This is a big one folks. I don't care which party could be doing this - electronic voting makes it easy to commit massive electoral fraud with no oversight. Creepy.
You know - seven people died today. It's tragic. It's upset me - I've made that clear. But, I've also lived abroad when other countries have experienced their own tragedies. The US news coverage of them was frequently nonexistent. This sort of comment isn't simply inappropriate, it also demonstrates profound ignorance.
I was gone for the day due to circumstances mostly beyond my control. Aside from the initial forgetting my keys part, anyway. But, probably the best. Wasn't much in the mood to be shuttle disaster central, nor was I much in the mood to go back to our regularly scheduled programming.
To those who think it's inappropriate to mourn some lives more than others - well, it's the only way we can mourn at all.
UPDATE: The Goblin Queen does a pretty good job of expressing why these few might get our attention. I started to write something along those lines, but didn't do very well so I gave up.
Gene Weingarten tries to discover the truth about the African-American republican Leadership Council. This is an hilarious column.
Still, it left me with a question. So I phoned the man identified as the group's political spokesman, Kevin L. Martin. Kevin had been quoted in the media a great deal in December, offering the opinion that Lott was railroaded and should be forgiven.
I told him that I enjoyed the site, but found myself puzzled by only one thing.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The African American Republican Leadership Council," I said, "does not appear to feature African Americans."
Our media should be ashamed of themselves for providing a platform to organizations like this. In the endless pursuit of 'balance' they regularly pit, say, a spokeswoman from NOW, an organization with thousands of members and against a spokeswoman from Concerned Women for America, and organization with few actual members but big donors. Just say no to Republican front groups! Particularly ones as bigoted as the CWFA. They're hideous.
Dr. Denise Baker of Bradenton sat behind first lady Laura Bush Tuesday night as President Bush asked Congress to limit medical malpractice awards in "frivolous lawsuits."
Baker said lawsuits against her were partially to blame for higher insurance rates that forced her to quit delivering babies. She has settled four malpractice claims since 1998, totaling more than $600,000.
Bradenton resident Bill Bartram and his wife, Phyllis, filed one of those lawsuits.
"Frivolous? (My wife) almost died," said Bartram, 61. He and his 55-year-old wife settled their suit in December 2000.
"My wife has a scar on her stomach as big as a fist," after an operation in 1998 in which her bowel was punctured, Bartram said. Bartram said he saw Baker's picture in the paper Wednesday and was outraged.
"I'm a Democrat, but I think the Republicans are putting politics in their medicine without checking out their doctors," he said.
In an interview with The Associated Press Wednesday, Baker referred to none of her patients by name, but she described a case in which she slightly punctured a woman's bowel during laparoscopic surgery.
Mainly because of those claims, Baker's annual insurance premiums rose from $58,000 to $200,000 last year, she said.
Instead of moving to another state, where she could get coverage for about $8,000 a year, Baker kept her gynecology practice in Bradenton.
But, leaving aside bashing Dr. Baker, this does raise the following question - how screwed up must the malpractice insurance market be if one state is offering it for $8,000 and another for $200,000?
There is likely an obvious answer which no one seems to be talking about. In fact, there was enough not talking about it that I hadn't even realized it until a few days ago - the insurance industry is exempt from federal anti-trust regulation.
Repeal that exemption. Or, simply cap the rates. Problem solved.
You know, I love the power of the Middle 'C' and all, but there's something really wrong when this site is the #7 when you search google for "Emmett Till."
OOPS: Update - A reader notes the incoming search page had me at 117, not 7. That makes a lot more sense.
Someone in my comments recently jokingly used the term 'Saddamite.' I doubt I coined the term, but I believe I did once find the best use for it - when referring to Fred Phelps' trips to Iraq.
We understand that Iraq is the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets without fear of arrest and prosecution. Alas, the United States no longer allows the Gospel to be freely and openly preached on the streets, because militant sodomites now control our government, and they violently object to the Bible message...The same majoritarian sodomite tyranny that now guides the Clinton administration's repressive policies toward Gospel preaching on America's streets, is apparently responsible -- at least in part -- for the merciless slaughter by starvation of 400 innocent Iraqi babies each day in your country. If our government and laws will allow it, and at the invitation of your government, we would like to send a delegation from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, to preach the Gospel on the streets of Baghdad for one week in the near future."
-- Fred Phelps, in a letter to Saddam Hussein,
November 30, 1997
to which I responded: Does this mean that Fred Phelps is a Saddamite?
Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for a murder suspect, even though he had agreed to testify against others tied to a deadly Colombian drug ring in exchange for a life sentence.
..
Lawyers said it appeared to be the first case nationally in which Mr. Ashcroft had insisted on seeking the execution of a defendant who had secured a promise of life in exchange for information.
...
