The Obfuscation Report

from the Carpetbagger Report

Given the recent rhetoric in Republican circles about immigration policy, I found this story spectacularly amusing.

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions — state deputy political director — and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.

Christopher Matthews, 35, a Canadian citizen, has worked for the state GOP as a campaign consultant since 2004. But he recently was hired as full-time deputy political director, with responsibility for handling campaign operations and information technology for the country’s largest state Republican Party operation, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring confirmed in a telephone interview this week.

In the nation’s most populous state — which has produced a roster of nationally known veteran political consultants — “it’s insulting but also embarrassing … to bring people from the outside who don’t know the difference between Lodi and Lancaster … and who can’t even vote,” said Karen Hanretty, a political commentator and former state GOP party spokeswoman.

Wait, it gets funnier. Matthews was hired by Michael Kamburowski, the state GOP’s chief operations officer, who is … wait for it … an Australian citizen.

“There are talented Republicans in California, and the message that (party chair) Ron Nehring is sending is that there’s no talent pool here,” Hanretty said.

Just to be clear, I don’t care who the California Republican Party hires. I’m sure these two guys are perfectly capable political professionals.

But given the GOP’s immigration policy, and it’s take on the H-1B visa program, these hires are a little surprising, aren’t they?

The hiring of two immigrants at top Republican Party posts has handed ammunition to critics who note that many Republicans have spoken critically about the impacts of waves of Mexican immigrants.

“The hypocrisy is disgusting,” said longtime Democratic Party activist Gloria Nieto, policy director at San Jose-based Services Immigration Rights and Education Network, or SIREN, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit organization.

Nieto argued that the party has painted Latinos “as the brown menace. … But it’s perfectly OK to hire people from outside the country? What does it say about the Republican Party that they import their hired guns?”

As for the H-1B visa program in specific, it’s supposed to focus on “specialized workers” whose unique skills are unavailable in the American workforce. According to Labor Department regulations, employers are supposed to make a good-faith effort to hire Americans, and then rely on “specialized” immigrants if necessary.

So, in other words, the California Republican Party is suggesting that in the largest state in the Union, there were no qualified people to serve as the state deputy political director.

Too funny.

Labels: immigration, Republican Party, Right Wing Hypocrites

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A billion-dollar-a-year federal reading program that ran into scathing criticism over conflicts of interest now has a new one: The government contractor that set up the program for the Education Department is also part of the team hired to evaluate it.

Reading First -- part of President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind education law -- has been under scrutiny following a string of federal reports that found it rife with conflicts of interest and mismanagement. The program provides intense reading help to low-income children in the early elementary grades.

RMC Research Corp. was the contractor hired to establish and implement the program starting in 2002, under three contracts worth about $40 million.

Recently, the Department of Education inspector general reported that RMC failed to keep the program free of conflicts of interest. For example, RMC did not screen subcontractors for relationships with publishers of reading programs.

Now, Reading First is in the midst of a five-year evaluation under a 2003 contract with a team that includes RMC, which is based in Portsmouth, N.H.

Congress required the review, spelling out that it must be an "independent evaluation."

That didn't mean for the contractor that set up the program to have any role in reviewing it, said Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, who chairs the education committee.

"It's a classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop," Kennedy said Friday.

Rep. George Miller, D-California, chairman of the House education committee, raised similar concerns when notified Friday of RMC's role in the evaluation.

"RMC played a significant role in the implementation of Reading First and, according to the inspector general, a sometimes flawed role. If it's true that RMC was also hired to evaluate the effectiveness of the very program it was hired to help implement, then the conflict of interest could not be any clearer," Miller said.

Both lawmakers have been investigating Reading First, and Miller announced Friday he would hold a hearing on the issue April 20.

Reading First also has been the subject of investigations by the inspector general and the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm.

The inspector general found that federal officials intervened to influence state and local decisions about reading programs, a potential violation of the law. The GAO reported states received suggestions from federal officials or contractors to adopt or eliminate certain programs or tests.

The inspector general also reported that a consultant to the program, working under RMC, may have inappropriately pushed a particular brand of reading assessment when dealing with states.

Expert panels that reviewed state applications for Reading First grants were stacked with people who shared the program director's views, according to the inspector general. In general, favored programs were highly structured and centered around phonics, a technique that relies on sounding out words.

The investigations have raised questions about whether Reading First should be reformed, or even abandoned, when No Child Left Behind comes up for renewal in Congress this year.

