Get Out The Vote

GOTV is extremely important this year. People need to get out there.

Why not check out what you can do: Volunteer for the MoveOn.org Phone Program

We need to Get Out The Vote, because the GOP Go After The Voters effort is in full swing:

AG: Voter Warning Linked to GOP Campaign

State investigators have linked a Republican campaign to letters sent to thousands of Orange County Hispanics warning them they could go to jail or be deported if they vote next month, a spokesman for the attorney general said.

- rob 4:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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What to do when investigators our finding out all the bad things you did?

For your average 21st Century GOP Congressman the answer is simple: Fire Them

As TPMm readers know well, House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is under federal investigation for possible improprieties in how he oversaw Congress' spending of $900 billion annually. Yesterday, we reported that Lewis had dropped nearly $800,000 in legal fees to defend himself against the probe.

This evening, Congressional Quarterly reports (sub. req.) that in a round of calls Monday evening, Lewis fired 60 investigators who had worked for his committee rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, effective immediately. As in, don't bother coming in on Tuesday.

- rob 4:29 PM - [PermaLink] -

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is now

New Total Information Awareness

Like TIA, Tangram would compile vast databases of information on hundreds of millions of innocent people, including communications records, credit card transactions and travel information, and mine them for patterns of behavior which look suspiciously terroristical.

But check this out! The problem with the old method of data mining, according to Tangram's caretakers, is that they used a "guilt-by-association" model -- that is, it found terror suspects by seeing who was linked to known or suspected terrorists. Tangram tosses that outmoded concept. It can find terrorists even among innocent people with no ties to suspected terrorists!

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Missed this? I did

Bush Guts Posse Comitatus, Grabs National Guard!

If I told you that Congress was considering passing a law that gives the President -- this President -- the power, in the event of any "disaster, accident, or catastrophe" that he deems to require it, to:

- involuntarily take National Guard troops from State A and
- require them to work in State B for up to a year,
- in law enforcement rather than just traditional areas like disaster relief,
- over the objection of both state's governors

would you believe it? Probably not. And you'd be right. Congress is not considering such a bill.

IT ALREADY PASSED SUCH A BILL THREE WEEKS AGO!

Go read the DKos Diary about it to learn more.

- rob 4:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You go to war with the God you have not the God you want

Top US general says Rumsfeld is inspired by God

MIAMI (AFP) - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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Well timed since we also have the worst President ever:

Rolling Stone : Time to Go! Inside the Worst Congress Ever

and

Rolling Stone: The 10 Worst Congressmen

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Olbermann again with his most blistering "special comment" yet.

Olbermann: 'Beginning of the end of America'

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.
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For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before led here—by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.
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We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.
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We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.
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“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

Go to MSNBC - read the whole thing - watch the video - rate the article.

How, you may ask, can the supporters of Bush react against these harsh statements of reality.

The only way they know how: NY Post: POTENCY PILL POPS UP

KEITH Olbermann, who's been branded lousy in the sack, apparently doesn't want his viewers to suffer the same sad fate. The MSNBC loudmouth has started running commercials for erection-enhancing drug Cialis on his "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

Pathetic.

- rob 2:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You want the truth
You can't handle the truth

A human tragedy - let's just keep that on the Q.T.

Iraq Aims to Limit Mortality Data

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office has instructed the country's health ministry to stop providing mortality figures to the United Nations, jeopardizing a key source of information on the number of civilian war dead in Iraq, according to a U.N. document.

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We keep hearing about keeping "our nation secure"

But not a peep about keeping our Democracy secure - and guess what that is what we really do need to worry about.

Former delegate gets purported Diebold code

Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004.
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A spokesman for the governor said the apparent distribution of the voting-machine software was troubling.

"This raises yet another unanswered question with regard to Diebold technology," said Henry Fawell, an Ehrlich spokesman.

The availability of the code - the written instructions that tell the machines what to do - is important because some computer scientists worry that the machines are vulnerable to malicious and virtually undetectable vote-switching software. An examination of the instructions would enable technology experts to identify flaws, but Diebold says the code is proprietary and does not allow public scrutiny of it.

Interesting use of "some computer scientists" is interesting, becuase I believe in this case "some" is defined as "every computer professional in the nation who does NOT work for Diebold."

- rob 1:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Ahh - can't you feel the love tonight

The respect between fellow Americans is stirring.

A white billionaire tries to get african americans to vote for the GOP: Republican Ad Calls Black Women "Ho's"

Check out the following transcript of a new Republican ad targeting black voters in 10 battleground states this year and you be the judge:

BLACK MAN #1: "If you make a little mistake with one of your 'hos,' you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked."

