Washington State Election Fraud

From soundpolitics.com. If Marshall has contrary evidence this well documented, then post a link. Got tired of you deniers blathering without knowing what you're talking about.

No evidence of election crimes?

Today's Seattle Times reports that John McKay insists that there was no evidence of election crimes in Washington's November 2004 election. Granted, he appears to have relied solely on what the Republican legal team presented in the contest trial. And we now know that King County sandbagged discovery requests and stonewalled public records requests, and the schedule simply didn't permit the litigants to force King County to produce all of the evidence in time for the trial. Here is a summary of what I've found in the 21 months after the trial ended:

Category of suspected illegal vote Expected Documented More Info Sample

Provisional ballots counted
from unregistered "fatal pend" voter 170 170 here photo
Provisional ballots counted from
other unregistered voters 60 32 here photo
Federal write-in ballot counted from
unregistered voter who had not
requested a ballot by the deadline 113 113 here PDF
Two absentee ballots counted
from the same voter 80 30 here photo
Absentee ballot and provisional ballot
counted from the same voter 50 11 here photo
In-state absentee ballots postmarked
after election day (Nov. 2) >5 5 photo


Total suspected illegal votes 478 361

*Notes: These are all cases of ballots that were unlawfully accepted for tabulation by elections officials. Therefore it's only a partial list of what could reasonably be considered fraud. (I've excluded other varieties of illegal votes that could not have been prevented as easily by the elections staff during the canvassing period, e.g. felons, deceased, the provisional ballots that were shoved into polling place Accuvotes, people who voted both at the polls and by mail and votes cast by voters who were registered more than once.

And I'm not even exploring whether all of the ballots were lawfully handled and counted after they were separated from their envelopes). The "expected" column indicates the number of such ballots that data records and other documents indicate one should expect to find if one were to perform an exhaustive search of the ballot envelopes and other physical records. The "documented" column indicates the number that have been corroborated by other King County records and/or by physical records that have been found and photographed after a partial search of the physical evidence.

Again, none of this specific evidence was presented or even known during the trial. But we were all tippped off that something wasn't right when King County counted more votes than voters and admitted to fabricating the reconciliation reports. I would like to ask McKay the following: has he looked for and/or seen any of the funny votes listed above? Does he consider them to be sufficient evidence of unlawful vote counting to at least prompt a more comprehensive investigation?

Has he conducted an investigation and concluded that all of these unlawful votes were caused solely by innocent human error? On what basis? If the answers to the first 3 questions are NO, YES and NO, would he be willing to assist in drafting a formal complaint that could lead to an investigation?

If anybody reading this knows how to reach John McKay, please help me get in touch with him.

‘Wash Post’ Publishes Rare Op-Ed by ‘Anonymous’ On FBI Abuse

By E&P Staff
Published: March 23, 2007 9:30 AM ET

NEW YORK “It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces,” the newspaper declares on page A17 of today’s edition. “In this case, an exception has been made because the author — who would have preferred to be named — is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter.

“The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author’s attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents.”

What follows … is the submission by “John Doe.” The entire piece is available at www.washingtonpost.com.

The Justice Department’s inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue “national security letters.” It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision … without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval — to obtain … sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access … business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone … that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand … I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.

… I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and … filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information … and … the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn’t abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with … the national security letter that was served on my company. …

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case — including the mere fact that I received an NSL — from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case …. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to … lie.

I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation.

Quoted under Fair Use; for complete item and/or copyright info go to http://tinyurl.com/22f5vd

McGrain v. Daugherty

As the Supreme Court pointed out in 1927:

We are of opinion that the power of inquiry-with process to enforce it-is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function. It was so regarded and employed in American Legislatures before the Constitution was framed and ratified. Both houses of Congress took this view of it early in their history-the House of Representatives with the approving votes of Mr. Madison and other members whose service in the convention which framed the Constitution gives special significance to their action-and both houses have employed the power accordingly up to the present time. . . .

Experience has taught that mere requests for such information often are unavailing, and also that information which is volunteered is not always accurate or complete; so some means of compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed. All this was true before and when the Constitution was framed and adopted. In that period the power of inquiry, with enforcing process, was regarded and employed as a necessary and appropriate attribute of the power to legislate-indeed, was treated as inhering in it. Thus there is ample warrant for thinking, as we do, that the constitutional provisions which commit the legislative function to the two houses are intended to include this attribute to the end that the function may be effectively exercised.

Freaking hypocrites

From Hoyer's speech on the Iraq Accountability Act:

Others assert that inclusion of a timeline for responsible redeployment is tantamount to capitulation. Mr. Hobson spoke on this floor just a few minutes ago. He voted to set a time line in Bosnia. Mr. Lewis sits as the ranking member of this committee; he voted on June 24, 1997, to set a timeline. Mr. Hastert, Speaker of the House, set a timeline. Mr. Delay voted for a timeline. Mr. Blunt voted for a timeline. Mr. Boehner voted for a timeline.

Every one of them voted for a timeline, and what were the circumstances? We hadn't lost a single troop, not one. We had spent $7 billion, not $379 billion. We had brought genocide to a stop, ethnic cleansing to a stop, and we were not losing people and we had a stable environment, yet they voted for a timeline.

Josh Marshall on USA case

Full post here, but I've quoted most of it.

...Kinsley is still mulling over whether this is comparable to Bill Clinton's entirely normal dismissal of US Attorneys when he came into office. Would it be as big a deal if the Bush White House had fired all the US Attorneys at the start of the second term, as folks at the White House first seemed to have considered?

The firings were not the offense. They were the clue that suggested the offense. As the Congressional Research Service has shown, over the last twenty-five years only ten US Attorneys have been dismissed other than at the beginning of a new president's term of office. And of those eight were for clear cause. For instance, one of them bit a stripper on the arm in a night club. And that, not surprisingly, led to his ouster....

In any case, ten times over twenty five years and in eight of those cases for clear and publicly aired reasons.

And then on one day, secretly and with no explanation, seven get canned. And several are involved in corruption investigations targetting Republicans. The first public explanation is that they were fired for poor performance. But then it turns most were among the highest performing US Attorneys in the country. Add in the fact that one of the eight was overseeing one of the broadest ranging and historic public corruption cases in US history and ... well, it all got our attention.

Then, only a little digging revealed clear evidence that two of the US Attorneys were dismissed for not pursuing bogus claims of Democratic 'voter fraud'.

Now, Kinsley seems to have bought in to David Brooks artfully laddled line that some of the firings seem to have been for partisan political reasons (bad) while others were for policy political reasons (not necessarily bad). But with all due respect, like history repeating itself, it only looks that way to those who don't know the details....

With Carol Lam, looking closely even at the emails the White House has allowed the Justice Department to release and it's clear that most of the Justice Department's dealings with Lam were coordinating with her on defending the policies she was pursuing against outside criticism. Given that this is being proferred as the after-the-fact excuse for her firing it is surpassingly curious that there appears not to be a single email showing anybody at the Justice Department or the White House asking her to change anything she was doing. The emails that show DOJ and White House officials brainstorming after the fact to come up with reasons for why they fired different prosecutors.

It's not that Lam was fired for not following administration policies on immigration. It's simply the one instance where the Attorney General and the White House are trying hardest to make that case. And it's just not convincing.

There are many people in this conversation trying to avoid the issues, confuse the issues or just ignore them. And more than a few people are just plain confused. But it's not that complicated. Administration officials have repeatedly and demonstrably lied about the firings. And there is now abundant evidence of a pattern of using the president's power to hire and fire US Attorneys to stymie public corruption investigations of Republicans and use the Justice Department to harass Democrats by mounting investigations of demonstrably bogus 'voter fraud' claims. It's really that simple.

The Edwards Problem

Not good.

I have a family member with that form of cancer that has been fighting it for about 4 years successfully. It is incurable because it lurks in the bone and then attacks somewhere else in the body as a new malignancy. They have new types of treatments involving hormones, though, that can really lengthen life expectancy beyond the (I think) 3-4 years it was just a few years ago.

I don't like John Edwards. He's a glorified ambulance chaser who practices class warfare, but no one should have to put up with the tragedies that have befallen him in his personal life.

He and Elizabeth Edwards have a long, difficult road ahead of them as it is even without his continued campaigning. I pray that they defy the odds and have a long and happy personal life.

