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Friday, September 24, 2004


Still Undecided?

Take the quiz.


posted by Arnold P. California at 1:38 PM




A Very Dutch Problem

Having just gone through miles (or is it kilometers?) of red tape to get my work permit, I found this article quite infuriating.
AMSTERDAM — The Cabinet confirmed on Friday it will abolish work permits for highly-skilled expats from 1 October this year.

From that date, expats who earn a gross wage of EUR 45,000 or more per year will no longer require a work permit in the Netherlands and will be issued with a five-ear residence permit.
All that hassle for nothing.

But I kept reading and decided the pain was worth it for this.
But the cabinet wants to prevent prostitutes from availing of the system, yielding to demands laid down by the Dutch Parliament, the government website regering.nl said.

As prostitutes moving to the Netherlands could also satisfy the income requirement, they could in principle be classified as skilled migrants. The parliament said this was undesirable as prostitution is not a normal career, despite the fact it is legal.
We have much in common with the Dutch, but it's hard for me to imagine the White House website posting a press release entitled "Prostitutes Not Allowed as Knowledge Workers." Vive la difference.


posted by Arnold P. California at 1:08 PM




A Simple Point: Politics is Complicated

Stanley Fish has an interesting op-ed in today's New York Times
In an unofficial but very formal poll taken in my freshman writing class the other day, George Bush beat John Kerry by a vote of 13 to 2 (14 to 2, if you count me). My students were not voting on the candidates' ideas. They were voting on the skill (or lack of skill) displayed in the presentation of those ideas.
He goes on to analyze Bush's rhetoric versus Kerry's rhetoric and concludes that Bush is succeeding because his arguments are simple and easy to understand, while Kerry's rhetoric is circular and difficult to follow.

He concludes
If you can't explain an idea or a policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours; and if it's not yours, no one you speak to will be persuaded of it, or even know what it is, or (and this is the real point) know what you are.
I realize that this is all very true, but I find the idea that complex ideas ought to be made simple so that people can understand them infuriating.

Kant and Wittgenstein are considered two of the greatest philosophers Western philosophy has ever produced, yet their writings are nearly impossible to comprehend. And it is hard to comprehend because the topics they are analyzing are complicated and difficult. Their attempts to clarify and understand complex topics is itself extremely complicated (care to provide your own analysis of how synthetic a priori judgments are possible, anyone?) but it is the complexity of their philosophy that makes it so important.

Hell, even the books that seek to simplify Kant's and Wittgenstein's philosophies so that laymen can understand them are extremely difficult to comprehend (or maybe I am just an idiot.)

Anyway, I'm not comparing Kerry to Kant or Wittgenstein. I'm simply trying to point out that making complicated things seem simple just ends up glossing over all the important details that are the source of the actual problem.

Providing simple, easy-to-understand solutions to complex problems does no good if those solutions are made simple by totally ignoring the complex nature of the problem.

Americans seem to want their politics to be simple so that they can understand it. But domestic and foreign affairs are complex issues and can't, and shouldn't, be overly simplified for easy consumption. Doing so only undermines our ability to find genuine solutions to these problems.

In short, nobody should vote for the candidate who can provide easy answers to difficult questions because those easy answers are usually misleading and dangerous.

Or, as H.L Mencken said, "There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong."

posted by Eugene Oregon at 1:07 PM




The War of Choice

Atrios makes a good point when he notes that, though now Bush is fond of bashing Kerry for flip-flopping after having "voted for the Iraq war," at the time he sent the resolution to Congress, Bush was characterizing it as a way to "support the administration's ability to keep the peace"
Q Mr. President, how important is it that that resolution give you an authorization of the use of force?

THE PRESIDENT: That will be part of the resolution, the authorization to use force. If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force. But it's -- this will be -- this is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, we support the administration's ability to keep the peace. That's what this is all about.
So back in September 2002, voting for the resolution was a "vote for peace" - but now, in September 2004, it was a "vote for war."

I think this all ties in nicely to the point Kerry made the other day about the war in Iraq being Bush's war of choice.

Kerry needs to continue to make the point that Iraq had no WMDs, ties to al Qaeda and posed no threat to our national security and that the Bush administration either knew that or ought to have known that, and use that to hammer home the point that more a thousand American soldiers are dead, the country of Iraq is in shambles and our standing around the world has plummeted all because Bush chose to fight an unnecessary war.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:28 AM




Daily Darfur

No shit!
U.S.: No 'Quick Fixes' in Sudan Situation

It may take up to two years to disarm the Arab militia in the Darfur region of western Sudan and secure the vast region for the return of 1.2 million people who fled the violence there, a senior U.S. diplomat said Friday.

There are no "30-day, 90-day quick fixes" to the problem, said Charles Snyder, the State Department's Senior Representative on Sudan. "This is going to take, in my view, 18 months to two years to conclude the first phase" of making the region safe for people to return to their homes.
Well, let's see, since this has already been going on for 18 months, and started getting major coverage 7 months ago, you have had plenty of time to come up with some non-quick fix solutions to stopping the genocide - and you haven't done so.

As luck would have it, Eric Reeves chronicles the various plans proposed by the international community.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbershas an idea of what to do: he says that Sudan should grant more autonomy to Darfur.

But Charles Snyder, the State Department's senior representative on Sudan, says Sudan risks falling into Somalia-style anarchy if peace talks fail.

The AP reports that "the Senate approved up to $680 million in aid for the Darfur region of Sudan, including money it would shift from an unspent fund for rebuilding Iraq."

Here is a report on Samuel Totten who interviewed refugees for the Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project.

William Kristol and Vance Serchuk say that the UN will not act and that
The United States will eventually act on Darfur. After the election President Bush or President Kerry will not sit by and permit the second genocide in Africa in a decade. We will intervene -- belatedly. The question is how belatedly, and how effectively.
Chad is struggling to cope with the 200,000 Darfurian refugees it is now hosting.

Part 3 of Gayle Smith's eyewitness account is now available from the Center for American Progress.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 9:25 AM


Thursday, September 23, 2004


Staggering

According to the United Nations Development Programme's recent "Human Development Report," the life expectancy of those living in the United States is 77.1 years.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is 41.8 years.
In Burundi, it is 40.9 years.
In Rwanda, it is 39.3 years.
In Zimbabwe, it is 33.1 years.
In Zambia, it is 32.4 years.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 2:37 PM




The Saddam Card Isn't Working
"My friends, today we are better off, you are better off and the world is better off without Saddam Hussein"

-- Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, speaking to Congress
To listen to Allawi, President Bush and others, one would assume that all America must do to quel the chaos and bloodshed in Iraq is to simply keep reminding the Iraqi people that we have freed them from the rule of brutal dictator Saddam Hussein. Y'know, just in case they forgot about that.

