Mark MyWords

HR-811 Opponents: If You Can't Stand the Sausage-making...

2007-07-14T21:29:00.000-04:00

It's unfortunate for the cause of quality democracy in America that some think a DRE ban is feasible within the next decade to come without the hard evidence of unreliable and unsecure DREs that HR-811 would provide. They display a stunning lack of awareness of how any legislation is created, forged and passed in this country.

A DRE ban from our influence-drenched US Congress is simply not feasible without widespread, hard auditing evidence that the press and public couldn't ignore. That's exactly what we would have with a VVPAT. That's why Holt's HR-811 is savvy and effective.

Holt, like Kucinich, would love to see DREs go away. Rush, however, realizes that the light of universal auditing is the very best way to get there. Is his bill being pummeled by special interests in House Administration Committee sessions? Of couse it is. He's keeping his 'eye on the prize', however, and the Light of Auditing in HR-811 still stands. The bill deserves our support.

What about all the stuff I read on the Web about HR-811?
No publicly known authors have credibly suggested that HR-811 auditing will fail to uncover bad tallies. They rail against the fact that the paper trail is not up front the vote of record, and of course, lash out at EAC, vendor protections and technology maturity issues (odd to hear about technology hurdles from purists...), but I haven't seen a single credible case that the with all the 'voters glazing over their VVPAT moments' and everything else, in the end, audits will fail to uncover bad vote-counts.

As for it's 'flaws', why would anyone think HR-811 would be a "final word" on American elections? FEC and HAVA legislation were not the final words. Sadly, even the Campaign Financing bill has been half-gutted by the Supreme Court.

Why would anyone think Kucinch's bill would be any less vulnerable to the onslaught of interests? Do they think corporations and lobbyists will shrink in shame at the beauty and shining elegance of Canadian-style paper-only/hand-count voting?

Let's Get Real
Without HR-811's hard evidence, many opponents' pet peeves about companies, commissions and political operatives are back to Zero --- back to the nightmare we're living in now --- black-box-voting, with no proof of bad computerized voting behavior.

Without paper evidence, influential as leading bloggers may seem, voting integrity activists will always seem like the 'aluminum hat' crowd, as likely to fight for a ban on DREs as to fend of the silent black helicopters from reading their brain waves.

HR-811, with all it lacks regarding what grass roots activist think about commissions and corporations, is the very best thing Canadian-style paper-only/hand-count voting could ever, ever hope for.

Life under HR-811
Journalists and every jurisdiction in the nation will have a paper record of every vote to plow into -- whether a precinct is selected for auditing or not -- to prove the very points HR-811's opponents make about equipment, vendors and political game-playing.

No matter which way a computerized voting machine screws up, it'll be flagged. If they record the wrong vote both inside the computer and on the VVPAT, while some citizens may not 'check the paper' for accuracy when they vote, many will, and they'll be flagged by HR-811's voter verification provision. (Note that in those cases, the rejected paper ballots are available for counting...) If they always produce a correct VVPAT, but flip votes inside the computer, they'll also be flagged by the HR-811 audit.

Those bad audits can then be correlated to particular vendors, software and releases. If the commissions and companies involved in voting machines are a house of cards, they'll come tumbling down.

Shine a bright light on DRE inaccuracies!

Let the Auditing Begin!

Holt Lights a Candle; Curious Voices Whistle in the Dark

2007-06-10T23:01:00.000-04:00

I'm typically refering to neo-cons when I use the phrase "better to light one candle than to curse the darkness". This time, however, it's an odd band of Internet personalities that campaign vociferously against one of the only bright lights in federal election quality today I find "cursing the darkness".

Rush Holt's HR-811 bill will ensure that a paper record is made of every vote, and that voting machine models or software releases that provides incorrect vote counts will be detected, with proper counts restored through the paper records.

The points made by various critics of HR-811 vary widely in their stated concerns, and while all create the impression that the bill is a giant threat to voting integrity, none wage a meaningful attack on its merits.

I've read those who suggest that the voting machine sampling percentage of 3% is too small. These folks lack training in the statistics behind the 90-year practice of industrial quality control to know that it most assuredly is not too small.

There are those who cite human factors as a reason "not every vote" will have enough of the voter's attention regarding the paper record to ensure accuracy. This notion ignores the huge advantage of identifying bad equiment or software based on the records of the clear majority that will check their vote.

Some say a pure paper system is best. This is a position I agree with, but that I don't consider politically feasible. (It is possible, even for the disabled; check out http://www.Vote-PAD.com.)

Some cite the many other forms of voter abuse besides the integrity of voting machine tallies. To them, I say "more power to ya!", but why shoot down one clearly defined bill that addresses a singe grave election integrity issue well? HR-811 has a decent chance of passing.

Here's just one of the articles, a blog entry, that lists and refutes a number of these concerns in detail, and also provides link to accurate information about HR-811.

Support HR-811. Let's get rid of an election auditability gap big enough to drive a national election through!