P.S. I think a nice gesture would be for anyone donating to any of the 2008 candidates also make a donation to the American Cancer Society in Mrs. Edwards name or the name of anyone you know who has suffered from cancer.

Parliamentary smackdowns

How not to impress the guy with the gavel. :-)

Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Speaker, inquiry of the contents of this legislation. Would it be appropriate to offer an amendment at this time exempting American Samoa just as it was from the minimum wage bill?

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend. Under the rule that was adopted, no amendment is in order at this time.

Mr. McHENRY. So the gentleman----

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has asked the parliamentary inquiry, and he has received the answer.

Mr. McHENRY. Further parliamentary inquiry. Further parliamentary inquiry.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Yes. The gentleman may state the inquiry.

Mr. McHENRY. So the Chair is saying that I may not offer an amendment exempting American Samoa from this legislation.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is making a speech and will suspend.

Mr. McHENRY. If the Chair will let me finish my question.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend. The Chair has answered the gentleman's question, not by the Chair's own decision but by the rule. The rule does not provide for amendments. That is the answer to the gentleman's question.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Point of order.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his point of order.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, is the rule that we are operating under coming out of the Rules Committee?

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has not stated a point of order, but rather a parliamentary inquiry. The House has adopted procedures which do not allow amendments. Therefore, Members will now proceed, and the Chair will recognize anyone who wishes to yield time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Another point of order.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state the point of order.

Mr. BARTON. How many times----

The SPEAKER pro tempore. No. ``How many times'' could not conceivably be a point of order. It could be a parliamentary inquiry, but it could not conceivably be a point of order.

Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Speaker, I have one additional parliamentary inquiry.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman may state it.

Mr. McHENRY. Is American Samoa exempted from this bill before us on the House floor?

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will respond to the gentleman: that is not a parliamentary inquiry; that is an inquiry about the substance of a bill. Questions about substance of legislation are not parliamentary inquiries. Parliamentary inquiries pertain to the procedures.

Mr. McHENRY. Additional inquiry.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. No. The Chair will not recognize the gentleman.

Mr. McHENRY. So the gentleman will not recognize me for an additional parliamentary inquiry?

The SPEAKER pro tempore. No. The Chair will say that having heard several parliamentary inquiries which were not parliamentary inquiries----

Mr. McHENRY. Well, the Chair will not answer my question.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will not interrupt. The gentleman asked several, he said, parliamentary inquiries; the Chair answered them. The gentleman has tried to respond by making speeches which are not in order at this point. If the gentleman wishes to get time from the manager of the time to make his remarks----

Mr. McHENRY. Parliamentary inquiry.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state the nature of the parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. McHENRY. Is there a way by which I can derive whether or not American Samoa, like the minimum wage bill, is exempted from this legislation?

The SPEAKER pro tempore. While the Chair is presiding, the gentleman will not make speeches in the guise of a parliamentary inquiry. He has asked a legitimate one, can he find out, how does he find out that information?

The answer is as follows: he asks the gentleman on his side who controls debate time to yield him time. He may then with that time under the rule make the question.

The other way I could say the gentleman could find out would be by reading the bill. Read the bill and it will tell you. But the gentleman may get debate time and then may propound any question to the other side that he wishes.

Mr. McHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Point of order. My point of order is, the distinguished Speaker when he was in the minority numerous times made points of order that were----

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend. Comments on the past behavior of the Speaker might be interesting, but they are not points of order.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Point of order. Then the distinguished Speaker was out of order in the past.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas will suspend. And the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized to yield time for someone who might actually want to debate the bill. The gentleman is recognized for yielding time.

Executive privilege

Name that author.

...wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

Double-Take on a Book and Author

From amazon:

Barbeque'N With Bobby (Paperback) by Bobby Seale (Author)

Yes, that Bobby Seale. And it is about BBQ.

Sick and Tired of Half-Truths

From soundpolitics.com in Seattle:

Sick and tired of getting half-truths
National News
by Stefan Sharkansky, 03:51 PM

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy is "sick and tired of getting half-truths" about the fired U.S. Attorneys. Tell me about it.

Meanwhile, I'm told (fired AUSA - Gonz ed.) John McKay said this on the Mike Siegel Show, May 26, 2005:

The Federal Government has an important historic role in elections ... if there's a Federal crime in the election - if there's bribery, if there's extortion, if there is ballot stuffing - then, if it involves a Federal election, the Federal Government's involved. So that's the basic outline of where we are. But the bottom line is if there is a crime, somebody goes to jail.

That's certainly the right sentiment.

Is it "ballot stuffing" when election officials toss hundreds of ineligible votes into the do-count pile, and then cover it up and prevent that information from being presented in court during a trial about the election? I'm just asking.

Quotes from the Past

Garrett got me started on this, researching historical wartime presidential quotes because some Kos dipshit wanted to compare Bush's speeches with wartime casualties.

What Garrett fails to realize or wishes to overlook is that war is a traumatic event that requires strength and resolve to be radiated from the CinC and that need is irrespective of whether or not one believes or supports the war itself.

If we lived in the same town I dunno whether I'd frog march you into a civics class or beat you over the head with a tome from American Heritage. Because, obviously, you and a number of the Kos overgrown children have a lot to remember in both areas.

So here we go:

Woodrow Wilson, US entry into WWI:

"It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. "

Woodrow Wilson, 1918, "Peace Without Victory"

"The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candor and to a just regard for the opinion of mankind to say that, so far as our participation in guarantees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged."

Abe Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address

"Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether'"

Fitzgerald had "not distinguished himself".

Oh, this is priceless.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show....

The March 2005 chart ranking Fitzgerald and other prosecutors was drawn up by Gonzales aide D. Kyle Sampson and sent to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers. The reference to Fitzgerald is in a portion of the memo that Justice has refused to turn over to Congress, officials told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity because Fitzgerald's ranking has not been made public....

Fitzgerald has been widely recognized for his pursuit of criminal cases against al-Qaeda's terrorist network before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he drew up the official U.S. indictment against Osama bin Laden. He was named as special counsel in the CIA leak case in December 2003 after then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft recused himself.

Fitzgerald also won the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2002 under Ashcroft.

DBD Hits It

Heh.

Love them Hybrids

Whenever the subject of hybrid or electric cars comes up, I've always said that there are hidden environmental factors that don't make them very clean at all. Well, someone finally broke it down better than I have:

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

Read the rest here.

The Secret of Freemasonry

Yeah, yeah, it has nothing to do with politics. So impeach me. :-)

Ouch.

BarbinMD over at Kos gives a brilliant breakdown of White House quotes over the past four years, coupled with the casualtyfatality figures at the time.

Edit: Casualty figures are much higher. Fatality figures are the ones listed here.

Mickey Kaus on NYT News Spinning

From Mickey Kaus, who I normally have no use for:

U.S. military deaths in Iraq have apparently declined by about 20% since the "surge" began. It would be a caricature of MSM behavior if the New York Times, instead of simply reporting this potentially good news, first constructed some bad news to swaddle it in, right? From today's Times:

The heightened American street presence may already have contributed to an increase in the percentage of American deaths that occur in Baghdad.
Over all, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq from hostilities since Feb. 14, the start of the new Baghdad security plan, fell to 66, from 87 in the previous four weeks.

But with more soldiers in the capital on patrol and in the neighborhood garrisons, a higher proportion of the American deaths have occurred in Baghdad — 36 percent after Feb. 14 compared with 24 percent in the previous four weeks. Also over the past four weeks, a higher proportion of military deaths from roadside bombs have occurred in Baghdad — 45 percent compared with 39 percent. [E.A.]

Soldiers presumably get attacked where they are, not where they aren't. If we deploy more soldiers in Baghdad more soldiers will presumably be attacked, and killed, in Baghdad. I don't see why that in itself is bad news, or even news news, if the overall casualty level is declining. ... There will probably be genuine bad military news to report from Baghdad soon enough. Does the NYT have to make some up before then?

New Republic and Cheney

Michelle Cottle of the New Republic thinks Cheney is demented. Charles Krauthammer, the former chief resident of psychiatric consultation for a major hospital, takes her behind the woodshed.

Wilson hearing

Ok, are there any remaining questions about whether she was covert or not? That statement from the director of the CIA was pretty clear.

