Weiner gives love a bad name

Weiner gives love a bad name 

In Washington DC -- a place we all pretend is part of the United States -- another guy with an unfortunate name has proven that our elected officials should be treated like middle school students on a field trip.

If we elect them and if we pay them, we should treat them like capable children who need supervision and guidance. 

False Things & Paste Up Poetry

False friends, like false teeth, can be removed and tossed away, but you can never again feast on the same life. All is purée and liquid, moving indivisible down the gullet and out of time until you are no longer sure if they were false or the real thing.

Categories: Life & Times, Poetry

Hear This

"I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Chains of Weather

Tabular Manguy is suffering from climate chains. He needs an indoor skatepark. Help him by donating money or commenting on posts.

Army of Mine

Wish I had command of an army of mid-sized squirrels.

They would rabbit-kick the bad out of people to whom I wish an ill-fated and untimely demise.

This way, me hardy fools, I wouldn't have to dirty my smooth, white hands with their unclean blood.

And once those people were rabbit-kicked clean, I could put them to work caring for my Squirrel Army.

Or task them in service as ushers at the squirrel ballet -- a 21st century revisioning of The Nutcracker.

Election Day Lead-up in Washington County

An Interloper's Journey to Election Day

On Friday, October 31 I made first contact. It's Washington County. I'm in Hillsboro, Oregon and I clicked send after typing my request to the state elections division with the subject line Provisional Ballots.

Hello

I am requesting information on the use of provisional ballots in Oregon. Especially: Why are they used, and when should a voter use one? How does the elections division guarantee that provisional ballots will be counted? How are they reviewed. And who decides if the voter's information is genuine?

Thank you,

K. Shawn Edgar

The next day at 9:17 a.m. I received a response from Elections SOS, and it went a little something like this:

Dear Shawn,

Thank you for your email. A provisional ballot is one that is issued when the eligibility of the voter has not yet been determined, or when the county elections official issues a ballot to a voter who resides in another Oregon county.

For example: if someone goes into the county elections office and says they are a registered voter but the county cannot find that they have registered to vote, they can give the person a ballot – but will not count the ballot unless they find that the person was registered by the deadline.

Or, if for some reason you are in another county on election day and you do not have your ballot that was mailed to you, you can go into any county elections office in Oregon and tell them you are not able to vote your ballot because you left it at home and are unable to get it back to the county by 8 p.m. on election day. You can ask them for a ballot in which you can vote, and once they verify your registration they give you a ballot and forward it onto your county elections office. Let me know if you need further information. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Brenda Bayes / Elections Division

This was good, and fairly clear … but nothing I couldn't have found in their paper literature and their online help pages. I needed to delve like Rosencrantz kept waiting for Guildenstern to do in that play about them by Tom Stoppard.

Brenda –

Thank you for your response. The information definitely helps, however, after researching the 2000 and 2004 general elections and the lead-up to this one, questions remain. Are counties in Oregon using the so-called exact match criteria set up by the poorly named Help America Vote Act (HAVA)?

If so, how is the eligibility of a voter determined? If a person comes to her county elections office, and says she is registered but the county official cannot find her information, or a detail of her name is different (e.g., a hyphenated name missing the hyphen) the person will be given a provisional ballot. Once the voter votes the ballot and turns it in, who decides either to count it or not count it? What resources will be used to verify the name, address, etc.?

Also, how often are voters removed from the rolls for inappropriate or mistaken reasons? If that person comes in the ask about her ballot, how can she prove registration? Can she demand a regular (non-provisional) ballot?

Robert Kennedy Jr. and investigative reporter Greg Palast have spent a lot of time and effort spreading the word that provisional ballots should not be used, and that a large number of this type of ballot had been thrown out in 2000 and 2004, denying possibly hundreds to thousands of legally registered voters either vote.

I realize this is too much for an email … just want to be prepared to help those voters who end up in a situation that might unfairly subvert their right to vote. None of these questions should be taken as an accusation that Oregon elections division would intentionally act inappropriately.

