I am setting this post up on May 4, 2006, to see how my predictions on this day are looking a year later. I said I thought that McCain would be the GOP nominee, and if Giuliani were the nominee, the Democrat would win in a walk. The Republican Convention is now 4 months away. How are my predictions holding up?
The documented cases of in-person vote fraud are very, very sparse. On the other hand, for several reasons, about 13 million Americans do not have photo ID. (Per the 2006 census, 225,746,457 Americans over the age of 18, multipled by a national average of US-born adults without documentation necessary for ID at 5.7%.)
Disproportionately, these people are rural, black, poor and old. In addition, approximately another 8 million don't otherwise use photo ID would incur the cost of lost wages for the time spent getting the ID, as well as the fees involved.
In comparison to the 21 million potential disenfranchised voters, recent Presidential elections have been decided by fewer than 8 million votes. So there you have the reason for these laws.
Back when Jim Crow was at its height, white racist government officials would levy a poll tax that poor, rural black voters could not afford and that would prevent them from voting. They'd waive the poll tax for some poor whites. Today's Republican Jim Crow consists of disenfranchising all poor voters, mainly black but white ones too.
This kind of brainstorming is now "a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences":
Among the group’s approximately 24 members is Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld” and “Lucifer’s Hammer,” which he co-wrote with SIGMA member Jerry Pournelle.
Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.
“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.
Fortunately, this isn't just random nutbags tossing out ideas, these are serious people:
The 45-minute panel discussion quickly deteriorated as federal, local and state homeland security officials, and at least one congressional aid, attempted to ask questions, which were largely ignored.
Instead the writers used their time to pontificate on a variety of tangentially related topics, including their past roles advising the government, predictions in their stories that have come to pass, the demise of the paperback book market, and low-cost launch into space.
David Brin, keeping on the topic of empowering citizens with mobile phone technology, delivered a self-described “rant” on the lack of funds being spent to support citizen reservists to back up the military, homeland security officials and first responders in times of crisis.
“It is impossible for you to succeed without us!” he shouted at the assembled officials, while banging his fist on the table and at one point jumping off his chair to wave a mobile phone in their faces.
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?\
(Via Mr. Leonard Pierce.)
Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.
He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.
Yes, well, former attorneys general are typically not transparently incompetent boobs.
Funny: republicanoffenders.com.
(Mandatory troll prophylactic: Yes, Democrats get arrested sometimes, too.)
On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.
In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.
And when a furious mob at the water’s edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back. Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese government commission confirmed he was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and presented him with a Senate memento.
Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday [February 17, 2000] for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.
"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live." ...
"I was referring to my prison guards," McCain said, "and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends."
McCain made it clear that his anger extends only toward his captors. As a senator, he was one of the leaders of the postwar effort to normalize U.S. relations with Vietnam. ...
But the racial slur used by the senator has a long, painful history that is felt by many Asian Americans. ...
The horrors of the past cannot be an excuse for hurting people in the present, said Guy Aoki, president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, an anti-defamation group.
"If Sen. McCain had been captured by Nigerians, could he call those people `niggers' and think he wasn't going to offend everyone who is black?" Akoi asked. "We can all feel for what he went through, but if that's his level of sensitivity, I'm very disappointed."
As someone said today, John McCain was a brave POW, but that was 40 years ago, and now he's just a hateful old man. Duke Cunningham was an ace, but that was 40 years ago, and now he's a corrupt politician in prison.
Anybody think they'd do this for the Democrats? Nah, me either.
Since 2002, the NFL has held its season opener on the first Thursday night after Labor Day. This year, the game runs smack into the final night of the convention, when McCain will officially accept the nomination and give a nationally televised speech from Minneapolis.
While the NFL has yet to announce its schedule for the 2008 season, it's apparently not going to shy away from having its season opener on the scheduled day, with the game likely featuring the Super Bowl champion New York Giants.
So, the NFL and NBC have agreed in principle to have the kickoff at 7 p.m. ET instead of the traditional 8:30 p.m. That would mean, except in the event of an overtime, that the game would end before NBC's expected one hour of convention coverage for the night.
No one could have foreseen this:
A gun belonging to the pilot of a US Airways plane went off as the aircraft was on approach to land in North Carolina over the weekend, the first time a weapon issued under a federal program to arm pilots was fired, authorities said Monday.
The "accidental discharge" Saturday aboard Flight 1536 from Denver to Charlotte did not endanger the aircraft or the 124 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants aboard, said Greg Alter of the Federal Air Marshal Service.