Hannity, thy name is Hypocrisy

commentary on some stuff Hannity said the other day. Comments?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/i-finally-agree-with-hann_b_43471.html

(Edit by Garrett - linkified)

Departures of US Attorneys, 1981-2006

The Congressional Research Service did a report on when and why U.S. Attorneys who served less than 4 years left. Interesting results.

Not politics, exactly, but...

...still pretty disgusting. (h/t BoingBoing)

At online pharmacy walgreens.com, for instance, the price for 30 tablets of a 20-milligram dose of Merck & Co.'s Zocor is $149.99, compared with $89.99 for simvastatin, the generic version. And last week, the same dose of simvastatin cost $108.99 at CVS's Web site, compared with $154.99 for Zocor. After a call from a reporter, CVS said it would drop its simvastatin price to $79.99, as part of an "ongoing price analysis."...

To be sure, even for the uninsured, generics still typically cost less than their branded counterparts. And at big clubs such as Costco Wholesale and Sam's Club, out-of-pocket prices for generics do generally plummet. Simvastatin costs $6.97 for 30 pills of the 20-milligram dose at a Sam's Club for which the company provided price information....

Charles Burnett, senior vice president of pharmacy at Costco, says the company can acquire the 30-tablet, 20-milligram dose of simvastatin for $2.71.

Biden asks where the plan for a political solution is

Why resignation is not enough

KagroX@Kos lays out the reasoning.

...You may rest assured that apologists for Gonzales, Bush and Rove (whose involvement also seems obvious) will insist that there is no "crime" here, because the hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys is within the president's prerogative. True, as far as it goes. But what clearly ought not to be is the political manipulation of federal investigations to bolster the electoral prospects of Republicans, and damage those of Democrats and other rivals. This is the sort of activity that's so obviously and fundamentally wrong that nobody has yet taken the time to devise a statute to address it. Instead, it occupies the space of a general crime against the Constitution, a subversion of our very system of government, and precisely the sort of crime for which the founders gave us the remedy of impeachment. That's what "high crimes and misdemeanors" are all about. It's not about lawbreaking at altitude.

Dovetailing Into the "Sunday" Post

From The Hill:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the Democratic Caucus chairman, has told new Democratic members of Congress to steer clear of Stephen Colbert, or at least his satirical Comedy Central program, “The Colbert Report.”“He said don’t do it … it’s a risk and it’s probably safer not to do it,” said Rep. Steve Cohen. But the freshman lawmaker from Tennessee taped a segment that last week was featured in the 32nd installment of the “Better Know a District” series. Colbert asked Cohen whether he was a black woman. He isn’t.

WTF?? Doesn't Emanuel realize that Colbert actually makes fun of conservative hosts? Also, since when is hiding from a national audience a good thing for elected officials?

Settings change

I just switched it from 7 posts to 7 days on the front page. If you don't like it that way, fix it, or comment here and I will.

In Tallahassee, They Love The Governor

To paraphrase Lynyrd Skynyrd. One thing this State has been blessed with for many years is good governors who were very popular. Bob Graham (D), Lawton Chiles (D), Jeb Bush (R), and now Charlie Crist (R).

Here are the astoundingly high poll numbers for Crist from Quinnipac poll:


30. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Charlie Crist is handling his job as Governor?

Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom
Approve 69% 77% 65% 70% 72% 67%
Disapprove 6 4 7 5 4 8
DK/NA 25 19 28 25 24 25

This is a true "get 'er done" type of guy. Don't be surprised if you see him in national office within the next 10 years.

Sunday Talk Shows Slant Conservative

I'm really suprised Susie didn't bring up this. It's a suprisingly methodical report by Media Matters about conservatives being more prevalent on Sunday TV talk shows. I was VERY surprised that they allude to the fact that some leading Democrats won't ever go on Fox so that may skew the numbers a bit - MM is not known for being terribly self-critical.

Of course, they have to go ruin it by trying to get Congress involved to enforce balance. Socialism at it's best.

There is a theory I have that plays into the equation: Progressives simply aren't that interesting to watch or listen to unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool progressive to begin with. And if you are trying to sell a TV show, you want to maximize your audience. Plus, some progressive/liberal politicians seem to avoid any confrontational or panel show like the plague. Hillary Clinton comes to mind - she rarely does unscripted interviews and I can't imagine her going toe-to-toe with Bill O'Reilly, for example.

A lot of time, money, and effort has gone into promoting left-leaning TV and radio shows and it either falls flat or grabs a niche audience.

On TV, O'Reilly destroys Olbermann in the ratings. Wipes the floor with him. You libs don't like bad news and won't believe it so here's the latest ratings from Neilsen by way of Mediabistro. Aside: Can anyone tell me why Greta Vansusteren is so popular? Me neither.

On radio, the top five syndicated shows are Limbaugh, Hannity, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, and Savage. All are conservative with Beck being more humorous and Savage being errr.. insane.

Also, if Sunday morning slants conservative, what about all those daytime talk shows the rest of the week? Certainly no one can claim that Oprah and The View are conservative.

But I digress.

My main point is that progressively slanted talk shows have been given ample oppoertunity to succeed and failed. So why would ostensibly neutral shows want to slant in that direction?

Documentation is a good thing...

Jay Carney in January:

It's all very suspicious-sounding. The provision smacks of a power-grab, an attempt to put a leash on federal prosecutors in the name of efficiency. It looks even worse when it turns out one of the "interim" US attorneys appointed by Alberto Gonzales is Tim Griffin, a veteran GOP operative who worked in Karl Rove's shop at the White House and as director of research (i.e., chief dirt digger) at the Republican National Committee. Not only that, but Griffin was appointed to be the USA in his home state of Arkansas, which can only mean he's being sent by Rove, armed with subpoena power, to dig up fresh dirt on the Clintons in time for the 2008 presidential campaign cycle.

Of course! It all makes perfect conspiratorial sense!

Except for one thing: in this case some liberals are seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist.

Jay Carney in March:

Twelve days ago, after David Iglesias went public, I said that if there turned out to be a broad conspiracy behind the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, "I will take my hat off to Marshall and others in the blogosphere and congratulate them for having been right in their suspicions about this story from the beginning."

My hat is off. Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo and everyone else out there whose instincts told them there was something deeply wrong and even sinister about the firings, and who dug around and kept writing about them while Iglesias decided whether to talk to the press or go quietly on to his next job, deserve tremendous credit.

When this story first surfaced, I thought the Bush White House and Justice Department were guilty of poorly executed acts of crass political patronage. I called some Democrats on the Hill; they were "concerned", but this was not a priority. The blogosphere was the engine on this story, pulling the Hill and the MSM along. As the document dump proves, what happened was much worse than I'd first thought. I was wrong. Very nice work, and thanks for holding my feet to the fire.

How to fire USAs

Drat, I can't upload the picture. Oh, well. Check this PDF, and see what it says on pages 16-18.

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/DOJdocsPt2070313.pdf

Gonzales and the Anklebiters

So, Schummer amd fellow Dems are screaming for Alberto Gonzales to resign because of the firings of 8 U.S. Attorneys.

Yet no one raised an eyebrow when Janet Reno fired all 93 of them in 1993.

Reno to U.S. attorneys: Hand in your resignations, please Date: March 24, 1993 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: A/11 Word Count: 752
Attorney General Janet Reno on Tuesday asked all of the country's U.S. attorneys, including the three in Georgia, to submit their resignations, saying the Clinton administration wants to build its own team of federal prosecutors. U.S. Attorneys Joe Whitley in Atlanta, Edgar Ennis in Macon and Jay D. Gardner in Savannah said Tuesday that they will comply.

Typical Democratic tactic of screaming about something perfectly acceptable and hope that no one notices their own far more aggregious behavior in the same area in the past.

Update

I guess my analysis is not unique. From the Wall Street Journal:

Also at the time, allegations concerning some of the Clintons' Whitewater dealings were coming to a head. By dismissing all 93 U.S. Attorneys at once, the Clintons conveniently cleared the decks to appoint "Friend of Bill" Paula Casey as the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock. Ms. Casey never did bring any big Whitewater indictments, and she rejected information from another FOB, David Hale, on the business practices of the Arkansas elite including Mr. Clinton. When it comes to "politicizing" Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons....

As for some of the other fired Attorneys, at least one of their dismissals seemed to owe to differences with the Administration about the death penalty, another to questions about the Attorney's managerial skills. Not surprisingly, the dismissed Attorneys are insisting their dismissals were unfair, and perhaps in some cases they were. It would not be the first time in history that a dismissed employee did not take kindly to his firing, nor would it be the first in which an employer sacked the wrong person.

