In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Scary world... Bush World
Welcome To Bushworld (thanks to Calpundit)
From stem cells to weapons of mass destruction, this administration has what might sympathetically be called credibility issues.
All presidents, all administrations, all politicians, all columnists and, indeed, all people selectively pick and chose facts and figures to win arguments.
What's different is that the Bush administration stands accused of politicizing and bullying processes of the government that are designed to be above the fray of partisanship and ideology, such as intelligence gathering and science policy-making. Put bluntly: they don't much care about facts, science and truth.
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Bush Exaggerates Kerry's Position on Intelligence Budget
President Bush, in his first major assault on Sen. John F. Kerry's legislative record, said this week that his Democratic opponent proposed a $1.5 billion cut in the intelligence budget, a proposal that would "gut the intelligence services," and one that had no co-sponsors because it was "deeply irresponsible."
In terms of accuracy, the parry by the president is about half right. Bush is correct that Kerry on Sept. 29, 1995, proposed a five-year, $1.5 billion cut to the intelligence budget. But Bush appears to be wrong when he said the proposed Kerry cut -- about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget for those years -- would have "gutted" intelligence. In fact, the Republican-led Congress that year approved legislation that resulted in $3.8 billion being cut over five years from the budget of the National Reconnaissance Office -- the same program Kerry said he was targeting.
The $1.5 billion cut Kerry proposed represented about the same amount Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), then chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Senate that same day he wanted cut from the intelligence spending bill based on unspent, secret funds that had been accumulated by one intelligence agency "without informing the Pentagon, CIA or Congress." The NRO, which designs, builds and operates spy satellites, had accumulated that amount of excess funds.
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Tom DeLay's funny-money trail (you'll have to watch a commercial if you aren't registered).
Wow... wouldn't it be cool if every stupid scary politician had their career ended in 2004...? I'm convinced this year will suck less.
The GOP strongman's political machine has stopped at nothing to extend its power. Now it's facing indictments for violating Texas campaign finance laws.
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Recently the leader's grip has begun to slip. The first press conference in February ended with a Fox TV news reporter pressing DeLay for answers about the ethics committee's failure to investigate allegations of bribery on the House floor. DeLay didn't respond. The last press conference in February ended with Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Maria Recio asking about a campaign finance investigation in Texas. "That's not on the agenda," DeLay snapped.
My apologies for the unbridled optimism there... don't worry, there will be plenty of scary scummy stupid politician's in 2005 to frighten your children with. "Eat your brocolli or we'll have Tom DeLay over this weekend." "ahhhhhhhh"
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Bush loves to tinker with Constitution
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex weddings, he warned that such a radical step was essential to "prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever."
It was, he said, "a serious matter of national concern."
What he didn't say is that his proposal is meaningless. It isn't going to happen. There is no supermajority in Congress for mauling our most fundamental governmental document to permanently discriminate against a specific group. (Constitutional amendments require approval by two-thirds of those present in both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.)
Bush also didn't say that this is the seventh amendment he has embraced, reflecting breathtaking contempt for the principles embodied in the work of our Founding Fathers.
In this, the president is following the example of his father, who endorsed five proposed amendments. Conspicuously, however, neither man supports the Equal Rights Amendment, the only time when they hypocritically claim that mucking around with our basic document is unwise.
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This is Big!
Medicare expert says he was told to withhold cost
WASHINGTON - The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan, according to an e-mail by the expert.
When the House passed the benefit by five votes Nov. 22, the White House was embracing an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that the bill would cost $395 billion over 10 years. But for months, the administration's own analysts in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had concluded repeatedly that the drug benefit could cost upward of $100 billion more than that.
Withholding the higher cost projections was important, because the White House was facing a revolt from 13 conservative House Republicans who had vowed to vote against the Medicare drug bill if it cost more than $400 billion.
Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, one of the 13 Republicans, said she was "very upset" when she learned of the higher estimate.
"I think a lot of people probably would have reconsidered [voting for the bill] because we said that $400 billion was our top of the line," Myrick said.
Five months before the House vote, the government's chief Medicare actuary had estimated that a similar plan the Senate was considering would cost $551 billion over 10 years. Two months after Congress approved the new benefit, White House budget director Joshua Bolten disclosed that he expected it to cost $534 billion.
Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which produced the $551 billion estimate, told colleagues in June that it would cost him his job if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers.
This piece of news has been out all day, and can be found in the Boston Globe, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, even the moonie Washington Times, but the Washington Post and New York Times have yet to mention it. Maybe they're waiting for their Saturday editions?
The New York Times and The Washington Post have got to keep in mind that the world is wired now, if they don't cover a story it won't just disappear like it may have in days gone by. Today, we'll read about the story anyway, we'll see who else is running it, corroborating it, editorializing about it, and if the NYTimes and the WaPo want to be silent, they may find they sound have no voice. Use it or lose it.
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Ixodidae Walker Acarina- Thursday, March 11, 2004 -
I believe in totems, mine is the bear. I've known many
bird people, goatmen, vixen women, owl people, giraffes, whalefolk,
mermaids, etc., although not everybody clearly has one, and some are indeed
difficult to place; John Kerry's a horse. George Bush is a tick.
"These flat, leathery animals, all bloodsucking parasites of other animals,
have beaks furnished with backward-directed hooks that make it almost
impossible to pull one off once it has begun feeding. Like some of the
parasitic mites, the tick may infect its victim with rickettsias. ... The
chelicerate animals are arthropods that were early committed to a
carnivorous mode of life. Since their prey is usually only crushed, or
perhaps pulled to pieces, then predigested and consumed as a liquid, no
elaborate set of mouthparts was needed for processing the food. Thus, only
the first pair of appendages (chelicerae) and sometimes the second pair
(pincers of the scorpion [a.k.a. Dick Cheney]) became specialized for
feeding. The following four pairs were devoted to walking, the rest
discarded. Thus, the early commitment of the chelicerates to a carnivorous
existence resulted in the early restriction of the number of pairs of
appendages, and this produced evolutionary inflexibility in adapting to
other modes of life which require complex mouthparts, composed of three or
more pairs of highly modified appendages, to handle other types of food."
---from "The Insects" by Url Lanham (New York and London: Columbia
University Press, 1964)
Fits him like a glove, doesn't it?
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His staff kills the rumor... not him
McCain 'Would Entertain' Being Kerry's VP
WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. John McCain allowed a glimmer of hope Wednesday for Democrats fantasizing about a bipartisan dream team to defeat President Bush — a far-flung notion the senator's staff quickly squashed.
McCain said in a television interview that he would consider the unorthodox step of running for vice president on the Democratic ticket — in the unlikely event he received such an offer from the presidential candidate.
"John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it."
Within hours, the Arizona senator's chief of staff, Mark Salter, closed the door on that idea. "Senator McCain will not be a candidate for vice president in 2004," Salter told The Associated Press, saying he spoke for the senator.
Not a fan of McCain's politics, but it would have been fun seeing him across the table in a debate with Cheney: "Is that grimace or a grin you sleazy cyborg chickenhawk?"
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More from the It's About Time department [from a phunkster]
Franken to heat up liberal radio
Franken will be the lead personality on Air America Radio, a startup venture promising a liberal alternative to powerhouse radio talk show pundits like Rush Limbaugh.
The backers of Air America announced their programming lineup Wednesday and said they planned to launch the network March 31 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.
Just to let you in on a secret: great things happen on march 31. no really.
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From the It's About Time department
Senators call for paper trail in e-voting
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bob Graham called Wednesday for a paper trail to back up electronic voting throughout the country.
The Democratic senators told reporters a bill they have drafted calls for every jurisdiction to have machines that produce paper records that would enable recounts.
They pointed to recent electronic voting glitches that they said underscore the need for the change to restore citizen confidence in voter systems.
"Yesterday in Palm Beach County, Florida, the 'oops' factor again reared its ugly head, casting doubt in the minds of many Floridians about whether or not their vote was actually counted," Graham said.
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NEW REPORT: Why Bush Supports Outsourcing
On the eve of his trip to Ohio to "focus on jobs," President Bush claimed yesterday that "we're creating jobs - good, high-paying jobs for the American citizen." His comments come despite the country having lost more than 2 million manufacturing jobs since he was elected. In Ohio, which lost 270,000 manufacturing jobs alone, the economic crisis has raised questions about why the president last month strongly endorsed the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to cheap overseas labor markets. A look at the president's donors offers an answer.