Think Again: The First Comprehensive Database of Suicide Bombing

2006-09-09T14:35:00.000-04:00

This weekend, the media is pumping out 9/11 anniversary productions. There is some somber coverage of that sad day, and well-deserved praise for its incredible heroes, and there are also kitschy broad strokes of America as some sort of helpless victim.

Fortunately for us and our children, a book bourne of painstakingly accumulated data - not opinion - provides reliable insight into why events like 9/11 happen. It surely is different from a typical romp through U.S. cable news! The book is: Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert Pape. In a Cato Institute panel discussion, Flynt Leverett, former National Security Council aide for the Bush Administration said that every policy maker, diplomatic head and military leader should memorize this book.

The Starkly Under-reported Findings. Well, waddya know: much of what Americans are told over and over in the mainstream media about threats of 9/11-type terrorism is just bunk. It turns out that suicide bombing has always been driven by the control of land, and not by religious goals. For that matter, the majority of suicide bombings have been commited by non-Muslims. Well, now -- that's not what we get on the cable news networks. While the people who perpetrated the events of 9/11 are simply murderers, and there is no justification for their heinous crimes, we do ourselves no good whatsoever by ignoring the real drivers of such killers, painting our own picture of their motivations in order to suit our preferred methods of prevention.

Religion's role in suicide bombing, while quite different from the "fundamentalist Islamic jihad against the infidels" we constantly hear about, is in fact, quite enlightening to understand. There is an extremely high correlation between an occupied native population erupting in suicide bombings, and the religions of the occupier and the natives being different - whichever religions they may be. The clear conclusion is that suicide bombing has much more to do with the perceived intractability of an occupier than the characteristics of particular religions.

Professor Pape, a noted authority on national security who has, among his teaching roles, taught air strategy for the U.S. Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies, has assembled the first comprehensive database of suicide bombing. The U.S. Government itself welcomed his research, which enumerates suicide bombings beginning in 1980, and included the use of data mining overseas by native-language researchers.

A Link to Nuclear Non-proliferation. It's instructive to realize how consistent this insight is with the principals of nuclear non-proliferation. Not many realize that Non-proliferation protocols advise strongly against policies such as that of "regime change". Indeed, America has become increasingly eager to exhibit this audacious strain of intractability over the past decade. Besides the 1998 Clinton/Congressional policy of "Iraq regime change", we've moved on to Bush's "Axis of Evil" rhetoric in the 2002 State of the Union along with the attendant calls for regime change in Iran and N. Korea, and of course, the Bush Administration's refusal to go mano-a-mano in negotiating with either of those two countries, opting for oblique multi-lateral talks.

Here in the U.S., we all too often toss around the legitimacy of sovereign governments in our rhetoric. While we hope at least some folks in seats of power understand the ramifications of doing so at one level or another, the American people generally do not. Some people are comfortable blissfully "trusting those in power", but I see grave danger in an electorate operating without facts and proven guidelines.

Another Link to Policies of Yesteryear. Mr. Pape shows how a policy he calls "off-shore containment" would be consistent with these findings. U.S. military personnel would be off-shore on ships, while any bases we have on foreign soil are ready but unmanned. We've heard echos of this before when recruiting tapes for suicide bombers first became public. Their central images are of U.S. tanks and planes on foreign soil.

It happens that going back into the 1960's, it was indeed a principle of American foreign policy, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula, to keep our troops off-shore. Pape lends us his expertise in the use of air power by mentioning that the potency such an off-shore force would have is dramatically stronger than it would have been in the past.

Just the Facts, Ma'am. Here are some facts listed on the Powells.com page for Pape's Dying to Win:

FACT: Suicide terrorism is not primarily a product of Islamic fundamentalism
FACT: The world's leading practitioners of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka-a secular, Marxist-Leninist group drawn from Hindu families.
FACT: Ninety-five percent of suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of coherent campaigns organized by large militant organizations with significant public support.
FACT: Every suicide terrorist campaign has had a clear goal that is secular and political: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.
FACT: Al-Qaeda fits the above pattern. Although Saudi Arabia is not under American military occupation per se, one major objective of al-Qaeda is the expulsion of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf region, and as a result there have been repeated attacks by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden against American troops in Saudi Arabia and the region as a whole.
FACT: Despite their rhetoric, democracies-including the United States-have routinely made concessions to suicide terrorists. Suicide terrorism is on the rise because terrorists have learned that it's effective.

It'd be comforting to know we now have such inately authoritative data regardig such a grave subject, but it's equally as troubling to see how that data casts such a dark shadow over the past several years of US public policy.

Happy Day-after-Independence-Day, America!

2006-07-05T09:36:00.000-04:00

Nir Rosen, one of the few Iraqi-accented Arabic speaking western reporters in Iraq, asks the question: Did the Invasion Make Things Worse in Iraq? This is a crucial article that could only have been written by someone who's been on the ground all this time. Americans would do well to slow down for a spell, and internalize the things written here. America's history and future in Iraq, through the eyes of its citizens - not US pundits.

