Recently in Politics Category

And not the kind that digs up their garden and eats their cruelty-free non-gmo organic heirloom tomatoes, but rather an NRA spy in their midsts. Two groups, CeaseFirePA and States United to Prevent Gun Violence are accusing Mary Lou McFate (nee Sapone) of working for the NRA, and are in the process of sweeping their offices for bugs. (Link) Their accusations are based on an article written in Mother Jones magazine that highlights her double identity and past actions infiltrating an animal-rights group on behalf of U.S. Surgical (now Covidien).

The Mother Jones article goes into much more detail. I suggest you read it for the details.

To me, the fascinating things about this story are:

1. She was so active in these groups for so long and held so many positions of authority. I've always wondered how someone can act for this long as a double agent without turning for the group they're spying on. I don't think I could do it. I'm too argumentative.
2. The groups she was affiliated with are trying to figure out whether or not she influenced legislative policy and aren't really sure if she did. By all accounts she was energetic in her efforts and worked hard to spread the message of gun control.
3. These groups are not secretive. Their actions, their initiatives, they're all public and available for everyone to read on the web. What was she after, if she even was a mole? Leverage on the people in leadership? It's not clear.
4. Because what they're doing does fall under the classification of "trade secrets" what she's done is apparently legal.

The NRA has refused to comment either way on this case. I actually think that that's the smartest thing for them to do. If they admit to it they look like big assholes (and the NRA doesn't usually need help in that department) but if they deny it, most people won't believe them anyway. Some people view their silence as an admission of guilt, including Mother Jones magazine, but it could just be that the NRA's lawyers have advised their media people to not comment until they're sure they won't face any liability. Who knows? Maybe the gun-control activists need someone on the inside of the NRA to tell them what's going on.

I hear there's this lady named Mary who's supposedly pretty crafty at this kind of stuff. They should hire her.

Other links:

• Pictures of May Lou Sapone/McFate

I'm not going to vote for McCain, but I've certainly seen, and felt, that he's getting short shrift in the news and on the web. So, in a spirit of togetherness I wanted to list a few facts I've found out about him. These are things you may not know, but they're all true!

• John McCain has a history of brokering lasting peace deals. As Lincoln's Undersecretary for War he worked tirelessly for three days at Appomattox to bring the Union and the Confederacy together.
• McCain has always been well-informed on new technologies. He was a beta tester for Alexander Graham Bell.
• McCain has always had the public safety in mind. He was the junior senator on the Smith Commission looking into the sinking of the Titanic.
• He's always been a leader, even at a young age. Noah said that without McCain on board the ark as Senior Animal Handler he would have been lost.

I think these facts shed a whole new light on McCain, and his record of public service. It is indeed unfortunate that the media has not looked at his distinguished history and instead focuses on his age.

MSNBC is running with a story about Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of the UK, urging families there to not waste food, in part to save money, and also to help feed the hungry around the world. These words from the PM come as he's taken part in the 34th G8 Summit in Tokyo, Japan that was primarily about the global food crisis.

The interesting thing about statements from Gordon Brown, and from the other leaders at G8, is that they were fed a six-course lunch and an eight-course dinner, including increasingly rare items like caviar and salmon. The British press was quick to excoriate Brown, especially because he's stated that solving the problems of world hunger and rising food prices are priorities of his.

I don't know that it's fair to pour all of the blame on Brown. I doubt he planned the menu or had any input into it whatsoever, but I agree that it smacks of hypocrisy for the leaders of these nations to urge restraint while eating

If you're interested in more reading, Wikipedia has an in-depth article on the rising cost of food around the world. The NY Times has an article about the vanishing salmon population.

As a foodie, one of the things that I personally worry about is how best to balance the desire for great food with the overall impact on the environment and the future. The interesting thing is that people like Alice Waters, and the Slow Foods movement have made it cool to eat local and sustainable in ways that weren't a few years ago, which is great. I hope that their way of looking at things continues to spread because we're facing a terrible dichotomy in food. The decent foods, the truly good for you foods, like eggs, lean meats, produce, the non-processed foods, are the ones getting more expensive. The foods that continue to remain cheap and accessible (increasingly) to people around the world are the junk foods, the processed foods, the unhealthy foods that have contributed so much to our other "food crisis": obesity.

Saw this on another blog and wanted to share it with both my readers.

McCain has charged $500,000 of campaign expenses on his American Express Platinum card. Instead of selling some of his wife's stock to pay off the bill they're carrying the balance forward.

I find it highly ironic that McCain holds himself up as different from Bush yet is personally pursuing the same kind of fiscal policy Bush has had for the whole nation these past 8 years. How can we trust that he's not going to have the same kind of "We'll pay it off later" mentality that's gotten us so deep in the hole so far when he thinks it's fine to be that with his own money?

Heather and I just watched "Maxed Out" on Sunday and it showed how closely aligned the credit card companies are with the politicians, and how it's helped to create a culture where MBNA can help rewrite the bankruptcy laws to their benefit and no one seems to bat an eye. And this situation is no different. American Express is offering them the credit cards with a 0% interest rate. That's extremely generous, and so maybe it makes a little bit of sense to utilize the cards for financing (in his mind) because he believes he's doing the right thing. But it is still reckless and crazy behavior in my mind, and it amounts to $500,000 in uncontrolled campaign contributions from a major American credit card company. And it's not the behavior of a man who promises to clean up the budget in Washington and balance the books. This is more of the same, and it's disgusting.

