Heartland Diary of Betty B.

What's Up With Obama?

2008-07-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

Since being selected by the DNC as the presumptive nominee, Obama has behaved in a manner perplexing to me and many of my friends who are Democrats.

Obama's yes vote on FISA was a breathtaking reversal of his former position. His training as a constitutional attorney seems have given him the idea that he can improve on the document.

Glen Greenwald at Salon, who is a former constitutional attorney and litigator has devoted much of his recent efforts to addressing FISA. I would point readers in his direction who want more understanding of the issue.

Obama continues to distance himself from liberal/progressive supporters, and his fund raising efforts have not kept pace, even as he reverses his pledge to use public financing in the general election. All I have to say is good luck with that strategy.

All those Obama supporters who were so sure that he was the hope and change guy, need to get out their checkbooks. I will not be sending any money to Obama until he starts acting like a Democrat.

Slate's "Hillary Deathwatch"

2008-06-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

I just sent a letter to Slate. Their Hillary Deathwatch feature, which now boasts 45 entries beginning 3/27/08, has long pissed me off. If by chance Obama had been on their shit list, they would not have gotten by with this crap. My note to them:

If The Tables Were Turned...

This Hillary Deathwatch thing you have done is so uncool, not to mention tacky and biased.

Every president and many candidates lives are under the threat of physical harm. If the tables were turned and your miserable website supported Hillary over Obama, you would not have gotten away with this for one second.

I hope you at Slate, and the rest of the biased media assholes are happy now.

Thank You, Hillary

2008-06-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Hillary,

Thank you, for the strength and determination you have shown during the course of this campaign. Although, I'm disappointed with the outcome, I know that your candidacy has furthered the cause of all Americans, especially the 50 plus percent of us who are women.

I will now throw my full support behind Senator Obama, and your endorsement of him highlights all the reasons why we must elect a Democrat this fall.

But, please know Hillary, that if you seek any future office, that I will be first in line to support you with my donations and volunteer in any way I can on your behalf.

Sincerely,

Betty

99 Problems, Sweetie

2008-05-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

Obama dismisses a question from a woman reporter yesterday, calling her "sweetie." As pointed out by Shakespeare's Sister, it's not the first time.

Elizabeth Edwards is notably absent from her husband's endorsement of Obama, having gone on record recently endorsing Hillary's health plan as superior. John made a point to state that his wife was not a part of his link-up with Obama.

Obama is riding high on a wave of support from Hillary-haters, most of whom do not criticize her platform, but instead resort to misogynist slurs ranging from Chris Matthews' "She-Devil" to Randi Rhodes' "fucking whore" comment. And then there's Olbermann who suggests that a super delegate should take Hillary into a room "and only he comes out," as a part of the ongoing Why Won't The Stupid Bitch Quit saga. Even Charlie Rose has chimed in on that one several times.

Shakespeare's Sister has an ongoing Hillary Sexism Watch which is now up to post #90.

Marie Cocco weighs in at the Washinton Post today:

Misogyny I Won't Miss

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan “Bros before Hos.” The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker

I won’t miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a “big [expletive] whore”…

I won’t miss [nice use of anaphora!] Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

I won’t miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie “Fatal Attraction.”

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a “she-devil” (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she’s “looking like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court” (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).

But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it’s mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like “a scolding mother, talking down to a child” (Jack Cafferty on CNN).

When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: “White women are a problem, that’s — you know, we all live with that” (William Kristol of Fox News).

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven’t publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

Obama has played into this theme with his mime of the rapper Jay-Z's 99 Problems(but a bitch ain't one) during one of his campaign speeches, to the delight of his supporters.

I guess there are at least 99 reasons why my vote for Obama will be half-hearted in the fall, if it comes down to that.

John Edwards Speaks Out For Veterans

2008-04-17T19:06:00.001-07:00

From DU comments, John Edwards makes remarks about the plight of veterans, in a letter to the New York Times.