But no matter how much Bush and his surrogates wax on about the torture and "mass graves" that Saddam Hussein's rule produced, it isn't going to resolve the violence in Iraq. Somehow, our leaders don't quite grasp the fact that many Iraqis aren't buying into the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" maxim. Many of these Iraqis -- like many throughout the Arab world -- view the U.S. with the same level of contempt that they viewed Saddam.

Consider what Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi, the cleric who organized Iraqi opposition in Fallujah, told a Newsweek reporter in an interview last month:
NEWSWEEK: You are wanted by the Americans.

AL-JANABI: Even during Saddam’s time I was tortured and prevented from preaching. If you say the truth, you will become an outlaw and wanted. Saddam was unjust and the Americans are also unjust. That is why I am wanted (by the Americans).
Whether al-Janabi's opinion seems justified or not, perception is reality. Instead of facing up to this hostility and recognizing the liability it presents both to us and the interim government, the Bush team is living in denial.

Even when GOP senators raise concerns about the president's willingness to acknowledge failures in post-war Iraq, Bush simply plays the Saddam card. Consider this exchange, which took place on Tuesday between Bush and a reporter:
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. You've answered some of Senator Kerry's criticisms in the last couple days about your Iraq policy. A couple of Republicans have raised some questions, as well, in the last couple days. Senator Hagel said that, "sharp analysis of our policies is required. We didn't do that in Vietnam, to the point where we finally lost." Senator McCain, you're not being "as straight as we would want him to be," about the situation in Iraq. What do you say to them?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Both Senators you quoted strongly want me elected as President. We agree that the world is better off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell. And that stands in stark contrast to the statement my opponent made yesterday ...
Better off without Saddam ... mass graves ... Saddam was bad ... now have him in a prison cell .... blah, blah, blah .....

How constructive.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 1:58 PM




The Latest Non-Apology Apology

An apology used to be a way of saying, "I'm sorry" -- not "I'm sorry if ..." The latest exhibit in non-apology apologies comes from televangelist Jimmy Swaggart in connection with a statement he made during a Sept. 12 telecast in which he talked about gay marriage:
"I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died."
The statement produced laughter and applause from Swaggart's audience.

An Associated Press story reports on Swaggart's supposed apology:
... Swaggart said he has jokingly used the expression "killing someone and telling God he died" thousands of times, about all sorts of people. He said the expression is figurative and not meant to harm.

"It's a humorous statement that doesn't mean anything. You can't lie to God — it's ridiculous," Swaggart told the Associated Press. "If it's an insult, I certainly didn't think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology."
He said he'll offer an apology if people "are offended," but there's no if to it. People were offended.

Swaggart should have done one of two things -- either: a) admit that his statement was offensive, apologize and stop saying such things, or b) if he really considers this "a humorous statement" to which people are just overreacting (which seems to be exactly what he thinks) then he shouldn't waste our time making an empty apology that doesn't take responsibility for his statement.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 1:23 PM




Posted Without Comment

From the Washington Post
Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.

The House-Senate negotiations concluded last night with the approval of a five-year $146 billion tax cut, the fourth tax cut in as many years. By the end of this week, Republican leaders expect to pass extensions of three tax cuts primarily aimed at middle-income taxpayers -- a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and a 10 percent income-tax bracket that was expanded last year.

But the fight over the child tax refunds during the negotiations revealed a split among GOP tax writers.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sided with Democratic leaders in pushing for changes in the child tax credit to ensure that millions of poor families would not see their credits shrink or disappear next year.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) opposed the move, as did Sens. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.). That effectively scuttled changes to existing law.
Also posted without comment - the headline from this analysis piece
Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label
Actually I do have a comment about this: It would have been nice if the press had started pointing this out 4 months ago.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:34 AM




Very Damned Close

I mentioned the tightness of the race earlier today. Now that the sun is up back in the U.S. of A., the Vote121 toolbar says: Bush 269, Kerry 269.

I hope Kozinski picked some good clerks for Kennedy this year, because it looks as if they might have a big per curiam to do under tremendous time pressure.

(If you understood that, you're both a Supreme Court junkie and a conspiracy theorist. The latter is pardonable, maybe even admirable, these days, but for the former you should seek therapy.)


posted by Arnold P. California at 11:03 AM




Good Answer

Kerry was interviewed by NPR's Robert Siegel yesterday and, aside from his tap-dance around the issue of possibly increasing the number of troops in Iraq, gave some very good answers.

Such as
SIEGEL: You say [Bush] should be faulted for what he's done and therefore not re-elected.

Sen. KERRY: My critique is about almost everything the president has done with respect to Iraq. From day one he rushed to war without a plan to win the peace. He did not give the inspectors the opportunity to finish their work at the UN, which could have brought other countries to our side. He didn't go to war as a last resort, which is what he said. When the Congress voted, he said that war was not inevitable. He said they would do careful planning. He said they would go with allies. He did none of the above. He didn't do careful planning. He discarded the plans of the State Department themselves and didn't even follow them.

This president has made the wrong choices each step of the way because he hitched his wagon to the ideologues of his administration and turned his back on the good advice of people like Senator Lugar, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, other people who said all of this was foreseeable. Now I can't tell you what I will inherit on January 20th. I did tell the president what he ought to do today, and that's what's important.
But this was my favorite
SIEGEL: In your speech at NYU on Monday, you faulted the president for saying that knowing everything he knows now, he would do everything in Iraq just as he did. What's the difference between what the president says and what you say, as you said in August that knowing everything you know now, you still would have voted to give him the authority to do what he did in Iraq?

Sen. KERRY: But that's different. That is different. The authority is the authority to do the inspections. The authority is the authority to build an alliance. The authority was necessary because it was the only way to make inspections happen, so that you could hold Saddam Hussein accountable. But giving the authority did not start the war. The president started the war. The president made the choice of when to go to war. We also gave him the authority not to go to war.

Now my plan would have been very different. If I knew there were no weapons of mass destruction, if I knew that there was no imminent threat, if we knew that there was no connection to al-Qaeda, all of which have now been proven true, there's no way I would do things the same way or go forward with a war. The president has said he would. Now that is a choice in this election that is about as clear as night and day. The president says he'd go do the whole thing all over again. I clearly say under no circumstances, without an imminent threat and a connection to al-Qaeda and WMD, would I do so.
Giving Bush the authority to go to war did not start the war - Bush chose to start this war and admitted that, even had he known there were no ties to al-Qaeda or WMDs, he still would have chosen to go to war. This was Bush's war of choice, not necessity.

If Kerry can make that point repeatedly during the debates, I think Bush is going to be in a lot of trouble.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 9:33 AM




Daily Darfur

Human Rights Watch and WITNESS have teamed up to produce a video documenting atrocities committed against civilians in Darfur. It contains footage of refugees, destroyed villages and dead bodies left in a ditch.