In the meantime, Obama is not financing his campaign expenses through credit cards, and has managed to save money for his daughter's college fund to the tune of $250,000.

The amazing thing is that the Republicans are so quick to call Obama an elitist, to imply that he somehow is getting a free pass, and that he's not in touch with the common man. Do you think that McCain, living off of his wife's fortunes and carrying around a limitless credit card with no APR feels the pain of the average American, or the man who's carefully planning and saving for the future?

Who's the real elitist here?

First we had Ann Coulter, ANN COULTER, endorsing Hillary Clinton. I practically fell out of my chair for that one. But now I came across this clip of Rupert Murdoch, the man who owns FoxNews, all but endorsing Obama for the presidency.

Watch the whole clip. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

All I can say is "WOW".

I was reading an article yesterday about the racism Obama campaign workers were encountering while campaigning, and something really struck me about some of the most vicious of the slurs, they were all cited as being from PA.

I'm not honestly surprised by this. I live in PA. This state is so conservative and reactionary I'm surprised that the KKK didn't mean the Obama campaign at the Philadelphia city limits to inform him he wasn't welcome. I think the thing that surprises people about PA is that the hate isn't openly visible most of the time. It's only when you talk to the people you realize "Wow, this guy hates everybody!"

What I find more interesting is that prior to the PA primaries Ed Rendell, the governor of PA, made comments that Obama was going to encounter problems in the Commonwealth because of his race. Rendell was excoriated in the press .

As a parting shot, I bring you news from another part of the country. In Marietta, GA a bar owner is selling "Obama in '08" shirts that feature Curious George. Honestly, it wouldn't have surprised me to hear this was happening in Scranton, York, or Altoona.

It's entirely possible that at some point Hillary could be running against John McCain for the office of President, and she's said some strong things about him and his policies, painting him as the wrong man for the office, the wrong man for America, just plain wrong (and I agree with her assessment) but if you listen to her quote about him, it sounds like they've got an entirely different relationship:

"When I'm President I'm going to ask him to come over to the White House, quite often, and take trips with me, because he has a perspective. I don't agree with it and I think, uh, he's the wrong person to be President at this time, but uh, we're friends and we'll remain friends."

The video clip is here:

Start around: 9:05.

Am I the only one who things it sounds like she's sleeping with John McCain? I mean that seriously. It sounds like she's having a good time with McCain. I can see it now. He's over at her house watching Grey's Anatomy with her while Bill's down "campaigning" at Hooters, they're having coffee and scones together, sharing furtive glances across the Senate floor. On Valentine's Day he sent her a box of Constitution-shaped chocolates. And I, for one, applaud them for bridging the partisan gap with their affair. Though let's be honest, McCain's policies and Hillary's policies are not that far off from each other to begin with. In fact, Ann Coulter has pledged her vote to Hillary in November. Yeah, you read that right: Ann Coulter is voting for Hillary.

Check the clip here:
http://jezebel.com/351442/ann-coulter-will-campaign-for-hillary-if-its-mccain

All of this aside, today is Primary Day in Pennsylvania, and I'm out to vote, for neither Hillary or McCain. I'm happy if they've found love in each other, but I don't want either of them in office.

Today we have two stories for state government greed:

1. First off, we have this story from California (via the Consumerist) which talks about how the State of California has been seizing assets from people's safety deposit boxes and selling them at marginal value on eBay if the owner of the box hasn't visited in as little as 3 years. To add insult to injury, any paperwork seized is shredded, so grandma's birth certificate, the deed to your house, you know, the important paperwork you put in the box to keep it safe from....destruction, is being destroyed by the State. Adding further insult? The State of California made sure that they were protected from litigation during these activities by passing a law giving them immunity.
2. Secondly, we have news from the Commonwealth of Virginia that they will begin instituting traffic fines over $3500 for residents in the name of public safety. They're calling the additional fines "Driver Responsiblity Taxes". You will get taxed for every point on your license for up to five years, up to $700 per year. The law also forbids judges from reducing the fine OR other penalities.

The rationale behind the Viriginia is supposed to be about doing something to make the roads safer. I'll agree that in Northern Virginia the traffic can be a little scary. Well, a lot scary, and people aren't respecting the existing traffic laws, so maybe this law was originally born out of an attempt to scare people into compliance. But they've morphed into a source of revenue for the State. The article I linked to talks about how the lawmakers are already budgeting their expected income from the increased fines. If this law were truly about justice, respecting the law, and making the roads safer than Virginia would have given their magistrates the ability to reduce fines as they see fit. There are times in everyone's life where speeding is appropriate. I don't have to enumerate them for you, you can think of at least a dozen scenarios where you'd be willing to let someone speed down the highway.

But instead, the lawmakers wish to provide additional money, which, while they claim it will go to maintaining the roads, will end up in other people's coffers too.

This situation is all to like the uproar amongst the alderman of Chicago who are upset that there's now a radar detector that warns motorists of traffic cameras. If the only purpose of the traffic cameras were to save lives, and people were warned ahead of time about the location of a camera, then these detectors are a good thing.