Sincerely,

K. Shawn Edgar

My lengthy inquiry led to an unsigned – and presumably hasty – response without the benefit of punctuation, except an occasional period. I've transcribed it as I received it:

Oregon is required to follow and comply with the requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act The county elections official are charged by statute to inquire into the validity of any elector and to conduct all elections. When a first time registrant registers to vote they are required to provide the DMV# and if they do not have on they must attest to this and then provide their last four digits of their social security number, if they do not have a social security number they must attest to that and provide a copy of identification. This information is listed on the voter registration card. The Oregon Centralized Voter Registration System will do a cross check with the DMV number provided by the elector with the Department of Transportation verifying that this is the person who the license was issued there is also a cross check with the Social Security number. Counties do not do any purging of records within 90 days prior to any election. The best way to assist those voters asking these questions should be referred to their county elections office for guidance.

So, this is where my Washington County elections office entered the story. I had simultaneously emailed them similar questions and received similarly flat textbook answers – answers in which the responder avoided details about any possible problems. It's all by the book, sir. It's all by the book, they ensured me.

After two to three links had grown in our email chain, I received a direct response from whom I believed at that time to big the divisions number one man: Luther K. Arnold Jr., the Senior Administrative Specialist.

Mr. Arnold's email was short, directly to the point. And breaks down this way to the best of my recall's recalling.

Dear Mr. Edgar,

Please call me so I can answer any further questions about provisional ballots or security of ballot drop sites, or any other questions that might come out of it.

Sincerely,

Luther K. Arnold Jr.

Senior Admin. Spec.

Washington County Elections

(503) 846-5823

I took down his contact essentials without replying because an Okay, will do sort of message seemed pointless. I was just happy Mr. Arnold had come across so ready to discuss the voting process with me.

On Monday, November 3 when I phoned Mr. Arnold, however, the perceived eagerness quickly turned to a avoid-and-resist dodging technique. His only full answer was that he couldn't answer anything fully. He directed me to the Oregon secretary of state's office. All over again.

In a sweet political-style feedback loop I wound up on the phone with the above-mentioned Brenda Bayes of the state elections SOS. Ms. Bayes was cordial and answered my questions by the book – refusing to even consider my base assumption that elections have faults and the process has been manipulated in our recent past (see documents by Robert Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast).

Ms. Bayes' great contribution to this part of the story was to pass me the name Mickey Kawai. She turned out (on the other end of our loop) to be the manager of my Washington County elections office – the exact kind of person I was hoping to talk with in the first place, a true in-the-muck foot soldier.

On the phone with Mickey Kawai later that day, the background noise from her end spoke in many voices urgent and oscillating. With my eyes closed the scene through the receiver became a whaling ship at sea, and Mickey Kawai became a captain both crazed with the possibility of a kill (that being a seamless process) and sane as thick concrete surrounding nuclear fission in progress (that being the possibility the process would fly apart).

However, her voice told me she was holding it all together – the chaotic operations of a county elections office the day before our biggest election day in recent history and the amped regular citizens eager to participate in her domain. At the same time there was an underlying threat of a Chernobyl-sized mishap hanging in the air, as much on my end as hers, congealing the entire county.

Unlike the mangers of the Chernobyl nuclear-plant in north-central Ukraine, Mickey Kawai managed to keep her office fuel elements (every participant) cool enough to avoid a meltdown, at least as long as we were on the phone together.

And before I disconnected, she had convinced me to come in with my video camera the following day for the big event. To observe. To participate.

I've included the short-form version of my video from election day with this post. Please view and comment.

Sincerely,

K. Shawn Edgar

kshawnedgar@yahoo.com

House Should Impeach Cheney and Bush

It is clearly wrong for any U.S. citizen to turn away from the issue of retroactive immunity for the telecommunication companies that have chosen in the past (or are doing so in the present) to capitulate to the Bush administration's illegal requests for information from phone and e-mail records and active wiretaps.