Some of the examples:
TOP OUTSOURCER: American Express
Contributions directly to the President Bush: $39,000
Soft Money contributions to the Republican Party: $422,405
TOP OUTSOURCER: Bechtel
Contributions directly to President Bush: $10,300
Soft Money contributions to the Republican Party: $465,150
go to the article and read the outrageous numbers from Dell and others.
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Kerry Comment Riles Bush Campaign- Wednesday, March 10, 2004 -
"Grrrrr... sputter sputter... how dare he! How dare Kerry say what he is thinking (and what is the truth)"
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry called Wednesday for deeper tax cuts for the middle class than proposed by President Bush and described his Republican critics as "the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen." The chairman of Bush's re-election campaign called on Kerry to apologize "for this negative attack."
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Just for Fun
Gay time with Cheney book
Lynne Cheney's still-remembered 1981 lesbian romance novel, "Sisters," was feted Monday night in a special performance by the "Lynne Cheney Players" - to the delight of an audience of liberal East Village types.
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Yesterday, Flanders told Lowdown that Cheney's novel "is a breathy, gothic romance, horribly written. It's celebrating lesbian love and promotes the value of preventative devices, condoms, to women who want to remain free. It features a woman who has unmarried sex with the widow of her sister - all this by Lynne Cheney, the culture warrior of the right."
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Choice scenes adapted from "Sisters" included one in which two female characters write to each other: "Let us go away together, away from the anger and the imperatives of men. We shall find ourselves a secluded bower where they dare not venture. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement."
One of Cheney's characters swoons to a Sapphic love letter: "How well her words describe our love - or the way it would be if we could remove all impediments, leave this place, and join together ... Then our union would be complete. Our lives would flow together, twin streams merging into a single river."
Thanks to The Hamster.
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When Bush featuring a dead body being removed from ground zero and other 9/11 scenes in his ads, he defended himself be saying he wanted to open a dialog with the American people about 9/11.
Does he really want an honest dialog?
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You know, this "stay the course" crap didn't work for his dad either.
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Looks like March is going well
Bush's Economic Indicator: 2 New Jobs
BAKERSFIELD, Calif., March 4 -- President Bush rhapsodized Thursday about the possibility that a stock-car firm in this hot, dry community will add two jobs this year, as he refined his campaign message of economic optimism.
Bush, seated on a highchair along with five small-business workers and owners, was speaking at a "conversation on the economy," a talk-show-type event the White House stages regularly in front of television-friendly signs that say, "Strengthening the Economy."
Prompted by the president, chassis-maker Les DenHerder said the tax cuts Bush backed might allow him to hire two or three more people.
"When he says he's going to hire two more, that's really good news," Bush said. "A lot of people are feeling confident and optimistic about our future so they can say, 'I'm going to hire two more.' They can sit here and tell the president in front of all the cameras, 'I'm going to hire two more people.' That's confidence!"
That's not confidence Mr. Bush, that's sad.
Link thanks to slacktivist.
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Bush Fund-Raisers Among Overnight Guests
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush opened the White House and Camp David to dozens of overnight guests last year, including foreign dignitaries, family friends and at least nine of his biggest campaign fund-raisers, documents show.
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That scandal and Bush's criticism of it is one of the reasons the White House identifies guests. In a debate with Vice President Al Gore in October 2000, Bush said: "I believe they've moved that sign, 'The buck stops here,' from the Oval Office desk to 'The buck stops here' on the Lincoln Bedroom. And that's not good for the country."
Ah yes, well as Bush is doing the same thing (it was wrong under Clinton... and surprise George, its still wrong now), and since every problem that has befallen America since he became President was someone else's fault, we can assume the sign that says "the Buck stops here," has been moved completely out of the white house and is lining the bottom of an ashtray in some Kellogg, Brown, & Root field office.
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HoustonChronicle.com - GOP learns Bush, gasp, is the problem
Heh, good article, but if you don't want to take the time, the headline says it all.