But the alderman interviewed at least had the guts to state the truth:

Revenue from the $90 fines at camera-guarded intersections "is budgeted in our annual appropriation ordinance," the alderman said. "That is why all these cameras are being installed. ... The reality is that people blow through these intersections and they are going to be caught and they are going to be fined. It has become a big revenue source, absolutely."

Which brings us back around to the actions of the State of California. They're seizing people's assets without any intention of notifying the original owners and selling WHAT IS NOT THEIR'S to generate money for their own purposes. It is not the job of the State to seize property willy-nilly and turn itself into the largest pawn shop in the world. It is not the job of the State to knowingly shred people's personal documents without concern for the people they're impacting. But they're doing it anyway. They're doing it because they can make money doing it and again, fill their coffers with ill-gotten money that they spend on pet projects, pork, and largess. The highway named after that State Senator's family? Paid for by stealing people's prized possessions. That museum built in a town of 500 people in the mountains of Northern California that no one will ever visit or care about? Paid for by breaching a sacred trust between the people and the government they established to protect them from the very actions the State is perpetrating on its citizens. It's a disgrace that this kind of thing has ever happened, but it's a perfect example of the politics of greed in this century.

Congress is poised to send an update to the hate-crime laws to the White House, which would classify crimes committed because of someone's sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity a hate crime. Bush has said he's going to veto this law because it would prevent preachers from speaking out against homosexuality.

The lunacy of this statement is just painful for me.

We call it a hate crime when someone kills a black man because he's black, but we clearly allow the KKK to march through a town insulting blacks. Because they have their 1st Amendment rights. We call it a hate crime when a Muslim is beaten in the street because of his religion, or a Sikh is beaten in the street because he is mistaken for a Muslim, and yet we preserve the rights of people to use all manner of hateful speech against Muslims.

To veto this law to preserve someone's "ability to speak out against homosexuality" is really saying "We're going to ignore the fact that there are truly hate-inspired acts against homosexuals, women, and the trans-gender".

Bush is a fool for vetoing this bill.

Worse yet, the message he sends is one that the government is not going to afford the same protections to some people, that it would to others. He's re-affirming a message his party has stated before: Homosexuals, trans-genders, and women are second-class citizens.

I've been reading the stories on the death of Captain America for a week now, and letting it settle in my stomach. To give you a run down of the events that lead to his death, Superheroes are required to register with the government and reveal their true identity. Some refuse, and become fugitives, and a full-scale civil war erupts between heroes.

Eventually the battle comes to it's climax when the leader of the anti-registration forces, Captain America, is shot on the courthouse steps and killed.

I don't read as many comics as I once did, but this still makes me sad. I am a geek after all...

But it also resonates on a different level. The Superhuman Registration Act as shown in the comic books is looked at as a thinly-veiled analog of the PATRIOT Act, and the Civil War series in general explores the very same ideological battles politicians, pundits, bloggers, and so on have been fighting since 9/11.

I've come down on the side of opposing the PATRIOT Act and other government efforts to illegally imprison citizens, and other dangerous powers the Bush White House has sought to claim its own. I believe that given unchecked power to the authorities will be a disaster. I believe it will result in all manner of horrors I cannot begin to enumerate.

I think that the editors at Marvel feel the same way, because what I read in the death of Captain America is the death of America itself. Captain America stood for Liberty and Justice for All. He was the emblem of a nation that stood for freedom. He battled Hitler, he fought terrorists, but he was never the perpetrator of evil, and he certainly would not have advocated a place like Gitmo, or supported the extraordinary renditions of people to countries known to torture. But in the comic book, as in the United States, people are trading in their freedoms for some illusion of security.

And so, as Captain America lies dying on the steps of the courthouse, America dies.

My only hope is that, as with comic book heroes, America can be reborn and restored.

Captain America is dead. Love live Captain America!

Here's my thumbnail sketch of why Libby and Rove should be sent to Gitmo (using the President's logic):

1. The CIA's operations are essential to fighting the war on terror.
2. Keeping the CIA's operations secret in the war on terror is essential.
3. Exposing an undercover CIA agent and their contacts impairs our ability to fight the war on terror, thus providing aid and comfort to our enemy; emboldening our enemy.
4. Those who provide aid to comfort to our enemy are to be considered enemy combatants.
5. All enemy combatants are to be stripped of their rights and kept at Gitmo.

So we've been watching clips from Fox News' "Half-Hour News Hour" brought to us from the jingo-istic mind of Joel Surnow. A lot of people have been complaining that it sucks, that it's not funny, that it's a vicious, mean-spirited, steaming pile of shit festooned with garland and sparkles to distract us from its inner shitty nature. I think you're all being too hard on it.

The show is funny. It's a laugh riot, even. I can really enjoy the humor of discomfort and embarrassment. Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sacha Baron Cohen, they're all very funny at times. Which is what makes 'The Half-Hour News Hour' funny. Watching those dipshits struggle through train wreck after bloody train wreck in the vain pointless attempt to wring real laughs out of their material is awesome. Mocking people with melanoma, repeatedly calling Hillary Clinton a lesbian, bringing up Barack Obama's cocaine use every 12 seconds, well that's funny.

I just wish they'd follow the cast off the set when they race to drink themselves into oblivion so they can try to erase any memory of the shit they're doing for a paycheck because even that pathetic sight would be funnier to watch than the show.

While you're at it, enjoy this review of the show too. And this one too.