Aid agencies say the situation is rapidly getting worse and that they are seeing rising death tolls, new reports of atrocities, and deteriorating conditions in overcrowded refugee camps.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that the number of internal refugees has now reached 1.45 million.

Gayle Smith of the Center for American Progress has released the second part of her eyewitness account/analysis of the crisis in Darfur.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says that the African Union can quickly mobilize up to 5,000 troops to send to Darfur, but it needs hundreds of millions of dollars to do so. But maybe President Obasanjo ought to think about bringing some of those troops to his own country
Hundreds of soldiers have been deployed on the streets of Nigeria's oil city of Port Harcourt, residents said, following reports up to 500 people killed in clashes in the past month.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 9:09 AM




Damned Close

My Vote 121 toolbar popped up this morning with 254 electoral votes next to Bush's name and 284 next to Kerry's. Where did this come from, thought I; the sense I get from the American news that filters through over here is that it's conventional wisdom that Bush has Kerry on the ropes.

So I clicked through to the electoral vote map, which also shows things tightening up (Bush 268, Kerry 255, with 15 dead even). The author explains some outlier polls that have skewed these results and says the race could come down to West Virginia's five votes. The Colorado referendum that would divide the state's votes according to the proportion of the vote won by each candidate (i.e., no winner-take-all there) could also be decisive. Indeed, the site presents several scenarios in which the election would be thrown to the House, where Bush would win. Or, if Colorado's referendum passes and the outcome hinges on it, the race could be decided by the Supreme Court.

I don't know that any of those scenarios is particularly likely (and to have Bush installed again by the Supreme Court, particularly if it does so by striking down an initiative passed democratically in Colorado, would be a disaster for our government's legitimacy). Rasmussen, which takes the more cautious approach of calling any state with fewer than a five-point difference a "toss-up," has Bush leading 213-204, suggesting that if either candidate moves nationwide opinion by a few points, he could win fairly convincingly in the Electoral College (Rasmussen has Bush ahead by four points in the popular vote).

My point is that this race is close; don't let anyone tell you Bush is cruising.


posted by Arnold P. California at 4:19 AM


Wednesday, September 22, 2004


Religion Claims Yet Another Life

The Associated Press bureau in Rome reports:
A woman was killed Wednesday when a nearly 7-foot-tall metal crucifix fell on her head in a small town in southern Italy, police said.

Maddalena Camillo, 72, was walking in the main square in the village of Sant'Onofrio when the crucifix toppled from a monument being restored for a religious celebration, police said.



posted by Frederick Maryland at 6:57 PM




Not a Man of Few Words

Alan Keyes, Illinois Republicans' desperation candidate for the U.S. Senate, does not believe in legal abortion, same-sex marriage and a host of other things. Now, you can add brevity to this list.

Keyes' theocratic, right-wing philosophy and his bizarre public comments (as in Jesus wouldn't vote for Obama) have turned off a lot of voters. But even those voters who want to know more about Keyes will be greeted by this hopelessly verbose "welcome" letter from Keyes on the home page of his campaign Web site.

The letter is exactly 2,013 words long (including the 181-word post script). If you find yourself unable to fall asleep, it's worth a read.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 6:26 PM




Bush: CIA Was Only "Guessing"

Yesterday, after his meeting with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi, President Bush took a few questions from reporters, including this one from a correspondent with Reuters:
Reporter: "Why do you think the CIA's assessment of conditions in Iraq are so much at odds with the optimism that you and Prime Minister Allawi are expressing at the moment?"

President Bush: "The CIA laid out a -- several scenarios that said, life could be lousy, like could be okay, life could be better. And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like ..."
Just "guessing" about conditions!? Uh, I know that no intelligence report is a take-it-to-the-bank guarantee, but it seems wrong to say that the CIA is simply guessing at outcomes. If the agency is doing so, then we've got even bigger problems.

In any case, Bush continued his response:
President Bush: "... The Iraqi citizens are defying the pessimistic predictions. The Iraqi citizens are headed toward free elections ... And I am optimistic we'll succeed."
Well, don't be too shocked, but Dubya is lying when he suggests that the CIA gave an unclear and equivocal assessment -- "life could be lousy, like could be okay ..." -- of the post-war situation in Iraq. Ten months ago, CNN reported:

A recent CIA assessment of Iraq warns the security situation will worsen across the country, not just in Baghdad but in the north and south as well, a senior administration source told CNN Tuesday.

The report is a much more dire and ominous assessment of the situation than has previously been forwarded through official channels ... It was sent to Washington Monday by the CIA station chief in Iraq.

It was not immediately clear if the assessment was what prompted the hastily arranged trip to Washington by Iraq civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer, who met Tuesday at the White House with President Bush and senior national security officials.

... The senior administration source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bremer agreed with the CIA assessment and added his personal comments to the station chief's memo.

Was Paul Bremer also just "guessing" when he concurred with the CIA's dire assessment?

I don't blame Bush for not foreseeing every imaginable problem that could arise in a volatile, post-war environment. But I do blame Bush for lying about the assessments that he and his administration have received from the CIA and others.

After seeing how the Bush team twists, ignores and deliberately mischaracterizes intelligence, what sane and honorable person would want to take a job in this administration as an intelligence analyst?


posted by Frederick Maryland at 4:42 PM




At War With Their Own Priorities

I was listening to NPR on the way into work today and they have been running a series on the key issues in the campaign and the differences between Bush and Kerry on those issues.

Today the topic was the war on terrorism.

Renee Montagne asked Susan Rice, a senior adviser for national security affairs for the Kerry campaign, what is the most important thing Kerry plans to do to prevent another terrorist attack on the US. Rice responded that Kerry's top priority would be preventing WMDs from ending up in the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations and securing loose nuclear material around the globe.

Montagne then asked Kiron Skinner, an unofficial foreign policy adviser for the Bush-Cheney campaign, about Bush's top national security priority. Here is her answer
The overarching objective is to protect and defend democracy and freedom. Within that, one is to defend democracy and freedom around the world against brutal dictatorships like that of Saddam Hussein and terrorist actors. And the connection between them is of great concern to him.

Second is to preserve relations among the great powers who are industrialized nations and even those that aren't democracies.

And three, to extend the zone of democracy around the world.
Now Skinner may be an "unofficial" advisor, but she ended up on NPR as the campaign's representative and presumably received permission to serve in that capacity from the campaign itself. And she was obviously given talking points, judging by the fact that she had three main points ready to rattle off in response to the question.

So while Kerry's top priority for protecting America from another terrorist attack is to secure WMD's and nuclear stockpiles, Bush's is to "protect and defend democracy and freedom." And apparently, defending democracy is so important that we will ally with non-democratic countries in order to do it while, presumably, we also try to "extend the zone of democracy" into those non-democratic countries.

Does that make any sense at all?

posted by Eugene Oregon at 2:37 PM




Swift Boat Firm Targets Feingold

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is poised to spend at least $464,300 on ads targeting Russ Feingold (the Feingold camp says the NRSC is going to spend $1.23 million) and the ads are being produced by the same firm that produced the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ads.