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George's Presidency is a Record Breaker
U.S. Trade Gap Hits Record $43.1 Billion
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit widened to a record $43.1 billion in January, as rising oil prices helped keep imports near historic highs and exports retreated despite the weaker dollar, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.
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Jon Lonski, chief economist at Moody's Investors Service in New York, said the widening trade gap was "consistent with other signs of an economy that appears to be losing its footing" and therefore could weigh on stock prices.
"All in all, this is not news that might help us discount recent signs of a softer economy, especially as it relates to the labor market," Lonski added.
So Bush's "recovery" stalls again. He's got to have set a record there as well. Either that or George has placed America on the largest corner in the world. You know the corner, the one where recovery is just around it?
The economy is what (not the war based on lies, or his eerie behavior on 9/11) will cost Bush the election (if he can't rig it), and the irony is he wanted a recession in 2001. Over and over again in the fall of 2000 (after the election of course) and spring 2001 Bush and Cheney and their pals talked up a recession, they basically prodded one into life. Why? So they could give the tax cut a more playable marketing message ("help the economy"), plus given standard economical cycles the recovery would happen at least a year before his re-election effort wether he did anything or not, so he could run off his "I saved the economy" playbook that Rove wrote before the ballots were even counted (or was that shredded). Of course it backfired, the economy didn't recover according to the normal cycle, and probably because of Bush too.
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KRT Wire | 03/09/2004 | CIA director disputes Cheney Iraq assertions- Tuesday, March 09, 2004 -
WASHINGTON - CIA Director George Tenet on Tuesday rejected recent assertions by Vice President Dick Cheney that Iraq cooperated with the al-Qaida terrorist network and that the administration had proof of an illicit Iraqi biological warfare program.
Tenet's comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee are likely to fuel friction between the White House and intelligence agencies over the failure so far to find any of the banned weapons stockpiles that President Bush, in justifying his case for war, charged Saddam Hussein with concealing.
Tenet at first appeared to defend the administration, saying that he didn't believe the White House misrepresented intelligence provided by the CIA.
The administration's statements, he said, reflected a prewar intelligence consensus that Saddam had stockpiled chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear bombs.
But under sharp questioning by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Tenet reversed himself, saying there had been instances when he had warned administration officials that they were misstating the threat posed by Iraq.
"I'm not going to sit here and tell you what my interaction was ... and what I did and didn't do, except that you have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it," Tenet said. "I don't stand up publicly and do it."
Tenet admitted to Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, that he had told Cheney that the vice president was wrong in saying that two truck trailers recovered in Iraq were "conclusive evidence" that Saddam had a biological weapons program.
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Bush Continues To Mislead on Job Creation
He must have seen Krugman's graph (see below), so in his eye has no choice but to mislead. It is in his blood, he was a born misleader.
Last month, President Bush released a personally signed report promising that his economic plan would create 2.6 million new jobs by 2004. When data suggested that this would not be possible, he "distanced himself" from the report and "declined to endorse the jobs estimate" publicly during an Oval Office appearance. Now, with a new jobs report showing that his economic program continues to fall short, the president has resorted to outright dishonesty.
Specifically, the president deployed Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to Capitol Hill last week to claim that he never actually signed the report. She told lawmakers the president "doesn't sign this report."
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Krugman: Promises, Promises
Economic forecasting isn't an exact science, but wishful thinking on this scale is unprecedented. Nor can the administration use its all-purpose excuse: all of these forecasts date from after 9/11. What you see in this chart is the signature of a corrupted policy process, in which political propaganda takes the place of professional analysis.
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The ongoing story of electronic (without a paper trail) voting:
7,000 Orange County Voters Were Given Bad Ballots
Poll workers struggling with a new electronic voting system in last week's election gave thousands of Orange County voters the wrong ballots, according to a Times analysis of election records. In 21 precincts where the problem was most acute, there were more ballots cast than registered voters.
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With Martha Stewart going to jail, let us remember that that only happens in rare occasions to insider traders. Sometimes they get selected pResident.
Investigative Report: Bush’s Insider Connections Preceded Huge Profit on Stock Deal
(Washington, 4 April) The year 1986 was very good for George W. Bush.