"We know that there was never any danger to the aircraft or to the occupants on board," Alter said. ...
[Aviation consultant Mike Boyd] said Saturday's incident could have been much worse. "If that bullet had compromised the shell of the airplane, i.e., gone through a window, the airplane could have gone down," he said.
Of course, nitwits like this guy want every flight crew armed. Since the possibility of a terrorist attack like 9/11 is now effectively zero, the only result of such a policy would be more accidental discharges and intentional shootings in situations that now can be resolved with less than lethal force.
Update 3/25/08:
A bullet fired by a US Airways pilot as his plane was landing in Charlotte penetrated the left side of the cockpit and went completely through the aircraft's exterior shell, according to a report by Charlotte airport police.
The shot was fired at about 11:20 a.m. Saturday, when Flight 1536 from Denver was at an altitude of roughly 8,000 feet and about eight minutes from landing at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. It was carrying 124 passengers and five crew members.
An airport police officer observed that the bullet pierced the left side of cockpit interior and went through the exterior of the Airbus A319, the police report said. The exit point was visible on the left side of the nose of the aircraft.
From reading around, apparently the consensus is that while putting a hole in your fuselage is not considered best practice, unless it hits a fuel tank it's not going to kill you. But this shot easily could have taken out a window while they were at a higher altitude or hit something critical in the instrument panel, which would be fatal.
Get the fucking guns off the fucking flight deck.
Intellectual property is more important than clean elections:
Union County[, New Jersey,] has backed off a plan to let a Princeton University computer scientist examine voting machines where errors occurred in the presidential primary tallies, after the manufacturer of the machines threatened to sue, officials said today.
A Sequoia executive, Edwin Smith, put Union County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi on notice that an independent analysis would violate the licensing agreement between his firm and the county. In a terse two-page letter Smith also argued the voting machine software is a Sequoia trade secret and cannot be handed over to any third party.
Last week Rajoppi persuaded the statewide clerk's association to have an independent study of the machines done by Edward Felten, a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University. The Constitutional Officers Association of New Jersey called for the independent review to ensure the integrity of the election process.
Sequoia maintains the errors, which were documented in at least five counties, occurred due to mistakes by poll workers. The firm, which is based in Colorado, examined machines in Middlesex Count, and concluded that poll workers had pushed the wrong buttons on the control panels, resulting in errors in the numbers of ballots cast.
But officials found it odd that such an error never occurred before and the clerk's association wanted further testing.
On the advice of county's attorneys, however, Rajoppi said today she must forego all plans for independent analysis.
Way to cave in, County Clerk Rajoppi!
(Via Cory Doctorow.)
[District Attorney Greg L.] Gambril makes little distinction between fetus and child. He said his duty was to protect both — though the Alabama law he uses makes no reference to unborn children, and was primarily intended to protect youngsters from exposure to methamphetamine laboratories.
“When drugs are introduced in the womb, the child-to-be is endangered,” Mr. Gambril said. “It is what I call a continuing crime.” He added that the purpose of the statute was to guarantee that the child has “a safe environment, a drug-free environment.”
“No one is to say whether that environment is inside or outside the womb,” he said, and no judge or other authority in Alabama has so far disagreed. ...
The women are sent off to county jails, state prisons, or drug rehabilitation clinics, and often emerge bitter at the collaboration of police, prosecutors, judges, doctors and social workers they say is less keen on help — Mr. Gambril insists otherwise — than punishment.
Pro-life means prosecuting poor women.
Republican John McCain said he worries that terrorists might try to influence the November general election with increased attacks in Iraq.
"Yes, I worry about it," he said Friday, responding to a question at a town hall-style forum. "And I know they pay attention, because of the intercepts we have of their communications."
The questioner asked if McCain feared al-Qaida in Iraq or another group might attack in an effort to aid the Democratic nominee, because Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both favor a withdrawal of U.S. forces.
This is completely beyond the pale. Secret communications intercepts prove terrorists favor the Democrats? He might as well wave a piece of paper and claim it contains the names of 57 al Qaeda agents within the DNC.
In 2000, the Democrats in Florida fought to keep out military absentee ballot sent in by mail from determining who would be the next President.
With the presidency hanging on the outcome in Florida, the Bush team quickly grasped that the best hope of ensuring victory was the trove of ballots still arriving in the mail from Florida residents living abroad. Over the next 18 days, the Republicans mounted a legal and public relations campaign to persuade canvassing boards in Bush strongholds to waive the state's election laws when counting overseas absentee ballots.