April 8, 2008 Letter
Broken Soldiers, and a Broken System

To the Editor:

In “For Wounded Veterans and Their Families, a Journey Without Maps” (Editorial Observer, March 24), Lawrence Downes missed an important opportunity to explain why both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs are unprepared to care for the service members who have been hurt in the Iraq war.

The reason is that the frequently reported number of the wounded in action (29,320 as of March 1) does not include everyone who’s been hurt.

The complete number of nonfatal casualties in Iraq is 60,645. Most assume the wounded number includes all, but it does not. It leaves out another 8,273 injured and 23,052 who became ill and required medical air transport from the war zone. The Department of Defense releases two reports: one with the weekly numbers of those wounded and killed, and then another monthly report with the complete numbers. After five years, it is time for respected news organizations to use the complete number.

The public needs this information so that we can better prepare for the care of all of our veterans from this war and others. The struggle for them and their families your article addressed is happening all across this country. Nearly 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have already sought care from the V.A.

The system is broken. That is why so many veterans are still fighting for the care they earned. That is why their families struggle with paperwork and months of delay. And that is why 154,000 veterans sleep on grates or under bridges every night.

We have tens of thousands set to come home, and we aren’t prepared. Every day we should honor the more than 4,000 lives lost: every suicide, bullet or serious accident.

And every day we should honor those who have been hurt. That number is 60,645 and rising.

John Edwards
Chapel Hill, N.C., March 31, 2008

The writer is the former presidential candidate and former senator from North Carolina.

Idiot Warmongers

2008-04-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

I have noticed for the last couple of days, all of the Republicans and their Neo-con henchmen are interjecting Iran into comments on the most recent Iraq status report by General Petraeus.

From Think Progress:

Lieberman, Bennett, And Kristol See Petraeus Hearing As ‘An Argument’ For ‘Going Into Iran'

During their appearance before the Senate on Tuesday, Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker accused Iran of “funding, training, arming and directing extremist ’special groups’ in Iraq.” “I think one might look for a reconsideration in Tehran as to just where they want to go in Iraq,” said Crocker. “This would be an excellent time for them to reassess.”

Liveblogging the hearings for the Washington Post, Fiasco author Thomas Ricks pondered what Crocker could have intended with his “reassess” comment, considering that “there will be a new American president in place in less than a year“:

But he also said, “This would be an excellent time for them to reassess.” What does he mean by that? Why would Iran want to adjust their relationship now, when there will be a new American president in place in less than a year? Or is there some sort of implied threat there: You guys better get smart, or this president still has time to pound you?

It is unclear whether such a veiled threat was Crocker’s intention, but some on the right are certainly seeing his and Petraeus’s testimony as cause to begin talking about striking Iran again.

On his radio show this morning, Bill Bennett told the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol — who had a personal meeting with President Bush yesterday — that a “conclusion” he drew was that the hearing was “less an argument for getting out of Iraq than going into Iran.” After suggesting that Iran may “have to pay some price at some point on their own soil,” Kristol said that President Bush authorizing an attack of some kind before he leaves office is not “out of the question”:

BENNETT: Do you think there’s any chance that, and we won’t ask you to reveal anything confidential, do you think there’s any chance that we might take some action against some aspect of the Ira…against Iran, let’s put it that way, before the president leaves office?

KRISTOL: We didn’t really talk about that, in all honesty, directly. I don’t think it’s out of the question. I think people are overdoing how much of a lame duck the president is.

Appearing on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show last night, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said that he wished the Bush administration would tell the Iranians that “unless they stop it, we’re going to take action.” “I’m not talking about all out war,” added Lieberman before saying, “they ought to believe that we’re going to hit those training camps.”

Bush and the Romance of Soldiering

2008-03-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

This quote is from a Reuter's article (3/13/08) detailing President Bush's videoconference on the current situation in Afghanistan:

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you
know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

I seem to remember vividly, his evasion of service in Viet Nam, and this account from his professor at Harvard Business School. From a 2004 CNN interview:

Yoshi Tsurumi, in his first on-camera interview on the subject, told CNN
that Bush confided in him during an after-class hallway conversation during the 1973-74 school year.