After a decade of striking Texas brown dust instead of oil, his luck finally turned that year when go-for-broke Harken Energy Corp. bought his failing oil exploration firm for stock. Four years later the company concealed large losses just before the GOP presidential hopeful unloaded those securities for a nice profit. That, in turn, helped finance his stake in the Texas Rangers baseball club and catapult him into the ranks of multimillionaires.
Read the article for a lot more.
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US presidential race takes nasty tone
The bitter exchange came as new polls showed Kerry, the veteran senator from Massachusetts, opening a significant lead over Bush in the early going of an intensely personal campaign for the November 2 election.
At a fundraiser in his homestate of Texas, Bush dismissed Kerry as weak and irresolute in defending the country and branded the Vietnam war hero a wafffler who follows the prevailing political winds on crucial issues.
"My opponent clearly has strong beliefs -- they just don't last very long," the Republican president told a rowdy crowd of supporters at a Dallas luncheon that netted some 1.5 million dollars for his reelection campaign.
Bush cited a 1995 bill Kerry proposed that would have cut intelligence funding by 1.5 billion dollars over five years. "His bill was so deeply irresponsible that he didn't have a single co-sponsor," the president said.
"Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services. And that is no way to lead a nation in a time of war," said Bush.
Meanwhile..... here's a description of a NY times article from early 2002:
Bush administration's top priority in post-Sept 11 world, preventing future terrorist attacks, has changed priorities of many cabinet agencies, particularly Justice Dept; vivid example is Atty Gen John Ashcroft's recent testimony before Congress, arguing for substantial spending increases for counterterrorism programs; prior to Sept 11, Ashcroft had identified more than dozen other objectives for greater emphasis within Justice Dept, and had suggested cutting out millions of dollars FBI requested to hire new counterterrorism field agents and millions more in counterterrorism grants to states and localities; under Janet Reno, Ashcroft's predecessor, department's counterterrorism budget increased in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
From Atrios here's more of the article:
But in his Sept. 10 submission to the budget office, Mr. Ashcroft did not endorse F.B.I. requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators.
Mr. Ashcroft proposed cuts in 14 programs. One proposed $65 million cut was for a program that gives state and local counterterrorism grants for equipment, including radios and decontamination suits and training to localities for counterterrorism preparedness.
Last August, before he proposed cutting the program to $44 million from $109 million, Mr. Ashcroft went to Dayton, Ohio, and watched a preparedness exercise and announced grants totaling $1.8 million to Ohio. He said: "All of these domestic preparedness efforts have one overarching goal: to ensure that those of you at the state and local levels build the critical capacity to adequately respond to domestic terrorism. At the Department of Justice, we recognize that the threat of terrorism here at home is a serious and growing challenge for our nation."
Mr. Ashcroft justified the cut to Mr. Daniels by saying that states had been slow to develop the statewide plans needed to qualify for federal money. Congressional critics of the attorney general said the Justice Department was not really interested in the program and did not help states develop the required plans.
In various listings of priorities for his department issued between May 10 and Aug. 9, made available to The New York Times by Congressional officials critical of Mr. Ashcroft, the attorney general did not single out counter-terrorism.
Bush says Kerry can't have it both ways, because Bush is busy having it any way he wants.
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Bush is losing the mainstream
Letterman always hated Bush, and you've probably heard of Howard Stern's recent converstion to "anti-bushness," but now even lapdog Leno is getting some good ones in (between Kerry's rich jokes, and the occasional Clinton blowjob joke... still). (no I don't actually watch Leno).
Leno:
- Do you realize the Bush administration has now produced more gay marriages than jobs?
- President Bush has unveiled his first campaign commercial focusing on his accomplishments. That’s why it’s only a 60 second spot.
- President Bush has just one question for the American voters: is the rich person you’re working for better off now than they were 4 years ago?
- President Bush saw Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ” last night. I’m not sure he really understood it. Bush said he liked the movie, but didn’t understand why all those people were so mad at Yanni.
- President Bush was in Los Angeles yesterday, and his campaign announced his campaign themes are "safer, stronger and tested." Isn’t that a condom ad?
