JUSIPER
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Twenty GOP lawmakers going down?
And not in that "downlow" way they tend to prefer. One of many ways 2006 will be a year to remember.
1:48 AM | Post or Read Comments (2)
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Willie Nelson
National treasure:
Mr. Nelson's BioWillie is aimed mostly at truckers and is usually sold as B20 (pure biodiesel can congeal in colder climates). BioWillie is currently sold at 13 gas stations and truck stops in four states (with Texas having the most), and it fuels the buses and trucks for Mr. Nelson's tours.
If BioWillie demonstrates anything, it is that the combination of Middle East wars, global warming and rising prices at the pump has led many people to offer solutions to the world's energy's squeeze. Depending on whom you ask, cars will someday run on hydrogen, electricity, natural gas or ethanol.
Mr. Nelson is making his bet on biodiesel.
"I don't like the war," he said in the interview. "In fact, I don't know if you ever remember a couple years ago, it was Christmas day, and my son Lukas was born on Christmas Day, he's like 16 years old, and we were watching TV and there was just all kind of hell breaking loose and people getting killed and I was talking to my wife, Annie, and I said, You know, all the mothers crying and the babies dying and she said, 'Well, you ought to go write that.' "So I wrote a song called 'Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?' "
He began to recite the first verse:
So many things going on in the world,
Babies dying, mothers crying.
Just how much oil is human life worth?
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
"That upset a lot of people, as you can imagine," he continued. "I've been upset about this war from the beginning and I've known it's all about oil." [...]
Mr. Nelson said he did not expect to make much money on his venture. As he put it when asked about his Mercedes, "I didn't get it selling BioWillie, I'll tell you."
"I hope somebody makes money out of it; I'm sure they will. And probably what'll happen is that the oil industry will wait until everybody else builds all the infrastructure and then they'll come in and take over," he said. "But that's O.K. I don't worry about that. As along as the idea progresses because all I'm caring about is getting it out there and maybe helping the country, the farmer, the environment."
1:06 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, December 26, 2005
A blog to be thankful for
Yes, Firedoglake, yes Josh Marshall. But let me once again mention young Rocco Palmo's Whispers in the Loggia, by far the sharpest, most entertaining window onto Roman Catholicism (and the Republican offshoot that passes for Catholicism in this country) available in the English language.
3:18 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Sunday, December 25, 2005
Huh?
We love Ted Koppel, but he has a bit of explanation for this statement on Meet the Press: "If 9/11 had occurred under Bill Clinton's watch, he would have gone to Iraq." For now I will be charitable and say that sitting between Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert could make anyone lose his rationality :
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Friday, December 23, 2005
Alito: Wiretaps are fine by me
About as surprising as our opposition to his nomination.
8:12 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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I didn't find slaughterhouse recordings on iTunes
But I must not have looked hard enough:
The vice president is an iPod fan, and keeping it charged is a priority for his staff.
Normally that isn't an issue, even when he's flying around the world. Air Force II is equipped with outlets in each row of seats.
But when Dick Cheney was traveling home overnight Wednesday from his diplomatic mission, most of the outlets went on the fritz.
Working passengers began lining up their laptops to share the power from a couple of working outlets _ particularly the reporters who urgently needed to prepare their articles to transmit during a quick refueling stop in England.
But when Cheney said his iPod needed to be recharged, it took precedent above all else and dominated one precious outlet for several hours. The vice president's press staff intervened so a reporter could use the outlet for 15 minutes to charge a dead laptop, but then the digital music device was plugged back in.
That way, Cheney got his press coverage and his music, too.
2:37 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Any day now
Raw Story reported weeks ago that a judge's ruling on the release of remaining Abu Ghraib photos would come out right about now. We are still waiting. The Bush Administration will presumably appeal this decision to a higher court, so don't hold your breath.
2:35 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Sign of the end of civilization
"Hollaback Girl" is the first single to sell a million copies through the Internet.
2:22 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, December 22, 2005
Blogger disaster
Michael Musto lists "he drank the Kool-Aid" among his "clichés ready for retirement." But how many phrases do we have to describe Bush's 35%??
5:23 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bush administration: Americans are the threat to America
Check out these excerpts from the Department of Defense database. These are the people the Bush administration is after. Careful, you might even know some of them.
2:54 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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NYPD surveilled protesters
Freddy Ferrer had a strong case to make against Bloomberg's record on civil liberties, particularly with regard to the Republican National Convention. Sadly, he didn't make it during his poor excuse for a campaign. But New York City's residents should demand accountability.