Mr. Ashcroft has stirred a controversy in federal prosecutors' offices nationally in recent months by insisting that they seek executions in some cases in which they had recommended against it. Under Justice Department rules, local federal prosecutors can only recommend whether to seek the death penalty; the final decision is up to the attorney general.
Defense lawyers, and some current and former prosecutors, said the case here has taken that controversy to a new level because the previous cases had not involved potential cooperators.
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... a former senior federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said it was "a remarkably bad decision" to superimpose national death penalty policy over local federal prosecutors' judgments about cooperating witnesses. "It will likely result in fewer murders being solved because fewer defendants will choose to cooperate," ...
Leaving aside my objections to the death penalty, this is idiotic. It'll make it impossible to get pleas, which was about the only freaking argument for the death penalty I ever bought - the effectiveness of using it to get people to narc on their pals. I mean, I don't actually know it's all that good for that purpose, but it seems to work pretty well on Law and Order, which is where most of my knowledge of criminal law comes from...
So, anyone else catch Annthrax on Crossfire tonight? Apparently she is capable of saying, with a straight face, that failure to clap appropriately at a State of the Union address is treason, while trading with Iraq is not.
There's a little bit left out of this White House transcript of the Blair/Bush appearance (part in bold is left out):
THE PRIME MINISTER: Adam.
Q One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?
The President: I never made that claim.
THE PRIME MINISTER: That answers your question. The one thing I would say, however, is I've absolutely no doubt at all that unless we deal with both of these threats, they will come together in a deadly form. Because, you know, what do we know after September the 11th? We know that these terrorists networks would use any means they can to cause maximum death and destruction. And we know also that they will do whatever they can to acquire the most deadly weaponry they can. And that's why it's important to deal with these issues together.
On Nov. 18, an advance copy of Insight, a magazine operated by the ultra-conservative Washington Times, was circulated to various right-wing talk-radio hosts across the country. Featured was an article by managing editor Paul Rodriguez alleging that "dozens of big-time political donors or friends of the Clintons" received waivers to have themselves or family members buried at Arlington National Cemetery, America's most hallowed burial ground. Interestingly, the article, titled "Is There Nothing Sacred?" failed to mention a single name.
On the same day, Rep. Terry Everett, R-Ala., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, issued a press release "reaffirming the interest of his subcommittee" in the Arlington National Cemetery allegations. Adding a congressional imprimatur to Insight's allegations, Everett noted that his subcommittee had "found some questionable waivers made in recent years."
Over the next two days, far-right talk-radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy, repeated the Insight magazine charges on the air across the nation. On Nov. 20, a White House denial of the Insight report was carried by the New York Times, the Washington Post and other major press outlets. As happens with such stories, the denial was dwarfed by the details of the charges themselves.
Despite the denials, Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson began waving the bloody shirt. "This has to represent one of the most despicable political schemes in recent history," he said in a Nov. 20 statement. "The ground at Arlington has been sanctified by the blood of those who served with pride, fought and died, and gave themselves to preserve the American ideal of liberty. For this hallowed ground to be so debased in the pursuit of campaign cash is a perversion of common decency."
With an "Arlingtongate" now in the making, House Speaker Newt Gingrich piled on, attacking Clinton over the alleged burial waivers and threatening to subpoena people. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., released a letter to Clinton in which he asked the president to "respond personally to the public" regarding the allegations. Specter also wrote that "it appears that this is a matter which will warrant a Committee hearing."
Ah, remember how the liberal media jumped all over that one, too...
I don't know how any of these people still have jobs.
Gary Aldrich's Center for Individual Freedom. Gary peddled false tales about Hillary Clinton hanging crack pipes and dildos from the White House Christmas tree.
Insight Magazine - a Moon publication.
Floyd Brown's Citizen United, the organization responsible for spreading lies about the Clinton administration and for producing the racist Willie Horton ad.
The Eagle Forum, the Family Research Council, and the Christian Coaliation - peddlers of anti-gay bigotry for years.
The Bradley Foundation, noteable for, among other things, providing a large grant to Charles Murray, author of the racist propaganda The Bell Curve.
We could do this all day...Truly a who's who of bigots and assholes.
Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix arrives at UN headquarters in New York. Photo: AFP
Days after delivering a broadly negative report on Iraq's cooperation with international inspectors, Hans Blix challenged several of the Bush Administration's assertions about Iraqi cheating and the notion that time was running out for disarming Iraq through peaceful means.
In an interview on Wednesday, Dr Blix, the United Nations chief weapons inspector, seemed determined to dispel any impression that his report was intended to support the United States' campaign to build world support for a war to disarm Saddam Hussein.
"Whatever we say will be used by some," Dr Blix said, adding that he had strived to be "as factual and conscientious" as possible. "I did not tailor my report to the political wishes or hopes in Baghdad or Washington or any other place."