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So far Rove's main weapon against Kerry is that he somtimes changes his mind, or as Bush's minions will call it: waffling.- Monday, March 08, 2004 -
Kerry should use this quote: "When the facts change," said the economist John Maynard Keynes when asked once about his shifting positions, "I change my mind. What do you do, sir?".
Well, quite frankly, Bush doesn't change his mind when the facts change, and that should be brought up and often; it is one of his most frightening characteristics.
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"Ignore that explosion! Check out this new storm drain that was built for only 3 million dollars!
Pentagon to offer direct news service from Iraq and Afghanistan
Kuwait City, Kuwait -AP, Feb. 28, 2004 11:30 AM) _ The U.S. military will launch its own news service in Iraq and Afghanistan to send military video, text and photos directly to the Internet or news outlets.
The $6.3 million project, expected to begin operating in April, is one of the largest military public affairs projects in recent memory, and is intended to allow small media outlets in the United States and elsewhere to bypass what the Pentagon views as an increasingly combative press corps.
U.S. officials have complained that Iraq-based media focuses on catastrophic events like car bombs and soldiers' deaths, while giving short shrift to U.S. rebuilding efforts.
Yes, the free press always seems to report on what they want to report on and not what we want them report on. So we now have a propoganda arm of the pentagon. (we always had one, but now its got a cool acronym: DVIDS (Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System)).
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A murmur spreads across the room filled with Democratic Senators: What's with Senator Kennedy? How is he able to walk upright?
Suddenly silence as they realize the unbelievable truth: Kennedy has a backbone!
Kennedy Presses Tenet on Iraq Intelligence
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy called on Friday for CIA Director George Tenet to state plainly whether he believed the White House altered or misused intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The veteran Massachusetts lawmaker said Tenet also must explain "why he waited until last month -- nearly a year after the war started -- to set the record straight" that the intelligence did not indicate Iraq posed the immediate threat depicted by the Bush administration.
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He cited Bush calling Iraq a "threat of unique urgency," Vice President Dick Cheney saying Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying "we know where they are" of weapons of mass destruction that have yet to be found.
"Why wasn't CIA Director Tenet correcting the president and the vice president and the secretary of defense a year ago, when it could have made a difference, when it could have prevented a needless war and saved so many lives?" Kennedy questioned.
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Bush loves big government
Job Growth Anemic in February
Without it his "anemic" growth is actually non-existent growth.
The details in the report were uniformly bleak. Private-sector employment showed no gains. Government hiring was the only reason the nonfarm payroll count rose.
Whoa... that's bad.
An average of just 42,000 jobs have been created each month in the last three months, down from the 79,000 average of the prior three months. Economists say gains near 150,000 are needed each month just to keep pace with labor force growth.
In addition, the report showed pay gains have slowed, while the average length of time workers who had lost jobs stayed unemployed climbed to its highest level since January 1984.
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A citizen wants to vote
Think You Voted in Md.? Think Again
Getting elections right is Job No. 1 in a democracy. Maryland's new touch-screen system fails that test. The state is using machines that officials know will fail, and the burden is on the voter to correct those failures.
Last Tuesday I went to the polls early to vote in the Democratic primary. The good news is that, unlike in 2002 when malfunctioning machines created delays so long that many voters simply bailed out, there were no lines. The bad news is that the touch-screen voting machines don't always work.
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I persevered long enough to persuade the technician on duty to check my machine. The technician confirmed that the machine was not presenting whole election contests.
At this point I demanded to vote again. But the senior election judge on site said, "Once you've pressed 'cast my vote,' that's it. You can't vote again." I pointed out that I had been denied the right to vote because I was never presented with the ballot for that race, and she said, "Well, you should have complained before you pressed the button." In other words, it's up to the voter to account for all the races and to make sure the machine doesn't malfunction.
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The most amazing thing about this experience was something the administrator said to me. When I explained that a race had been dropped, she asked whether I had pressed the magnification button. I said that I had not even seen and fortunately did not need a magnification button. She said, "The reason I ask is that we know that this sometimes happens when you press the magnification button." So the election officials know that the machine will malfunction.