Their goal was simple: to count the maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Mr. Bush, particularly those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Vice President Al Gore.
A six-month investigation by The New York Times of this chapter in the closest presidential election in modern American history shows that the Republican effort had a decided impact. Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state laws.
In an analysis of the 2,490 ballots from Americans living abroad that were counted as legal votes after Election Day, The Times found 680 questionable votes. Although it is not known for whom the flawed ballots were cast, four out of five were accepted in counties carried by Mr. Bush, The Times found. Mr. Bush's final margin in the official total was 537 votes.
The flawed votes included ballots without postmarks, ballots postmarked after the election, ballots without witness signatures, ballots mailed from towns and cities within the United States and even ballots from voters who voted twice. All would have been disqualified had the state's election laws been strictly enforced.
A long investigative piece in Rolling Stone takes a hard look at the actions of the thousands of Joint Terrorism Task Forces that the FBI and local cops have convened, discovering that the supposed jihadis they stop are mostly hapless losers who get given money and plans by undercovers, or are just guys who seem suspicious and are either exonerated, or leave the country. The agents and cops that the reporter, Guy Lawson, interviews, are locked in a kind of circular reasoning -- "We can't tell you about the real terrorists because we'd tip our hand, but we know they're out there because when we bust people they freak out and cop pleas rather than going to Guantanamo...."
From the article:
"The public is never going to see the evidence we have," [Assistant Special Agent in Charge Gregory] Fowler says. "We don't want to reveal our hand or tip our sources. You cannot judge the nature of the terrorist threat to the United States based on the public record."
"But with such strictures," I ask, "how does a citizen become informed about the threat?"
"I have access to the information," Fowler says. "I have a lot of faith in the judgment of the common citizen. A lot of people understand the nature of the threat."
Trust us!
[FBI agents in joint terrorism task forces with local police departments] want to train cops to watch out for "suspicious terroristlike behavior," without revealing what such behavior might look like. "We're teaching police how to approach a suspicious person in a public place," [special agent Mark] Lundgren tells me. "How to probe that person. How to look at the body language they exhibit, how they answer questions, to determine if they are a threat or not — in a way that doesn't leave that person feeling they've been ill-treated. There are detractors out there that think our cases are without merit. That's a philosophical question that's easy to ask until you're a body part.
"Without getting too philosophical, remember the whole Dick Cheney one percent solution," Lundgren continues. "If there is a one percent chance that a device can be constructed that will kill thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people, then we have to treat our response as if there were a 100 percent chance. That's a thing that gets lost in the view of the public when they see the intelligence-gathering of law enforcement. They get concerned about their civil liberties and the Constitution because of the way things are portrayed in the media."
And if you don't trust us - nice invocation of Cheney's 1% doctrine there, by the way - it's all the fault of the traitorous, liberal media.
A small but vocal group of Democratic voters from central Florida, most of them Puerto Rican, protested against Republican Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite for recently labeling Puerto Ricans as “foreign citizens,” and saying they should not be eligible for tax rebates, even though they are Americans by law.
That was just the beginning, her controversial remarks continued when she issued a press release this morning suggesting that Puerto Ricans “cool off” by visiting the Weeki Wachi water park.
A screen cap from Brown-Waite's website:
Implying, of course, that Puerto Ricans do not pay taxes to the federal government. Nice.
Orange County Republican Chairman Lew Oliver told 10 News late Thursday night that Brown-Waite's comments are “Unacceptable, outrageous, and ignorant. An unconditional apology is in order.”
Why? Your party is founded on fearing black and brown people. Embrace it, dude.
(Via PhillyBits.)
If you're not aware of him, John Tierney is a science reporter for the New York Times who also writes a blog there. His right-wing political agenda is pretty unambiguous. He never touches the appalling rejection of the theory of evolution by the public and Republican politicians. He works hard to show that sexism is a myth (and that women are to blame for their body-image issues), female genital mutiliation causes no harm, pesticides are nothing to worry about, the health risks of trans fats are overblown, and - of course - global warming is no big deal. Today's post is a case in point:
After asking a national sample of more than 1,000 Americans how much they knew about global warming and how they felt about it, the researchers report that respondents who are better-informed about global warming “both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.”