Dr Blix took issue with what he said were US Secretary of State Colin Powell's claims that the inspectors had found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving illicit materials within and outside of Iraq to prevent their discovery. He said that the inspectors had reported no such incidents.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference, which featured Vice President Cheney as its opening luncheon speaker yesterday, one of the various exhibition booths hawking paraphernalia had some virulently anti-Muslim vinyl bumper stickers, for $3.95, including one that said: "No Muslims -- No Terrorism."
Sources said an attendee at the group's 30th annual conference, at the Crystal City Marriott, called Cheney's office to complain and a Cheney aide called CPAC organizers to express "strong displeasure."
The booth operators removed the anti-Muslim stickers from the rack before Cheney spoke -- though they left up some more tasteful items, such as the stamps that said: "WANTED! Crimes against children," and had a picture of former attorney general Janet Reno, "A.K.A. 'The Butcher of Waco.' " And they left others supporting the Confederate flag and such.
But the offending stickers were not really taken off sale. When a Washington Post reporter asked about the anti-Muslim bumper stickers, a booth attendant smiled and reached behind a sheet, saying conference organizers had ordered her to take them off display.
"Somebody doesn't believe in free speech," she complained, offering them for $2.75 apiece.
Liquid List has the sticker in question. Go take a peek.
[T]he booth operators help sponsor the Conservative Political Action Conference, so their beliefs are impugned on all conference attendees. Cheney spoke at the conference, therefore he believes that Janet Reno is a child butcher, and he supports the Confederate Flag.
David Neiwert gives us the rundown on the alleged connection between Iraq and the Oklahoma City bombing. David is someone who took this possibility seriously but ultimately rejected it. What I never understood about these allegations was what the motive of McVeigh and Nichols would have been, and why they would have never told federal authorities about it.
David does provide what would have been a motive - that the militant white supremacist movement would have been thrilled to be important enough to form alliances with real terrorists. But, I still don't know why the culprits wouldn't have admitted it...
When the INS had their mass roundups following the initial registration requirement for immigrants from certain countries, bleeding heart liberals like me objected. Some failed to understand - if they were in violation of the law, then they should be arrested and deported, no? Why not?
The answer is simple - that many of these people were in technical, not real, violation of immigration law - violations that were likely not their fault. Many people exist in this gray area in which an old visa has expired while a new one has yet to be issued - they have made a goodwill attempt to comply with the law, and likely an INS worker has told them to sit tight and wait for their papers - papers which arrive months or years late.
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30 — Tens of thousands of pieces of mail come into the huge Immigration and Naturalization Service data processing center in Laguna Niguel, Calif., every day, and as at so many government agencies, it tends to pile up. One manager there had a system to get rid of the vexing backlog, federal officials say. This week the manager was charged with illegally shredding as many as 90,000 documents.
Among the destroyed papers, federal officials charged, were American and foreign passports, applications for asylum, birth certificates and other documents supporting applications for citizenship, visas and work permits.
The manager, Dawn Randall, 24, was indicted late Wednesday by a federal grand jury, along with a supervisor working under her, Leonel Salazar, 34. They are accused of ordering low-level workers to destroy thousands of documents from last February to April to reduce a growing backlog of unprocessed paperwork.
Ms. Randall was the file room manager at the I.N.S. center. Mr. Salazar was her file room supervisor. The Laguna Niguel center handles paperwork for residents of California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam and is one of four immigration service centers around the country operated by private contractors under I.N.S. supervision.
According to the federal indictment, Ms. Randall ordered her subordinates last January to count the number of unprocessed papers in the filing center. They reported that about 90,000 documents were waiting to be handled. In February, the government says, she ordered at least five night-shift workers to begin shredding many boxes of papers.
By the end of March, the backlog had been cut to zero, and Ms. Randall ordered her subordinates to continue destroying incoming paper to keep current, the government says.
HARRISBURG -- Former Gov. Tom Ridge's administration dramatically overstated the number of jobs created as a result of his foreign trade missions during the late 1990s, according to an audit.
"Export sales and new jobs attributed to these trade missions and international trade officers were not just given a positive spin or a slight embellishment,'' Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. said today. "They were grossly exaggerated to members of the General Assembly, the media, the business community and, most important, Pennsylvania taxpayers.''
Ridge took frequent criticism in the news media for his many and varied trips abroad to Europe and Asia, on trade missions. He justified the trips through what Casey called a "barrage'' of press releases after each trip, claiming the trade missions as unqualified successes.
Trade mission destinations included Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Poland, Israel, Ireland, South Africa, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, and Canada.
In fact, a Sept. 27, 1999, press release boasted a $5 billion increase in total exports in the state during the first four years of the Ridge Administration.
But Casey today released an audit of the state Department of Community and Economic Development that showed only a $287 million increase in exports during those years, of which only $5 million could be directly attributed to the trade missions.
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