No question, the Justice Department and White House have botched the handling of this issue from start to finish. But what we don't have here is any serious evidence that the Administration has acted improperly or to protect some of its friends. If Democrats want to understand what a real abuse of power looks like, they can always ask the junior Senator from New York.

It Sucks to be Al Sharpton

From Neal Boortz, a libertarian talk show host based in Atlanta:

Imagine you're Al Sharpton. OK ... I know, you might find it hard to imagine that you're a fat, bigoted lying blowhard who's irresponsible rants have more than likely led to the deaths of innocents in New York City ... but try to imagine you're Al Sharpton anyway. You know you have absolutely nothing working for you other than your ability to manipulate the pandering media into giving you some face time on TV by simply spouting the dogma of black victimization.

Now .. here you are, standing as little more than an object of amusement for many, and an example of a depraved race pimp to most, trying to compete with someone who carries himself with the dignity of Barack Obama. What can you do? Get rid of the pompadour hairstyle? Suddenly develop an aura of respectability? Hardly. You really only have one option ... either you manage to get Barack Obama to legitimize you and elevate you to something close to his level by begging you for your endorsement; or you start ripping into Obama in the faint hope that you can somehow bring him down to play with you in the sty.

Yup .. .it sucks to be Al Sharpton. Finally Americans have seen what a bona-fide black candidate for the presidency looks like and talks like --- and he bears no resemblance whatsoever to you.

And if sucks to be Al Sharpton, think about how much it sucks to be Jesse Jackson right now. Why, this Obama upstart hasn't even established his credentials by blackmailing a major corporation ... and here he is being taken seriously! Life's tough, Jesse! How ya gonna keep the money flowing into your secret coffers when you aren't the leader of the pack any more?

Washington Post on the Pelosi Iraq Plan

Blasted as vote-mongering at the expense of geopolitical reality. Unusual for the WaPo to go after the Dems but...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031201198.html

A Classic

South Park.....pseudo-conservative humor for 10 years

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/south_park_still_sick_still_wrong/page/1

Michael Moore and Honesty

Turning the tables on Michael Moore

By Michelle Malkin · March 10, 2007 04:42 PM

What goes around, comes around. A new documentary unmasking Michael Moore debuts today at the South by Southwest film festival:

The cameras get turned on Michael Moore for a change at the South by Southwest film festival, where the documentary Manufacturing Dissent will have its world premiere.
The film from directors Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk, playing March 10 at the Austin festival, follows Moore during the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 and questions many of his tactics.
Among its revelations: that the confrontational documentarian did interview former General Motors Chairman Roger Smith, the elusive subject of his 1989 debut Roger & Me, and simply chose to leave it out of the finished cut.

Moore, who won an Academy Award for 2002's Bowling for Columbine, has not responded to e-mail and phone requests for comment.

"The people who can attest to this are extremely credible and do attest to this in the film," said John Pierson, the independent film veteran who helped sell Roger & Me to Warner Bros. and now teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. "I've always loved Roger & Me. I loved working on it. I really believed in it, and that's really bad. The fundamental core of the film is how his mission to get Roger Smith fails and, P.S., Michael spent 18 years since then swearing he never interviewed Roger Smith."

More details:
In "Manufacturing Dissent" Caine and Melnyk — whose previous films include "Junket Whore," about movie journalists, and "Citizen Black," about Conrad Black — note that the scene in "Fahrenheit 9/11" in which President George W. Bush greets "the haves, and the have-mores" took place at the annual Al Smith Dinner, where politicians traditionally make sport of themselves. Melnyk and Caine received a video of the speeches from the dinner's sponsor, the Archdiocese of New York. "Al Gore later answers a question by saying, 'I invented the Internet,'" Caine said. "It's all about them making jokes at their own expense."

For once, Michael Moore has no comment.

Fitz on slow boil?

Is he waiting until February 2009 to make sure his work isn't wasted?

My head hurts

Let's recap: a corrupt Israeli PM - has a stake in a corrupt Israeli bank- owned by a corrupt Wall Street global hedge fund - which owns a corrupt US defense contractor - which contributes to corrupt GOP Congressmen - who also receive money from another corrupt defense contractor - that defense contractor produced faulty intel under contract to a corrupt CIA Assn't Director - that faulty intel was used to justify a corrupt US Administration's case for invading Iraq - that was planned and executed by corrupt neocons inside DoD who had written a proposal years earlier to wage wars to privatize the Israeli economy.

More Than a Feeling

Brad Delp is dead at 55. Nooooo!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17543043/

Liberal overreaction

No, really. This is just stupid, if that's all there was to it...

Boggles the Mind

Literally. First, from Dr. Robert Lanza

Without perception, there is in effect no reality. Nothing has existence unless you, I, or some living creature perceives it, and how it is perceived further influences that reality. Even time itself is not exempted from biocentrism. Our sense of the forward motion of time is really the result of an infinite number of decisions that only seem to be a smooth continuous path. At each moment we are at the edge of a paradox known as The Arrow, first described 2,500 years ago by the philosopher Zeno of Elea. Starting logically with the premise that nothing can be in two places at once, he reasoned that an arrow is only in one place during any given instance of its flight. But if it is in only one place, it must be at rest. The arrow must then be at rest at every moment of its flight. Logically, motion is impossible. But is motion impossible? Or rather, is this analogy proof that the forward motion of time is not a feature of the external world but a projection of something within us? Time is not an absolute reality but an aspect of our consciousness.

Find the rest of this article here

You want experimental proofs? Check this out (here's an excerpt)

The results, reported this week in Science, prove that the photon does not decide whether to behave like a particle or a wave when it hits the first beam splitter, Roch says. Rather, the experimenter decides only later, when he decides whether to put in the second beam splitter. In a sense, at that moment, he chooses his reality.

Congress back on duty

Oversight. Gotta love it.

Within a week it emerged that as many as a half-dozen other U.S. attorneys had been forced out under similarly unexplained circumstances at roughly the same time. That was enough to get Bush administration critics asking questions. But the story might well have languished there, in the netherworld of Bush White House quasi-scandals, had it not been for questions asked of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty at a Senate hearing early last month.

The eight fired U.S. attorneys seemed inclined to go quietly until McNulty told the Senate that they’d been let go for “performance-related” problems. A review of the attorneys’ performance evaluations quickly cast doubt on that explanation. And it was also enough to get the fired attorneys talking.

The Last Flight of Lieut. Landaker

From the blog post on BlackFive...

On board, 0600: "Good morning folks this is the Captain. This morning we have been attending to some additional duties and I apologize for being 10 minutes late for pushback but believe me we will be early to LAX. This morning it is my sad pleasure to announce that 1st LT Jared Landaker USMC will be flying with us to his Big Bear home in Southern California . Jared lost his life over the sky's of Iraq earlier this month and today we have the honor of returning him home along with his Mother, Father, Brother and uncles. Please join me in making the journey comfortable for the Landaker family and their uniformed escort. Now sit back and enjoy our ride, we are not expecting any turbulence until we reach the Rocky Mountains and at that time we will do what we can to ensure a smooth ride. For those interested you can listen in to our progress on button 9."

Anatomy of a Botched Joke

A good perspective, for once. From opinionjournal.com

Anatomy of a Botched Joke

Remember when John Kerry made disparaging comments about the U.S. military and then claimed, with an absurd self-righteousness, that it was all a "botched joke"? Now, thanks to Ann Coulter, we know what an actual botched joke looks like.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, Coulter said:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word "faggot," so I--so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards.

This joke failed, for three reasons:

The pop culture reference is too obscure for most people to get. We knew about it only because Kathryn Lopez linked to an article about it: It seems Isaiah Washington, a TV actor, checked into a "residential treatment facility" after a dispute with a fellow cast member in which Washington used the word "faggot."

Although Edwards has what people back in 2003 used to call a "metrosexual" demeanor, as well as a history of gay-baiting, it is not clear why implying that he is gay would be funny.

"Faggot" is an ugly word, redolent of hatred even if employed without hateful intent.