"He admitted to me that to avoid the Vietnam draft, he had his dad -- he said 'Dad's friends' -- skip him through the long waiting list to get him
into the Texas National Guard," Tsurumi said. "He thought that was a smart thing to do."

Hillary Wins Over Those Who Listen

2008-02-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

Jo Mannies, political blogger for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was on C-Span this morning. I just caught the last part, but wanted to paraphrase a caller from New York talking about Hillary Clinton.

A caller from New York called to refute the fact that Hillary is too "polarizing". That is just a myth perpetrated by Fox News and the we-hate-liberals talk radio hosts.

The caller said Hillary won her seat in the senate by winning over the Republicans in upstate New York. At first, mostly women came to her campaign events. She won them over, because she's smart, she knows the issues, she makes sense, and she is convincing. The women would go home and tell their husbands they had become Hillary supporters, and then the sh*t would hit the fan. A lot of the husbands wound up sleeping on the couch.

Then the husbands started talking to each other at the coffee shops, and a few of them started showing up to hear Hillary. She won them over, too.

Hillary won re-election to her seat by working hard and communicating with her constituents. She isn't perfect, but, well....who is?

Hillary has been smeared a thousand times, and 99.9 percent of it is pure right-wing B.S. They have not yet begun to smear Obama, but, trust me, they will do a major hatchet job on him and his lovely wife Michelle, too, if he is on the top of the ticket.

A Clinton-Obama ticket would unite the Democratic party, and have the best chance of winning and getting this country back on track. Let's make history and give the Democrats 16 years in the White House.

I'm Supporting Hillary Clinton

2008-01-31T20:56:00.000-08:00

I'm now an official Hillary supporter. She is so knowledgeable and well-versed on the issues. I've been favorably impressed with her in all the debates and town hall q&a sessions.

It's my "hope" for this campaign to see Obama as the Vice-Presidential candidate, and for him to run for President eight years from now. He has so much promise, but he isn't quite ready to take the helm. We will need sixteen years time to undo the damage the Bush-Cheney gang has done to the country. Obama has the lofty rhetoric down pat, but he started running for president immediately upon getting elected to the Senate. I have to land on the side of experience with Hillary.

I'm also hopeful that John Edwards will find a role in a future Democratic administration, and I can see Bill Richardson as a great Secretary of State.

Meth Addiction: Hope and Horror

2007-12-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

Missouri has been ground zero for the proliferation of meth labs and meth addicts in the last few years. If you live here, you probably have a family member or friend whose life has been impacted by meth addiction.

A woman I know recently died of the complications of a long-term meth addiction. She was beautiful and talented and was the envy of everone who knew her - before meth. The first time she tried the drug, she was hooked. Her family eventually deserted her, and her decline and eventual death from the effects of the addiction was a sad and lonely time.

Another friend has a son who is a meth addict. His daughter recoils when he enters the room. She is being raised by her grandparents, due to neglect by this man and his wife who is also addicted.

Tonight, 60 Minutes presented a segment on the Prometa treatment for addiction. I recently met a young couple who have received this treatment about six months ago. At first, I didn't believe that they were telling me the truth. This couple just did not look or act like meth addicts. They assured me that if I had met them a year earlier, I would not believe they were the same persons. They lost their home and children, and were basically on the skids. Their family heard about the Prometa treatment and scraped together the $15,000 to send them to Texas to undergo the treatment. Miracle of miracles, it has worked for them. According to them, it immediately relieved the craving for meth. They will be in therapy for a long time, and will probably attend 12-step meetings from now forward. But they have been given a chance for recovery due to Prometa treatment.

The 60 Minutes piece was more negative than positive about Prometa, interviewing just one addict who had allegedly been helped by the treatment. I'd like to see more coverage about this, pro and con. I know that if I had a family member addicted to meth, I would help get the funds together for them to receive the Prometa treatment.

Now, I'm going to say something nice about Aunt Norma. She recently sponsored legislation to make it harder to buy the over-the-counter medications used as ingredients by meth cooks. There is no reason that these drugs should not be strictly controlled by whatever means necessary. Legitimate purchasers of Sudafed and similar drugs are inconvenienced by having to show ID, and pharmacies are required to track sales and communicate with each other. This is a small price to pay, if it saves even one person from addiction to meth.

