they are supposed to pay.

America -- and Texas -- is NOT going broke. We're being robbed.

Update: This diary by Daily Kossack DRo has more.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is making a list and checking it twice as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff discredits the myth that straight ticket voting was the key to judicial races in Harris County.

People who think government doesn't work probably aren't the right people to elect to government posts. WCNews at Eye on Williamson shows what happens when people who hate government are put in charge of it.

Kyle Janek, Rick Perry's recent appointee to head the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, refuses to believe the 2010 census figures that show Texas as having the highest number of uninsured adults in the nation. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs is almost without words about the Reality Derangement Syndrome demonstrated by Republicans (particularly Texas Republicans).  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is not surprised that John Boehner picked a Texas dunderhead to lead the House Science and Technology committee: climate change skeptic and all around idiot Lamar Smith.

Neil at Texas Liberal says that 2014 Republican lieutenant governor candidate Jerry Patterson is prepared to shoot... even though Mr. Patterson is not very clear about his intended target.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

TX health commissioner doesn't believe census on high number of uninsured

The virulent and nasty strain of Republican Reality Derangement Syndrome, most prevalent in Texas, shows no sign of easing. Reality Check on Kyle Janek:

The new executive commissioner of Texas' Health and Human Services Department—the social services behemoth that's currently in the process of building a whole new Texas Women's Health Program (WHP) so it can exclude Planned Parenthood from providing contraceptives and cancer screenings to low-income Texans—has some interesting views on the condition of public health care in his state. And by "interesting," I mean shocking. I mean shockingly ignorant. Astounding, even.

Dr. Kyle Janek is an anesthesiologist by training, but for the last 18 years has served as a Republican in the Texas Legislature and as a lobbyist for various medical organizations. Governor Rick Perry appointed him as executive commissioner of the Texas HHSC on September 1st. You might expect that in 18 years of being plugged into Texas politics and state health policy, he'd have a decent grasp on the issues facing Texans.

You'd be wrong. Because Kyle Janek doesn't believe—despite credible, widely accepted evidence to the contrary—that one of Texas' most pressing health problems, its high number of uninsured adults, is real. He doesn't believe that more than a quarter of Texans are uninsured, as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau. He told a Texas Tribune reporter in early October that he believed that number to be "inflated," and then reiterated his point in an extended interview with Tribune editor Evan Smith on October 31st. (Through his press representatives, he refused an interview with RH Reality Check.) Here's his most recent take via the Tribune:

"It's not that I don't believe those numbers. I don't believe the reasoning for those numbers."

Janek used to represent me in the Texas Senate, and at that time was widely reputed to be one of the moderates. So something has obviously changed; either the accuracy of the political reporting or Janek's interpretations, uninfluenced by a desire for re-election. I don't really care which it happens to be, for the record.

Janek's problem: he said the Census Bureau only takes a "snapshot" by asking people if they're uninsured, and doesn't ask them if they had insurance in the past or if they think they have a job lined up with insurance in the future. Janek must not be aware that for nearly 25 years, the Census Bureau's "snapshot" has shown practically the same thing: since 1987, Texas repeatedly has one of the highest, or the very highest, number of uninsured adults in the country. That rate has not been below 1987's 23 percent; it peaked at 26.8 percent in 2009 and is currently estimated at 26.2 percent.

That's a remarkably consistent snapshot of something that Janek seems to believe changes for millions of people by the day. Janek says he isn't sure why Texas "is different" when it comes to health care, but he told the Tribune it could be because the weather here is nice.

"Do we have so many people that are temporarily uninsured? Or is it the general climate of better weather and glorious place to live? Folks come here, and that attracts more folks with health care needs or disabilities?" he wondered during the interview. Surely our high uninsured numbers couldn't be due to the fact that Texas jobs generally don't provide health insurance, that Medicaid in the state is limited, that insurance rates are unregulated or that Texas has a large immigrant population, as the Washington Post reported last year. No, it's probably just the purty weather.

This is just embarrassing. For Janek, for Rick Perry (who appointed him), and for all of the rest of us in Texas.

So there's a lot of different ways we could go with this news.