Of course, every time Coulter says something outrageous, the reaction is Pavlovian all around: Liberals get outraged, conservatives get outraged, and liberals get outraged that conservatives aren't outraged, even though they are. Our favorite conservative reaction came from blogger Rick Moran, who wrote:

I urge everyone--right and left--to take the following actions:

1. Never write another blog post about Ann Coulter no matter how outrageous, cruel, or bigoted her language. . . .

I will no longer be a willing cog in her publicity machine.

Well, OK, I will write this 700-word post, and I will update it twice, to the tune of more than 500 words. But once I'm done with that, I will no longer be a willing cog in her publicity machine! Really!

Our favorite liberal response came from the Edwards campaign itself, which sent out a ridiculously over-the-top email attributed to pro-Saddam ex-Rep. David Bonior:

Did you hear about Anne [sic] Coulter's speech this afternoon attacking John? A friend just forwarded me the video and it's one of the worst moments in American politics I've seen. I can't bring myself to even repeat her comments. Her shameless display of bigotry is so outrageous you actually have to see for yourself to believe it. This is just a taste of the filth that the right-wing machine is gearing up to throw at us.

So it's both "one of the worst moments in American politics" and "just a taste of the filth" to come? The Associated Press reports that Edwards himself "said a remark about him by conservative author Ann Coulter reminded him of hateful speech against blacks he heard while growing up in the segregated South." And if you want to show your disgust with Coulter, go here to donate "Coulter cash" to the Edwards campaign.

Edwards seems to be striking a self-pitying tone similar to the one Kerry struck last year when he was the one who gave offense. It's funny how liberal politicians are always the victims, whether someone else says something outrageous about them or they say something outrageous about others.

In any case, you can tell Coulter's botched joke really was a botched joke by the light touch she used when the New York Times asked her about it:

Ms. Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: "C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."

Now that gave us a chuckle.

Great Book: World War Z

How did I ever miss this one? This book is a mockumentary that takes place a few years after humanity has defeated a "Night of the Living Dead" style zombie attack. It is very insightful on how various factions of society would react to such a thing even if the premise is fantasy. Both left and right are skewered for different reasons.

Highly recommended

http://www.amazon.com/World-War-Z-History-Zombie/dp/0307346609

Deconstructing D'Souza

This Kos diary does a good job of showing the danger of the "violent right".

By defining liberals as a "hidden" second front of terrorism, D'Souza's book invokes a very simple, widely held idea in America: that "War on Terror" means first and foremost, "kill terrorists." Thus, The Enemy at Home gives intellectual legitimacy to a widely accepted, rapidly growing Republican tendency to frame national security in terms of killing Democrats....

But D'Souza is a different kind of voice to emerge in the violent right. Neither angry nor animated, D'Souza cuts a media image similar to that of a boring, middle school substitute teacher. He is a quiet, unassuming man using soft tones as he both writes and speaks about the need to battle and destroy liberals with the same ferocity as we kill terrorists....

Americans who dismiss the power and danger of D'Souza's argument do so at great risk to the public sphere of free debate in this country. By the time the arena of public ideas is overtaken by D'Souza's toxic and contagious language of violence, it will be too late to turn it back.

Argument by anecdote

There are those here who need to take note of this point.

UPDATE II: This whole issue raises a broader point: the reliance by idiots and deceivers on the fallacy of argument by anecdote, one of the lowest (and most commonly invoked) forms of fallacious reasoning.

It is hard to overstate how pervasive this lowly and manipulative weapon is wielded by right-wing demagogues to shape our political debates. LGF's simplistic trick, for instance, is to post individual stories every day of Muslims who engage in violent acts ("hey, look - I proved that Muslims are inferior and dangerous!"). Michelle Malkin repeatedly posts individual stories of supposed leftists engaging in illegal or violent acts ("hey, look -- I proved that liberals are unhinged"). Or the right finds a single obscure college professor nobody ever heard of who referred to 9/11 victims as "Little Eichmanns" ("hey, look - we proved that 'the Left' hates America and believes that the 9/11 victims deserved it!").

Those who rely on that cheap, tawdry tactic are really indistinguishable -- just in terms of the methods -- from, say, websites run by white supremacists who, every day, troll the news wires and post individual stories of crimes committed by African-Americans and then think that they've made a broader point. In that context, most people can see how transparently fallacious the tactic is, but in other contexts, they are blind to it.

In fact, because such sloppy, illogical shorthand -- when used against "liberals" -- is easy to both convey and ingest, journalists love it. They use it themselves and are easily manipulated into passing such arguments along (just fathom how quickly this story is going to make the usual rounds -- "'liberals' hate Bush and Cheney so much that they actually expressed sorrow that Cheney wasn't killed in the explosion today").

Glenn Beck Rips On Olbermann

Well deserved, I might add. Beck does show restraint, but he's generally a class act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvQ7Slfo-A

The Gore "Pile-On"

This is what happens when your sanctimonious ass gets caught saying one thing and doing another. And Suz, not one word about going after the messengers - in this case they broke a story that the mainstream media should have been all over before anyone else.

From opinionjournal.com (The Wall Street Journal), partially quoted:

The Tennessean reported that Gore buys "carbon offsets" to compensate for his home's use of energy from carbon-based fuels. As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset "is a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases." . . .

But how Gore buys his "carbon offsets," as revealed by The Tennessean raises serious questions. According to the newspaper's report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management:

Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe . . .

Gore is chairman of the firm and, presumably, draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he "buys" his "carbon offsets" from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn't buy "carbon offsets" through Generation Investment Management--he buys stocks. . . .

Meanwhile, Gore runs around the country and the world trumpeting "climate crisis" and blaming man's use of carbon-based energy--burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel as he goes. His efforts have served to put climate change at the top of the national and even global agenda, driving up the value of the stocks and companies viewed as "green" or environmentally friendly. Companies like those his investment management firm invest his own and other peoples' [sic] money in. (You can see a list of Generation Investment Management's holdings here, courtesy of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.) ...

So, let's sum this up: Here we have a major American politician who is calling for policies that would impose huge costs on society but appears to be profiting handsomely himself; who is leading an extravagant lifestyle while demanding sacrifices from ordinary people; and who is calling on the media to suppress the views of those with whom he disagrees, while at the same time urging more government regulation in the name of "fairness" to his partisan and ideological allies.

Why is it left to think tanks and bloggers to investigate and expose all this?

Update:

Heh. Gets even better. From BillHobbs.com

Gore's huge electric power usage at his Nashville home isn't the only example of how the prophet profit of environmental doom hasn't always lived as if he believes his message. During the eight years Gore was vice president, he voted in four national elections. Every single time, he and his entourage and security detail and accompanying media flew to Nashville on a large government jet, burning thousands of gallons of fossil fuels and pumping huge amounts of carbon emissions directly into the earth's atmosphere, and then drove in a caravan of fossil fuel-burning vehicles from Nashville International Airport east on I-40 to Carthage, Tennessee, so the local and national TV cameras could get video of him at the voting booth. And then the whole caravan headed back to Nashville for the plane ride back to DC. Traffic had to be halted on Nashville's interstates and side streets every time - sometimes during rush hour - idling thousand of vehicles that just sat there, burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon pollution, just so Gore could create a media photo-op.

He could have instead voted by mailing in an absentee ballot

Comments on the "liberal" media here?

In his February 28 appearance on CBS' Late Show with David Letterman, during which he announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that "Americans are very frustrated" with the situation in Iraq and that "they have every right to be." McCain then added: "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure [in Iraq], which is American lives." The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times all published March 1 articles reporting McCain's announcement on the Late Show, with The New York Times and the Post directly quoting McCain from the program -- but none of these articles noted his claim that "we've wasted" American lives in Iraq. Yet when Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) made similar comments in Iowa on February 11, the Post and the Los Angeles Times reported the remarks the following day. The New York Times, meanwhile, devoted a February 13 article to Obama's subsequent apology and clarification.

McCain has since said he'd change the word "wasted" to "sacrificed", so let's see if there is a full article on it tomorrow in the NYT.

Pay No Attention to MY Increased Usage of Resources...

Most people are just plain stupid! One third of this country believes the government had a hand in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. You can stand on a street corner and shout out the most idiotic notion in the world and there will be people lining up to follow. Such is the case with AlGore. What a dolt, and what fools he must think we are. His lifestyle goes unchanged (or accelerates), while he expects everyone else to ride a bicycle to work. Then he lies about his utility usage (which has only continued to increase). If he REALLY was trying to save the environment, he would be scaling back, not creating a ponzi scheme to fool the idiots into believing that he has purchased "carbon offsets" that render his usage as zero. Bullshit! He is buying these credits from a company HE formed. So, you might say he is acutally going to be making money off these "offsets". He is definitely "offsetting".