Schwarzenegger Vetoed Four Bills Increasing Firefighting Resources

2007-10-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

Yet another example of Republican stupidity.

From the Brad Blog:

What the Governor failed to mention is that he vetoed four bills that would have increased staffing and fire resources after the Cedar Fire, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. A fifth bill, signed by Schwarzenegger, requires local governments to first submit safety plans to the California Department of Forestry and will not take effect until 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported in a May 20, 2007 article titled “Fire danger acute as 2003 lessons fade.” That article has since disappeared off the newspaper’s website, but a copy is here.

National Guard Troops Denied G.I. Bill Benefits

2007-10-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

Another fine example of this administration's failure to "support the troops."

National Guard Troops Denied Benefits After Longest Deployment Of Iraq War
Rhonda Erskine, Online Content Producer
Created: 10/3/2007

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (NBC) -- When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush's surge.

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill.

"It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership... once again failing the soldiers. "

Anderson's orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days. Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school."

Which would be allowing the soldiers an extra $500 to $800 a month," Anderson said.That money would help him pay for his master's degree in public administration. It would help Anderson's fellow platoon leader, John Hobot, pay for a degree in law enforcement."

I would assume, and I would hope, that when I get back from a deployment of 22 months, my senior leadership in Washington, the leadership that extended us in the first place, would take care of us once we got home," Hobot said. Both Hobot and Anderson believe the Pentagon deliberately wrote orders for 729 days instead of 730.

Now, six of Minnesota's members of the House of Representatives have asked the Secretary of the Army to look into it -- So have Senators Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman.Klobuchar said the GI money "shouldn't be tied up in red tape," and Coleman said it's "simply irresponsible to deny education benefits to those soldiers who just completed the longest tour of duty of any unit in Iraq."

Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home."I had 23 guys under my command," Anderson said. "I promised to take care of them. And I'm not going to end taking care of them when this deployment is over, and it's not over until this is solved."

The Army did not respond questions Tuesday afternoon. Senators Klobuchar and Coleman released a joint statement saying the Army secretary, Pete Geren, is looking into this personally, and they say Geren asked a review board to expedite its review so the matter could be solved by next semester.Minnesota National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Olson said the soldiers are "victims of a significant injustice."

Chris Matthews: Bush Admin. Has "Finally Been Caught In Their Criminality"

2007-10-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

At the 10th anniversary party for his Hardball show (Thursday evening 10/5/07), Chris Matthews had critical words for the Bush/Cheney gang. After seven years of BushCo directed madness and mayhem, all I have to say is--Chris, what took you so long? You have the damn microphone.

From the St. Louis Examiner article by Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin:

Matthews says Bush administration has "finally been caught in their criminality"

...After praising the drafters of the First Amendment for allowing him to make a living, he outlined what he said was the fundamental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Clinton camp, he said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him.

“Not so this crowd,” he added, explaining that Bush White House officials -- especially those from Vice President Cheney's office -- called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content.

"They will not silence me!" Matthews declared.

"They've finally been caught in their criminality," Matthews continued, although he did not specify the exact criminal behavior to which he referred...

When reached, the White House declined to comment and NBC refused requests to release video of the event...

Mousie Cat Speaks

2007-10-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

From the blog of one of my favorite neighbors, Evolving In Kansas:

Matt Blunt kisses Religious Right's ass

Missouri's Gov. Matt Blunt says he thinks faith-based groups do a better job of helping people than government-funded programs. So he's created a small committee to see how Missouri can work more closely with those faith-based groups. Why now? He's looking at a 2008 run against Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, and he desperately needs that "social conservative" vote.

For those who don't live in red states, "social conservatives" are people who vote based on only three issues: (a) abortion; (b) guns; and (c) taxes. They constitute the 34% of the American public who still think George W. Bush is doing a heckuva job. In other words, they are either (a) totally misinformed, thanks to Faux News; or (b) irremediably ignorant...