If you're an American, your thoughts may return home, where all this started. You might scan recent memory for a voice in mainstream politics articulating a coherent, sound, foreign policy that precludes our shoving our noses, whether military or UN-backed/commercial, into the business of weaker countries. Can you identify one such voice?

Be careful what you wish for. It's fascinating to consider Peter Beinart's book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals - and Only Liberals - Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. By recounting the original vision Truman had for the UN, one which seeds an acceptance of US movements abroad by first building consensus, Beinart articulates a unifying theory of foreign policy that sounds both welcome, yet sadly strange to our ears. Surely no Democrat has been breaking through the media bubble with a central theme to juxtapose against the Bush Administration's "Speak brashly and swing a big stick" policy! What may seem really odd, though, is that Beinart is joined in a panel discussion about his book aired by C-SPAN by none other than neocon proponent William Kristol who praises the book, amidst myriad non-essential nits, and declares Beinart an inadvertant neocon. (Those familiar with The New Republic of which Beinart is chief editor may not be so surprised...) Kristol asserts this because as swagger-free as the ideas promoted in Beinart's book are, they still involve an active exercise of foreign influence - one might refer to it as a "compassionate imperialism".

Who started all this, anyway? Read Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. It's Roosevelts (a little known grandchild in a seminal instance, not the Presidents) and McNamaras and military industrial complex finger-wagging Quakers like Eisenhower who gave the Flywheel of industrial imperialism its initial shoves in the '50's, '60's and '70's. Sure, the current Administration has given it the Big Mo needed to become quite difficult to stop, but they didn't 'start the fire'.

In fact, it's a mistake to think Democrats would neccessarily have kept us out of Iraq post 9-11. Some may have, but most would only have done it less lawlessly, and perhaps less ineptly. As those following along know, the current slate of neocons that are in power today had long ago whet the appetites of powerful energy and construction contract candidates with the potential in Iraq. Meanwhile, the national dialog swings like some sort of loose cannon (gee, isn't that a word we reserve for Ross Perot types?) from the setting of exit dates, to rights that many gays don't even want, to immigration, to 'why the Times disobeyed the Administration' rather than 'why the Administration withheld the same request of the Wall Street Journal', ad nauseum maximus. But the Flywheel is spinning, greased by a US Congressional re-election rate that happens to be matched by --- why, waddya know --- none other than Saddam Hussein's re-election mandate - some 98%, up from 86% in 1920. Hmmmph!

Anyhow, thank you, Mr. Rosen, for the unspun story of Iraqi sentiment and in your recent book, the roots of insurgency. Those stories have more to do with the security of Americans against terrorists than many here in the US are comfortable thinking about.

...and heaven help America to pause and consider the real world effects, and the harrowing, bi-partisan momentum of our imperialism. What are we doing to alarm our countrymen of its specter? ...to foster what could only be received as "radical" ("pacifist", "isolationist") solutions? Where would a concerned American start?

The fireworks are over. Happy day after Independence Day, America!

Times' Treason: Praise God and Pass the White-Face!

2006-06-29T23:25:00.000-04:00

The civic conversation in America is quite the circus.

The buzz of American media dedicated to - well, not to conservativism, but - to the Republican party yelling "Treason!" regarding the New York Times is more than groundless and stupid. It's negligent. Just this week, the Administration wiped out so many categories of legitimate self-help welfare activities that some states have lost their entire benefit; the Senate carried the ball for telecommunications companies in turning down a "net neutrality" provision; the House supported high hypocracy in the area of nuclear non-proliferation; Israel steps up aggressive military strikes against Palestine... The list goes on.

The only story worth telling regarding the New York Times article is that the Bush administration didn't ask the Wall Street Journal to suppress the same story, making it quite clear that this nothing more than a base lathering publicity stunt.

I haven't been swarming the news channels, but for the record, Kudos to Anderson Cooper 360 as one MSM show willing to have guests Jeffrey Toobin (CNN Legal Analyst) and David Gergen that both flagged this as a campaign tactic. Just as I clicked [Submit] on the Instant Feedback form citing the WS Journal anomaly, Toobin was thoughtful enough to note at least the fact that they published the same day, yet nobody's attacking them.

Sometimes I seriously think a bit of 'crazy like a fox'/Emily Litella (we miss you, Gilda!) writing can go a long way. E.g. NY Times chief editor Bill Keller could have spiked his explanation with something like "We disagree with the White House's attacks on the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times", perhaps going on a bit to defend some aspect of what the Journal does well. It'd force the media to "correct him", and say "but the White House *hasn't* attacked the Wall Street Journal!".

Ah, me... Such a circus! Praise God and pass the white-face!

This COULD be Tough Love Day for welfare moms and Iraqi officials

2006-06-28T08:04:00.000-04:00

Today the President will issue the most sweeping reforms in the rules for welfare administration in ten years.