Tierney describes this as an apparent paradox, and offers the explanation that the more people know, the less they are concerned because, well shucks, there is just not that much to be worried about.
Except his summary of the research is seriously misleading. From the study:
It should be noted that the information effects reported in this article are limited to self-reported information.
In other words, people who believe themselves to be more well-informed on global warming tend to minimize it, no matter where they get their information from. Are these people scientists? Or are they Fox News Channel watchers? Tierney flatly says they are more well-informed, which is not proved, at best. Again, the study says:
Objective measures of informedness about global warming and climate change might produce different effects.
And with complicated, technical topics, the more you know, the more you know you don't know. Would any layperson who had read widely on the topic really say they were "well informed"? The more likely explanation is that people who don't want to believe climate change is a real problem rate themselves well-informed, when in fact they are deliberately ignorant. Tierney is just one of the army of corporate shills who are paid to keep them that way.
I guess dimwits are always a Lost Cause:
[Bertram Hayes-Davis, head of the Davis Family Association and great-great grandson of Jefferson Davis,] says his ancestor is a victim of political correctness and of people's insistence on looking at historical events from today's perspective.
He believes, as Davis did, that the Southern states had a constitutional right to secede. When asked if he thinks secession is viable or legal today, he is noncommittal.
"I think the issue is not so much the country splitting. I think the issue is federal control over the states. And I think that you see that even today, when federal mandates come from Washington that, `You will do this, whether you want to or not...,'" says Hayes-Davis, who has represented Davis' family at more than 100 functions over the years.
But what's interesting is not that some banker from Colorado Springs is running around defending the honor of a traitor who fought to keep humans enslaved, it's that they hold a beauty contest: The Miss Confederacy Pageant, along with related events, the Wee Miss Confederacy, Little Miss Confederacy, Junior Miss Confederacy, and - new for 2008 - the Ms. Confederacy Pageant.
There are rules (warning: pdf) for these contests. For example, Wee Miss Confederacy contestants must be at least 2 years old but no older than 5. The Ms. Confederacy Pageant has no upper age limit, but is "open to women 18 and over that are married, divorced, or single that do not qualify for the 'Miss' category", which is quite a genteel way of saying single moms.
As for who wins, the application says:
Judging will be based on costume (dress, period fabrics, hat, accessories, etc.), overall appearance, and stage presentation. In case of a tie, Miss and Ms. contestants may be asked questions during the pageant to determine the winner for each category.
Remember that there are no hard and fast rules. However, the judges will be looking for contestants that portray the typical Southern girl, lady or woman of the Antebellum Era.
"Girl, lady or woman." Hilarious. And since slaves made up one third of the population of the Confederate States, I submit that a "typical" Southern woman could include an African-American woman in ragged clothes and bearing evidence of abuse, but I bet that's why they require a picture with the application.
Operating on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, many conservatives who had long distrusted Mr. McCain on a variety of issues, including his peculiar fondness for talking to reporters for hours on end, rallied to see him at war with a newspaper they revile as a voice of the left. ...
Charles Black, a senior McCain adviser who had taken heat from conservative friends after the editorial board of The Times endorsed Mr. McCain in the Feb. 5 New York primary, was pleased. Thursday, Mr. Black said, “was the first day in the campaign that McCain won the day on conservative talk radio.”
Later that afternoon, the McCain campaign began using The Times in an fund-raising appeal sent by e-mail to supporters. “Well, here we go,” the letter from Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, began, then outlined what it characterized as the newspaper’s smear campaign. Mr. Davis quickly got to the point: “We need your help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against The New York Times by making an immediate contribution today.”
By Friday, the campaign was tracing its jump in fund-raising directly to the article in The Times. “Thank you,” [McCain advisor Steve] Schmidt said to a Times reporter on Mr. McCain’s campaign plane as it headed back to Washington from Indianapolis.
The politics of victimhood is the specialty of the right. And after The Times' endorsement didn't help but hurt, they went out of their way to make amends.
Americans eligible for tax rebates of $300 to $1,200 under the new fiscal stimulus act will not receive their payments until they file a 2007 income tax return, even if they make too little to owe any taxes, the Internal Revenue Service said on Wednesday.
What possible justification can there be for this?
Jack M. at Ace of Spades HQ:
Just consider this your official "CROSS OVER AND VOTE FOR OBAMA" reminder. This way, you can stay home in November and still have the satisfaction of having voted against a Clinton!
How ... revealing. Although I am encouraged by the "stay home in November" part.