-----

And as an afterthought, I find it ironic that they're mocking Obama for his occasional cocaine use when that was Dubya's drug of choice for most of the 70's and 80's. If conservatives will give him a pass on that issue, why not Obama? Oh right, because he's black and a Democrat.

Here's a few more questions for people that are smarter than me, as I can't seem to find anyone who's able to get me an answer:

1. On the matter of Iraq, there's this debate about a non-binding resolution condemning an escalation...mildly protesting a troop build-up...saying anything about anything about something, about whether there should be a debate, about whether or not senators will ever vote for the resolution they themselves authored, ad naseum. Further, there's discussion about whether or not the Senate should use "the power of the purse" to curtail war efforts in Iraq. But what I keep wondering is: at some point, both houses passed a bill which authorized the president to go to war in Iraq in some form. Can't they just...revoke that authorization? That would effectively end all of this debate and all of this discussion. Theoretically, Congress is the only body that can declare war in the first place, so it should be a simple matter of saying "Wait, we didn't declare war, so bring the troops home". I mean, if that's what they really wanted to do. Which I don't think it is. Which isn't even what I'm sure they should do at this point...fuck...maybe I understand why they're dickering over the size and girth of their dickering.
2. The tide might already be turning on this one, thank God, but it bears asking: why don't people in power get the clue that electronic voting machines are a BAD THING? This is one piece of technology that every single geek is screaming about. If geeks fear some new technology so strongly, shouldn't it be obvious that it's got some flaws? I bet the programmers at Diebold even refuse to use the machines. I would.
3. When will people face the overwhelming evidence that the economy is not suffering from outsourcing, but is actually thriving. Time and again the numbers show that companies are able to grow and prosper while doing outsourcing. Anecdotal evidence also shows this. US unemployment was at 4.5% in December 2006. That's an awesomely low unemployment rate. Compare with Europe which has an unemployment rate of 7.5% on average. Further factor in that a lot of the baby boomers are going to start retiring in the next 5-10 years and we're going to face a serious labor shortage. Baby boomers make up 43% of the workforce in the US. The work they're doing is going to have be done by someone. We might as well work out the best ways to outsource now.
4. In a similar vein, when will our politicians and pundits recognize that there is no national solution to the question of immigration? Certainly the Constitution gives Congress and the President the ability to determine how naturalization will work and they need to have some say in the matter of immigration and how immigration affects our economy and national security, but seriously. Aren't the needs of the citizens of Texas vastly different than the needs of North Carolina or New York when it comes to this matter? Or the needs of Seattle different than the needs of Los Angeles? Some communities, some states welcome an influx of immigrants, illegal or otherwise, because they represent a boon to the local economy. Cheap immigrant labor helps businesses to grow, similar to how outsourcing works, only locally, and promotes the opening of new businesses. It's clear to me, and should be clear to others that we should unleash the States to determine some of their own immigration policy instead of jamming one down their throats like our leaders want to do now.

Neighbors of Bill and Hillary Clinton were shot Sunday night in their SUV. It's a terrible tragedy and luckily for both of them they're still alive. The interesting thing about the story for me though is not that they were shot, or that they are the Clinton's neighbors, but instead that it will only take a few seconds for the lunatics at LGF and on Rush Limbaugh to start saying that Hillary shot them both to protect some secret they knew...

Because it's apparently wicked to claim that the president lead us into war on a false pretense, but claiming that Hillary shot Vince Foster (and now her neighbors) is 'good politics'.

I obviously give a lot of thought to the state of politics, and the state of liberty in this great country and our world at large. So it should come as no surprise that I've been considering what goes into honest government. There are a ton of people that would love to make millions off of this subject. Count me in that group. If I could make millions legitimately off of peddling this subject I would. However, I don't think that there's time enough for me to build up my business in that field because we've suffered enough bad dishonest government as it is.

So while I will probably spin this into a larger article, I want to present my tenents for honest government. First, I should explain what I mean by that. I mean a government that is truly constrained by law and contract. A government that is open and fair, a government that understands its power to rule is solely derived from the will of the governed, and recognizes that at any time if the govern so desire, they can tear down and remake government as they see fit. A government with transparency. A government that does not needlessly deceive the the governed.

I'm putting these out to call for this type of government no matter where we live. I would personally like to see a world of minimal government and maximal freedoms, but even if you live in a state or country which practices socialism, you too can demand these things. They are your right as one who gives power to your government.