Look out, Welfare Moms! You see...

Often the Government Hand that is trying to Help You is actually Purpetuating your Plight. By forcing you out of the program, we're helping you help yourself!
Yet the people administering the Program are certain that it cannot be drawn back. A hint here is that the continuance of the program perpetuates their job security interests.
It's a distinctly American Value that you are responsible for your own welfare (and happiness, for that matter)

That is why we've sent more than 7 million of you - 60% per the 1996 enrollment - off the program in the past 10 years, and today place another 50% of you in our sights. We hope you understand.

And you, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and other Iraqi ministers? You have nothing to worry about!

It is clear that the US presence in Iraq is a major source of chaos in your country, and it makes a great deal of sense to most Americans and apparently General Casey that announcing staged troop withdrawals is a sound technique for catalyzing your government into a winning track.
Just as with the welfare program, the people administering our presence are certain that it cannot be drawn back. A hint here is that the continuance of the occupation serves their interests in maintaining contractor pay-outs, and establishing military control of your oil as more than a dozen bases are built.
Yes, don't worry about US troop withdrawals. As for self-reliance and individual responsibility, that's an American Value we haul out for the disadvantaged - not people with valuable energy assets we want our hands on!

Hmmm... Honorable lawmakers, politicans and thought leaders from either side of the aisle could be citing Tough Love as an honorable, American rationale for a publicized schedule of troop withdrawals. This could be Tough Love Day both in the economically depressed areas of the US - Mississippi, Alabama, Michigan - and in the government halls of Iraq, but don't hold your breath. All the tough love talk will be for the disadvantaged among us.

Shame on us!

Democrats Beware: You will Lose an '06 Squeeker

2006-06-18T07:50:00.000-04:00

Most Americans consider the current power configuration in Washington to be in serious need of change. You'd think that would be a good sign for Democrats. I say to Democrats: Beware.

One of the best political forecasters in the country, Charlie Cook, has written a colorful piece that includes a stern warning to Democrats. It begins by citing a couple classic cases of counting chickens before they hatch, and goes on to describe what may be signs of a bottoming out of Bush and the Republicans' long slide in the polls.

What I find most alarming about what seems to me to be an "irrational exuberance" among Democratic lawmakers is that someone at the level of Nancy Pelosi has fallen prey to it. I can tell you that such an attitude could be a death knell to a Democratic House in '06.

The venerable and non-partisan Mr. Cook cites a folksy "rule-of-thumb" in warning presumptuous Democrats. He says that in his observations over nearly 20 years, politicians exhibiting that particular brand of hubris almost always lose.

I go further and suggest that there are factors today that give Democrats a solid electoral handicap to overcome. These include electoral tampering, which has been shown particularly in '04 to statistically favor Republican candidates, and a media bias that you may not buy as being overtly corporatist, but that is hard to deny has an old-fashioned "stick with the establishment" bend. For example, there are well-documented "narratives" that circulate the press such as "Poor Bush", in which things just aren't turning out so well for the guy, and a "good guy/bad guy" casting of Republicans and Democrats, evident in Tim Russert' spending 1/2 hour last week discussing How Republicans can fend off the '06 onslaught of Democratic congressional seats, with no counterpoint How Democrats can secure a House victory segment in sight.

If people in Nancy's position aren't taxing their brains to figure out how they can win 18-20 of the 15 seats we need in November rather than running 'Victory Laps' in June, the Democrats can kiss their resurgence, along with the long-overdue balance it would bring to Washington power, Good Bye.

Global Warming Causing Shift in Contrarian Arguments

2006-06-06T21:21:00.000-04:00

Global warming hasn't just affected the migration of birds, insects and plant species, it's been causing the arguments of the contrarians to migrate as well.

A prominent 2001 paper that said that greenhouse gas increases are real, but that they will not cause the earth to warm.
Michael Crichton's 2004 book State of Fear includes thinly veiled attempts to debunk global warming, but had to contend with recorded temperatures actually going up. The solution: declaring that all the thermometers being monitored by the majority of scientists who consider global warming a reality have been installed too close to cities to be valid. (Note that Crichton maintains that his book is a fictional story, but that "all the footnotes are real..." Oh, brother...)
In 2006, the tactics are becoming even more bizarre. Contrarians now argue that there is not enough diversity in the debate, therefore the huge consensus of scientific professionals that have sworn their lives to the rigor of scientific analysis must be incorrect. If this line of thinking is correct, the theory that obesity causes high blood pressure must also be a patent lie, since there are not enough physicians representing the "other side".

Ah, me. As Steven Colbert likes to say, it's tough when the facts are biased...