Thirty years ago it was the coming Ice Age (See NewsWeek 1975 complete with graphs), today it's Global Warming. The real problem is global scientists who are seeking funding for research projects. Create an emergency that only can be solved via massive governmental funding every few years. My study of this issue says that if everyone in the US parked their cars and started walking it wouldn't have an impact on global warming. How about this notion. . . weather cycles!

Update (by Gonzo)
From the Chicago Tribute, April 2001:

The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.

Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly" dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the
surrounding ecosystem.

No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven where tree-huggers plot political strategy.

This is President George W. Bush's "Texas White House" outside the small town of Crawford

Swift Boat funder nominated to ambassadorship

But first, he has to be questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. :-)

Kerry: Did you miss this: In September of 2004, Vice Admiral Ruth, with the Navy Inspector General, wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Navy that was made public -- the New York Times, the Washington Post, every major newspaper in the country carried, saying their examination found that the existing documentation regarding my medals was legitimate.

Did you miss that too?

Fox: I don’t remember those, but I'm certain at the time I must have read them.

Kerry: Do you think this should matter to me?

Fox: I'm sorry?

Kerry: Do you think this should matter to me?

Fox: Yes, I do.

About Dick Cheney

From IMAO...

After Cheney was targeted by terrorists while in Afghanistan, numerous urban legends about him have surfaced, some old and some new. Here's the facts sorted from the fiction:

Claim: Cheney could have been hurt in the bomb attack in Afghanistan.
Status: False

Cheney is invulnerable to conventional weaponry. According to DoD reports, Cheney can only be harmed by a direct nuclear blast or by magical attacks. Bomb blasts only anger him.

Claim: After the attack, Cheney was rushed to safety.
Status: False

Reportedly, Cheney formed a one man death squad after the attack, killing anyone he suspected had anything to do with the attack or may have known anyone involved with the attack. Everyone in a nearby village was found dead, all having been blasted in the face with a shotgun. In the center of the village was Cheney's usual calling card: a strangled puppy.

Claim: Despite his gruff demeanor, Cheney is a compassionate man.
Status: False

Cheney is a merciless killing machine and knows no emotion. According to Cheney's staff, he wants to kill you right now. When asked for a reason, the only answer given was, "Because he's Dick Cheney."

Claim: To protect his health after numerous heart attacks, Cheney follows a strict, healthy diet.
Status: False

Cheney's heart was reconstructed in a sole-source Halliburton contract, and Cheney needs to bite the heads off live kittens for fuel. The alternative fuel source is whiskey.

Claim: Cheney divorced all financial ties to Halliburton by insuring his pension.
Status: False

Halliburton continues to pay Cheney money out of fear. The amount is based on how much pain and suffering he causes in the world.

Claim: Cheney received five draft deferments to keep him out of the Vietnam War.
Status: False

The U.S. government decided not deploy Cheney in the Vietnam War to avoid charges of war crimes.

Claim: Cheney swallows small children whole.
Status: False

He chews first.

The Big Bang of Primaries

Dick Morris on the change in presidential primary dates. Bummer conclusion.

Only strong will survive this Big Bang

Nineteen states or more, with half of America’s population, are moving to hold their presidential nominating primaries on Feb. 5, 2008, a mere three weeks after the Iowa caucuses and two weeks after the New Hampshire primary. In effect, we will now have a national primary and the presidential nominating season will last only three weeks from start to finish.

The effect of this gigantic sea change will be that whoever is the frontrunner in each party by the fall of 2007 will be virtually certain to win the nomination because only the frontrunner can possibly hope to amass enough money to compete in half the country at once. Nobody but the likely winner in each party will be able to compete at that level on Feb. 5.

Money will now be king. Nothing else will count very much. If you can afford to run a national campaign three weeks after the first caucus, you will win. If you can’t, you’re doomed. And the polling that designates a frontrunner now will do much to determine the nominee.

Big states, including California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and North Carolina, are moving their primaries up to Feb. 5. They are going to be joined by a dozen smaller states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada (GOP only), New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah. With half of the country — these states have a combined population of 145 million — voting on Feb. 5, many other states are sure to join the move and vote on that early date. After all, which state legislature wants to consign its voters to political irrelevance by voting in April or May? Before we are done, we will have America’s first national primary on Feb. 5.

The financial demands of competing in each of these states are so onerous that only the richest of candidates can hope to win. That kind of money only goes to frontrunners. As a result, the process will be sufficiently top-heavy that the candidates who enjoy clear leads in the polls after the summer of 2007 will have a virtual lock on the nomination before anybody has cast a vote on anything in any state!

The danger, of course, is that the frontrunner will have been anointed without ever actually holding a primary. The effect will be to strip the primary process of its power — for the first time since it became the central way of selecting candidates in the aftermath of the 1972 reforms — and give the power to designate candidates to national public-opinion polls conducted among random representative samples of the voters. It is the triumph of the pollsters and fundraisers.

So how will we choose who are the frontrunners before anyone has voted? How will candidates impact the polls in order to swell their coffers? The early primary date means that the virtual primaries that will designate the frontrunners will be held on cable television, the Internet, and talk radio. The Republican Virtual Primary will be held on Fox News, the Limbaugh, Hannity, and other conservative talk radio shows, and the right-wing websites. The Democratic Virtual Primary will be held on National Public Radio, PBS, a handful of liberal talk shows, the network news programs, and websites like MoveOn.org where liberals congregate.

But what happens if the candidate chosen by this instant virtual lottery has feet of clay that only become evident when he or she actually runs for office in a real election? The testing, seasoning, vetting, and whittling-down of the field, which used to take five or six months, cannot now take place at all. We will never know how the candidates of each party will perform in an actual election. Voters in each party will be buying a car without being able to take it for a drive.

In 2004, when the process was so truncated that Kerry was chosen as the nominee in March, the Democratic Party found itself saddled with a deeply flawed candidate whose shortcomings were not evident until after the Democratic Convention had nominated him. Throughout the fall of 2004, Kerry’s inability as a candidate became so glaringly obvious that Democrats didn’t give him a second look when he sought their nomination again this year.

The early primary dates would seem, at the moment, to confer an enormous advantage on the frontrunners in each party: Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Their current leads in the polls and their consequent fundraising advantage make them stronger favorites than they might be if they had to run in a succession of primaries week after week.

So the new process, bequeathed to us by the advancing of the primary dates, will reward the rich, the pollsters, and the talk shows. And politics will never be the same again.

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/DickMorris/022807.html

Gen. Kiley knew about vets' outpatient scandal

Posting this for Susan:

Gen. Kiley knew about vets' outpatient scandal
Veterans groups told the Army surgeon general about the shockingly bad mental health treatment at Walter Reed two months before the latest exposé, but there's no evidence he followed up.
By Mark Benjamin

Feb. 27, 2007 | Though he has since dodged the question in a television interview, the officer in charge of medical care for the U.S. Army was told more than two months ago that the Army's outpatient medical care program was dysfunctional, yet he apparently took no action in response. The Army's outpatient services include the substandard treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that has been the subject of a number of recent articles in the Washington Post and a series of stories in Salon in 2005.

At a meeting last Dec. 20, a group of veterans advocates informed Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, former commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and now the Army surgeon general, that soldiers returning from Iraq were routinely struggling for outpatient treatment and getting tangled in the military's byzantine disability compensation system -- and that their families were suffering along with them.

"We are here to tell you that our soldiers and our veterans, and some of their families, are falling through the cracks," Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, told Kiley at a meeting of the Department of Defense Health Board Task Force on Mental Health. Kiley co-chairs the panel, which was created by Congress to probe military mental-healthcare capabilities. "Hundreds and potentially thousands of soldiers are facing barriers to mental healthcare," said Robinson, "and are facing improper discharges" because of the Army's complex discharge and compensation system.

Robinson also warned Kiley, who ran Walter Reed from 2002 through 2004 and still has responsibility for it as Army surgeon general, that the scandalous situation threatened to become a media firestorm. "If we identify something," said Robinson, "we would much rather bring it to the chain of command than see it reported in [CBS'] '60 Minutes.'"