Feingold, who has called on outside groups to refrain from spending money independent of his campaign, could definitely use our help.

You can donate here.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:55 AM




Staying Clean In The Middle of a S*** Storm

The Corner's Kate O'Beirne says that the indictments of Tom DeLay's associates yesterday is just a Democratic attempt to undermine "Republican successes in the voting booth."

In Tapped yesterday, Sam Rosenfeld asked a good question
You do kind of have to wonder how every person that ran Tom DeLay's Texas fundraising machine seems to be guilty of crimes that DeLay himself is innocent of. How does he keep his fingernails so clean?
The answer is that he gets others to do all the dirty work.

I came across just such a tale today in "The Hammer: Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress" by Lou Dubose and Jan Ried.

I don't want to have to type the whole thing out, so I am just going to steal from a 1998 Nation article by David Corn that, for some reason, is not available on-line
Peter Cloeren Jr.. who owns a $40 million-a-year plastics business in Orange County, Texas, DeLay's home state, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that DeLay had encouraged him in 1996 to use contribution swaps and questionable conduits to evade limits on his donations to Brian Babin, a Republican Congressional candidate. Six weeks before Cloeren complained to the FEC, he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor violations for using employees to disguise $37,000 in contributions to Babin. Cloeren was sentenced to two years' probation and 100 hours of community service; he and his firm were fined $400,000.

Cloeren, a campaign finance novice in 1996, takes responsibility for his misdeeds, but he maintains he was urged by Babin to concoct this illegal -- though not uncommon -- scheme. Moreover, the employee pass-through was only one plot of several Cloeren asserts, and Delay guided him to the others.

Here's Cloeren's story. In August 1996 he attended a private luncheon at a local country club, where Babin, DeLay, a DeLay aide named Robert Mills, several Cloeren employees and Babin campaign staffers were present. Cloeren told DeLay he had run out of "vehicles" for contributing to Babin. No problem, DeLay responded; "additional vehicles" could be found. DeLay noted that other Congressional campaigns and a political outfit called Triad could serve as "vehicles." He told Cloeren that Mills would provide further details.

A day or two later, says Cloeren, Mills called and spelled out the specifics: If Cloeren would contribute to other Republicans -- Senator Strom Thurmond in South Carolina and Steve Gill, a Congressional challenger in Tennessee -- contributors to those campaigns would cut checks to Babin. Mills also said that Cloeren could make a donation to groups that would then pass the same amount to Babin. Cloeren says he was then contacted by Carolyn Malenick, head of Triad Management Services, who told him that if he and his wife contributed $20,000 to Citizens for Reform (a nonprofit managed by Triad), the money would be used to help Babin's campaign. Cloeren says Babin also asked him to send $5,000 to the Citizens United Victory Fund, a political action committee that would forward $5,000 to Babin's campaign. Cloeren made these donations.

Under federal law, an individual is allowed to give only $1,000 per election to a Congressional candidate. But in a variety of ways, Cloeren says, he slipped nearly $60,000 to Babin.
Cloeren tried to help out Babin by following DeLay's advice and was fined $200,000 while DeLay got off scot-free.

That is how he keeps his fingernails so clean.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 10:39 AM




Daily Darfur

A U.N. report says that the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) has been attacking police posts in North Darfur and that the Janjaweed continue to attack and destroy villages.

Amnesty International is calling for an international arms embargo on Khartoum as the only way to stop ongoing atrocities in Darfur.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin decried the world's inaction in Darfur
"People are sick, they are homeless and they are dying," said Martin. "We should have intervened last June when Canada called for it. We should be intervening now."

[edit]

"Our intervention should depend upon the human tragedy that is occurring, not on some legal definition."
New Zealand's Foreign Minister is also calling on the United Nations to get the international community to intervene in Darfur.

Gayle Smith of the Center for American Progress provides the first in a five-part eyewitness report on the crisis.

President Bush addressed the UN yesterday. His speech was 3,044 words long - 130 of them were dedicated to Darfur. Here they all are
At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide. The United States played a key role in efforts to broker a cease-fire, and we're providing humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people. Rwanda and Nigeria have deployed forces in Sudan to help improve security so aid can be delivered. The Security Council adopted a new resolution that supports an expanded African Union force to help prevent further bloodshed, and urges the government of Sudan to stop flights by military aircraft in Darfur. We congratulate the members of the Council on this timely and necessary action. I call on the government of Sudan to honor the cease-fire it signed, and to stop the killing in Darfur.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 9:22 AM




Hilarious Headline of the Week
Scalia Bemoans Supreme Court's Increasingly Political Role
Move over, Jay Bybee. Nino's an old hand at the irony game.


posted by Arnold P. California at 6:19 AM




The Rest of the World Is One Big Blue State

The Democratic Party has been funding efforts to get Americans living overseas to register to vote. Though the process is nonpartisan--i.e., any American can register, and can register as a member of any party--the Dems are doing it because they know that the vast majority of expats will vote Democratic, particularly in view of the xenophobia of the current Republican administration. Hence, a Dutch news program interviewing a representative of TellAnAmericantoVote.com asked her if it should really be called TellADemocratToVote.com; she conceded that if the expat population were divided evenly between the two major parties, the Dems wouldn't be making such an effort, but pointed out that anyone can register at her site.

Now comes word that the Pentagon has been making it more difficult for expats to register, ostensibly for security reasons. No one, so far as I know, is claiming that this is a plot to help the GOP (although, predictably, the outrage at the Pentagon has come from Democratic overseas organizations like Americans Overseas for Kerry-Edwards, run by Kerry's sister Diana). On the other hand, given Republicans' recent willingness to abuse control of electoral administration (see, e.g., Katherine Harris and John Ashcroft), I wouldn't put anything past them. These guys have gotten so bad that paranoia is a rational response.

Update: Salon is paranoid, too.

One recent Zogby survey, for example, showed that voters with passports supported Kerry over Bush by a margin of 55 to 33 percent.

[snip]

It's easy to see why the Bush administration might be worried about the prospect of huge numbers of American civilians living abroad exercising their right to vote. In efforts to register Americans living overseas, the official has come across a host of people who say they're signing up specifically to hasten Bush's defeat. "I've had so many old people coming to register say, 'I haven't voted in such a long time,' or 'The last time I voted in an election was when Kennedy ran, but we've got to get rid of this man. This man makes me ashamed to be an American.'"

VerifiedVoting.org has set up a proxy site for people whose access to the Pentagon site has been blocked, and more details about registration and voting from abroad can be found at Verified Voting as well.


posted by Arnold P. California at 4:37 AM




For Presidential Election Junkies

Check out the Vote121 toolbar from 121 Communications. A quick download will give you a browser toolbar with current electoral vote projections and links to polls, news, commentary, and blogs (via RSS feeds).