Shedding Light on the Heat of "A Stolen Election"

2006-06-06T20:21:00.000-04:00

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an article in Rolling Stone this week, asking the question Was the 2004 Election Stolen?. A great deal of the data involves stridently disenfranchised voters in minority and non-religious campus communities through an appalling lack of voting equipment. Other concerns involve statistical anomalies that would invite a next level of investigations into the counting, carrying and recording of votes. A personal concern of mine wasn't as big an issue in Ohio as in other states, and involves electronic voting machines that are utterly inauditable.

I'd like to highlight one area that many concerned citizen find maddeningly poorly analyzed, and that is the 2004 exit polls. Not many recall that the 2000 exit poll data was never released - the Voter News Service literaly collapsed election week, saying it was unable to tally data because of computer glitch. I never heard hide nor hair of the orginally collected polling data that could have been used to produce those tallies post-election. Here is some information on the 2004 data.
___________________________
The news agency pool that funded the Mitofsky/Edison polling apparatus in 2004 stipulated that the raw data not be made available for 9 months following the election. So it is that in August of 2005, the University of Michigan and the University of Connecticut/Roper Center have been making raw, Mitofsky exit poll data available for purchase.

Prior to the release of the raw data, one could purchase exit poll data that was both "massaged", as has been cited in these artcles, and also summarized into "geo-codes" from Edison Media Research. The geo-code breakdown has a very low level of granularity -- for example, all of Ohio consists of only six geo-codes -- and is not well suited to a demographically informed correlative analysis of polling vs. official results variances. It's also the case that some amount of raw data appears to have been leaked to the public at CNN.com during a brief period on election night. This set was rather small compared with the full raw data set that is now available.

It would be a significant boost to the health of our national debate on electoral reform if a team lead by an individual and/or team that can reasonably be considered to be "above reproach" in the area of statistics were to conduct an appropriate analysis of the raw exit poll data.
Presumably such a team would analyze factors that a large consensus in the field would agree are statistically significant ones, likely including historical official election results, historical exit polling data, etc. There is a great store of election data available from the firm Election Data Services. While many will point out that exit poll data is notoriously inaccurate, I believe that a meaningful question is whether or not the inaccuracy is unexpectedly unevenly distributed in one direction - towards one candidate, and away from the other. I beileve such as study -- i.e. one conducted by an individual or team that is above reproach -- would boost the health of the debate regardless of how the analysis turned out.

Freeman's first celebrated study on the exit poll data was published before the release of the raw Mitofsky data, though as I recall, it took advantage of the telling, yet incomplete CNN "leaked" raw data. Perhaps he has since gained access to the raw data, and released an updated analysis. He has been a part of a fair amount of work on this topic, and now serves on the Voting Systems Board of the National Association of State Election Directors.

I put a world-renowed statistician in touch with one of the newspapers in the funding pool in the weeks after the 2004 election. It seemed the only way that a reputable statistician could gain access to the raw data during the 9-month black-out. The statistician was willing, the newspaper declined. In a more recent inquiry, the statistician said that he'd become too busy with new responsibilities.

Patriotism Changes with Civilian War Leadership Gone Bad

2006-05-19T09:02:00.000-04:00

Today we read that Congressman Jack Murtha has elaborated on a massacre of unarmed citizens that had been reported in Time magazine in March, describing a scene even more disturbing than the original report. He doesn't blame the soldiers on the field. He knows what he's talking about - he had visited that very community three months before the incident. At that time, the leadership on the ground said that they were impossibly over-stretched. He asserts that fault lies in Washington, where citizens can and should make a difference.

Some patriotic, some partisan; many would point a disapproving finger at whistle blowers and forthright officials such as Jack Murtha at times such as these. Whether the event is the release of photos from Abu Gahreb, exposure of interrogations under extradition, vast anti-war protests or generals speaking out, many want to criticize those exercising their voices, and not those in Washington wielding our sons and daughters.
Some points to consider for these folks:

We in the public must face the possibility that there are times when our elected officials - our President and his Cabinet, our Congress - act so directly against our national security interests, against principle, against international law and against basic human values we cherish that the practice of quiet patriotism is no longer appropriate. We owe it to our sons and daughters in uniform, dead and injured by the thousands, to face that fact of human nature and the cocaine that is Power.
Those serving in the military take an oath not to comment against their leadership while serving, and we in the public must both appreciate the importance of that oath, and respect it. For those who promote public devotion to the leadership at all costs, rather than shove that oath in front of the few who speak out while serving in order to damn them, we might step back, and ask if what our government is doing could be so perilous for American interests and indeed, so unduly perilous to our fighting men and women, that some members are willing to break that oath in order to answer to a higher duty to their country. That sense of duty, which most of these folks would only exercise in a very extreme situation, deserves our respect, as does the pragmatic oath that it breaks.

Many of us feel that we must speak out, if only because those in uniform are sworn not to, yet from time to time are made to bear the brunt of defense and foreign policy gone awry.