The job of evaluating how well the program has performed is being led by Abt Associates, a contractor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company hired RMC as a subcontractor.

According to RMC's Web site, the company helped design and implement a method of evaluating how reading is taught in classrooms. Federal officials said RMC assisted in deciding what measures to use to collect information for the evaluation on reading instruction. They said RMC also trained classroom observers.

RMC's share of the $31 million evaluation contract, signed in 2003, is about $1.5 million, said Education Department officials. The department declined to immediately provide a copy of the contract.

"Their role in the overall study sort of is proportional to the amount of money they received," said Ricky Takai, associate commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, part of the department's research arm. "They do have a very circumscribed role."

Neither RMC nor Abt returned calls seeking comment.

Richard Allington, a leading reading researcher at the University of Tennessee, said RMC's involvement in helping evaluate classroom instruction is a crucial one that will have an impact on the overall study's findings.

"As a researcher, if I were to design an intervention (a reading program); if I want to find out if the intervention is working, I need to see whether it's actually being implemented. About the only way I could do that is to observe in classrooms," Allington said.

However, Phoebe Cottingham, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, said she isn't concerned about bias in this case.

"A subcontractor who is asked to do this work is given a lot of direction, and they are not freewheeling it," she said.

RMC was tasked with helping states develop plans, submit applications and implement the program.

The inspector general found RMC failed to include required conflict-of-interest clauses in its subcontracts and consulting agreements and failed to screen subcontractors for reading product relationships.

RMC subcontracted out some of its work to officials at universities. Some of those subcontractors had financial ties to reading products used under Reading First.

"RMC had its reputation smudged," said Allington. "They have a stake in demonstrating that the model that's in place -- that they largely created -- they have a stake in showing that it actually works."

Patrick Riccards, who was a senior adviser to the National Reading Panel, which reported on best practices in reading instruction, said he was disappointed to learn of RMC's role in the evaluation.

"Reading First will succeed in improving the reading skills of students throughout the nation," Riccards predicted. "But you provide Reading First critics real ammunition to attack the law when evaluation is not conducted by a completely independent third party, without even a hint of potential conflict."

Labels: Bush Administration, corrupt, education, GOP, Republican Party, Republicans

Don't Discuss Polar Bears: Memo to Government Scientists
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent Thu Mar 8, 5:27 PM ET

Labels: Bush Administration, Idiots, Republican Party, World is Flat

by Glenn Greenwald

So Ann Coulter appeared as a featured speaker today at the Conservative Political Action Conference -- the preeminent conservative event of the year -- and called John Edwards a "faggot." Her speech was followed by an enthusiastic round of applause from the upstanding attendees.

Last year at the same event, she warned Arab "ragheads" about violence that would be done to them and called for Supreme Court justices to be murdered -- and received standing ovations. Everyone knows what a rancid hate-monger she is, yet (or rather: "therefore") she continues to be invited to the highest-level "conservative" events, be drooled on with admiration by presidential candidates like Mitt Romney, and have little right-wing warriors wait in line around the corner to get her signature on their copies of the books she wrote.

But that's all fine. There are much more important topics to discuss -- like the anonymous commenters at Huffington Post and the bad words said by the bloggers hired for low-level positions by the Edwards campaign. Those are matters of the gravest importance meriting the most solemn condemnation and righteous outrage from all decent people. Those HuffPost commenters have uttered terrible thoughts, and that shows the anger, venom and hatred on the left, among liberals. It is cause for great alarm -- and for headlines.

But the single most prestigious political event for conservatives of the year is a place where conservatives go to hear Democrats called faggots, Arabs called ragheads, and Supreme Court justices labeled as deserving of murder -- not by anonymous, unidentifiable blog commenters, but by one of their most popular featured speakers.

And after she does that, she is cheered wildly by an adoring conservative movement that has made her bigoted and hate-mongering screeds best-sellers, all while they and their deceitful little allies in the media, such as Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, write idiot tracts about how terribly upset they are by the affront to decency from HuffPost commenters [in between writing obsequious, tongue-wagging profiles of Coulter's most radical ideological allies, such as Michelle Malkin, who penned a lovely defense of the internment of Japanese-Americans, for which even Ronald Reagan apologized (but, I believe, she never cursed while doing so, which is what matters most)].