1. An end to two-party politics. - I know this applies mostly in the United States and within each of the 50 States, but it's important, and I'm going to explain why. Large parties, of the type Democrat or Republican, do not give the voters the full ability to vote their conscience. By opening the rolls to all political parties, no matter how extreme or strange or small you potentially allow all people to have a say.
2. An end to ear-marking and pork. - We're all paying for the price of our lawmaker's abuses. Ear-marking, the process by which money for a pet project is tacked onto another bill as a rider needs to stop. As long as politicians can funnel money to whatever they want without full and open disclosure AND complete public oversight, we're not ruled by an honest government.
3. Make legislators read the bills they vote on first. - Downsize DC already has a campaign for this. It should be a no-brainer that politicians read the bills they're asked to vote on. Politicians should not be allowed to just vote on something because someone told them it was a good idea or they didn't have time to get to it. That's how bad laws like the PATRIOT Act come to be. Make them read the laws they're trying to pass.
4. Lobbying Reform - You can expect or demand that there are no more lobbyists. It just can't happen, and shouldn't. It's important that all people affected by a bill get a chance to speak on a subject with their politician. Politicians should be required to reveal every meeting with a lobbyist, ever dollar received, if we allow it all, which I don't think we should, and reveal every perk, gift, high-five, backslap, and pinch on the ass a politician receives from a lobbyist. Period. The peddling of influence should have the bright light of day shone on it.
5. An End To Gerrymandering - When politicians redraw district lines they do so with such lewd glee it makes even the most darkest of hearts at the sex offenders jail quake. The laws originally designed to ensure that changes in population were accurately reflected in representation have been used to make it possible for a politician or party to pick and choose their voters. It's shouldn't work that way. We choose our leaders. We give them mandate and authority. They should not get the ability to pick us the voters to ensure their career forever.
6. Expanded Freedom of Information Access - The governed should have the ability to seek information from their government with little pain. There is a place for state secrets, but information about the government should be available freely, and preferably online so it's easy to access.
7. A Strong, Exuberant, and Free Press - The people have the right to be informed of what's going on at all levels of government and how it's affecting people. Only a free press (including bloggers ;) ) can really perform this action.
8. The Right to Bear Arms - I know that not all of you will agree with this final right but it is essential for the continued safeguarding of liberty. While citizens remain armed it's much harder for the government to strip rights from people or to try to quash them. An armed citizenry is a free citizenry.

That's it for now. I'm very tired and worn out from the day and I'd love to write more but I'll circle back around later and get to doing that.

Rumsfeld announced his resignation today. That's one polarizing figure gone from the Bush Administration. For me it feels like Bush is saying "alright, I got the message!" with this one. Actually he said:

"I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made" [in Iraq]

Well fancy that.

Speaking of polarizing figures, a few weeks ago Karl Rove was on NPR speaking with Robert Siegel on Radio Day. During the interview Siegel asked Rove about the polls indicating a big win for Democrats on Election Day, and Rove was combative and dismissive and said "You've got your math, I've got THE MATH [which shows a Republic win]".

Imagine that. It must have been that new math he was using.

Saw in the news that Amendment E, the JAIL For Judges Amendment proposed in South Dakota was voted down by the voters in that state by a wide margin.

I didn't not anticipate that the Amendment E supporters would take failure well, and they're not. They've already screaming about voter fraud. And while any allocations of voter fraud need to be investigated for Democracy to retain its legitimacy, I don't believe it was voter fraud that killed the Amendment E initiative in South Dakota. 90% of voters voted No. Instead of fraud, I think it's got more to do with the fact that every professional group and politician and majority of bloggers stood up and said "That's an awful law!". When you get enough people saying that, the voters take notice.

This also means that Ron Branson and his merry crew of miscreants will now be on the hunt for another State in which to promote their ideas.

I'll let you know as I know.

Also notable in South Dakota was the size of the "No" vote on South Dakota's amendment that would ban all abortions outright. Way to go folks!

I'm going to bed now.but it looks like MO, MT, and VA are going to go Democrat. I know the major news orgs are calling TN for Corker, with a total count, but I thought that there was a large number of absentee ballots filed. I don't know if that's going to be a factor or not.

Hell, I am not sure I care. At this point I'm happy because I foresee great gridlock in our future.

I just hope the Democrats have enough power to check the ever-morphing ever-growing ever-consuming power lust the President's afflicted with.

Dan Rather on Comedy Central's Midterm Midtacular riffing on himself is just hysterical. Oh God, best part of the night.

The difference between the three major cable networks is stark today:

MSNBC is running just Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann and it's very subdued, almost classy. Ken Mehlman was just on MSNBC when I was flipping through and he looked like he hasn't slept in 3 days, which is probably true. I've never had a problem with Mehlman personally. He's articulate and personable, but he's very agitated and snapped at Chris Matthews. Olbermann and Matthews have been trading barbs. That's always fun, but they should just get it over with and start throwing fists.

CNN compiled a team like it's Monday Night Football. Hank Williams Jr. popped out and sang a montage with Britney Spears and the Rockettes. ARE YOU READY FOR SOME RECOUNTS????????????? I think I saw Madden in the back corner eating a hot dog. Seriously though they've got Begala, Carville, Bennett, all sorts of people out there in front of monitors shooting snappy commentary at each other and watching the results on the Big Blitzer Board. For all of the people, it's still kind of boring.

I turned on FoxNews for a minute, but the sad faces and weeping made me sad. Chris Wallace was behind Brit Hume and he was shredding a pile of documents, not sure what that's about, but he looked pale and sweaty...it was all a letdown.

So I turned to Comedy Central to watch the Midterm Midtacular, and caught the real news.

CNN's reporting George Allen is winning in Virginia. I'm not a fan of George Allen, but if the state does break hard-right, I'm not surprised. VA is a conservative state.

A lot of Republican pundits are dancing and cheering for Lamont's defeat as a clear indication that Democrats aren't going to win tonight. I don't know how that math plays out, but we'll see what happens.

I will say that Santorum's concession speech tonight was very classy and I applaud him for that.

I went with the kids and wife to vote. The process was painless, and we used the new Diebold machines which was okay, although I'm still not comfortable not getting a receipt for my vote. It's such a simple idea and one that should have been done from the start and yet here we are without receipts.