I just installed it and navigated to this electoral-vote map, which gave me the interesting news that this race is looking very close. OK, so not much of a shock, but it will be convenient to be able to follow developments via the toolbar.


posted by Arnold P. California at 3:54 AM


Tuesday, September 21, 2004


Getting Warmer

From The Houston Chronicle
A Travis County grand jury today returned 32 indictments related to Republican political fund-raising activity in 2002, including charges against three top aides to U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

The grand jury returned indictments against DeLay political aide Jim Ellis and fund-raiser Warren RoBold and John Colyandro, who was executive director of DeLay's political action committee Texans for a Republican Majority. Colyandro faces 14 charges, RoBold was named in nine charges, and Ellis was named in one.

Colyandro and Ellis were indicted once each on a charge of felony money laundering.

They are accused of taking $190,000 in corporate money raised by the political action committee and giving it to the Republican National State Elections Committee. That committee in turn gave a like amount of legal donations to seven Texas House candidates.
Of course, it is often said that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. That may be so, but I would much prefer for them to indict the World's Biggest Asshole.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 3:48 PM




Humor Bypassed

You may recall that, a couple weeks back, Rush Limbaugh yukked it up over Clinton's heart surgery, claiming Bill went for a quadruple, rather than a triple, bypass for the added sympathy. Today, columnist and "comedienne" Julia Gorin ups the ante. Clinton, Gorin argues, allowed himself to get heart disease in a gambit for attention and chance to "escape earthly justice for all the misdeeds that have yet to surface."
We know this male diva likes attention (if he could sleep in the spotlight, he would), but this quadruple bypass thing is quite a ways to go to get it — even for Bill Clinton. Given his famously addictive personality, and after the outpouring of love and well-wishing, I just hope that he doesn't turn into one of those surgery addicts.
Okay. But she's only joking right? Actually, no.
If it all sounds too satirical, consider this from the AP: "Doctors said Clinton's problems were not as sudden as had been portrayed. He had suffered shortness of breath and tightness in his chest for several months." ... In other words, my opening joke wasn't far off the mark: The man did risk his life for attention!
Classy.


posted by Noam Alaska at 11:38 AM




Thune the Sleazebag (Part II)

One more excerpt from last Sunday's "Meet the Press" appearance by Republican Senate nominee John Thune, who is challenging Sen. Tom Daschle in South Dakota. In this excerpt, host Tim Russert asks Thune about the federal budget deficit (which, I might note, is far greater today than it was in 1996):
RUSSERT: "... Mr. Thune, you said in 1996 you would not vote for any other tax cuts until the budget is balanced. Is that your position still?"

THUNE: "I don't believe that we're in an environment today, because of the war, because of 9/11, because of the stock market collapse, the recession, that we're going to be in a position to get the budget balanced overnight. It's going to take some time. At that point in time, we did and when I got to Congress I voted for legislation that would balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time."

RUSSERT: "But you will vote to extend the president's tax cuts, at a cost of about a trillion dollars even though we have a $422 billion budget deficit."

THUNE: "The record of history is very plain ... that when you reduce taxes on people in this country, they spend, they invest, they grow the economy, they create jobs and that's what's going to happen with this. We are going to generate additional revenue as this economy continues to grow. We have set out a path for growth. We are on that path and we need to continue on that path."
Let me give you the Thune shorthand: "When a Democrat is in the White House, deficits are a major problem. They make me so nervous I can't even sleep at night. But when a Republican is in the White House, cut taxes like there's no tomorrow ... relax, sit back and enjoy the ride (into the budgetary abyss)."

I also found it interesting that Thune stated publicly that we're still in a recession. I don't think W. likes that kind of negative talk.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 11:33 AM




Thune the Sleazebag

Former Republican Cong. John Thune wants to be South Dakota's next U.S. Senator, and he's apparently willing to say just about anything to wrest that Senate seat from incumbent Tom Daschle. On this Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC, Thune and Daschle appeared together with host Tim Russert. Daschle is someone I suspect we're all pretty familiar with. But what kind of politician would Thune be? Consider this exchange from Sunday:
RUSSERT: "Let me show you, Mr. Thune, what the Argus Leader (newspaper) says about [your] ad and this debate. 'Since October 1st, 1995, the 4.3-cent tax per gallon has gone to the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, which finances road projects. South Dakota is a donee state and receives about $2 in project money for every dollar paid in gas taxes. In the past, Thune also has expressed concern about a gas tax repeal, questioning the loss to state roadways.' And yet you're on the air now with a commercial and you question Senator Daschle's judgment. You say, 'When he got a chance to lower gas taxes, he voted against that, too.' Are you saying that you would vote to repeal the gasoline tax, even though it would mean highway money for South Dakota?"

THUNE: "Well, I don't think that's the point here at all. The point is, first off, Tom's ad is false on two counts ..."

RUSSERT: "But I'm asking you, when you say he got a chance to lower gas taxes, he voted against that, too. Will you introduce legislation to repeal the gasoline tax or lower it, even though it means less highway money for South Dakota? Will you, John Thune, do that as a senator?"

THUNE: "Not if it means less highway money for South Dakota."

RUSSERT: "So then why are you criticizing him for ..."

THUNE: "I am criticizing Tom's record not on energy generally but on taxes as well. And the energy tax is one component part of it ..."
Oh, shut up.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 11:20 AM




Who Would Oppose DNA Testing?

"Jeff Sessions would," explains Abolish the Death Penalty.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:13 AM




Daschle Drinks Kerry's Leftover Kool-Aid

Yesterday in a speech at New York Univ., John Kerry tried to better explain his position on the Iraq war and essentially retracted his prior (idiotic) statement that he would have authorized the president to invade Iraq even if he'd known then that Iraq posed no serious, imminent threat to us.

Unfortunately, Kerry's initial position on Iraq, bizarre as it was, was embraced this past Sunday by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle on NBC's "Meet the Press."
NBC's Tim Russert: Having not found the weapons of mass destruction, and seeing the level of insurgency we're confronting, knowing what you know now, would you have still voted to authorize the president to go to war?

Senator Daschle: Tim, I stand by my vote. We can't roll back the clock. We can't turn it back. We've got to go from here. We've got to look at how we can win this war. We've got to provide our troops more equipment. We've got to listen to our military commanders. We've got to have better intelligence. We've got to make sure we involve the international community in burden sharing a lot more than we are. That's the kind of way we're going to do better at this war in the future.
I agree with everything Daschle said except for his very first statement, which seems to answer Russert's question with a "yes."

This is so strange to me. Russert's question is such a slam-dunk question -- even more so than Bush's question to Kerry in early August. Unlike the question that Bush posed to Kerry, Russert's scenario included not only the advance knowledge that there were no WMDs, but also the prior knowledge that there would be a major, post-war insurgency.