Read the entire article here.

Future Shock: Peak Oil in Mexico

2007-09-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Now that Greenspan has confirmed that the occupation of Iraq is about oil, it's time to pay close attention to the crisis in dropping oil production that some refer to as Peak Oil. Many say that oil production has already crested, and the evidence is clear and convincing.

Astute observers of the looming oil crisis are urging us to reconsider the way we build and site our homes and public buildings, the cars we buy and modes of public transport.

From James Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, writing at Civitas: The Broadside of Civic Design and Politics, talks about Mexican oil production and what Mexican Peak Oil will bring to the already troubled U.S./Mexican relationship.

...Something very interesting and rather ominous is resolving out of blizzard of statistics, reports, scenarios, and competing interests in the background. This is the oil export crisis.

It is now apparent that oil exporting nations are seeing their exports falling at a much steeper rate than their production declines. The aggregate global oil production decline is running between 3 to 5 percent annually now, but the export decline is running above 7 percent. In five years, it may be as high as 50 percent. That means the major importing nations (the US, Europe, Japan, China, India) will only be getting half the imports they get now -- and bear in mind that the US imports more than two-thirds of the oil we use.

The poster-child for this problem -- as far as the US is concerned -- is Mexico. 60 percent of Mexico's oil production comes out of a single super-giant field, Cantarell, off the Yucatan in the Gulf of Mexico. Cantarell is the second largest oil field ever discovered (after Saudi Arabia's Ghawar). It came into production relatively late in the oil age and was subject to very aggressive drilling with the latest technology (horizontal bores, gas injections to keep pressure up) with the result that it was only depleted more efficiently. The aggressive production may have also damaged its geologic structure. The net result now is that production out of Cantarell is crashing very steeply, at a minimum of 15 percent a year. That means in six or seven years, Cantarell is finished. However, long before then, Mexico will lose its ability to export oil to the US.

That's going to be a mighty big problem -- or set of problems. For one thing, Mexico is America's number 3 source of oil imports (after Canada and Saudi Arabia). So, in two or three years, we will lose our number three source of foreign oil. By the way, there is no real evidence that "new discoveries" oil "new production" anywhere in the world will offset global production drops. The Mexican government depends on it's nationalized oil production (Pemex) for 40 percent of its operating revenue. So, what we're also looking at South-of-the-Border is the potential for a lot of economic and political turmoil as the Mexican government loses revenue and loses its ability to maintain its social safety net (which includes food subsidies).

The upshot of all this is that the US is likely to see a ramp-up in illegal immigration. The last time there was turmoil in Mexico -- the long revolution that ran from 1913 to 1940 -- one quarter of the Mexican population left, and most of them landed in the US. The population of Mexico then was about 23 million. Now it's over 100 million. If this turmoil escalates into violence, the US may even have a military problem with Mexico.

As this occurs, though, there will be plenty of other trouble with oil resources elsewhere around the world, and that will be reflected in global finance and the condition of national economies. The US consumes close to 20 million barrels of oil a day, and we produce less than 5 million.

Something will have to give.

Thank You, Rachel Carson

2007-09-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
Abraham Lincoln

Thank you, Rachel Carson and Bill Moyers for reminding me of this quote.

An Enduring Relationship With Iraq

2007-09-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

This morning's C-Span question was: Should we have an enduring relationship with Iraq?

We will have an enduring relationship with Iraq, especially with the millions of displaced Iraqi people, now refugees, who will teach their children to revile us.

We will have an enduring relationship with those Iraqis who are financially unable to leave, but desperately wish to move their families to safety.

We will have an enduring relationship with Iraqis who have lost loved ones as a result of our invasion and continued occupation of their country.

When we train and arm the Iraqi military and police forces, they turn those weapons on our troops. The Iraqis know where the IEDs and the ammo dumps are located, but they do not share that information with our troops. That speaks volumes about what our enduring relationship will be with Iraq.

It was an idiotic decision to go to war with Iraq, and every decision made thereafter has shown that same insight.