I checked the switch on the back of the machine, and it was firmly placed in the "Record Actual Vote" instead of the usual "Count Every Vote As Republican". It was annoying since the machine kept popping up a box that said "Are you sure you don't want to vote for the Republicans?"

I voted for Bob Casey.

In the choice between Bobby and Ricky it was a no-brainer for me. Ricky was too tightly wrapped around the Bush Administration and its policies. Rather than stand up for the rights of his constituents, like me, he worked purely for the Republican agenda, which I don't approve of. His continued support for the Iraq war, support for warrantless wiretaps, and all of the other failed agendas of the Bush Administration make him completely unsupportable.

Also, his equating being homosexual with screwing your dog just blows my mind.

So I voted against him.

After this upcoming Election Day, it is entirely possible that in South Dakota, there will never be a civil trial held again. That judges will rush to recuse themselves from cases they would have willingly heard months before. That child custody cases, divorce hearings, and medical malpractice cases will completely vanish, and people will suffer needlessly. It's also possible that in the years to come, in your State, in mine, across the country, the same bad law that's about to be voted on under the watchful eyes of Mount Rushmore will make it make its way onto your ballot and completely strip you of your right to have your day in court.

It's possible because of Amendment E, also known as J.A.I.L 4 Judges, and it's setting out to strip judges of their immunity to make decisions.

Assaults on the judiciary and specifically their immunity are nothing new. Pundits have been attacking all levels of the court, especially State courts and the Federal Judiciary when their views have not fallen in line with a certain ideology, normally, the prevailing conservative Christian hard-line ideology. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, the entire role call at TownHall.com, et al have all issued breezy hysterical screeds about the immediate doom we will all suffer at the hands of an independent judiciary that pokes its nose where it doesn’t belong, gives rights to the people that shouldn’t have them and forcing everything from a gay lifestyle to atheism to you name it from the bench.

So someone’s decided to do something about it. That someone is Ron Branson of California, and he directs the J.A.I.L 4 Judges movement, or the “Judicial Accountability Initiative Law”. The J4J movement has been brewing for a long time, but the first practical political attempt to get its goals advanced comes in South Dakota, where on Nov. 7th, people will vote on Amendment E. Why South Dakota? Because it has lower requirements to get an initiative on a ballot than most other states, and had a willing South Dakotan to sponsor and stump for the bill. But these are not the important matters. What matters is what the movement wants to do and how. So we should first examine what Amendment E says and does, and how it relates back to J4J. But before we can get there, we should define judicial immunity, and how and why it’s important.

There’s a lot of talk around the world about the upcoming defeat of the Republicans on Election Day, and what it means. Words are being bandied about like “precriminations”, or “Speaker Nancy”. You can almost smell the nervous anticipatory sweat wafting off the pages of Daily Kos.

Most pundits and analysts have zeroed in on the Iraq boondoggle or the economy, specifically gas prices. There’s also been plenty of talk about Mark Foley, Jack Abrahmoff, Tom DeLay, etc, etc. These are all valid reasons for why people might be seeking to toss some people from office. However, few commentators outside the internet have spent any time examining what truly matters to me these days: the state and safety of our personal liberties. We live in a time, as Keith Olbermann has noted, of “exaggerated crisis”. Days from the election Republican talking heads spin desperately daring people to vote for the GOP claiming that people who vote for the Democrats or 3rd Parties are doing so under the influence of insurgents in Iraq, bin Laden, Hugo Chavez, and probably the Grinch, sitting smugly in his undisclosed location above Whoville.

Even worse, people in the US still overly fear these bogeymen, believing as some article of faith that any minute now we’re all going to die in a fireball or chemical attack. I believe as an article of faith that if anything, the fireball most likely to kill you will erupt from your grill one summer night as you attempt the perfect sear on a steak like you saw on the Food Network.

The Democrats know that people still fear these bogeymen. They know that Americans worry about these things. They’re savvy enough to know these things this year, and because they know these things, they also know their hold on power will be tenuous. They know that if they come into leadership it’s not by some landslide of electoral support, sudden voter enlightenment, or righteous moral outrage fueled by Americans sick and tired of being misled (in all senses that word can mean), but instead because in Washington they’re the “other guys”; the ones not overly smeared by all scandals or failures of leadership. They stand to gain power because they’re not quite tainted yet.

The leadership of the Democratic Party knows the slippery transient nature of the power they’re being given so they’re not going to do anything that might make them appear weak or foolish; anything that might lead to them being swept from office in a few years. Sure, they may seek to push through social and economic issues that are important to them, like minimum wage increases, changes in Medicare and Medicaid, or rolling back tax cuts. Sure they may speak of checking the power of the President, but when it comes down to the brass tacks, on matter of terrorism, and more importantly civil liberties, they’re going to quietly toe the line drawn by the Republican Party. Hell, they may even become more hawkish and reactionary than the Republicans. Why?

They’ll do this because they know that if they stray beyond that clearly-defined line, and something should happen in the US the Party is dead in the water. They will be figuratively, if not literally, radioactive, and utterly unelectable. Then the American people will elect into office a far-right Republican administration that will rule with an iron fist and leaden intolerance for all things not socially conservative.

So for me, thinking that the NSA wiretapping, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the PATRIOT Act, and others are the most pressing matters of our times, I’m gaining nothing by a change in power. I’ve accepted the fact that we’re only trading in one set of nearly the same shitheads for another.