Kiley called the veterans' remarks "very important testimony," and allowed speakers to go beyond their allotted time limits, but there's no evidence that he has followed up. Since the Post stories broke, Kiley has mostly insisted that the outpatient problems are confined to poor building maintenance, and has denied any evidence of poor healthcare treatment.

Kiley's office did not respond to an e-mail asking him to discuss what steps he may have taken to address the shortfalls described to him last December. Robinson, from Veterans for America and a retired Army Ranger, said Kiley should have acted after that briefing. "I took this as an opportunity to testify before Kiley and put on the record that we knew what was going on and we wanted him to do something about it," Robinson said in a telephone interview. "It was that the system was broke."

Georg-Andreas Pogany, who is a retired Army sgt. 1st class, gave Kiley a similarly stern admonition at the December meeting. Pogany advised Kiley that for outpatient mental-healthcare treatment, there were "barriers to treatment on the ground, in the companies, at the battalion level, and in the barracks." Pogany said he had been frustrated while trying to help soldiers extract proper treatment compensation from the Army for their disabilities, a bureaucratic process that can take months or years. "After careful and thorough review of each soldier's medical and military service record, I am faced with the sobering reality of the enormous gaps in the systems of services and safeguards to prevent service members from falling through the cracks."

In a telephone interview, Pogany said these kinds of healthcare failures have been evident in the military throughout the war. "This is something Kiley should have taken care of some time ago," Pogany said. "Soldiers that are in the medical process are being treated as a disposable commodity."

Yet on Wednesday, Feb. 21, when both Steve Robinson and Lt. Gen. Kiley appeared on PBS television's "NewsHour," Kiley wouldn't give a direct answer to interviewer Judy Woodruff when she asked what he knew and when he knew it.

WOODRUFF: General Kiley, you just heard Mr. Robinson saying he met with you, he met with others in your office, and, yet, the officials were saying today that they didn't know this was going on. Can you square that for us?

LT. GEN. KEVIN KILEY: Well, you've got to look at the timelines and what we meant. I don't disagree with Mr. Robinson that the challenges that the leadership at Walter Reed have had -- frankly, since I took command in 2002 -- in support of the global war on terrorism and taking care of soldiers has required us to continually reevaluate how we care for soldiers, how we process the MEB-PEB process, the medical boarding process.

Kiley goes on to say, "This is a very complex set of problems, because the soldiers have got complex issues, mental, emotional, and physical."

The very next day, however, Kiley told assembled press at Walter Reed, "I guarantee you that the healthcare here is of the very highest order and has been. The issues ... have been about the quality of life, specifically some of the issues in Building 18, and and then the bureaucracy, which is not a function of letting soldiers languish. We're not letting soldiers languish ... Those great, young Americans deserve nothing but the very best healthcare, which I believe they're getting."

The heads-up that Kiley received in December focused on troops' neglected psychological wounds, including post-traumatic stress disorder. In vivid language and detail, the advocates depicted a widespread breakdown in which soldiers were unable to get adequate outpatient mental healthcare and were getting bogged down -- and sometimes treated unfairly -- in the complex compensation system that is supposed to remunerate them for their injuries. Those failures, Kiley was told, were stranding some soldiers with what can be life-threatening conditions without proper treatment or fair compensation. According to the presentations that day, these shortcomings are spread sporadically throughout the military healthcare system, as opposed to showing up as an isolated scourge at a place like Walter Reed.

Top Pentagon officials so far have mostly reacted with shock, professing ignorance of the problems prior to the Washington Post articles. "This news caught me -- as it did many other people -- completely by surprise," Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr. said at a press conference on Feb. 21. Winkenwerder, Kiley's superior, also suggested that the foul-ups were not healthcare issues, calling the problems at Walter Reed "quality of life experience" shortfalls. (The White House announced plans to replace Winkenwerder the next day, Feb. 22, for what was described as a previously planned departure.)

If Kiley has not done much to address the problems he heard about last December, it would stand in stark contrast to the outrage other Army officials have articulated since they learned about problems at Walter Reed. "This is too important and cannot wait for a report to be finished or a review to be completed," Army Secretary Francis Harvey said in a statement last week. "We'll fix as we go. We'll fix as we find things wrong."


-- By Mark Benjamin



http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/27/kiley/index.html?source=newsletter

Commentary on Malkin

Yes, why does the WaPo cover Malkin when she bashes it so much?

Interesting speech

here.

Edit: sorry, I should have given more context.

With the numbers of our enemies mounting, it is fortunate that our military power remains without match. The United States' armed forces are the most competent and lethal in history. And so they are likely to remain for decades to come. Our humbling on the battlegrounds of the Middle East does not reflect military inadequacy; it is rather the result of the absence of strategy and its political handmaiden -- diplomacy. We are learning the hard way that old allies will not aid us and new allies will not stick with us if we ignore their interests, deride their advice, impugn their motives, and denigrate their capabilities. Friends will not walk with us into either danger or opportunity if we injure their interests and brush aside their objections to our doing so. Those with whom we have professed friendship in the past cannot sustain their receptivity to our counsel if we demand that they adopt secular norms of the European Enlightenment that we no longer exemplify, while loudly disparaging their religious beliefs and traditions. Diplomacy-free foreign policy does not work any better than strategy-free warfare.

Army Refiles Against Watada

As well they should. Here's a quote from the article

"Watada is the first Army officer to face court-martial for refusing to serve in Iraq, and his case has drawn international attention as the Hawaiian-born officer has allied himself with peace groups and repeatedly attacked the Bush administration's conduct of the war."

The guy doesn't deploy with his unit....courtmartial for sure.

How to explain things to libertarians

Chris Clarke, over at Pandagon, points out what he sees as the issues with Libertarianism as it currently stands. Don't know if I agree with everything he says, but a couple of the points look telling.

Gore called it, five years ago

This man should have been president. At the Commonwealth club in 2002, he gave a speech that clearly articulated the problems with what we were doing, and what the results would be.

I want to talk about the relationship between America's war against terrorism and America's proposed war against Iraq. Like most Americans I've been wrestling with the question of what our country needs to do to defend itself from the kind of focused, intense and evil attack that we suffered a year ago, September 11. We ought to assume that the forces responsible for that attack are even now attempting to plan another attack against us.

I'm speaking today in an effort to recommend a specific course of action for our country, which I sincerely believe would be better for our country than the policy that is now being pursued by President Bush. Specifically, I am deeply concerned that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century....

I believe that we are perfectly capable of staying the course in our war against Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network, while simultaneously taking those steps necessary to build an international coalition to join us in taking on Saddam Hussein in a timely fashion. If you're going after Jesse James, you ought to organize the posse first. Especially if you're in the middle of a gunfight with somebody who's out after you.

I don't think we should allow anything to diminish our focus on the necessity for avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists that we know were responsible for it. The fact that we don't know where they are should not cause us to focus instead on some other enemy whose location may be easier to identify. We have other enemies, but we should focus first and foremost as our top priority on winning the war against terrorism....

I believe this proposed foreshortening of deliberation in the Congress robs the country of the time it needs for careful analysis of exactly what may lie before us. Such consideration is all the more important because the administration has failed thus far to lay out an assessment of how it thinks the course of a war will run - even while it has given free run to persons both within and close to the administration to suggest at every opportunity that this will be a pretty easy matter. And it may well be, but the administration has not said much of anything to clarify its idea of what would follow regime change or the degree of engagement that it is prepared to accept for the United States in Iraq in the months and years after a regime change has taken place.

I believe that this is unfortunate, because in the immediate aftermath of September 11, more than a year ago, we had an enormous reservoir of goodwill and sympathy and shared resolve all over the world. That has been squandered in a year's time and replaced with great anxiety all around the world, not primarily about what the terrorist networks are going to do, but about what we're going to do. My point is not that they are right to feel that way, but that they do feel that way. And that has consequences for us. Squandering all that goodwill and replacing it with anxiety in a year's time is similar to what was done by turning a hundred-billion-dollar surplus into a two-hundred-billion-dollar deficit in a year's time....