(Via Gib.)
I like it when the mom covers her kid's eyes:
Having said that, poor John. He tries to be a maverick, and look what happens. He actually tells the truth about the consequences of following his policies - Bush's policies - in Iraq, and mean liberals make fun of him. But as the video says: Good luck with that in November!
(Via Some Dude With Cats.)
Update: James Joyner is completely tone-deaf:
Yet it also obliquely (and unintentionally) gets at the point I’ve been harping on today about the difficulty of running a substantive, policy oriented campaign as juxtaposed with one of vague “hope” for “change.” If your message fits on a bumper sticker — or better yet, works as a song — it’s got a better chance of inspiring. But it’s also almost certainly vapid.
It's also got a better chance of inspiring if, you know, your proposed policies aren't crazy and the people don't hate them. Anyway, Republicans and silly Dems have to tell themselves that Obama is content-free because that's the only way they can justify their actions later on.
"If John is the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative, and I'll be glad to help him if he is the nominee," Bush said on "Fox News Sunday." "But he is a conservative. Look, he is very strong on national defense. He is tough fiscally. He believes the tax cuts ought to be permanent. He is pro-life. His principles are sound and solid, as far as I'm concerned."
We don't have to tie McCain to Bush. Bush will do it for us.
"I know him well," Bush said. "I know his convictions. I know the principles that drive him and no doubt in my mind, he is a true conservative."
Bush brushed off their high-profile disagreements over the years on issues such as taxes and interrogation policies, depicting them as natural for any senator. "The question I asked myself, and I hope voters ask, [is] what are the principles by which this person will be making decisions?" As for conservatives who doubt McCain, he said, "If you're seeking, looking for perfection, you'll never find that person. I certainly wasn't a perfect candidate for a lot of folks."
You certainly weren't the perfect President, either, Sir.
"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."
-John McCain, speaking at a Republican Senate fundraiser, 1998
All class. I hope they go after Hillary's appearance this time around - and if she's the nominee, you know they will. All we would have to do is publicize the jokes and women will quietly and massively go Dem.
(Via Avedon Carol.)
I am sure this is a plot to get Democrats to like John McCain. A plot, I tell you!
CNN:
Melissa Arrington, 27, was convicted two months ago of negligent homicide and two counts of aggravated DUI in connection with the December 2006 death of Paul L'Ecuyer.
She could have gotten as few as four years behind bars, but Superior Court Judge Michael Cruikshank sentenced her Tuesday to 10½ years -- one year shy of the maximum.
Cruikshank said he found a telephone conversation between Arrington and an unknown male friend, a week after L'Ecuyer was killed, to be "breathtaking in its inhumanity."
During the conversation, the man told Arrington that an acquaintance believed she should get a medal and a parade because she had "taken out" a "tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot."
Arrington laughed. When the man said he knew it was a terrible thing to say, she responded, "No, it's not."
HAR HAR HAR HAR. Fuckhead.
L'Ecuyer, 45, was riding his bike the night of December 1, 2006 when Arrington swerved off the road, hit him and then continued for 800 feet before stopping, according to Deputy Pima County Attorney Jonathan Mosher.
Arrington's blood-alcohol content was .156 percent, nearly double Arizona's .08 legal limit. She had been driving on a suspended license for a prior DUI.
Next time, aim for a bridge abutment. Because you know there's going to be a next time.
I know I'm just a dumb little blogger, but I'm actually quite puzzled that auto execs are so opposed to emission regulation. I really think I have to put this in the "they're just assholes who don't like to be told what to do" category instead of the "rational economic actor" category, though perhaps someone can convince me otherwise...
In his book The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman makes an argument that corporate CEOs oppose universal health insurance because of social pressure among their peers, even though universal coverage would benefit the economy and consequently their businesses. (Sorry, I can't find the cite in the book.) The idea is that universal coverage would be a successful policy that would lead to all kinds of other progressive measures that would harm the economic interests of the super-wealthy class that Krugman claims controls the GOP. And corporate CEOs either are members of that class or have their pay set by them, and in any case members of corporate boards from whom CEOs are drawn share social values (such as "the free market") promoted by the uber-rich's propaganda machine. And at the same time, I would add, even though universal coverage would benefit the economy overall, it wouldn't offer individual firms a large competitive advantage, so there is no offsetting motivation for a given CEO or board to swim against their peer group prejudices.
So yeah, they're assholes, but they're assholes motivated by a specific political ideology.
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