Well, it’s not entirely true. There’s one other possibility that I can see coming from all this that might make me happy: gridlock. It’s possible that neither power will have a firm grip on power, so that things in Washington will grind to a halt. Nothing will get done at all as the partisans spend more time sniping at each other across the aisle. Now, that might not be such a bad thing after all.

We all knew it was only a matter of time before the Republican pundits would start down this path (a path beaten by FoxNews misrepresenting Foley as a Democrat): Are Gay Republicans Closeted Democrats?

Obviously the Republicans can't fathom that Mark Foley could act the way he did and be a Republican, so they needed a way to pin it on Democrats. So they're trying to spin a conspiracy of secret democrats infiltrating the Republican Party and seducing pages to discredit the Republicans.

It would be funny if so many people didn't probably already believe that in the Republican party.

As I and a lot of the blogosphere has posted, FoxNews mislabelled Rep. Foley as a Democrat, several times, and then just silently removed the references rather than publically admitting their mistake. Seeing as FoxNews gets high ratings, and the viewers of the channel believe strongly in its infallibility, it's important that FoxNews publically admit their mistake.

To that length, my friend and fellow blogger Richard Harlos wrote the following letter. I encourage all of my friends to send it as well.

Unfortunately, FoxNews still does not have an ombudsman, but you can send the letter to comments@foxnews.com and newswatch@foxnews.com. Also, good to send to oreilly@foxnews.com and hannity@foxnews.com as well.

My wife and I were talking the other day:

Me: "What would you want to do if Bush somehow got to remain in office at the end of his term?"
Her: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Say there's another terrorist attack, or the war in Afghanistan or Iraq's going worse and the Congress votes some measure to keep him in office a little longer to 'get us through this rough patch'"
Her: "You mean like he faked a terrorist attack?"
Me: "I don't care if he did or Al-Qaeda legitimately did one"

- A long silence -

Her: "I'd want to move to Canada."
Me: "I was thinking that too, but what if the Canadians shut down the border and refused Americans entrance to their country? I bet a lot of Americans would head north."
Her: "I guess we'll see in the next two years what happens."

Canada's only 8 hours from here by highway, but honestly, I think if we expatriated, we'd do better to hit a place like New Zealand. I'd even consider a place like Singapore or Malaysia. It makes me sick to my stomach to even consider any of this, but I have to. Given how much Bush has changed the answer to every question asked of him to one of "national security" and "protecting Americans at all costs", which seems to include torturing people, or having them sent to other nations which will torture them, detaining American citizens forever without charge, spying on all Americans regardless of cause, and seeking extraordinary powers to circumvent Congress and the Judiciary, I can only imagine what crimes against liberty would be perpetrated by a President Bush in a period of time beyond his normal term limits where he's not beholden at all to voters. It scares the hell out of me.

Nevermind all of the other shit swirling around about Mark Foley (I'll get to it later) but I thought this deserved notice today: Fox News has decided that Mark Foley is a Democrat! Not just once, BUT TWICE! I love that they ran the line "Did Dems Ignore Foley E-Mails To Preserve Seat?".

Wow. So a Republican does something like this and his party affiliation is automagically switched. That's fabulous. So if Fox News was around in the 1960's and Kennedy was stumping for getting rid of the IRS would they have identified him as the Republican Candidate?

Again, wow.

I was listening to NPR while I sat in traffic on the Jones Falls Expressway this morning, and they had a story about some of the prisoners that Israel refuses to hand back to the Lebanese. One of the prisoners, Samir Kuntar, was accused and convicted of murdering a father and his four-year-old daughter, among others in a cross-border raid 27 years ago.

Simar's brother was on record saying that he felt that even if he believed everything the Israelis said and that even if his brother had killed both Danny Haran and his daughter Einat, 27 years was more than enough time to spend in jail for those crimes. While I can certainly appreciate someone's desire to see his family member again, I don't see how anyone can say "Yes my brother murdered a child in cold-blood in the middle of the night but he should go free now". It just boggles my mind.

In my head, if someone were to hurt one of my kids, or the children of one of my friends or family members, hell any child in cold blood, with deliberate malice are eligible for the most heinous and horrific punishments available to man. They certainly don't go free. Ever.

More information about the whole affair is also available here.

Right after 9/11 "The Onion" took on the task of finding humor in those terrible events, and they did a great job. I remember though that one headline they had on the page jumped out at me: "Tavis Smiley Announces 'There's a New Nigger In Town'". I'm immediately conditioned to not type that word, much less say it out loud, which is why I guess it was so funny. Part of humor is the shocking of the audience with the unexpected.

But as the saying goes "Many a truth is spoken in jest". Given the recent spat of slurs against South Asians, and people freaking out about South Asians on planes, it would seem that the Onion's joke was just another example of truth in jest. What slurs? Well, Hillary Clinton's joke about Mahatma Ghandi owning a gas station in St. Louis, or Joseph Biden's joke about needing an Indian accent to walk into a Dunkin Donuts or 7/11, George Allen's calling a staffer from his opponent's campaign a macaca (monkey) because the staffer's of South Indian descent, or now Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana stating that terrorists "drive taxis by day and kill at night".