I just think that if we end the war in Iraq the way we ended the war in Afghanistan, we could very well be worse off than we are today. When you ask the administration about this, what's their intention in the aftermath of a war, Secretary Rumsfeld was asked recently about what our responsibility would be for re-stabilizing Iraq in the aftermath of an invasion, and his answer was, "That's for the Iraqis to come together and decide." On the surface you can understand the logic behind that, and this is not an afterthought. This is based on administration policy. I vividly remember that during one of the campaign debates in 2000, Jim Lehrer asked then-Governor Bush whether or not America, after being involved with military action, should engage in any form of nation building. The answer was, "I don't think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. We're going to have kind of a nation-building corps in America? Absolutely not."...

One final word on this proposed doctrine of preemption; this goes far beyond the situation in Iraq. It would affect the basic relationship between the United States and the rest of the world community. Article 51 of the United Nations charter approved here recognizes the right of any nation to defend itself, including the right to take preemptive actions in order to deal with imminent threats. President Bush now asserts that we will take preemptive action even if the threat we perceive is not imminent. If other nations assert that same right, then the rule of law will quickly be replaced by the reign of fear. Any nation that perceives circumstances that could eventually lead to an imminent threat would be justified under this approach in taking military action against another nation. In other words, President Bush is presenting our country with a proposition that contains within itself one of the most fateful decisions in our history; a decision to abandon what we have thought was America's mission in the world - a world in which nations are guided by a common ethic codified in the form of international law, if we want to survive.

Edit: fixed year, link.

1000 of pictures worth 16 words...

Lessons from Vietnam

Rick Perlstein sees lots of parallels between the 60s and today.

McGovern-Hatfield failed because of presidential intimidation, in the face of overwhelming public support. Nixon and Nixon surrogates pinioned legislators inclined to vote for it with the same old threats. A surviving document recording the talking points had them say they would be giving "aid and comfort" to an enemy seeking to "kill more Americans," and, yes, "stab our men in the back," and "must assume responsibility for all subsequent deaths" if they succeeded in "tying the president's hands through a Congressional Appropriations route."

But isn't that interesting: There wouldn't have been subsequent deaths if they had had the fortitude to stand up to the threats.

Every time congressional war critics made Congress the bulwark of opposition to a war-mongering president, they galvanized public opinion against the war.

Dick Cheney helping Al Queda?

Read this article by Hunter@DailyKos, and see if you can honestly disagree.

Like most Americans, I considered American actions in Afghanistan to be a dismal but necessary act. An attack on United States soil requires, unequivocally, a disproportionate response; a valid military response in this case would have indeed been a removal of the Taliban from power, the complete and total removal of al Qaeda from Afghanistan and in any other countries in which they had found refuge, and a generous reconstruction of Afghanistan in such a fashion as to ensure al Qaeda's continued inability to function there, thus demonstrating that terrorism against the United States would both fail in its purpose, and would result in disproportionate damage to the terrorists and hostile nations responsible. That's how you prevent terrorism: you make the consequences worse than the possible upside.

Increasing the Minimum Wage

I have to admit I was on the fence on this issue because, like global warming, the issue is so politicized that it's hard to find objective, scholarly studies of the impact on workers and employers.

IMHO with a Democratic Congress and a Republican President it's more important than ever for responsible citizens to get as many objective facts before forming strong opinions.

Well, I finally a good article....although more statistics would have been nice and it's not truly a study:

http://gmj.gallup.com/content/23590/1/A-Minimum-Wage-Hike-The-Real-Impact.aspx

I did find studies by the CEPR and Cato strongly for and against, respectively, a minimum wage hike but both were selectively quoting labor statistics and ignoring certain data points.

All sides seem to be focused on the impact on the restaurant industry, especially the CEPR paper. To this I'd like to add my observations that both sides seem to be missing or intentionally glossing over.

Very few restaurant workers, except for the fast-food joints, make the minimum wage in reality. Even fast-food joints pay most workers above the minimum wage to foster retention. Before someone screams "cite!" just pick up a newspaper and find a McDonalds ad.

On the books, it looks like many non-fast food workers are but that's a distortion of typical restaurant economics.

Here's a realistic scenario: A small suburban neighborhood restaurant has 30 tables. Let's say they're dinner only and menu prices are in the $9 - $15 range.

On a given day they employ 4 servers, a busboy, a dishwasher, a chef/cook, probably a chef's assistant, and a manager.

The chef is a skill position and won't be making minimum wage; probably $9 an hour at the very least. The manager won't be making minimum wage as it's also a skill position. One of the servers will be the head waiter and won't be making minimum wage. This leaves 6 employees, on paper, as minimum wage earners at least as far as the Bureau or Labor Statistics would show.

Now I have to make some assumptions here which seem reasonable to me. Lets say that on an average night the restaurant has 150 customers (a way low number by the way) and order the median menu item then gross receipts will total $1,800. If only 1/2 the customers tipped the customary 15%, there is a tip pool of $135.

If the restaurant is serving 5 hours (6-10PM) and servers have to stay an extra hour for cleanup (6 hours now). Assuming a completely even tip distribution - yes, that won't happen but everyone will get something - you have an additional hourly income per server of (135 / 4 ) / 6 = $5.62 (rounded down).

We are now down to 3 of the 9 employees being true minimum wage workers. However, in many restaurants servers tip out the busboys and, in some cases, all kitchen employees share in a tip pool.

In some states, restaurants are allowed to base pay servers below the Federal or state minimum on the assumption that tips will boost pay to or over the minimum. Which may or may not be true but I'll leave that alone for now.

Also a fact is that very few people stay in dishwasher, cook assistant, or busboy roles. After gaining experience, assistants become chefs/cooks which are, to repeat, a skill position. In my experience, most hard workers are given the opportunity to progress from dishwasher to busboy to server in relatively short order. I went through that progression myself while working through college.

So now, briefly, back to fast-food. A huge issue for fast-food chains is retention and, therefore, almost all of them have programs to fast-track motivated workers up to better paying positions such as assistant manager. Someone who stays at or near minimum wage in that industry for very long is someone who's not very motivated or a minor who is working while in school.

So now it appears that I'm leaning against a minimum wage hike bill so here's the curveball. I'm in favor of it but with the following issues or points:

• Partisan think tanks on both sides are blowing smoke on the whole food industry and how it will be affected.
• I think there is some danger of unmotivated workers remaining unmotivated if they have less incentive for advancement but it's probably minimal.
• I think a true danger is that this will push some thin-margin industries further into "under-the-table" employment for unskilled labor aggravating the problem of hiring illegal immigrants. I would like to see that addressed somehow.
• Please, Congress, NO PORK. Make this a simple wage hike bill. Do not add incentives for the restaurant industry, they don't need 'em.

Omigawd. I'm in agreement with Nancy Pelosi. The world may soon end.

Just What is Wrong With You Guys?

Mama didn't give you enough self-esteem? Read this and if it doesn't freak you out, you need help. Or need to be an ex-American. You decide:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009310

John Fund on Affirmative Action

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal examines a new law in Michigan that does away with racial preferences and the near-hysteria of those folks against it.

The world turned upside-down indeed!

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009275

Want to stop a Civil War? Join a side!

From War and Piece:

"AS SECTARIAN violence rises in Iraq and the White House comes under increasing pressure to revamp its strategy there, a debate is emerging inside the Bush administration: Should the U.S. abandon its efforts to act as a neutral referee in the ongoing civil war and, instead, throw its lot in with the Shiites?"

Victory at any cost?

Plame "Scandal"? Total Bullshit

Joe Wilson is a pathological liar.....

Here's a link to the final meltdown:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14458302/

There are others, and better. Just goes to show how stupid and willing you all were to believe a patent lie.

How Did Abramoff become a "Republican lobbyist"?

When the story broke several days ago, this guy was a crooked lobbyist with ties to a lot of different politicians. In more recent stories, he's identified almost exclusively as a "Republican lobbyist". If this isn't a blatant example of media bias, I don't know what is. Barely covered in the major media is the Dems who took money from this guy.

In truth, while Abramoff appears to have favored Republicans about 2:1, he certainly was no enemy to prominent Democrats as well. Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the role of lobbyists in government knows that lobbyists push agendas and not parties, and give money out to those with a greater chance of supporting the agenda, regardless.

As expected, Nancy Pelosi comes out with her DNC sound bites du jour and tries to refresh her "culture of corruption" mantra....OK, Nancy, I guess you better lambast Sen. Harry Reid, D, NV, as well, 'cause he also took a whole bunch of money from this creep.

Here's a thoughtful piece on this issue with links to actual facts: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006093.php