12:52 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wow
Soul legend Bettye Lavette singing "Little Sparrow" on Letterman.
12:31 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Precedent
All those analogies of Bush to Nixon are true but so tired, aren't they? So Arlene Getz of Newsweek comes up with an equally accurate one. Not only regarding Bush, but our fellow citizens.
12:00 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Watch out, J. Michael Luttig
Methinks you're in for a wiretapping.
In denying the administration's request, the three-judge panel also said in a strongly worded opinion that the Justice Department's attempt to transfer Mr. Padilla gave the appearance that the government was trying to manipulate the court system to prevent the Supreme Court from reviewing the case. The judges warned that the administration might be jeopardizing its credibility before the courts in terrorism cases.
What made today's action by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., so startling, lawyers and others said, was that it came from a panel of judges who had provided the administration with a major court victory in September, saying that President Bush had the authority to detain Mr. Padilla, an American citizen, as an enemy combatant.
But the judges were clearly angered when the Bush administration suddenly shifted course on Nov. 22, saying it no longer needed that authority because it had decided to try Mr. Padilla in a civilian court. The government said that as a result of the shift, it was no longer necessary for the Supreme Court to review the issue of whether Mr. Bush could detain an American citizen indefinitely as an enemy combatant. Many legal analysts interpreted the sudden change in approach as an effort to avoid a Supreme Court review of the Fourth Circuit ruling.
In today's opinion, written by Judge J. Michael Luttig, the court said the panel was denying permission to transfer Mr. Padilla as well as the government's suggestion that it vacate the September decision upholding the detention of Mr. Padilla for more than three years in a military brig as an enemy combatant.
Judge Luttig, a strong conservative judicial voice who has been considered by Mr. Bush for the Supreme Court, said the panel would not agree to government's requests because that would compound what is "at least an appearance that the government may be attempting to avoid consideration of our decision by the Supreme Court, and also because we believe that this case presents an issue of such especial national importance as to warrant final consideration by that court."
Judge Luttig wrote that the timing of the government's decision to switch Mr. Padilla from military custody to a civilian criminal trial just as the Supreme Court was considering the case has "given rise to at least an appearance that the purpose of these actions may be to avoid consideration of our decision by the Supreme Court."
Carl W. Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond Law School who has written about the government's legal strategy in terrorist cases, said today's ruling was extraordinary.
"It's obvious that the government thought that its motion to transfer Padilla would be perfunctory," he said. But administration lawyers had not counted on the possibility that the appeals court judges would feel ill-used in expending their legitimacy to Mr. Bush's action, only to have the government turn its back on their ruling.
8:19 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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“We love the Chronic (What?) …cles of Narnia”
Topical is a lot to hope for from the once relevant Saturday Night Live (though that Bush press conference was a rare moment of clarity).
But for now, amusing will have to do.
UPDATE: Even the Village Voice raves.
6:53 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bush really has remade the modern Middle East
Following his rather successful attempts to purge Iran of gay teens Iran's President Ahedminajad is going after evil rock music. Is there nothing he will stop at to match right wing Republicans' agenda? Bush has succeeded in that remaking quest: he has strengthened a theocracy and made it a model for our Madonnaless future: with extraordinary presidential powers, gay hangings and all.
One senior Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Mohammadali Movahedi Kermani, said the ``traditional'' Persian music he saw on a state television program failed to reach the standards demanded by religious law.
``(An official) said this was traditional music, God's punishment be upon him,'' he was quoted as saying by the ISNA students news agency.
``Have we been created by Allah to have fun? They are wasting people's time with leisure and idle pastimes,'' he added.
5:43 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Scarborough: W's appointee is a judicial activist
Rick Scarborough is a Texas minister whom Jerry Falwell calls one of the religious right's top new leaders and Tom DeLay calls "one of my closest friends." He is not happy with Bush appointee John E. Jones:
On Tuesday, U. S. District Judge John E. Jones III issued a ruling striking down a Pennsylvania school district’s policy on Intelligent Design.
Beginning in the fall of 2004, the district instituted a mandatory policy of having a statement on Intelligent Design (which posits an intelligent force behind the universe) read to biology classes before the teaching of evolutionary theory.