To that end I demand that Congress and the Senate defend our right to privacy, which also protects them from politically motivated spying through the use of warrantless wiretapping. The FISA law and court are sufficient and allow adequate means for federal government agencies to legally protect us against possible acts of terrorism.

As a people, we must stand up and demand proper oversight from our representatives in government. Both the U.S. House and Senate should say no to immunity from punishment for those companies' illegal actions. The telecoms that have participated in the illegal wiretapping need to be held responsible for their actions — they broke the law and should not be let off the hook now.

Mike Gravel

Mike Gravel for President in 2008 - On Freedom of Speech

FOX 'News' Babbles Without Reason

Reach out to your local news stations. Tell them not to follow FOX's irresponsible behavior in broadcasting.

Reasons to Proceed with Impeachment of Dick Cheney

Get the word out about the growing tidal wave... the impeachment and removal of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Scooter Libby Recap -- Ten Points

Watch it HERE

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Airwaves up for grabs

Something to pay attention to for every citizen

Use Spare Spectrum for the Net

From Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2007


The government-mandated shift from analog to digital television will allow local broadcasters to provide better picture quality and more programming. The move will also enable a more far-reaching benefit: The airwaves that broadcasters will no longer use for TV signals after Feb. 17, 2009, can be auctioned off for other important uses, potentially raising billions of dollars while encouraging technological and commercial innovation.

Those airwaves are a prime slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, a range of frequencies through which light, radio broadcasts, satellite TV transmissions and a variety of other electronic signals travel. At least 18 UHF TV channels will be reclaimed in the digital transition, and Congress has mandated that four of them be dedicated to public-safety communications.

Parts of six others are expected to be auctioned later this year, in accordance with rules that the Federal Communications Commission is finalizing now. The frequencies will no longer be reserved for a specific use, but the FCC’s rules will help shape who winds up with them and what they can do.

The FCC’s goal for the auction should be to encourage the development of more broadband Internet services. So much of the economy’s potential depends on high-speed Internet access, yet the U.S. lags many Asian and European countries in the percentage of broadband users.

Whether the available channels can support a competitor to existing DSL and cable-modem services is an open question, but the FCC can improve the odds by making the frequencies available in blocks large enough to create a viable substitute.

The commission should heed recommendations from high-tech and satellite TV firms, which say a 10% increase in the size of the current plan’s blocks would allow for more types of wireless broadband technology. Having more sources of broadband is particularly important in rural areas, where high-speed Internet service has been scarce.The rules should also allow bidders to offer a premium for a national set of licenses, which would encourage the creation of national broadband networks while deterring present broadband suppliers from hoarding the airwaves in a single region. Those suppliers might still try to buy national licenses and offer services that don’t compete with their DSL offerings.

That’s why the FCC should require that, for at least a portion of the spectrum, the winning bidder make its network available on a wholesale basis. Such a requirement would open the door for independent competitors to offer wireless broadband service over a leased network.

The commission should also require that at least some of the new frequencies be open to any compatible device or application that doesn’t interfere with other users of the airwaves. That way, consumer electronic companies could build and sell devices without having to strike deals with network operators.

The UHF channels offer the chance to foster competition and technological innovation — a chance the FCC should take. The public owns the airwaves, after all, and their value is measured in more than just auction dollars.

This article is from Los Angeles Times. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their Web site and register an account, if necessary, to view all their articles on the Web. Support quality journalism.

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Visual Reasons to Impeach Bush and Cheney

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This video by James Cavenaugh visually presents many hard-learned reasons to move toward impeachment of president George Bush and vice president Dick Cheney.

President Bush tries to pump up

The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration

By JOHN W. DEAN

Presidential signing statements are old news to anyone who has served in the White House counsel's office. Presidents have long used them to add their two cents when a law passed by Congress has provisions they do not like, yet they are not inclined to veto it. Nixon's statements, for example, often related to spending authorization laws which he felt were excessive and contrary to his fiscal policies.