Bush Befuddled in Australia

2007-09-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

A really great example of why the U.S. is in such a mess.

From the Huffington Post:

Bush: OPEC or APEC
by Tom Raum, 9/7/07

SYDNEY, Australia —
President Bush had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the Sydney Opera House.

He'd only reached the third sentence of Friday's speech to business leaders, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, when he committed his first gaffe.

"Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit," Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Oops. That would be APEC, the annual meeting of leaders from 21 Pacific Rim nations, not OPEC, the cartel of 12 major oil producers.

Bush quickly corrected himself. "APEC summit," he said forcefully, joking
that Howard had invited him to the OPEC summit next year (for the record, an impossibility, since neither Australia nor the U.S. are OPEC members).

The president's next goof went uncorrected _ by him anyway. Talking about Howard's visit to Iraq last year to thank his country's soldiers serving there, Bush called them "Austrian troops."
That one was fixed for him. Though tapes of the speech clearly show Bush saying "Austrian," the official text released by the White House switched it to "Australian."

Then, speech done, Bush confidently headed out _ the wrong way.

He strode away from the lectern on a path that would have sent him over a steep drop. Howard and others redirected the president to center stage, where there were steps leading down to the floor of the theater.

Regarding The Awaited Osama Bin Laden Video

2007-09-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

Regarding the awaited Osama Bin Laden video:

If Osama Bin Laden is indeed still alive, and plotting to continue his jihad from the mountains of Afghanistan/Pakistan, why are we not moving heaven and earth to find and apprehend him?

We have bombed and stomped over practically every square foot of Iraq. Why has our military effort not been directed at stopping Bin Laden and his organization as our #1 goal?

The war on "terror" began as an effort to bring to justice this band of outlaws. Surely we could have accomplished this. The $64,000 question is, why haven't we?

This is the question I would like to have answered.

The incompetence of the Bush administration in this matter astounds and saddens me. Nothing Bin Laden has to say will change my opinion about that.

My only hope at this point, is that we will elect a Democratic president who will focus attention on neutralizing this band of outlaws, and return to diplomatic efforts in bringing peace in other trouble spots in the world.

Hanging Chads 2000 Revisited by Dan Rather Report

2007-08-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

Dan Rather did an hour long report, The Trouble With Touch Screens, for HDnet last week.

The first part exposed shoddy touch screen machines built in the Phillipines by ES&S. Thousands of these machines were produced using cheap parts in sweatshop conditions by workers who were paid $2.50 per day. Quality control consisted of shaking some (not all) machines to see if anything rattled.

Watch the video, or read the transcript for full details.

The last part put the spotlight on Sequoia Pacific, the company that produced the punch cards used in the 2000 presidential election. We all remember the hanging chads, and thousands of ballots in Palm Beach County alone that registered overvotes or no vote at all for the presidential candidate. Palm Beach County traditionally is a Democratic stronghold.

...some of the best engineering minds in the country, at IBM, ...perfected the old Votomatic punch card system decades ago. Those punch cards, when they had been used by IBM for data processing, had been precise enough to help land a man on the moon. That's how reliable they were.

But by 2000, in an avalanche of hanging and falling chads, the punch card voting system was proclaimed to be "unreliable", old hat, out with the old and in with the new. Yet seven years and billions of dollars later, the public, especially in Florida, the public is clamoring for paper ballots again.

Rather interviews seven former employees of Sequoia Pacific with 171 years combined experience working for the company. They spoke with pride about the quality of punch card ballots their plant had produced over the years, and the company's about face in 1999 when producing punch cards for the 2000 election.

The company abandoned former suppliers of archival quality paper for a new supplier, and sub-standard rolls of paper, rejected by the plants quality control, were somehow ok'ed by upper management and used for those ballots.

To add to the insult of the inferior quality paper, E. Washington, a pressman at Sequoia for 26 years, relates that he was ordered to change the specifications for the cards bound for Palm Beach County, because they would "grow" in the Florida humidity...

E. Washington: We were told to run those cards short because they would grow by the time they got to Florida in the humidity.