It wasn’t enough for Judge Jones to simply, and erroneously, reject the policy on so-called church-state-separation grounds. The judge went out of his way to abuse the Dover school-committee and denounce it for trying to sneak religion into public-school instruction.
Over 80 years ago, in the Scopes trial, liberals were shouting censorship because a high-school teacher was arrested for teaching Darwinism. Now they’re the censors.
Religion is being taught in the public schools; it’s just not Christianity. In public education, secular humanism is the established church. Anything that challenges its dogma is treated as heresy.
Evolutionary theory, as the name implies, is just that -- a theory. Intelligent design is as well. But God has left his foot prints throughout the universe, including in the human genetic code.
If you want to know what’s wrong with the federal courts, get a copy of this outrageous ruling. Judicial activism’s latest champion is named Jones.
5:30 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005
From the Dover intelligent design decision
The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from “creation” to “intelligent design” occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court’s important Edwards decision. This compelling evidence strongly supports Plaintiffs’ assertion that ID is creationism re-labeled. Importantly, the objective observer, whether adult or child, would conclude from the fact that Pandas posits a master intellect that the intelligent designer is God. [...]
The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory. As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Freiler, an educator’s “reading of a disclaimer that not only disavows endorsement of educational materials but also juxtaposes that disavowal with an urging to contemplate alternative religious concepts implies School Board approval of religious principles.” Freiler, 185 F.3d at 348. [...]
In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere. Furthermore, as Drs. Alters and Miller testified, introducing ID necessarily invites religion into the science classroom as it sets up what will be perceived by students as a “God-friendly” science, the one that explicitly mentions an intelligent designer, and that the “other science,” evolution, takes no position on religion. (14:144-45 (Alters)). Dr. Miller testified that a false duality is produced: It “tells students . . . quite explicitly, choose God on the side of intelligent design or choose atheism on the side of science.” (2:54-55 (Miller)). Introducing such a religious conflict into the classroom is “very dangerous” because it forces students to “choose between God and science,” not a choice that schools should be forcing on them. Id. at 55. [...]
We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. [...]
ID is at bottom premised upon a false dichotomy, namely, that to the extent evolutionary theory is discredited, ID is confirmed. (5:41 (Pennock)). This argument is not brought to this Court anew, and in fact, the same argument, termed “contrived dualism” in McLean, was employed by creationists in the 1980's to support “creation science.” The court in McLean noted the “fallacious pedagogy of the two model approach” and that “[i]n efforts to establish ‘evidence’ in support of creation science, the defendants relied upon the same false premise as the two model approach . . . all evidence which criticized evolutionary theory was proof in support of creation science.” McLean, 529 F. Supp. at 1267, 1269. We do not find this false dichotomy any more availing to justify ID today than it was to justify creation science two decades ago.
Hope it doesn't get struck down everywhere--the politics of it are awfully similar to stem cell research: an issue where the Republican coalition splinters and turns into a net plus for Democrats.
The judge is W's appointee, proving, presumably, that one can screw the poor and nonwhite and remain pro-science. Hooray!
7:50 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, December 19, 2005
A lesson in democracy
When religious Shiites are the majority, religious Shiites win.
But as Karen Hughes might say, the important thing is that Iraq will decide that women should wear veils democratically.
10:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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I learned a new word today
Technically, it's two words. Thanks Mike!
9:42 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Dr. Whore, Medicine Insider Trader
It's not just the government Republican politicians use for their and fellow millionaires' personal enrichment. It's churches and charities, too.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid about half a million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the possible presidential hopeful's nonprofit.
The returns for World of Hope Inc. also show that the charity raised most of its $4.4 million from 18 sources. They gave $97,950 to $267,735 each to help fund Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.
The tax forms, filed nine months after they were first due, do not identify the 18 major donors by name. Frist's lawyer, Alex Vogel, said Friday that he would not give their names because tax law did not require their public disclosure.
Frist's office provided a list of 96 donors, but did not say how much each contributed.
The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.
World of Hope gave $3 million of what it raised to charitable AIDS causes such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans — the Rev. Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes Jr.'s Esperanza USA, for example.
The rest of the money went to overhead, records obtained by Associated Press show. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, wife of Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.).
The charity also hired the law firm of Vogel's wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel, and Frist's Tennessee accountant, Deborah Kolarich.
Kolarich's name recently surfaced in an e-mail involving Frist's controversial sale of stock in his family-founded healthcare company. That transaction is under federal investigation.