BLACK MAN #2: "That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed."

BLACK MAN #1: "Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican."

A Farker called Mediaho kindly translates:

AFRICAN-AMERICAN GENTLEMAN #1: "If you impregnante your spouse or signifigant other, you will want to make sure she has an abortion relatively quickly."

AFRICAN-AMERICAN GENTLEMAN #2: "Sir, I would never choose to terminate a pregnancy."

AFRICAN-AMERICAN GENTLEMAN #1: "Perhaps you would rather have that choice made for you by voting for a party of corrupt, child-molesting, warmongering, chickenhawk robber barons who would sooner send your ass to die in a desert than look at you."

And for a great example of why teaching logic shouldn't just for Vulcans.

Another spot attempts to link Democrats to a white supremacist who served as a Republican in the Louisiana Legislature, David Duke.The ad makes reference to Duke's trip to Syria last year, where he spoke at an anti-war rally.

"I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists,"a male voice in the ad says. "What I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke."

I'm just glad to see the word 'cracker' enter our 21st Century political discourse. Now I'm hungry for soup.

- rob 1:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Today's World Leaders

Putin on alleged rapist Israel President: "We all envy him"

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A view of Iraq from Iraq: Baghdad Burning

This has been the longest time I have been away from blogging. There were several reasons for my disappearance the major one being the fact that every time I felt the urge to write about Iraq, about the situation, I'd be filled with a certain hopelessness that can't be put into words and that I suspect other Iraqis feel also.

It's very difficult at this point to connect to the internet and try to read the articles written by so-called specialists and analysts and politicians. They write about and discuss Iraq as I might write about the Ivory Coast or Cambodia- with a detachment and lack of sentiment that- I suppose- is meant to be impartial. Hearing American politicians is even worse. They fall between idiots like Bush- constantly and totally in denial, and opportunists who want to use the war and ensuing chaos to promote themselves.

The latest horror is the study published in the Lancet Journal concluding that over 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war. Reading about it left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it sounded like a reasonable figure. It wasn't at all surprising. On the other hand, I so wanted it to be wrong.But... who to believe? Who to believe....? American politicians... or highly reputable scientists using a reliable scientific survey technique?

The responses were typical- war supporters said the number was nonsense because, of course, who would want to admit that an action they so heartily supported led to the deaths of 600,000 people (even if they were just crazy Iraqis…)? Admitting a number like that would be the equivalent of admitting they had endorsed, say, a tsunami, or an earthquake with a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale, or the occupation of a developing country by a ruthless superpower… oh wait- that one actually happened.

- rob 12:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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One Republican candidate is thinking of new ways to get books into our schools (well in this case, Oklahoma schools)

Candidate: Use Textbooks As Shields From School Shooters

Bill Crozier, a Union City Republican going against incumbent Democrat Sandy Garrett, said he believes old textbooks could be used to stop bullets shot from weapons wielded by school intruders.

If elected, he said he would put thick used textbooks under every desk for students to use in self-defense.

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Two Handy lists:

Congress.org: Power Rankings

and the far more entertaining (while simultaniously sad): America's Dumbest Congressmen
Radar ranks the 10 biggest fools on the Hill

- rob 5:56 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You know what I never understood, why didn't Gandalf take one of his big birds and just had the damn hobbits fly to the volcano - that'd turn three long movies into a short about a 10 minute short.

Rick Santorum and the "Eye of Mordor"

In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, embattled Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has equated the war in Iraq with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." According to the paper, Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five years because the "Eye of Mordor" has been focused on Iraq instead.

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said. "It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

oooohkay. So the American soldiers dying in Iraq are little hobbits and the Iraqi insurgents are Orcs and I guess that makes the press - Gollum?... um... sorry, I'm lost.

- rob 5:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?

Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, was similarly dumbfounded when I asked her if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.

“Do I?” she asked me. A look of concentration came over her face. “You know, I should.

Not really similar but the title reminded my of what Life Magazine did in the early forties when it printed a guide to telling your Japanese "enemies" from you Chinese "friends."

- rob 5:34 PM - [PermaLink] -

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as they say: "our liberal media":

Media Matters - Why has CNN devoted 50 times as much coverage to Harry Reid's land deal as Dennis Hastert's?

	Hastert	Reid
Highest-ranking member of the body in which he serves?	Yes	No
Member of party that controls every branch of federal government?	Yes	No
Profit on land deal	$2,000,000	$700,000
Evidence he took official action that increased the value of his investment?	Yes	No
CNN transcripts mentioning controversy	2	17 (and counting)
Words CNN has broadcast about the controversy	65	3,361 (and counting

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I haven't linked to Krugman in a while, mostly because he's no longer free.