I'm certainly not claiming that Indians in this country face the kind of endemic racism that blacks did during the Jim Crow era, but then, I'm not going to claim any amount of information about how much racism they're subjected to, since I'm whitey the blue-eyed devil son of Yacub.

But when I say there's a new nigger ( I feel creepy writing it ) in town, I mean how socially acceptable it's becoming to discriminate against South Asians, so much so that politicans who would never dream of standing up and saying "Barack Obama, didn't he run a soul food stand in Georgia?" or "Who is this fellow over here from my opponent's campaign...what's his name? Kunta Kinte? Welcome to America boy!" will routinely put their foot in their mouths about South Asians. Imagine the shitstorm that would blow up if Dennis Hastert went out and pulled at the corners of his eyes and said "You have to look like this to get around San Francisco these days".

But it isn't just the politicians who voice these sentimanets. Lots of people I know will say "All Indians are terroriststs" or "This software project's screwed up because it was done by a bunch of those Indians". Witness my friend Scott Manning who wants to fault Raed Jarrar as the guilty party because he wanted to wear a shirt with Arabic script on it onto a plane. Per Scott's reasoning, his act of merely wearing the shirt puts him in the wrong.

Even before 9/11 it was common for my friends to make fun of the Sikh guys who ran the 7/11 down the street from our house, but since 9/11, it seems like it's become culturally acceptable, almost...expected...

"The Onion" ended up being more right than they probably expected. Which is a shame. No group deserves to be mocked, derided, or singled out as has happened, be them South Asian, Chinese, Latino, etc.

Sarah Chayes, formerly an NPR correspondent who was reporting from Afghanistan during the US invasion, moved to Kandahar to be part of the rebuilding and revival of the country. She reported on stories like the raid on the Kandahar airport, and other such events. Turns out those raids were lies. In a recent interview on NPR's All Things Considered Ms. Chayes commented that those stories told to her by Afghani warlords were fabricated. These stories came from US handlers so they could be fed to reporters in order to make it appear that there was a groundswell Afghani rebellion against the Taliban.

That report made me wonder what really happened during the raid on the mountains of Tora Bora where Afghani warlords were supposedly fighting the forces of Bin Laden but let Bin Laden slip away.

Ms. Chayes also has some interesting things to say about how the US is giving Pakistan a free pass on training and harboring terrorists, which President Bush said we would not tolerate.

Frankly I don't know why this isn't bigger news, but it was jaw-dropping to me. I'm not shocked that the president tried to manipulate the media, but just that no one else has raised this question of what really happened in Afghanistan.

In case you haven't heard, and you might not have, Sen. George Allen, while on the campaign trail, pointed out a staffer from his opponent's campaign and called him "Makaka". The problem? The staffer is from India of Indian descent, and Makaka is a racial slur, on par with calling someone a monkey.

So basically, Sen. George Allen stood in front of voters and used an outright racial slur. What a classy guy. For more breakdown on the whole event, visit here and here.

This is not the first time George Allen's raised some ire over his actions and statements on race. More on that here.

A little old grandma in Ohio has had a licence plate for 10 years which commerates her family's tree farm, the Naplewood Tree Farm, as NWTF. Now, the Ohio DMV, using their "socially and ethically diverse" board of censors has declared her license plate obscene and wants it gone. Which of course, prompts me to say "Now what the fuck?" (Link)

I came across this article from the Attorney General of Virginia. He's speaking about the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which states:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

It means that just because there are some rights listed in the Bill of Rights, it doesn't mean that those are our ONLY RIGHTS. This may sound academic, but consider that a lot of people speak about a right to privacy, but it's not directly outlined in the Bill of Rights. It descends from the Ninth Amendment. The right to travel, the right to work in the job they choose, the right to own a business, these all descend from the Ninth Amendment. Some, including myself, would even claim that the right to self-medicate, including with currently illicit drugs, comes from the Ninth Amendment.

Most politicians and courts say the Ninth Amendment has no power and no authority in the world today, so it's nice to see a high-ranking official, like the Attorney General of a state, to argue that it is still valid.

Chicago has passed a "Living Wage Act" which they state will help pull people out of poverty by requiring all big-box retailers operating within the city limits to pay their employees a minimum of $10/hour. Sounds great doesn't it? Especially in a place like Chicago, where prices are higher anyway!

Wrong. Wal-Mart doesn't have any stores within the city of Chicago, and the are in the process of building their first one. Now that this law has been passed, they've announced they may not build any more in the city, but instead "redirect our focus on our suburban strategy and see how we could better serve our city of Chicago residents from suburban Chicagoland" (source: Washington Post. In that same complex that Wal-Mart was being built, on the poor West Side of Chicago, another big box retailer, Menards Hardware, was going to build a store to share space with Wal-Mart. They're now announcing they may not build in Chicago after all. (source: NPR's All Things Considered - Audio Clip

Some of the residents in the area said they don't like the law because it drives the stores away. One gentleman said "A low-paying job is better than a no-paying job". How right you are sir. The alderman who sponsored the bill said that it's terrible that people can work all day and still not lift themselves out of poverty, and NO ONE likes poverty, but what they've done is say to these businesses that they're not welcome. It sounds callous and terrible, but businesses exist to make money, and if they can make the same amount of money sitting in the suburbs paying $3/hour less, they're going to do it, and take those 450 or more jobs with them.

I think it's a shame what Chicago has done. Hopefully Richard Daley will veto this bill as promised.