Jill Holtzman Vogel, who is raising money for a run for the state Senate in Virginia in 2007, has received thousands in contributions this year from Catignani & Bond and from her husband, among numerous other sources, according to data released by the Virginia Public Access Project.
12:42 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Sunday, December 18, 2005
Vicki Sue Robinson
You will remember the late singer for her for the marvelous "Turn the Beat Around," for which she "created all the background parts and cut the lead vocal in one take." Notwithstanding
And you will try to forget this tribute picture and caption.
10:57 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Worse than Nixon
This defies belief:
A secret Pentagon document shows that the U.S. military has been spying on what they call "suspicious" civilian meetings—including protests over "don't ask, don't tell" held at various college campuses across the country.
NBC News was able to obtain only eight pages of the 400-page report, but that small portion showed that Pentagon investigators kept tabs on April protests at the University of California, Santa Cruz; State University of New York at Albany; and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school's gay advocacy group OUTlaw, and was classified as "possibly violent."
All of these protests were against the military's policy excluding gay personnel as well as against the presence of military recruiters on campus. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network says the Pentagon needs to explain why "don't ask, don't tell" protesters are considered a threat.
SLDN communications director Steve Ralls called the surveillance a dangerous threat. "The military has a long history of spying into the personal lives of their service members, including gay and lesbian service members, but they crossed yet another line, and an inappropriate one at that, when they began spying on private citizens," he said.
The database indicates that the Pentagon has been collecting information about protesters and their vehicles, looking for what they call a "significant connection" between incidents. Of the four "don't ask, don't tell" protests listed, only one—the University of California, Santa Cruz, where students staged a "gay kissing" demonstration—is classified as a "credible" threat.
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Saturday, December 17, 2005
Found
Jean Schmidt's personal ad, via the General, who was also kind enough to post an ad for neocon Twister .
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"Sir, did you check out a book about John Kerry?"
"If you did, we need to have a little talk."
3:01 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Feingold's triumph
I'd make my usual snarky remark about how I want all those Patriot Act powers for when Hillary makes her enemy's list, but the truth is I'd rather be rid of it now. There is no question that law enforcement must have special powers to fight foreign threats on American soil. There is a tension between individual privacy and national security, and it's probably smart for the proper position to be slightly to the right of where many of us on the left (and extreme right) would like it to be. Why? Because we are always one terrorist attack away from the nation turning its back on its own freedoms.
The proof is not just in old Twilight Zone reruns but in the Patriot Act, the sledgehammer that tore right through the Bill of Rights but missed the fly. The Patriot Act need not be gotten rid of, but it is reasonably clear that it needs to be rewritten and that its provisions need a whole lot of oversight.
No question about it, Russ Feingold was the white knight on this issue, the only senator to oppose the bill the first time around. He deserves great honor for his patience and political courage. Congratulations to the Democrats (save two) and Senators Craig, Sununu and Murkowski for holding the line.
And how pathetic is it, by the way, that the Democrat from Nebraska (Nelson) was one of only two in his party who voted for the bill when he had cover from the state's superstar, Chuck Hagel? Pathetic.
2:31 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Friday, December 16, 2005
Frist '08
"I voted against the Patriot Act before I voted for it. And before I went to jail."
8:06 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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New Jib Jab
They have always specialized in lowest common denominator political humor. So it was only appropriate that the venue for their new clip's TV debut last night was Leno.
7:58 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Make no mistake about it
The New York Times piece on domestic surveillance is one of the most important stories of the year. The facts are far from surprising: the political climate following 9/11, the Patriot Act and the predilections of the current owners of all three branches of government more or less ensured that outcome.
Today Matt Drudge notes the fact that reporter James Risen's story was "tied to a book release and sale." While few with a brain ordinarily take the Roy Cohn-like Drudge seriously, it might be worthwhile this time. The New York Times delayed publicaton for a whole year. In short, this story might have become an issue in the 2004 election had it been reported in a timely fashion.
Risen's claim is that the delay occurred so that the Times could "conduct additional reporting," following the Bush Administration's strenuous objections. What did the newspaper learn in the last year that was so new? Surely very little that mattered. But it could easily take a year to prepare a manuscript for publication.
Who are the heroes here? The officials in our national security apparatus who did not want their agencies' reputations tarnished (and their work hampered) by Watergate-like snooping into legal political expression. These courageous individuals took the risk of telling a reporter from the erstwhile newspaper of record that a vital part of our democracy was being endangered. And because they knew that these decisions were caused not by career civil servants but by politicians were responsible enough to do so before the election.