But he's still got it right: One-Letter Politics

The fact is that this is a one-letter election. D or R, that’s all that matters.

It’s hard to think of an election in which the personal qualities of the people running in a given district or state have mattered less.
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There are two reasons why party control is everything in this election.

The first, lesser reason is the demonstrated ability of Republican Congressional leaders to keep their members in line, even those members who cultivate a reputation as moderates or mavericks. G.O.P. politicians sometimes make a show of independence, as Senator John McCain did in seeming to stand up to President Bush on torture. But in the end, they always give the White House what it wants: after getting a lot of good press for his principled stand, Mr. McCain signed on to a torture bill that in effect gave Mr. Bush a completely free hand.

And if the Republicans retain control of Congress, even if it’s by just one seat in each house, Mr. Bush will retain that free hand. If they lose control of either house, the G.O.P. juggernaut will come to a shuddering halt.

Yet that’s the less important reason this election is all about party control. The really important reason may be summed up in two words: subpoena power.

I have alway hated the idea of party line voting.

Why vote for the dumb party connected Democrat when there is an intelligent honest Republican? Well it gets down to this: To save America and to save the Republican party.

The Republican party needs to lose so as to save its soul. Losing may take them from the brink. With the power our of their hands they will no longer just be fighting to keep the power, but actually fighting to explain (and understand themselves) why they should have the power. It is a way for them to take a breather. Maybe clean house (that'd be nice).

The truth is once any party gets comfortable they get crappy. Its just that never before has a party gotten so crappy so quickly, so efficiently, and so royally as the Republican party did since 1994. Its actually impressive.

- rob 2:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Get Out The Vote (GOTV) is terribly important this year - because the GOP is woking to Go After The Voters (GATV)

Note Warns Calif. Hispanics on Voting

SANTA ANA, Calif. - The state attorney general's office is investigating a letter received by some Southern California Hispanics that says it is a crime for immigrants to vote and tells them they could be jailed or deported if they go to the polls next month.
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The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

The truth is that immigrants who become naturalized citizens can legally register to vote.

NAACP to watch polling places
Group will look for voting problems on Election Day in Md., 9 other states

With problems from Maryland's chaotic primary elections still being sorted out, NAACP President and CEO Bruce S. Gordon said yesterday that the civil rights organization will monitor polls in Maryland and nine other states on Election Day and report any voting irregularities to the U.S. Justice Department.
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In a letter sent to Ehrlich, Gordon peppered the governor with numerous requests: verify that precincts have sufficient provisional ballots; update the check-in system; devise a contingency plan in case machines malfunction; hold additional demonstrations of new voting machines; ensure adequate numbers of election judges; maintain privacy for voters and educate voters on absentee ballots.

But Gordon questioned Ehrlich's recent recommendation that voters worried about the state's voting system vote by absentee ballot.

"Absentee voting normally has not served the African-American community very well," he said during yesterday's news conference.
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In an interview yesterday, however, Gordon expressed little confidence in the state's electronic voting system.

"We know the Diebold machines are unreliable," he said, referring to the manufacturer of the state's touch-screen voting equipment. "You have high-ranking officials in Maryland questioning the voting system. If they are concerned, well, we are certainly concerned."

The NAACP's monitoring effort, dubbed "election protection," is a partnership with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and People for the American Way. Attorneys and volunteers from the groups will answer a toll-free election hot line (1-866-OUR-VOTE) set up at the NAACP's Baltimore headquarters.

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Way to go - Ohio

And the Winner Is ... Me

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We’d like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

- rob 1:55 PM - [PermaLink] -

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From Diebold Variations(c)2004-06 Rand Careaga/salamander.eps

America: we take democracy seriously.

Not enough to make sure your vote counts seriously, but you know, enough to say we do.

Greene County Ohio Democratic Party - Absentee Ballots

Cuyahoga County Commissioners called for the audit report as the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections implemented new direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines sold by Diebold Election Systems, Inc. In first ever circumstances, ESI was able to be present at the May primary election in Cuyahoga County and to conduct exit polls and subsequent audits of the new machines and their election results, having documented and observed election procedures and use of the Diebold AccuVote TSX DRE voting system in the May 2006 primary election in the most populous county in Ohio.
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The report cites poor procedures and an inability to reconcile the counts when comparing individual paper ballots with recorded totals on the paper ballots. The report also cites discrepancies between paper ballots and electronic archives in the machines and the machine memory cards. The report cautions that continuing to use this technology without major changes or safeguards leaves the county at risk of being unable to discern the will of the people if an election is a close election, especially on a recount. The report was placed on the Cuyahoga County Commissioners’ website on Tuesday, August 15.