Now, in a larger sense, that's not exactly headline news. Computers and computer screens malfunction -- it happens to all of us at home and at work on a regular basis. But then why would we entrust our elections to patently flawed machinery with no paper backup?
To Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and all of our county executives: Get in a room and fix this problem. The stakes are too high to fail anymore.
And Marylanders in November will be left scratching their heads "how the heck did we vote for Bush."
Thanks to Pa for the heads up on this letter.
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GOP wants MoveOn.org ads pulled
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican National Committee on Friday asked about 250 television stations to pull a liberal group's ads critical of President Bush.
The RNC sent the stations a letter Friday suggesting the outlets may be complicit in breaking campaign finance laws if they air the MoveOn.org Voter Fund ads. It asked them to decline to broadcast the ads. The RNC argues that the group, financed by so-called "soft money," is spending it on ads to influence a federal election. The campaign finance law broadly bars the use of such corporate, union and unlimited donations to influence federal elections.
MoveOn began airing ads Thursday critical of Bush's policies. MoveOn founder Wes Boyd said the ads are legal, and added that the group isn't concerned by the RNC's letter.
Man the RNC is scared of the truth, so they are trying to bully anyone who airs it. According to my father CNN had an article about this as well, but when I try to find it now... its gone "poof" (well actually it went "404 error"). Meanwhile Bush is happy to continue airing his 9/11 ads with the fake fireman (which works for a fake president who wears a fake flightsuit and gives out fake turkey).
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A Pop Quiz
It is 1969. You are a 21 year old kid in the Navy, serving on a Swift boat in Vietnam. You might have joined the National Guard, but some Congressman’s kid jumped ahead of you in line, grabbing the last spot available.
Right now you are on patrol in the Mekong Delta, and you have run into an ambush. A mine goes off under your boat, throwing you in the water and injuring your skipper. Weighed down by guns, grenades, and ammunition, you sink to the bottom while five more boats pass overhead. You shed your gear and surface. As the boats disappear down the river, you are taking machine gun and small arms fire from both banks of the river. You can’t swim to either side without getting shot, and even if you did, getting captured means getting killed. You have one, and only one chance, to get out alive. You have to hope that your skipper turns his boat around, heads back into the crossfire over the mine infested water, reaches down with his bloody arm, and drags you back up on the boat.
Now for the quiz.
Who would you rather have as your skipper, George Bush or John Kerry?
Jim Rassmann is alive and well living on the Oregon coast because when it happened to him, his skipper was John Kerry.
An excellent post that really points out the strenght of character. TCS has not always thought much of Kerry (maybe because of his Skull and Bones membership), but we'd be proud to have him as our next President.
- rob 11:11 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Bush brother Neil marries in Houston
Presidential brother Neil Bush -- putting aside remnants of a scandalous divorce, paternity questions and a scorned ex-wife -- married Maria Andrews Saturday night in the Memorial-area mansion of Rania and Jamal Daniel, longtime Bush family friends.
Close to 150 guests joined the newlyweds after a small family ceremony that included former President George Bush and Barbara Bush, parents of the groom. President George W. Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush did not attend.
Standing with their father for the nuptials were Pierce, 17, and Ashley, 14. His eldest daughter, model and Princeton University student Lauren, did not attend.
That's sad, not only does your eldest daughter blow off your wedding but two of you brothers do too. Well that's Bush family values for you: Family is for getting money which is valuable, but otherwise family might become a political liability, so just ditch them.
- rob 11:05 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Mahatma Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.
- Wealth without Work
- Pleasure without Conscience
- Science without Humanity
- Knowledge without Character
- Politics without Principle
- Commerce without Morality
- Worship without Sacrifice
Now we don't have to worry about Knowledge without Character sin with George, because though he doesn't have Character, he's light on the Knowledge part too. And as for Science without Humanity, Bush is probably clear of that sin too, as Georege has Science without any Science. But take the other 5 and George is looking at a pretty hot afterlife.
First saw the list on Bartcop.
- rob 11:00 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Oh dear, Kerry curses... well I guess we should just let the country go to hell under 4 more years (or is that wars?) under Bush... because he doesn't curse?!?
Surely they can do better than that: DRUDGE REPORT 2004
- rob 9:42 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Some More Site Mottos
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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