Trust me, Sen. Daschle, Tim Russert is well aware that we "can't roll back the clock" on the Iraq invasion. That's why he phrased his question in the conditional tense. Russert was asking you: what if we could, which is a fair question for a public official. The voters have a right to know how an elected official would have approached the same issue if that official had a different set of facts to consider.

The argument, advanced by Kerry yesterday, that this Senate vote was just an authorization, that the Senate still expected the president to rally a coalition, etc., strikes me as a bit weak. Indeed, more than a month ago, the New York Times reporter David Sanger noted:
"... Mr. Kerry has struggled to convince his audiences that his vote to authorize the president to use military force was a far, far cry from voting for a declaration of war. So far, his aides and advisers concede, he has failed to get his message across ..."
If securing a broad coalition was so essential for success in Iraq, then why didn't Kerry (and others) inform the administration that they felt this war-authorizing resolution was premature -- that they'd support such a resolution only after Bush made a genuine effort to seek support from other major countries?


posted by Frederick Maryland at 10:49 AM




45 Points in 6 Weeks

That is what Alan Keyes has to make up
More than two-thirds of Illinois voters would choose Democrat Barack Obama over Republican Alan Keyes for U.S. Senate, according to a new poll.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV poll released Monday shows Obama leading the race with 68 percent to Keyes' 23 percent.
Good luck, nutjob.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 10:45 AM




Daily Darfur

The BBC reports that the Janjaweed responsible for atrocities have been absorbed into the police force and are now guarding refugee camps.

Romeo Dallaire says that Canada ought to demand that a military force be sent to Darfur immediately, less it escalate into a Rwanda-type massacre
"What should be done is an outright intervention," he said. "When I compare it to Rwanda, there are so many similarities it makes you sick."

Khartoum, he said, is "getting away with slaughter and genocide," while the world reacts, much as it did then, with embargos and restrictions.
Human Rights Watch says the second UN resolution is a "historic failure" and that "the Security Council will be judged harshly by history."

Oxfam reports that "the number of people in the makeshift camp on the outskirts of the town has quadrupled from 10,000 to over 40,000 over the past ten days between 27 August and 7 September."

Knight Ridder looks at the causes of the situation in Darfur
But two decades of competition for scarce resources amid a state-sponsored, divide-and-rule policy of "Arabization" have eroded these religious bonds while sharpening ethnic tensions. The violence, now fueled partly by an Arab sense of being superior Muslims, underscores the racial hatred and the obstacles to reconciliation.
Reuters reports that Russia is defending its opposition to sanctions and claims that it intends to increase its arms exports to Sudan.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 9:20 AM




Old Europe

Where have I seen this before?

OK, the symbol on the flag isn't worthy of Riefenstahl. They'll have to work on their iconography--surely there are other cool-looking Buddhist symbols to appropriate.
THE Frauenkirche, a baroque, domed cathedral that once dominated Dresden’s skyline, was flattened by Allied bombing in the second world war. The reconstruction of the cathedral, begun around the time of Germany’s reunification in 1990, is now nearing completion. Saxony, the eastern state of which Dresden is the capital, hopes the new cathedral will symbolise the state’s economic and cultural revival. But sadly the Frauenkirche is not the only remnant of Germany’s past now enjoying a recovery of its fortunes. On Sunday September 19th, the National Democratic Party (NPD), which the German government has compared with the Nazis, attracted 9.2% of the vote in Saxony’s regional elections—the first time the party has won seats in any state assembly since 1968.

And in another throwback to the not-so-old days in the former East Germany:
In the neighbouring state of Brandenburg, another far-right party, the German People's Union (DVU), also won seats in the regional parliament. But in Brandenburg, the show was stolen by throwbacks to the communist era, not the fascists who came before them. The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), composed mostly of former communists, won 28% of the vote, establishing itself in second place behind Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s party, the Social Democrats (SPD). Only a pact between the SPD and the Christian Democrats (CDU) will deny the ex-communists a share of power in this region that turned its back on state socialism 15 years ago.

Brings to mind Tom Lehrer's ditty on the Multilateral Force of 1964:
Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918,
And they've hardly bothered us since then.



posted by Arnold P. California at 4:46 AM


Monday, September 20, 2004


Even Genocidal Priests Want Their Own Rights Protected

From the AP
A Roman Catholic priest accused of ordering the slaughter of 2,000 people who sought refuge in his church during Rwanda's genocide refused to appear for the start of his trial at a U.N. tribunal Monday.

Rev. Athanase Seromba did not attend in protest against U.N. plans to transfer the trials of some genocide suspects from the Tanzania-based tribunal to Rwanda.

[edit]

The suspects oppose the transfer of trials because they fear for their security in Rwanda and don't believe they'll get fair trials there.

Prosecutors say Seromba — then parish priest in Nyange, in Rwanda's eastern Kibuye Province — organized the slaughter of 2,000 people who fled to the church to escape killings by the extremist Interahamwe militia, the army and neighbors.

Prosecutors allege Seromba, a Hutu, ordered the Hutu militia to kill the Tutsis who sought shelter in his church.

"The ... militia attacked with traditional arms and poured fuel through the roof of the church, while gendarmes and communal police launched grenades and killed the refugees," the indictment said.

Seromba then ordered the demolition of the church to kill survivors, prosecutors said.

The church was bulldozed and its roof collapsed, killing more than 2,000 Tutsis gathered inside. The few survivors were killed by the Interahamwe.

Seromba then ordered the Interahamwe to clean the "rubbish," after which the victims were dumped into mass graves, prosecutors said.

The region around Seromba's church was home to some 6,000 Tutsis before the genocide, but almost all were killed in the slaughter.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 4:26 PM




Weinberger, Kofi and Kerry

In an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription req'd), former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger takes a page from the al Qaeda-baiting of Dick Cheney and Dennis Hastert by writing a column that the Journal has headlined, "Kofi Votes Kerry."

Yes, the mere fact that U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan might happen to think that John Kerry would make a better U.S. president, Weinberger writes, should prompt Americans to rush to the polls and vote Republican on Nov. 2. Weinberger writes:
For those who, like John Kerry, believe that the proper foreign-policy course in Iraq and elsewhere is to turn everything over to the United Nations, events of the past week provided some highly dubious fodder:

First, despite Colin Powell's correct description of the killings of African Muslims in the Darfur region of Sudan as "genocide," the U.N. did not leap into action.
Hey, I'm no fan of Annan's, but is Weinberger trying to lay all of the blame for this at Annan's door? China and other nations with seats on the Security Council have threatened to block a resolution that would impose sanctions. Weinberger blasts the U.N. for failing to "leap into action," but surely Reagan's former defense secretary is aware that the U.N. doesn't have a standing army. So who supplies the troops and supplies that would likely be needed to keep the peace in the Sudan and end the bloodshed?