The Bush Administration, recognizing the danger to its election prospects, requested that the report be smothered. And the New York Times followed their orders. Was it out of cowardice, their publisher's sympathies, or a reporter's greed? I'm not sure I want to know the answer.
7:12 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Thursday, December 15, 2005
Lucky Hillary
The gift that keeps on giving: Jeanine Pirro.
Pirro was seen giggling and chatting outside a Bronx church after the funeral Mass for slain Police Officer Danny Enchautegui - spurring outrage from cops.
One officer brusquely told her to "shut up," prompting Pirro to zip her lips and snap to attention just after the flag-draped coffin holding Enchautegui was placed into a nearby hearse.
While grim-faced Finest stood ramrod-straight, Pirro drew glares from the hero cop's fellow officers when they spotted her giggling and chatting with state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer).
"She should have kept her mouth shut and showed some respect," said one disgusted high-ranking member of the NYPD.
Fumed another officer: "It was bad timing. Everyone is waiting for the family to leave. The family is trying to be strong. We're all still in formation. It was out of line."
A Pirro campaign spokesman denied last night that any cop told her to keep quiet outside the church.
Billary may be too lucky: Pirro's antics have mader her and Katherine Harris the most endangered GOP Senate candidates. Don't get too crazy, evil ones, we want both of you to make the November ballot!
10:50 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Who won FL in 2004? Part DCCLXXIII
We will never know:
A political operative with hacking skills could alter the results of any election on Diebold-made voting machines -- and possibly other new voting systems in Florida -- according to the state capital's election supervisor, who said Diebold software has failed repeated tests.
Ion Sancho, Leon County's election chief, said tests by two computer experts, completed this week, showed that an insider could surreptitiously change vote results and the number of ballots cast on Diebold's optical-scan machines.
After receiving county commission approval Tuesday, Sancho scrapped Diebold's system for one made by Elections Systems and Software, the same provider used by Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The difference between the systems: Sancho's machines use a fill-in-the-blank paper ballot that allows for after-the-fact manual recounts, while Broward and Miami-Dade use ATM-like touchscreens that leave no paper trail.
''That's kind of scary. If there's no paper trail, you have to rely solely on electronic results. And now we know that they can be manipulated under the right conditions, without a person even leaving a fingerprint,'' said Sancho, who once headed the state's elections supervisors association.
The Leon County test results are likely to further fuel suspicions that the new electronic voting systems in Florida, in place since the 2002 elections, are susceptible to manipulation. [...]
Sancho said Diebold isn't the only one to blame for hacker-prone equipment. The Florida secretary of state's office should have caught these problems early on, he said, and the Legislature should scrap a law severely restricting recounts on touch-screen machines and equip them with the means of producing a paper trail. [...]
Sancho first clashed with Diebold in May, when he teamed up with a nonprofit election-monitoring group called BlackBoxVoting.org, which has made a crusade of showing that electronic voting machines are subject to fraud. BlackBox hired Herbert Thompson, a computer-science professor and strategist at Security Innovation, which tests software for companies such as Google and Microsoft.
Thompson couldn't hack into the system from the outside. So Sancho gave him access to the central machine that tabulates votes and to the last school election at Leon County High.
Thompson told The Herald he was ''shocked'' at how easy it was to get in, make the loser the winner and leave without a trace. The machine asked for a user name and password, but didn't require it, he said. That meant it had not just a ''front door, but a back door as big as a garage,'' Thompson said.
From there, Thompson said, he typed five lines of computer code -- and switched 5,000 votes from one candidate to another.
''I am positive an eighth grader could do this,'' Thompson said.
After BlackBox and Sancho announced the results, Diebold's senior lawyer, Michael Lindroos, wrote Sancho, Leon County and the state of Florida questioning the results and calling the test ''a very foolish and irresponsible act'' that may have violated licensing agreements.
Over the past few months, computer expert Harri Hursti tried to manipulate election results with the memory card inserted into each Diebold voting machine. The card records votes during an election, then at the end of the day is taken to a central location where results are totaled.
Hursti figured out how to hack into the memory card by using an agricultural scanning device easily available on the Internet, said BlackBox founder Bev Harris. He learned how to hide votes, make losers out of winners and leave no trace, she said. [...]