This is why I wrote so extensively about the Edwards blogger "scandal" and the Cheney comments "scandal." The people feigning upset over those matters are either active participants in, or passive aiders and abetters of, a political movement that, at its very core -- not at its fringes -- knowingly and continuously embraces the most wretched and obvious bigotry and bloodthirsty authoritarianism. They love Ann Coulter -- and therefore continue to make her a venerated part of their political events -- because she provides an outlet, a venting ground, for the twisted psychological impulses and truly hateful face that drives the entire pro-Bush, right-wing spectacle.

The more delicate ones will claim to repudiate her comments in the most limited terms, but their actions speak far louder than their cursory and reluctant words. Anyone who went to this event -- and that includes Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Dick Cheney -- knew exactly what they would be getting. Coulter's face was prominently plastered on the promotional material. The right-wing political candidates who accepted the invitations to speak there knew exactly the type of people would be there - namely, the type who continously cheer on Ann Coulter's bigoted and nakedly hateful screeds. Anyone who makes themselves a part of that event is purposely associating themselves with those sentiments. That is what this Conference is for.

None of this is news, particularly. This is a movement propelled by an insatiable hunger for more slaughter and more wars. It is centrally dependent upon hatred of an Enemy, foreign or domestic -- the Terrorist, the Immigrant, the Faggot, the Raghead, and most of all, the Liberal. As John Dean brilliantly documented, that is the only real feature that binds the "conservative" movement at this point, the only attribute that gives it identity and purpose. It does not have any affirmative ideas, only a sense of that which it hates and wants to destroy. So to watch as the crowd wildly cheers an unapologetic hatemonger is perfectly natural and not at all surprising.

But we should, at the very least, be able to have a moratorium on all of the scandals driven by their claims to be so offended and upset when anonymous commenters on a blog say mean things, or when bloggers use curse words, or when Senators transparently botch a joke. The ugliest and most obscene sentiments are openly expressed not by their blog commenters or even bloggers -- though that is true -- but by their most admired and successful political leaders, the ones whom their presidential candidates desperately seek to embrace and for whom their most committed throngs cheer wildly.

That is why it is difficult to refrain from commenting, with increasing disgust, on all of their Decency and "anti-Anger" scandals, abetted by the Howard Kurtzs and Terry Morans of the world who are every bit as much one of them as they are anything else. This is a movement driven by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity -- who, along with Bill O'Reilly, are by far the most popular and successful right-wing pundits. Shouldn't every rational and decent person convulse with anger or at least scornful laughter whenever this movement claims to find offensive or upsetting indecent remarks coming from others or when they accuse others of being angry and hateful?

UPDATE: The Conference attendees who will say that they do not approve of Coulter's "joke" will act as though they found her behavior unexpected or surprising -- just as they did last year and every other time she has made similar comments. But three weeks ago, Coulter was on Fox and made virtually identical remarks -- not about Edwards specifically, just the hilarious complaint that people who say the word "faggot" have to enter rehab.

No right-wing supporter (that I know of) complained when they learned that Coulter would be a featured speaker at this event. No prominent "conservative" (that I know of) refused to be a part of the event because Coulter was a featured speaker. Thus, any claims to find what she said so deeply offensive should be weighed against their much more meaningful actions in attending.

UPDATE II: Andrew Sullivan was (I believe) present at this event, and said this about Coulter's speech:

When you see her in such a context, you realize that she truly represents the heart and soul of contemporary conservative activism, especially among the young. The standing ovation for Romney was nothing like the eruption of enthusiasm that greeted her. . . .

Her endorsement of Romney today - "probably the best candidate" - is a big deal, it seems to me. McCain is a non-starter. He is as loathed as Clinton in these parts. Giuliani is, in her words, "very, very liberal." One of his sins? He opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton. That's the new standard. She is the new Republicanism. The sooner people recognize this, the better.

She is the face of what the hard-core Republican Party has become, particularly during the Bush presidency. That is why she holds the position she holds in that movement. That's why Mitt Romney was giddy with glee when her name passed his lips. He knows that her endorsement is valuable precisely because she holds great sway within the party, and she holds great sway because the hard-core party faithful consider her a hero for expressing the thoughts which they themselves believe but which other, less courageous Republican figures are afraid to express.

This is not about a single comment or isolated remark. The more Ann Coulter says these things, the more popular she becomes in this movement. What this is about is that she reflects exactly what sort of political movement this is. She reflects its true impulses and core beliefs. If that were not the case, why would she continue to receive top billing at their most prestigious events, and why would she continue to be lavished with rock star-adoration by the party faithful?

Labels: Coulter, face of, Republican Party