Few African nations have stepped up to the plate. Countries from within the continent might contribute troops, but some supplies and logistics for this significant task at hand would probably pose a tough challenge for these countries.

Although Weinberger appears to be saying that some organization or country should boldly act to end the genocide, has he forgotten that he espoused a doctrine in the 1980s that precluded using U.S. troops for such a purpose. In the "Reader's Companion to Military History," Michael Handel reminds us:
The Weinberger Doctrine was first made public by U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger (in a speech) on November 28, 1984. ... The proximate cause for the speech was the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks at Beirut airport on October 23, 1983 ... This ill-fated U.S. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon had been undertaken despite the vigorous opposition of the secretary of defense ...

... In view of the United States' reluctance to commit troops to Bosnia or Rwanda ... there is no doubt that the logic behind the principles of the Weinberger Doctrine is still very much in place.
In this National War College paper about Rwanda, Lee C. Roberts reinforces this point:
The Weinberger-Powell doctrine emphasized criteria ... that did not fit the relatively undefined nature of peacekeeping operations under the control of the United Nations.
In other words, the Weinberger doctrine is precisely the kind of thinking that makes it impossible for the U.N. to "leap into action."

In the Journal op-ed column, Weinberger also blasts Annan for calling the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq "illegal" under the terms of the U.N. Charter. Of course, Weinberger has never worried himself to death about the legality of government actions. After all, this is the man who was indicted on several felony charges of lying to the Iran-Contra independent counsel. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush provided Weinberger with a presidential pardon shortly before Weinberger's trial was set to begin.

Hey, what are friends for?


posted by Frederick Maryland at 4:12 PM




We Take Requests

Ralph asked us to take a listen to his rendition of the 1950's song "At the Hop" - reworded to fit today's political environment.

It called "The Flop," but it is not about Kerry.

Sample lyrics
First he wanted free-trade, then he wanted tariffs, then did not.

He wasn't into nation building, 'til he started building nations like Iraq.

He was against campaign finance reform, but then he turned and signed it into law.

[edit]

He said "I won't negotiate with nuclear Korea”, then he did.

Said the 911 commission shouldn’t happen, before getting down with it.

He didn’t want Homeland Security, and then said the department worked for him.

[edit]

Said he’d extend the assault gun ban, but then he got down low and tried to block.

He was for fingerprinting immigrants before he met with Presidente Fox.

Said he wouldn’t spend the social security surplus, but then spent every buck.
It is pretty clever - check it out.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 3:56 PM




The Whole World Is Watching

And it doesn't particularly care for what it sees. The center-right NRC Handelsblad reported a couple of weeks ago on polls conducted in the U.S. and Europe. (The article is on NRC's site, but it's in Dutch). More than half of the European countries polled were in the Coalition of the Willing, though of course only the Brits sent troops.

Among the results: 76% of Europeans are dissatisfied with Bush's foreign policy; 58% think that strong American leadership in the world is undesirable (up from 49% last year), and the Netherlands and the U.K. were the only two countries in which a majority disagreed; 73% think the war in Iraq has increased the risk of terrorism.

One unexpected finding was that 79% of Americans want the EU to show more international leadership. I wouldn't have thought that 79% of Americans had heard of the EU. I suspect that many of those who answered this question positively would define "show stronger leadership" to mean "send troops next time."

Another interesting tidbit, from MSNBC's report on the poll: Europeans give Americans a "thermometer rating" of 55 degrees out of 100, suggesting a similar level of positive feeling toward Americans as was found last year. Combine this with another poll in which respondents from 35 countries favored Kerry over Bush by a more than 2:1 ratio, and you get some support for the theory that foreigners distinguish between the people of the United States and our current government. My own theory is that while world opinion shouldn't be a dominant factor in our decision-making, we should realize that if we apparently endorse his policies by electing Bush in November, that distinction will weaken.

Final interesting point: why do Norwegians hate Bush? Of all of the surveyed countries, they gave Kerry the largest margin, a whopping 74%-7%. I wonder if the gravlax in the House cafeteria will soon be relabeled "Freedom Fish."


posted by Arnold P. California at 1:02 PM




Hotel Rwanda

The movie "Hotel Rwanda" won the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival - from USA Today
In "Rwanda," Don Cheadle gives a career-making performance as the hotel manager [Paul Rusesabagina], a reluctant hero who keeps the Tutsis in his hotel to protect them from slaughter by Hutu extremists until the refugees can be evacuated. Joaquin Phoenix plays a journalist, and Nick Nolte is head of U.N. peacekeeping forces.

The film adds a human dimension to a story that has been underreported by the Western media. Hotel Rwanda arrives in U.S. theaters on Dec. 25, prime timing for awards season.
Nolte's character is reported to be loosely based on Romeo Dallaire.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:44 AM




One Nation Under Wedge Issues

Welcome to "wedge" issue politics. A billboard I saw recently along Highway 151 in southern Wisconsin read simply:
ONE NATION UNDER GOD.

Bush-Cheney '04
The Associated Press reported on a GOP direct-mail piece sent to voters in at least one swing state:
Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November.

The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it ... The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."

"The liberal agenda includes removing 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance," [the GOP mailer] says.
Whether one believes the Pledge should include a direct reference to God (it was added in the 1950s largely to contrast America from our then-arch enemy: the atheistic Soviets), it's outrageous scare-mongering to suggest that this will somehow lead to some sort of large-scale ban on Bibles.

Whom do I blame for these messages? Bush and Cheney? Only a little. They are scoundrels who are simply exploiting the intolerance and theocratic attitudes that are already present. I blame the voters.

This "wedge" issue garbage wouldn't be tried unless candidates found that it worked. Clearly, some voters feel that Iraq, NAFTA, Social Security, job creation, tax policy and other issues are just too overwhelming for them to make sense of, but that "God" is something they understand and can, therefore, base their vote on. (Of course, ask these voters to explain what or who God is, why the Old Testament sanctioned slavery as legitimate, etc., and you quickly discover that their ignorance extends even to the non-temporal world.)

If some swing voters are moved to support Bush by these ridiculous appeals to religion, then where is the corresponding bloc? And I mean a corresponding block of swing voters. I don't believe that such a bloc exists. Some swing voters are turned off by these shameful, condescending appeals by the GOP to religion, but I don't think these latter voters will be turned off enough to vote against Bush. And that's the problem.

Wedge issues seem to provide a significant net advantage to GOP candidates. Right now, those issues can best be summarized as God, guns and gays. We know that the NRA's view about the now-expired assault weapons ban is distinctly in the minority, but NRA members will vote on the basis of gun issues. How many responsible Americans who are on the other side of the gun debate will actually vote on that basis? Not many, apparently.