In this column, I'll take a close look at President Bush's use of signing statements. I find these signing statements are to Bush and Cheney's presidency what steroids were to Arnold Schwarzenegger's body building. Like Schwarzenegger with his steroids, Bush does not deny using his signing statements; does not like talking about using them; and believes that they add muscle.

But like steroids, signing statements ultimately lead to serious trouble.

Relying On Command, Rather Than Persuasion

Phillip Cooper is a leading expert on signing statements. His 2002 book, By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action, assesses the uses and abuses of signing statements by presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Cooper has updated his material in a recent essay for the Presidential Studies Quarterly, to encompass the use of signing statements by now-President Bush as well.

By Cooper's count, George W. Bush issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 statements in 2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003, raising 142 constitutional challenges, and 23 statements in 2004, raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during his first term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to various provisions of legislation that became law.

That number may be approaching 600 challenges by now. Yet Bush has not vetoed a single bill, notwithstanding all these claims, in his own signing statements, that they are unconstitutional insofar as they relate to him.

Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law.

President Bush and the attorneys advising him may also anticipate that the signing statements will help him if and when the relevant laws are construed in court - for federal courts, depending on their views of executive power, may deem such statements relevant to their interpretation of a given law. After all, the law would not have passed had the President decided to veto it, so arguably, his view on what the law meant ought to (within reason) carry some weight for the court interpreting it. This is the argument, anyway.

Bush has quietly been using these statements to bolster presidential powers. It is a calculated, systematic scheme that has gone largely unnoticed (even though these statements are published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents) until recently, when President Bush's used a signing statement to attempt to nullify the recent, controversial McCain amendment regarding torture, which drew some media attention.

Pumping Up the Bush Presidency With Signing Statements

Generally, Bush's signing statements tend to be brief and very broad, and they seldom cite the authority on which the president is relying for his reading of the law. None has yet been tested in court. But they do appear to be bulking up the powers of the presidency. Here are a few examples:

Suppose a new law requires the President to act in a certain manner - for instance, to report to Congress on how he is dealing with terrorism. Bush's signing statement will flat out reject the law, and state that he will construe the law "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

The upshot? It is as if no law had been passed on the matter at all.

Or suppose a new law suggests even the slightest intrusion into the President's undefined "prerogative powers" under Article II of the Constitution, relating to national security, intelligence gathering, or law enforcement. Bush's signing statement will claim that notwithstanding the clear intent of Congress, which has used mandatory language, the provision will be considered as "advisory."

The upshot? It is as if Congress had acted as a mere advisor, with no more formal power than, say, Karl Rove - not as a coordinate and coequal branch of government, which in fact it is.

As Phillip Cooper observes, the President's signing statements are, in some instances, effectively rewriting the laws by reinterpreting how the law will be implemented. Notably, Cooper finds some of Bush's signing statements - and he has the benefit of judging them against his extensive knowledge of other President's signing statements -- "excessive, unhelpful, and needlessly confrontational."

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060113.html

Speech Saturation

Facts awash in a sea of free speech

Establishing fact over opinion is key. And this is very difficult it seems. So then it becomes like playing “Army” as kids – you use toy guns and shout pop pop or bang bang. The game always goes sour when a kid refuses to fall over and die – yelling that you missed him. You have no way to prove him wrong except to yell back, Did not. To which he yells, Did so. This leads to you refusing to die when getting shot, and then the game falls apart.

Keith Olbermann or Bill O'Reilly being able to have a news program in which either can say whatever he wants is equivalent to the above game of “Army” and does not a free society make. We can have the ability to say what we want and still be losing our true freedoms. Because at the point when everyone yells, all at the same time, and everything that anyone disagrees with is labeled as conspiracy theory, freedom of speech has lost it's power and importance.

If you have a container half full of pure, clean drinking water and this water allows people to be free and to live without tyranny, the best way for a government to gain more control without obviously cracking down is to open the flood gates, dumping a never ending supply of polluted water into the container – any purity is diluted.

It is this kind – Hannity, Olbermann, O'Reilly, and the news media in general – of speech saturation that makes for the broken game we now play.