Sancho said he tried to discuss the problems with Diebold, but met with resistance. On Monday, he did one final test with Hursti at the Leon County supervisor's office, Hursti hacked the memory card to spit out seven ''yes'' votes on an issue and one ''no'' vote.
Then, six ''no'' votes and two ''yes'' votes were cast into the machine the same way voters would. Those results didn't show up in the final tally -- just the ones hacked into the card. [...]
Sancho said the time for passive monitoring is over. The Diebold problems show that simple tests haven't been done on at least one major voting system, he said.
''These were sold as safe systems. They passed tests as safe systems,'' Sancho said. ``But even in the so-called safe system, if you don't follow the paper ballots, there is a way to rig the election. Except it's not a bunch of guys stuffing ballots in a precinct. It's possibly one person acting in secret changing thousands of votes in a second.''
Regime change occurred in the U.S. in 2000, long before it occurred in Iraq. 2004's elections may have had a lot more in common with Egypt's in 2005 than America's in 1996.
8:41 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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When Abramoff breaks, GOP will get the brunt of the blame
I am not yet certain this will be the case, given the GOP's extraordinary reach into broadcast media and Abramoff's (much smaller) contributions to Democrats . So I don't know how much stock to put in the DSCC's Phil Singer's analogy to 1994. But I hope he's right. It will surely help if the bulk of those indicted are Republicans.
Brian Nick, a spokesman for the NRSC, said the financial ties between Abramoff and Dorgan and other Democrats will make it "very, very difficult" for the party to use the lobbyist as a cudgel to bash Republicans in next year's campaign. "It will fall on deaf ears," Nick predicted.
Not so, said Singer, arguing that Republicans' ties to Abramoff will pay off for Democrats when they are put into the context of other GOP scandals -- the indictments of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby, former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's (R-Calif.) guilty plea in a bribery scandal, and the Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into a stock sale by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Taken together, Singer said, the corruption issue will reach critical mass in the minds of voters. [...]
Having control of the White House and Congress also complicates the Republican argument, said Singer. He said that when the House bank scandal broke in the early 1990s -- a major factor in the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 -- many GOP Members were implicated in the controversy, but Democrats bore the brunt of the blame at the ballot box because they were the party in power.
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GOP's next victims? Their base.
The latest crusade is against the base. Note the last sentence in this quote:
This is bad news for the john at Kim's parlor, who lumbered out the door 37 minutes after he entered. His smile had relaxed. He looked as though he had just won a long-odds bet. Squinting in the afternoon light, he got into his car to drive home to Virginia, as he does every month after having sex, he said. Then he heard about the legislation.
"Do I look like a criminal?" scowled the man, who gave his name as "John." "I'm a middle-class, law-abiding single white professional. Let me have my fun."
2:36 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Thursday joy
Forget your worries, the second day of Fitzmas approaches. Let us celebrate with "He's the Greatest Dancer," one of the greatest of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards many brilliant compositions.
Buy the long version here.
2:08 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Hope he knows what he's doing
The last time Prince drew on his legal expertise he changed his name to get out of a contract.
His deal with Universal covers one album only, he said at the news conference. He declined to discuss the financial terms other than to say, "They're great.''
He said it was "basically a handshake deal'' since he does not believe in contracts.
"I did my own agreement without the help of a lawyer and sat down and got exactly what I wanted,'' he said, subsequently clarifying that some agreements were signed "to ensure that business gets accomplished.''
6:27 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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WTF?
Via Josh Marshall. Is Bob Novak saying that Bush know about the Plame affair all along? Or is he saying Bush was part of the coverup?
Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush.
"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."
"So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.' "
2:01 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Catholic voters
Zogby reports that their support for Bush is down to 34%. And check out the regional divide:
The survey showed Mr. Bush is most popular in the western United States, where 46% approve of the job he is doing, and the South, where 44% approve. Just 28% in the East and 37% in the Midwest and Great Lakes states give him good marks.
People were less critical of the President personally. Asked whether they had a favorable overall impression of Mr. Bush, 49% agreed, including 58% of westerners and 56% of southerners.
Mr. Bush won re-election last year with solid support among those who live in “red” states, but 55% who live there now said he was doing only a fair or poor job. Just 31% of those living in a politically “blue” state approved of his performance in this latest survey.
1:22 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The DeLay effect
Via Political Wire, a DeLay-supporting GOP blog on the evidence:
For the past couple of weeks, we have been reporting on the rumblings in the House of Representatives; is a coup afoot? If so, who is involved? Could it really be successful?