One would be that even when you think Rick Perry has appointed someone of some repute to a statewide  post, it's bound to turn out to be another epic fail. Keep in mind that just in the past few months, the governor appointed Michael Williams to head the Texas Education Commission and his own chief of staff to the state Supreme Court, clearing a path for yet another toady. (There's a reason why a person is willing to take a pay cut from $312,000 a year to $175,000, and it isn't about the money.) And now the health commissioner, just by opening his yap, looks like the worst of this lot.

Another path -- well-worn -- would take us down Lamentation Alley, where we moan again about the curious conservative belief system and how it is destroying everything that used to be great about Texas. I'll pass on another serving of that.

Let's just consider what this entrenched patronage system is providing us, all the way down the line. The advance, to understand the next excerpt -- that you should read in the first link at the top -- is that Janek believes the solution to the problem (that he doesn't think actually exists) is to fund more medical schools in Texas.

Why does Janek think that Texas legislators, county commissioners and other politicos are suddenly ready to funnel millions, probably billions, of dollars into medical schools? 

Perhaps because he's hired a conservative think-tanker to help make that happen. Her name is Mary Katherine Stout, and for $150,000 per year, the former Perry staffer, Wal-Mart defender and far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation economics "expert" will act as a "special advisor," "involved in a number of policy and planning issues," according to HHSC spokesperson Stephanie Goodman. Goodman told RH Reality Check that Stout will be "looking at ways [Texas HHSC] can work with medical schools to support their efforts to make sure Texas has enough health professionals."

In the past, Stout has particularly focused her efforts on criticizing Medicaid and especially CHIP, the popular children's Medicaid program, which she has said is rife with luxury car-driving freeloaders and should be closed to people who are verily rolling in cash and furs, like "those making as much as $40,000 annually for a family of four." Stout's coldness is unusual even for Texas right-wingers, and her cruel preoccupation with making sure as few Texas children as possible receive needed aid borders on the bizarre. To that end, this was her 2007 proposal for fighting "The Left" in the National Review:
Perhaps we should fight their strategy with our own campaign to tell stories of success, of people working hard and making good decisions for their family, of people who made something out of nothing, or who turned something into more. Yes, send me your stories of success, of personal responsibility, and of government’s depredations on a family trying to make ends meet.
These are the words of a "special advisor" on Texas public health care policy, who'll be whispering in the ear of a man who believes the state has "inflated" uninsured numbers because hey, poor people can always go walk in and get some open heart surgery at a public hospital or amorphous medical school of dubious funding origin.

This is one of those times when I wish Texas really was a whole 'nother country, for entirely different reasons than the secession petition-signers.

Sunday Funnies

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Susan Rice and Keystone XL

I have defended Amb. Rice against the scurrilous personal attacks leveled against her by John McCain, Lindsay Graham, et.al., but that's all over now.

The shoulders on which the Keystone XL pipeline decision may fall happens to have a half-million dollar stake in the game. Secretary of State hopeful and current U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan E. Rice reportedly owns between $300,000 and $600,000 of TransCanada stock.

It gets worse: she is a massive investor in several of the various Canadian tar sands players.

(Rice) holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline.
[...]

(A)ccording to financial disclosure reports, about a third of Rice’s personal net worth is tied up in oil producers, pipeline operators, and related energy industries north of the 49th parallel -- including companies with poor environmental and safety records on both U.S. and Canadian soil. Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers, as ranked by Forbes magazine. That includes Enbridge, which spilled more than a million gallons of toxic bitumen into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 -- the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

Rice also has smaller stakes in several other big Canadian energy firms, as well as the country’s transportation companies and coal-fired utilities. Another 20 percent or so of her personal wealth is derived from investments in five Canadian banks. These are some of the institutions that provide loans and financial backing to TransCanada and its competitors for tar sands extraction and major infrastructure projects, such as Keystone XL and Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would stretch 700 miles from Alberta to the Canadian coast.

This is the sort of thing that the SEC usually refers to as 'insider trading', which is illegal. Usually.

Not only does Rice not deserve a promotion, she probably ought to go ahead and resign from her post as UN ambassador and "retire" from politics. My guess is she still has a bright and lucrative future as an oil industry lobbyist.