Hurl tomatoes at vocal generals, celebrities and active citizens if you must. Yes, it's one can fairly observe that some opponents of war will oppose any war, and that some heroic points of activism such as, perhaps, visiting enemy territory to deplore your government can be difficult to justify. At the same time, you won't find any references in the texts of our founding fathers for an obedient electorate left in the dark by a superficial press, a secretive government and cowering patriotism. No, quite to the contrary. They'd seen that movie before, and wanted no part of it.

What's wrong with the American Mainstream Media?

2006-04-06T00:39:00.000-04:00

Ah, the "MSM". What genuinely aware and concerned American isn't gravely disappointed in the mainstream media?

Many pine for the "good old days" of a media willing to challenge power.

I for one don't think it's worth trying to bring back the elevated, altrusitic days of the Morrows & Cronkites. Those days were fueled by the experience of World War II -- the horror of what Hitler could achieve with 20th century technology, the heady humanitarian role the US played in the war, and the shock of responsibility the human race suddenly bore with the advent of The Bomb. Our press was in an unnaturally high-minded state by 1950's, and it lasted for a couple of decades.

The founding fathers left no word of high regard for journalism. Instead, they spoke very clearly of the value of the press being in its multiplicity of diverse voices. (At that time, of course, there was no reason to expect media to be anthing but independent...) George Washington called them "infamous scribblers" as highlighted in the title of a recent book, and Jefferson paid newspapers off to trash John Adams.

I believe that what harms our society about the modern press is the ownership of our seemingly many press outlets by 1) an increasingly small number of 2) increasingly large conglomerate firms. These large firms view the press as both a profit center needing to achive the performance of other product lines, and clearly have shown themselves to be unable to keep from favoring political factions that support the needs of corporations rather than citizens.

The great forces in America's large media are not liberalism vs. conservativism, but rather ratings vs. the corporate political agenda. This explains why only the most egregious sins on the part of corporate serving politicians are highlighted significantly. Were it not that bombings in Iraq helped boost ratings, the American public might think it's the paradise that existed on that land in the mythical times of pre-fall Adam and Eve. As it is, Americans are still largely unaware of how much worse the infrastructure is vs. the day we began bombing, the number of permanent bases we're building, or indeed, the number of innocent Iraqis that have been killed in this war.

What backhanded poison pills are being planted by holiday-issued executive orders and quiet projects at the FCC today to get past the defeat of the May 2003 corporate ownership regulations the FCC tried to get through?

How can we reclaim individual, single-line-of-business corporate ownership of the press in America?

The quality of our children's worlds no doubt depend on this seemingly unattainable goal.

A Moment of Truth for Democrats - Feingold Censure

2006-03-14T12:50:00.000-05:00

I write here to support Russ Feingold's motion to Censure the President regarding domestic spying without oversight, and condemn the Democrats remarkable retreat from it.

Why is Censure meaningful and appropriate now?

The Presidential action in question is illegal, and is an abuse of power that threatens basic American freedoms. It is in an area that has had severe abuse exposed within most of our lifetimes, with intrusive activities that most Americans find utterly appauling.
The beltway-wisdom-media-bubble-focus-group-merry-go- round-keep-in-line logic is, as others have pointed out, a handy tool of the power elite.

Wake Up, Democrats! Be United. Have Conviction. Repeat your Positions.

Think for a moment:

You're not selling immoral action such as an unprovoked war, or wartime tax cuts for the super-rich.
You have principles of freedom on your side.
Censure is a step that would help salvage the very principle of accountability in our beloved Country at a time when the behavior of elected officials is turning into a no-holds-barred free-for-all.
The Administration has systematically broken the law for more than four years, and is challenging the Republican Congress to provide a political fig-leaf by adjusting the law, and providing feigned nuoveau oversight after the fact. Is this accepable in the Country that I expect my children to lead safe, private and free lives in?

You will guide public opinion. (Cf. Leadership (n.))

If the current Republican Reign hasn't taught you the power of unity and repetition by now, you are Comfortably Numb.

If it happens that you are not numb, look up the Fax # for your representatives and as many Dem Senators as you can find, and give them a brief, clear message.

Sometimes It's All About the Deal

2006-03-09T15:19:00.000-05:00

The very timing of a set of headlines can seem to tell a hidden story. Take today's New York Times web site. As Republicans walk a thin line with privacy to provide Bush political cover in a sticky legal situation, the Administration softens hardline positions to provide Congressional Republicans with political cover in a tough election year. Can you smell the Dealmaking?

Party of the First Part: Congressional Republicans

This morning, in the NY Times:

G.O.P. Plan Would Allow Spying Without Warrants (excerpt)

On Tuesday, Mr. Rockefeller said he believed that the committee's Republicans were "under the control" of the White House. Mr. Roberts said on Wednesday that he resented being portrayed as what he called a "lap dog of the administration."
"He doesn't know how hard we worked, [emphasis mine]" Mr. Roberts said of Mr. Rockefeller.