Dan Rather: Running short didn't mean the cards were actually shorter. It simply means lowering, on the face of the ballot, the position of the chads. So the orders were for the ballots going to Palm Beach, don't make them meet the normal specifications?

E. Washington: Right. Because they would grow and if we met the normal specifications they would grow outside the specifications because of the humidity.

Dan Rather: Was this unusual?

E. Washington: Yep

Dan Rather: Were you surprised by it?

E. Washington: Oh yeah, I questioned it, and I even had the plant manager sign it. Because I was having arguments with quality control about the size. And so I said, 'The only way I am going to run it is if Brian comes out here and signs it.' He came out, he signed the 'okay' card to run 'em.

Dan Rather: Let me get this straight. You said, 'You are asking me to turn out a product that doesn't mean our usual specifications. To be sent specifically to Palm Beach, Florida'

E. Washington: Right

One employee speculates that Sequoia purposely produced faulty punch cards to give a jump start to sales of the touch screen machines, which so far had received a lukewarm reception.

Greg Smith: My own personal opinion was the touch screen voting system wasn't getting off the ground like that they, like they would hope. And because they weren't having any problems with paper ballots. So, I feel like they, deliberately did all this to have problems with the paper ballots so the electronically voting systems would get off the ground, and which it did in a big way.

Perhaps the company's greed was a factor in the failure of punch cards in Florida 2000. But given that the final "count" had Bush winning Florida by around 600 votes, it seems that something other motive is lurking in the shadows.

Management and employees involved in the production of these faulty ballots should be questioned under oath to determine exactly what happened. Our right to vote, and to have that vote counted is the foundation of this democracy. I, for one, would like to be reassured that when I step into the ballot box, my vote is counted. I'm sure millions of other voters feel the same.

Source: The Brad Blog

Planned Parenthood Supporters VS The Blunt Mini-White House

2007-08-15T07:05:00.000-07:00

Over the years, many low-income women I know have used the services of the local Planned Parenthood facility for pap tests, gyn wellness exams and contraception. When Blunt took funding away from this program, I decided to make donations to our local Planned Parenthood as often as I can. Contraception is the key to preventing unwanted pregnancy. This is just a no-brainer for me.

The KY3 news last night had a story about Planned Parenthood supporters who live in the Springfield neighborhood where Blunt resides. They have posted pink signs signifying their support for Planned Parenthood. The KY3 Political Notebook blog has photos of the signs and a link to the news segment.

Governor and Mrs. Blunt refuse to live in the governor's mansion. It just doesn't suit them, they have grander visions. Instead, they have taken up residence in a mini version of the White House here in Springfield. The governor spends around four hours of each working day communting to Jeff City, in a caravan of gas guzzling SUVs. No wonder the state is in such a mess.

RNC Letter to MO Democrat Raises Questions

2007-08-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

Since Missouri voters do not register by party affiliation, there is confusion about the purpose of this RNC generated form letter, received by an elderly resident of Queen City, MO.

From Talking Points Memo:

RNC Voter "Audit" Letter Raises Questions
By Paul Kiel - August 10, 2007, 12:20 PM

What 83 year-old William Sidwell of Queen City, Missouri found in his mailbox last week scared him. It was a letter from the Republican National Committee, but it seemed to bear grave news: "Our records show that you registered as a member of our Party in Schuyler County, MO," the letter said. "But a recent audit of your Party affiliation turned up some irregularities."

Audit? Irregularities? Was he in trouble? Were they threatening him? Sidwell went immediately to his ask his son, Dennis, a licensed public accountant, for advice. You can see the letter, and the accompanying "Voter Registration Verification and Audit Form," right here. Particularly puzzling to the both of them, Dennis told me, is that his father is a life-long Democrat...

...The letter "appears to be in a gray area," David Becker, Director of People for the American Way's Democracy Campaign and a former voting rights attorney at the Justice Department, told me. "It could potentially run afoul of the law if it led an eligible voter to believe they're no longer eligible to vote." The letter, Becker said, "appears designed to give that mistaken impression..."