“This report is of historical significance,” said Brunner. “These findings should give Ohio voters pause and grave concern. This is empirical evidence, conducted with scientific accuracy, that the DRE machines sold by Diebold to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, even with a paper trail, cannot be shown to be completely accurate. A raw comparison of hand counted ballots, counted by election officials from throughout the state, with paper ballot recorded totals, reveals inaccuracies ranging from 1 to 5 votes for 16.9% of the paper audit trail of individual ballots (VVPATs) and over 25 votes for 2.1% of the VVPATs.

Diebold produces ATM machines, that can be audited to the penny. “Shouldn’t we protect one of our most basic freedoms – voting – as much as we protect our money?” asked Brunner.
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Brunner advocates the use of early voting by paper ballot and absentee voting in Ohio this fall to avoid long lines at the polls and to best ensure a more accurate vote count in the fall. She urged each board of elections using Diebold to not use the machines for early or provisional voting but to plan now for extra paper absentee ballots for early and provisional voting.

Gee - let's hope the absentee ballots in the rest of Ohio are a little lighter than they are in Franklin County, Ohio.

Ohio politics Q & A with Dispatch politics editors

I understand that if you only put one stamp on an absentee ballot and it is not enough postage, the ballot is not returned for additional postage nor is it forwarded to the Board of Elections. Is this what Franklin County does. I have never heard a warning to make sure there is enough postage or explanation of procedure for paper ballots. -- Ruth, Columbus.

Joe Hallett: Very good question, Ruth. I just posed it to Matt Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. He said the proper postage for return of absentee ballots is 63-cents - or two first class stamps. [emphasis mine]

What could go wrong?

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I think the headline should probably be rewritten.

I'd dare say "Marijuana Consumption Drops in U.K. Because of Liberalized Laws"

Marijuana Consumption Drops in U.K. Despite Liberalized Laws

Since 2004, police have treated marijuana possession as a non-arrest offense. "The fact that cannabis use has continued to fall to its lowest level in nearly 10 years is further evidence that the decision to reclassify the drug to Class C was sound," said Martin Barnes, chief executive of the charity DrugScope. "Some warned that the change would lead to an increase in cannabis use, yet the reverse has happened, possibly because there is more awareness of the possible harms.

The War on Drugs is a huge fiasco.

It has made drug trafficing more profitable for the criminals.
It has made drug related crimes more violent.
It has made those addicted less likely to seek help.

But hey, its been a boon to defense contractors.


Classic Get Your War On from October, 2001.

- rob 10:26 AM - [PermaLink] -

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In many speeches Bush talks about the importance of "unconditional love" a child should receive from a parent.

It makes one feel ill, because by many reports this is something the Barbara was unable to give. And Dad was always working.

Sadly family dysfunction is now writ large - and people are dying.

One proud Poppy ... but

"I am very proud of our President," the elder Bush said in rain-swept ceremonies in Newport News, Va. "I support him in every single way with every fiber in my body."

Yet many of his closest former aides beg to differ.

Indeed, one of the worst-kept secrets in Bush World is the dismay, in some cases disdain, harbored by many senior aides of the former President toward the administration of his son - 41 and 43, as many call them, political shorthand that refers to their numerical places in American presidential history.

For five years, the 41s have bit their collective tongues as, they complain, the 43s ignored their counsel. But as the war in Iraq has worsened and public support for the current administration has tanked, loyalists of the elder Bush have found it impossible to suppress their disillusionment - particularly their belief that many of 43's policies are a stick in the eye of his father.

Of course I'm sure Bush thinks that reporting such a think is "unacceptable."

Like a child banging on the table because he does not like his dinner, the fact that realty does not, in fact, bend to his "will" is something horribly "Unacceptable."

Bush Confounded by the 'Unacceptable'
President Wields Word More Freely as His Frustration Rises and His Influence Ebbs

President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable."

In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems "unacceptable," including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, North Korea's claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran's nuclear ambitions.
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But a survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

In the first nine months of this year, Bush declared more than twice as many events or outcomes "unacceptable" or "not acceptable" as he did in all of 2005, and nearly four times as many as he did in 2004. He is, in fact, at a presidential career high in denouncing events he considers intolerable. They number 37 so far this year, as opposed to five in 2003, 18 in 2002 and 14 in 2001.

Gee I wonder what wasn't acceptable in 2001. Not much I guess.