Party of the Second Part: The Administration

Now let's look at a snapshot of the lead stories at the NYTimes.com home page:

UPDATED THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2006 3:02 PM ET

Dubai Company to Transfer U.S. Ports to American Company
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CARL HULSE 2:46 PM ET The announcement did not immediately mollify Democrats, though Senator Charles E. Schumer called it a promising step.
U.S. to Rely on Iraqi Forces to Quell Civil War, Rumsfeld Says
By DAVID STOUT 1:39 PM ET The secretary believed the unrest was still "controllable by Iraqi security forces and multinational forces."
U.S. to Close Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq Within Three Months
By ROBERT F. WORTH 2:07 PM ET A spokesman said today that the military will close the prison, which became notorious after revelations of abuses by U.S. soldiers.

Sometimes, it's all about the Deal...

Let's Make A Deal! (and undermine basis of global diplomacy)

2006-03-04T09:34:00.000-05:00

Today's headline: Bush Says Pakistan Cannot Expect Nuclear Deal Like One With India

India can have a civilian nuclear program because they're a democracy, even though they've never signed the Nonproliferation treaty, and violated promises they'd made to the international community when they developed their nuclear weaponry.
Pakistan, already a member of the nuclear weapons club, cannot have a civilian nuclear program because they have a history of strong radical Islamic leadership.
Dubai can have access to our port security information because, even though they have a history of strong radical Islamic leadership, and the kinds of ties to 9-11 that the Bush Administration attempted but failed to pin on Iraq, it would send a bad signal to the world if we didn't give it to them.
Iran cannot have a civilian nuclear program because it would violate their signature on the Nonproliferation treaty, and because they have a history of strong radical Islamic leadership.

Let's see what Carol Merrill has behind door number 2!

Rice v Boxer

2006-02-21T00:15:00.000-05:00

On Feb. 15, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with Iraq a key topic. She heard pointed harsh criticism of the Administration's policy and performance from Republicans such as Hagel and Chafee, but the most interesting exchange in my mind occured with Barbara Boxer.

Senator Boxer attempted to place Secretary Rice under a spotlight regarding the issue of the recent electoral success of extremist political forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, South American regimes that strongly oppose the US, and of course, the terrorist organization, Hamas, in Palestine.

For Senator Boxer, the question rested on a proposition that the Democrats failed to make in the Fall of 2002 -- that there was another way besides preemptive aggression with very few allies to deal with Saddam Hussein.

Secretary Rice deflected the very notion that there was another way to approach the problem of Iraq by hammering on the concept that whatever has happened, it's so valuable that elections are being held, it's been worth it.

The exchange, in my mind, ended in a stalemate, with neither side having won over converts from the middle.

Boxer, of course, had much merit in her assertions and criticisms. Indeed, the Bush Administration is apparently re-writing its infamous 2002 National Security Policy. However, she couldn't bring Rice to put the fact of elections themselves in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq aside, and deal with America's undenyable role in creating a global political climate supportive of extremists. Rice's assertion that "any election is better than no election" had more resonance than it should because Rice was able to continually re-frame the question.

I believe that if the Democrats had wedged a credible third approach between the Administration's rush to war, and a cynically cited "appeasement of Saddam" in the Fall of 2002, they might not only have maintained a house of Congress, but in debates such as this one, Senator Boxer would have had an easier time in bringing the Secretary to address the topic at hand.

AfterWords:
Later in the hearing, John Kerry began with a flash of light, noting that elections don't make a democracy, liberal institutions do. (I don't believe Kerry actually used the word "liberal", however appropriate in the context...) It would have been interesting to have had Secretary Rice respond to this line of questioning: "Even Saddam Hussein ran periodic elections. Do you think extremist regimes in Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere will promote the components of civil society required to flesh out a true democracy?"

Kudos to Kerry for forcing Secretary Rice to distance the Administration from statements made by military brass that there were no plans to build permanent bases in Iraq. From my vantage point, you can bet your bottom defense dollar there are such plans, and Rice was forced to say that the Administration was "leaving its options open" on that issue. I'd seen the contention by one of the Generals from the Iraqi theater that the US was not planning to build bases, and was gratified to see Rice affirm, if having to squirm a bit.

The Future's Being Framed!

2006-02-21T00:04:00.000-05:00

I'll collect up those posts which deal with the role of framing the debate in the nation's political discourse here. It's a continuously updated post you'll find listed in the Topics area, on the sidebar.

2006 Feb 21: Rice v Boxer
2006 Feb 14: It's the Oversight, Stupid!
2006 Mar 19: Sometimes, it's all about the Deal
2006 May 19: Patriotism Changes with Civilian War Leadership Gone Bad

Cheney's Got a Gun

2006-02-14T02:48:00.000-05:00

A Parody of Aerosmith's Janie's Got a Gun, for the Vice President, as we learn of his duck hunting accident.