Pearl Jam's Anti-Bush Lyrics Censored

2007-08-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Someone pointed out that the only ones who have "freedom of the press" are the ones who control the press. Hopefully, indidents such as this will help to Rock the Vote in 2008.

From Timothy Karr at the Huffington Post:

AT&T: Your World Censored

Over the weekend AT&T gave us a glimpse of their plans for the Web when they censored a Pearl Jam performance that didn't meet their standard of "Internet freedom."

Pearl Jam: Seen But Not Heard During the live Lollapalooza Webcast of a concert by the Seattle-based super-group, the telco giant muted lead singer Eddie Vedder just as he launched into a lyric against President George Bush. The lines -- "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush find yourself another home" were somehow lost in the mix.

"What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it's about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band," Pearl Jam band members stated in a release following the incident.

Indeed. AT&T routinely rails against Net Neutrality as a "solution without a problem." They say Net Neutrality regulations aren't necessary because they wouldn't dare interfere with online content. At the same time they tout plans to become gatekeepers to the Web with public relations bromides about "shaping" Web traffic to better serve the needs of an evolving Internet.

Such spin needs to be held up to the light of experience. AT&T's history of breaking trust with their customers includes handing over private phone records to the government, promising to deliver services to underserved communities and then skipping town, pledging never to interfere with the free flow of information online while hatching plans with the likes of Cisco, Viacom, RIAA and MPA to build and deploy technology that will spy on user traffic.

The moral of this story is never trust AT&T at their word. The company acts in bad faith toward the public interest and will do whatever it can get away with to pad its bottom line -- including sacrificing the freedoms its users have to choose where they go, what they watch and whom they listen to online.

The Future of Music Coalition have done great work to mobilize hundreds of rock bands against such censorship but it's a threat that concerns everyone.

AT&T's vision of a better Internet -- "Your World Delivered" -- is not one that is shared by the more than 1.5 million people who have spoken out in favor of a neutral, affordable and accessible Internet for everyone. For us, the Internet isn't about one company delivering our world. It's about simply offering a real high-speed connection at reasonable rates -- and then getting out of our way.

What Is Wrong With This Picture?

2007-07-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

Roy Blunt doesn't think people earning the minimum wage of $5.15 deserved a raise, but he has no problem with approval of a hefty annual pay raise for congress.

From today's Turner Report:

Blunt: Nothing wrong with Congressional pay increases
Some members of Congress are putting themselves on the record as opposing their upcoming $4,400 pay increases, but not Seventh District Congressman Roy Blunt: Defending the raise, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said, "Every member has some obligation to the institution for the compensation to, as much as possible, keep pace with inflation. I think this should be as good a job when I leave it as it was when I took it."

Here is Blunt's view on the minimum wage 1/10/07 from the Columbia Tribune Politics Blog:

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, who came out today against the minimum wage increase.

"The last thing Congress should do is pass legislation that imposes an unfunded mandate on small businesses that employ millions of American workers and are the backbone of our economy," Blunt said in a news release.

The Fairness Doctrine

2007-07-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

We have two radio stations in our listening area that have 24 hours a day of Republican sponsored programming that ranges from obnoxious and misinformed to hate-filled invectives against the Democratic party and any viewpoint other their own. Anyone who disagrees is generally shouted down or ridiculed, with no effort to have a meaningful exchange of ideas.

I listen to those radio stations, and take note of sponsors so I can choose not to patronize them. My eye doctor was advertising on one particularly awful program, so I changed doctors. That's the only fairness I can derive from this hi-jacking of the air waves by right-wing loud mouths.

When people are unwilling to listen to each other and attempt to reach a middle ground, then the democratic process goes by the wayside. When one side has carte blanche to denigrate the other and present only their own viewpoint, no one is benefited.

I know most of the media people are not in favor of the Fairness Doctrine because they have to work harder to be inclusive of all view points. It's a "free speech" issue, they say. When one political party commandeers the airwaves, it would seem to me that the rights of the other party to speak are disregarded.

Some version of the Fairness Doctrine could help to remedy this situation.