Gay voters seem to break heavily for liberals and Dems. But gays and lesbians are a distinct minority of the voting population. And even many heterosexual Americans who might otherwise support laws banning anti-gay discrimination are deeply uncomfortable with the notion of gay marriage. "It's just not supposed to be that way," I heard one caller mutter on a radio talk-show recently.

Abortion is yet another issue on which the Right benefits from wedge-issue campaigning. From my experience, abortion foes are far more likely than abortion backers to make that issue the sole basis of their decision for supporting or opposing a candidate. While most voters say they oppose a comprehensive ban on abortion, such a ban appears remote (at the moment, at least), which makes it harder for pro-abortion rights leaders to motivate a similar single-issue response by their followers.

I don't have any brilliant ideas or solutions to how those of us on the liberal side of the spectrum can hinder or counter the GOP's success with wedge issues.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 11:17 AM




Are 56% of Americans Total Idiots?

Via Counterspin Central, we get this Newsweek poll
"Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was DIRECTLY involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, or not?"

Was: 42%

Was Not: 44%

Unsure: 14%
The majority of those polled either think Iraq was directly involved in 9/11 or don't know.

The Bush administration denies ever claiming that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11, but around the time the war began, some 70% of people thought Iraq was involved in 9/11 (if I remember correctly.) And 42% of them still believe it, despite the fact that it is totally untrue. Three years after 9/11, people still hold this belief - and the idea had to come from somewhere.

Bush and company can deny ever directly linking Iraq to 9/11, but it is undeniably true that they tailored their rhetoric to create exactly this impression. And obviously they succeeded.

That is truly disgraceful.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:09 AM




"Not Guilty -- Now for Your Sentencing ..."

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in on a disturbing federal court case in New York. At issue is whether sentencing rules called "enhancements" violate the Constitution. Wall Street Journal reporters Laurie P. Cohen and Gary Fields report (registration req'd and the italics below are in the original article):
Laurence Braun learned the hard way that being acquitted of a crime doesn't always stop you from being punished for it.

Mr. Braun, former co-owner of a New York company that defrauded the U.S. Postal Service, was convicted by a New York federal jury in 2002 of racketeering and conspiracy. Had he been punished just for these crimes, he probably would have gotten around 2-1/2 years in prison.

But the federal judge who sentenced Mr. Braun also decided he should serve time for many of the 23 counts of which he was acquitted, calling it "relevant conduct." This last-minute add-on -- called an enhancement -- doubled Mr. Braun's prison sentence to five years.

"The government gets two bites at the apple," says Thomas C. Goldstein, a Washington, D.C., litigator. "Prosecutors can put stuff before a jury and if they're unsuccessful because the evidence is tossed or the jury acquits, they can ask the judge to find the very same wrongdoing at sentencing."



posted by Frederick Maryland at 10:59 AM




The Continuing Iraqi Meltdown

On his blog, Andrew Sullivan has posted this quote from John F. Burns, a New York Times reporter who is covering the war in Iraq:
Visiting [interim Prime Minister Ayad] Allawi at his sprawling residence is a short course in just how bad the situation has become for anybody associated with the American purpose in Iraq.

To reach the house is to navigate a fantastical obstacle course of checkpoints, with Iraqi police cars and Humvees parked athwart a zigzag course through relays of concrete barriers. An hour or more is taken up with body searches and sniffing by dogs, while American soldiers man turreted machine guns. A boxlike infrared imaging device can detect the body heat of anybody approaching through a neighboring playground.

The final security ring is manned by C.I.A.-trained guards from Iraqi Kurdistan. If Dr. Allawi were Ian Fleming's Dr. No, no more elaborate defenses could be conceived. This is the man who has been chosen to lead Iraq to the haven of a democratic future, but he is sealed off about as completely as he could be from ordinary Iraqis, in the virtual certainty that insurgents will kill him if they ever get a clear shot.
After posting Burn's quote, Sullivan adds a footnote, including this excerpt:
... here's one point that I don't think has been made enough. Who is ultimately responsible for the security of Iraqis? Surely the coalition (emphasis added). Yet, even while we try hard to train a new Iraqi army and police force, it is indisputable that we've failed to protect innocent Iraqis from grotesque and mounting violence.
Earth to Andrew Sullivan: There is no coalition. The overwhelming majority of soldiers stationed there are U.S. troops (as have been the casualties). Although Britain stepped forward to make a significant contribution, other countries limited their exposure considerably, supplying only handfuls of medical personnel, police trainees, construction workers and supervisors, and other non-combat personnel.

From Chile to Estonia, these other countries were motivated, no doubt, more by not wanting to piss off the U.S. than any genuine desire to send people or supplies over to Iraq.

The very fact that President Bush has felt it necessary to label this a "coalition of the willing" reveals that even the administration has to convince itself of this laughable notion.

And I wonder: how many Americans know that U.S. -- pardon me, "coalition" -- forces have basically ceded large areas of Iraq to the insurgents? Will John Kerry use his much-anticipated speech about Iraq to mention this facet of the administration's Iraqi war strategy? Stay tuned.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 10:30 AM




Daily Darfur

The UN passed another meaningless resolution over the weekend
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution that threatens "to consider" oil sanctions on Sudan if the government does not act to end the violence in the country's troubled Darfur region.
Here is the resolution's key section
Declares that the Council, in the event the Government of Sudan fails to comply fully with resolution 1556 (2004) or this resolution, including, as determined by the Council after consultations with the African Union, failure to cooperate fully with the expansion and extension of the African Union monitoring mission in Darfur, shall consider taking additional measures as contemplated in Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations, such as actions to affect Sudan’s petroleum sector and the Government of Sudan or individual members of the Government of Sudan, in order to take effective action to obtain such full compliance or full cooperation
So even when Sudan fails to comply with this new resolution, the best the UN can threaten is to "consider taking additional measures," such as sanctions.

If that sounds familiar, it is probably because they said the same thing when they passed the last resolution
Demands that the Government of Sudan fulfil its commitments to disarm the Janjaweed militias and apprehend and bring to justice Janjaweed leaders and their associates who have incited and carried out human rights and international humanitarian law violations and other atrocities, and further requests the Secretary-General to report in 30 days, and monthly thereafter, to the Council on the progress or lack thereof by the Government of Sudan on this matter and expresses its intention to consider further actions, including measures as provided for in Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations on the Government of Sudan, in the event of non-compliance
And Sudan responded by condemning the resolution as "unfair" while the speaker of the Sudanese parliament warned the West not to intervene
In a fiery tirade, parliament speaker Ibrahim Ahmed al-Taher warned Western nations not to intervene.

"If Iraq opened for the West one gate of hell, we will open seven such gates," Taher was quoted as saying by the Sudanese Media Center, an information outlet affiliated to the government. "We will not surrender this country to anybody."
Meanwhile fighting is preventing aid agencies from reaching those in need and African Union monitors are accusing the Sudanese government of continuing to breach the ceasefire and attack villages.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 9:38 AM



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