Anyway - back to love and acceptance:

PARENTAL ACCEPTANCE-REJECTION AND LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT

Parental acceptance-rejection theory (PARTheory) is a theory of socialization that attempts to predict and explain worldwide causes, consequences, and other correlates of parental acceptance-rejection. Additionally, the theory attempts to predict and explain the consequences of acceptance-rejection in other primary interpersonal relationships, including intimate adult relationships. Empirical evidence overwhelmingly supports the major postulates of the theory, especially PARTheory's personality subtheory which predicts that perceived parental rejection is likely to be universally associated with a specific form of psychological maladjustment. Members of every society and ethnic group so far studied tend to respond to perceived acceptance-rejection precisely the way the theory predicts. With this information it should now be possible to formulate culture-fair policies, programs, interventions, and other applications for enhancing the welfare of humans elsewhere.

Too late.

- rob 4:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Party of Fiscal Responsiblity?

Running the nation like a corporation?

Nah - that's too difficult. Let the looting continue!

First Draft - GAO: Federal gov't unable to track spending of $88 billion in Katrina funding

I remember when my mom gave my a billion dollars and told me to go to the store and get some bread and I came back with a candy bar (and an island in the south pacific) instead. I didn't get to watch Star Trek for a week.

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News Flash

Bush keeps revising war justification

AP gets this year's "No Duh" award.

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One pill makes you larger,
And one pill makes you small,
And the ones that Gonzales gives you
won't get you to say anything at all

One day the war on terror and the war on drugs went into a bar...

LSD Mystery: In 2002, Justice Dept. OK'd Dosing Detainees

So I was surprised to discover that in 2002, Justice Department lawyers carefully considered the issue and advised the White House that it was okay. In their view, it was acceptable to force detainees to ingest "mind-altering substances," as long as it was not intended to cause months-long bouts of serious mental illness.

How do we know that? Because in August 2002, the Justice Department gave then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales a 50-page document saying so. And a follow-up document in 2004 reaffirmed it.
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In the 2002 Bybee Memo, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee (now a federal appellate judge) concluded that giving detainees "mind altering substances" (that's "a commonly used synonym for drugs," he noted for the squares in the White House) was legal, as long as doing so did not cause "prolonged mental harm" by "disrupt[ing] profoundly the senses or personality," and was not intended to do so.

Like Bummer Man.

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Ken Mehlman on the phone with Jack Abramoff:

"Hello? Oh hey Jack, thanks again - U2 rocked.

What's that? Oh yeah that bit about the sex trade from the state of the union; yes George really meant that.

Oh - your client makes money off the sex trade? Well I'm sure George didn't mean to make your client angry Jack. Jack. Jack. I'm sorry - calm down.

Tell you what I'll do - it'd be bad for Georgie to back track on that, being pro-sex trade isn't going to sell with the base if you know what I'm saying - but what we can do is fire the point man on the sex trade thing. Then we'll just not do anything about the issue.

Ha Ha - yeah right Jack, just like everything else."

Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired

The e-mails show that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor changes in that U.S. commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority.

"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.
...
The e-mails disclosed in the House report showed that Mehlman was involved in a variety of matters of interest to Abramoff, one of which bore fruit for the lobbyist after he discussed delivering campaign contributions to GOP causes.
...
Unbeknownst to Stayman, though, within weeks of Bush taking office, the "Stayman project" was in full swing.

State Department officials resisted the dismissal, and negotiations dragged on for months. In May 2001, one of Mehlman's deputies assured Abramoff's team that, "Obviously, this guy cannot stay."

That July 9, Ralston e-mailed Abramoff with news of a deal on Stayman: "He'll be out in four months."

And he was.

No, I don't think they talked about the sex trade - though they probably did talke about U2.

Here's where the sex trade bit comes from:

CNMI: "Poor" Labor Immigration Policies Blamed For Economic Problems

Stayman, who visited Saipan recently, said labor abuses in the CNMI still exist, especially involving migrant Asian women forced into prostitution.

He said local immigration policies are to blame.

“Unemployed and/or underpaid guest workers have contributed to an increase in crime and to an unseemly sex trade that is offensive to most tourists,” Stayman said.

At the same time, he urged the CNMI government to “fully investigate its contracts” with disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Hat Tip to Americablog.

- rob 3:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Umm - I know these guys live in an alternate reality - but I thought politics was something they actually took seriously (unlike running a country).

White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects
Self-Assurance of Bush, Rove and Others Is Not Shared by Many in the Party

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats -- shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush's second term.

Does Rove know something we don't know? Like really good Diebold cheat codes? (you know where your health shoots way up and your gun gets unlimited ammo).

- rob 3:34 PM - [PermaLink] -

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