Well, information obtained by ABP yesterday might add fuel to such speculation. No fewer than four Republican members of Congress in “vulnerable” seats have received recent internal polling data that shows “a Tom DeLay effect” that appears to give “any Democrat” on the ballot question an average of 10 percentage points against the incumbent. If this information isn’t troubling enough, consider the fact that these four Republicans are of the “cut and run” variety, and in no way loyal to Republican leadership to begin with.
In one such district, Tom DeLay has name identification over 75% and more than half of those respondents view him unfavorably. These data swim against the conventional wisdom among Republican strategists in Washington, which heretofore had held that the DeLay problems were little more than “inside baseball” and would have little impact out there in the hinterlands.
And what’s the number one reason why Independents who were polled react negatively to Tom DeLay? “The culture of corruption”: Nancy Pelosi’s shopworn phrase.
Despite firm denials to the contrary, I understand the subject of these polls came up at a recent House Republican Conference meeting, with a number of members expressing serious alarm about the GOP’s prospects in 2006.
1:14 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, December 12, 2005
Pre-Oscar buzz
NY Film Critics: Brokeback Mountain
LA Film Critics: Brokeback Mountain
National Board of Review: Good Night and Good Luck
Broadcast Film Critics: Brokeback Mountain
Even though "Good Night" takes place a half-century ago, the National Board of Review was struck by its relevance to the current state of journalism. David Strathairn stars as Murrow, the pioneering CBS newsman who criticized McCarthy for communist witch hunts of the 1950s. Clooney is the director and co-star.
"The press is very much on the tip of everybody's tongue -- what they're reporting, how much they're reporting," said Annie Schulhof, National Board of Review president.
"I think it was an extraordinary film. Mr. Clooney really nailed it. He really understood the issues," Schulhof added. "It got people talking, and many times, that's what a good film does."
5:06 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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"An Evaluation of Federal Tax Policy Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics"
By Susan Pace Hamill of the University of Alabama School of Law:
Abstract:
This article severely criticizes the Bush Administration's tax policies under the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics. I first document that Judeo-Christian ethics is the most relevant moral analysis for tax policy because almost eighty percent of Americans and well over ninety percent of the Congress, including President Bush, claim to adhere to the Christian or Jewish faiths. I also show that evaluating federal tax policy under Judeo-Christian principles not only passes constitutional muster but is also appropriate under the norms of a democracy. I then provide a complete theological framework that can be applied to any tax policy structure. Using sources that include leading Evangelical and other Protestant scholars, Papal Encyclicals and Jewish scholars, I prove that tax policy structures meeting the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics must raise adequate revenues that not only cover the needs of the minimum state but also ensure that all citizens have a reasonable opportunity to reach their potential. Among other things, reasonable opportunity requires adequate education, healthcare, job training and housing. Using these theological sources, I also establish that flat and consumption tax regimes which shift a large part of the burden to the middle classes are immoral. Consequently, Judeo-Christian based tax policy requires the tax burden to be allocated under a moderately progressive regime. I discuss the difficulties of defining that precisely and also conclude that confiscatory tax policy approaching a socialistic framework is also immoral. I then apply this Judeo-Christian ethical analysis to the first term Bush Administration's tax cuts and find those policies to be morally problematic. Using a wealth of sources, I then establish that the moral values driving the Bush Administration's tax policy decisions reflect objectivist ethics, a form of atheism that exalts individual property rights over all other moral considerations. Given the overwhelming adherence to Christianity and Judaism, I conclude that President Bush, many members of Congress and many Americans are not meeting the moral obligations of their faiths, and, I argue that tax policy must start reflecting genuine Judeo-Christian values if the country is to survive in the long run.
4:16 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Shaq
A future law and order candidate we can all support. Someone tell Larry David to stop tripping that man!
Look out gay bashers and assorted criminals, Officer Shaq is on the beat.
Shaquille O'Neal was sworn in as a Miami Beach reserve police officer Thursday, with the Miami Heat center choosing to skip a public event in favor of a quiet, no-frills ceremony. [...]
The former Lakers center was a reserve officer in Los Angeles before moving to Florida. He spent the past year training as a Miami Beach police reserve officer and can now add the $1-a-year salary to his $100 million, five-year contract with the Heat.