Dum, dum, dum, Dickie what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum it's the sound of my gun.
Dum, dum, dum, Dickie what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum it's the sound

Cheney's got a gun
Cheney's got a gun
His whole world's run amok
From lookin' straight at the duck
What did his donor do?
He got more ducks than you?
In Cheney's Undisclosed location
They found his buddy full of lead
But man, he had it comin', now Cheney's got a gun
He ain't never gonna be the same

Cheney's got a gun
Cheney's got a gun
His dog day's just begun
Now staffers are on the run
Tell me now it's untrue.
What did his Scooter do?
He told the prosecutor
The VP's got to be insane
They say the spell that he was under The lying and the
plunder Knew that someone had to stop the pain

Run away, run away from the Press
yeah, yeah yeah yeah
Run away run away from the Press
yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away

Cheney's got a gun
Cheney's got a gun
His dog day's just begun
Now everybody is on the run
What'd the prosecutor do?
It's Cheney's last I.O.U.
He has to take him down easy put a Bullet in his reputation
He said 'cause nobody believes me. The facts are all against me.
The truth must never be the same.

It's the Oversight, Stupid!

2006-02-14T00:50:00.000-05:00

Anatomy of a framing opportunity gone bad.

Just tonight on Olbermann's Countdown, David Shuster recounted how the Democratic caucus senses that their argument regarding domestic surveillance isn't working. The public follows them, Shuster recounts, when they say "the program is necessary", but not when they add "but it has to be done legally".

Part of this issue is undoubtedly poor performance by Democrats and progressives on the Framing Front. The issue that resonates isn't legality, but oversight, in the protection of privacy. Oversight is what the FISA law is intended to enforce on any such Administrative activity. We've just had the most extraordinary opportunity to highlight the potential abuse of surveillance as we eulogized Coretta Scott King, and yet the Champions of Freedom, the Democrats, focus on legality rather than oversight. Every Democrat in front of a camera this past week should have supported Jimmy Carter, if only for the reasons I've cited earlier.

Let's analyze Tom Daschle on this Sunday's Meet the Press, as he had a brief brush with brilliance, followed by a tumble into a rhetorical rat hole.

The President is making a false choice here, and we're hearing again the argument this morning.
Bravo, Senator Daschle! Nearly every fair-minded talk-show guest who's appeared on TV since August of 2002 should have been kicking their comments off with precisely that sentance!!
That either we're for getting the terrorists, or for protecting our values.
Works for me. It's a juxtaposition I'm not thrilled with - many Americans apparently don't care about abstract values when it comes to terror - but since it recognizably captures talk show buzz, I'll take it.
Look, we all support going after the terrorists. We support the wiretapping program.
Hold on, Senator Daschle! A blanket statement with the definite article - we support the wiretapping program - is a no-no! Almost everything else you say begins to fade here...
We support doing everything we can to ensure we've got the best information we can get. But we also support respecting the rule of law.
Here's where I think the Senator loses the audience for good. The Rule of Law? Once again, Americans aren't big on letting abstract concepts get in the way of protecting them. The pitch to keep 'em interested would have been "But we also respect our citizens' privacy and the rule of law. Programs such as this have been infamously abused in our lifetime, and so while we want the President to be able to do everything he's doing now, in order for him to do it according to the law of the land, and the will of the people, he must do it with proper oversight."
That's what this is about, respecting the rule of law...
Ah, well. I can say that in general, respect for the rule of law is a good theme with which to critique this Administration, and the Republican Party with it.
and it's worked. This law has worked since 1978. We haven't had a problem before...
As a side note, if Senator Daschle is aware of the simultaneous phone line scanning that the NSA is conducting, and believes that FISA still applies, it would be worth interjecting the phrase "can still be practically applied to modern scanning methods"...

Much like the false choice of "Rush to War vs. Let Saddam do whatever he wants", Republican framing of this debate is, well, Framing the Democrats.

By the way, apologies to Sen. Daschle on having the word "Stupid" in the title of this post. It should be clearly to all a reference to the 1992 moniker, "It's the Economy, Stupid!", and is not meant to refer to the Senator individually.

Honor, at Coretta Scott King's Funeral

2006-02-10T14:15:00.000-05:00

There was plenty of negative buzz about Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowry and Jimmy Carter. The Curse the Darkness crowd would have us interpret the words spoken at that lovely ceremony, as they seem to suggest regarding all criticism of the President, as pure political partisanship and bad taste, even to the point of misrepresenting the reaction of the mourners in attendance.

These positions leave out many valuable factors, not the least of which are Truth and the Upholding of Principles.

Martin and Coretta lived, died and had their privacy ravaged in order to champion the rights and equality of minorities, and to champion non-violent conflict resolution. The current Administration has stridently opposed these values. It has boldly shunned oversight of its decisions to track individuals in the manner that the Kings had been tracked.

The uncomfortable truths spoken by Lowry and Carter memorialized the Kings' sacrifice and lives' work. What would have been disrespectful would have been to have remained silent on these issues.

Stonesoup found a succinct way of expressing these thoughts.