His most famous arrest:
Shaquille O'Neal has been credited with an assist away from the basketball court, following a suspect who allegedly assaulted a gay couple and alerting police.
The 7-foot-1 Miami Heat center, who is in the process of becoming a Miami Beach reserve officer, was driving on South Beach about 3 a.m. Sunday.
That's when he saw the man, riding as a passenger in a silver Honda, yell anti-gay slurs at the couple, said Bobby Hernandez, spokesman for the Miami Beach Police Department.
He then got out of the car and threw a bottle, hitting one of the pedestrians, who was not seriously hurt.
The suspect got back in the car and it sped off, but O'Neal followed.
"He flagged down the Miami Beach officer on duty there, and the officer was able to apprehend the subject,'' Hernandez said.
Michael Gonzalez, 18, was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon. A phone number for Gonzalez could not be located and it was not known if he has an attorney. The Honda's driver was not charged.
O'Neal, who hopes to be a police chief or county sheriff one day, was already being fitted for his Miami Beach police uniform before the incident.
2:30 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Obama: GOP=Social Darwinism
Amen.
Republicans controlling the federal government practice Social Darwinism, a discredited philosophy that in economics and politics calls for survival of the fittest, according to a Democratic U.S. senator.
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a fast-rising Democratic star, told Florida party members that only a philosophy among Republicans of sink or swim explains why some Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans still live in cars while Republicans in Washington prepare next week to enact $70 billion in tax breaks.
"It's called the 'Ownership society' in Washington. This isn't the first time this philosophy has appeared. It used to be called Social Darwinism,'' Obama said late Saturday at the Democrats meeting at Walt Disney World.
"They have a philosophy they have implemented and that is doing exactly what it was designed to do. They basically don't believe in government. They have a different philosophy that says, 'We're going to dismantle government','' Obama said.
Republicans running the federal government believe, "You are on your own to buy your own health care, to buy your own retirement security ... to buy your own roads and levees,'' Obama said, referring to flood barriers that gave way in New Orleans during Katrina last August.
2:09 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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The David Souter of the U.S. Senate
That's potentially a real compliment, but no one in Lindsey Graham's party would think so:
[P]ress insiders are buzzing about the hilarious speech by South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham and the praise lavished on the press by Irish Ambassador Noel Fahey. We hear that Graham, suggested as vice presidential material, had 'em on the floor with jokes like the one poking fun at former Sen. Strom Thurmond, who at age 66 married a 22-year-old former Miss South Carolina. "I'm fulfilling the seat that was held by Strom Thurmond," tipsters quoted Graham saying, "which means my wife will be born next year."
In fairness to the good justice, the more accurate analogy is probably to David Dreier.
12:56 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Trashy exposé of the year. Is Tancredo next?
Former MP Louise Frevert was a candidate for mayor of Copenhagen, running under the banner of Denmark's ultrarightwing Dans Folkeparti.
From her IMDB bio:
Louise Frevert was trained as a ballet dancer before appearing in different popular Danish soft core movies. Later she travelled the world and worked for the Shah of Iran in his ballet company. Upon her return to Denmark she founded her own dance school and wrote a couple of books on dancing.
She also proposed chemotherapy as a solution for Denmark's "immigration problem."
The day before the elections, Copenhagen discovered a bit of her past. I will not provide a direct link to the far-from-softcore picture. I will note, however, that I am fairly confident that her partner's ancestors were not Danish.
12:15 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sunday, December 11, 2005
Prime time horrors
Joey beats a Pope.
CBS bested ABC in last week's competition between TV movies about the late Pope John Paul II, but the results hardly answered any network prayers.
The first part of CBS' story, which starred actor Jon Voight, was seen by 7.5 million people on Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research. That's nearly three million fewer viewers than CBS' Sunday movie has averaged this season.
ABC's two-hour movie, "Have No Fear: The Life of John Paul II," was seen by 6.7 million people last Thursday. That beats the 6.1 million average that "Alias" and "Night Stalker" have been drawing in the time slot this season on Thursday, a night where ABC usually struggles.
However, any program that's beaten in the ratings by NBC's "Joey" (7.3 million) doesn't have much to brag about.
The mediocre results appear to justify the networks' decisions to schedule the movies after the November ratings "sweeps" period ended.
10:02 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Vivac
Beyond disgusting.
The sad thing about Plamegate is that even if it ends up having the power to bring down the government, it won't do the same for the Fourth Estate.
8:12 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, December 10, 2005
