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October 28, 2003

Marijuana smoking damages sperm

BBC NEWS | Health | Marijuana smoking damages sperm

Men who smoke marijuana frequently damage their fertility in several different ways, research suggests.

Scientists at Buffalo University found regular smokers had significantly less seminal fluid, and a lower sperm count.

Their sperm were also more likely to swim too fast too early, leading to burn-out before they reach the egg.

Lead researcher Dr Lani Burkman said: "The bottom line is, the active ingredients in marijuana are doing something to sperm."

Full story...

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Alabama LP Release: Libertarians call for Fuller’s resignation

PRESS RELEASE

Libertarian Party of Alabama • 2330 Highland Ave • Birmingham, AL 35205
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information contact:

Stephen P. Gordon
Vice Chair, LPA
(256) 227-8360
stephen@gordonnet.net

-or-

Jonny Letson
Huntsville District Chair, LPA
(256) 603-2824
jonlet@twintronix.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Libertarians call for Fuller’s resignation

Huntsville - October 26, 2003 - North Alabama libertarians are calling for either answers from, or the removal of, Bill Fuller as the Commissioner of State Department of Human Resources (DHR). Huntsville District Chair of the Libertarian Party of Alabama (LPA) Jonny Letson states, "Bill Fuller, in showing no expression of urgency or major concern in an undelayed reuniting of Marta Alonzo and her infant son, causes me, and I am sure, many other parents, to feel he is lacking in his abilities to act as commissioner over a children's welfare service."

The DHR has become involved in the case of Marta Alonzo, a working Guatemalan mother and her infant son, Javier. For months, Marta, probably aged around seventeen, and Javier, who just turned one, have been placed in separate foster homes. There have been no allegations of child abuse made in this case. Until yesterday, there had be no mention of neglect.

Baby Javier was taken from his home in February while has mother was at work. Two women reportedly walked by the baby’s uncle, who was babysitting, and removed the Javier from his house. The baby had, at this time, just begun treatment for scabies by Dr. Ernie Hendrix.

After the child was taken to the local hospital, he was unnecessarily treated for scabies again, and would have been released from the hospital, if not for the intervention of one of the women who reportedly took the baby from his home.

At this point the DHR became involved. District Judge Jeanie Anderson ordered the Alonzo family to be split up and placed in separate foster homes. There is ongoing debate as to whether the Alonzo’s civil and other legal rights have been violated.

Alonzo was provided a Spanish interpreter, and not one in her native tongue of the Joyabaj dialect of K’iche’ Maya. This is a native American language which has no relationship to Spanish. According to Helen Rivas, an activist for the Hispanic community and an expert on Maya culture, "This girl has never had the opportunity to defend herself or her actions in her own language."

Mike Gibson of the DHR defends the translations with, "We believe in this case Spanish was the appropriate language."

Decatur Attorney Clint Brown wonders how she can communicate with her attorneys. He adds that cases like this illustrate why the Civil Rights Act mandates that any agency which uses federal funding, such as DHR, must provide clients written notice in their primary language of their right to an interpreter.

The Athens News-Courier reports that Alonzo has signed letters written K’iche’ Maya, English and Spanish requesting that she be represented by Brown.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Abuse Protection Reform, maintains that the state has flagrantly violated the R.C. consent decree if the child was removed from his mother with no evidence of abuse or neglect. Wexler added, "And you absolutely never remove a child [from his mother] just because the child’s poverty is being confused with child neglect."

Rivas agrees with Wexler’s assessment, saying, "We cannot take children away from the poor."

Fuller said that he spoke with Alonzo and that she was happy with her court-appointed attorney, Brian Jones. He also said that she cannot choose her own lawyer because she is a minor. Fuller also denied a request from Brown to meet with him.

Brown responded, "We're talking about something as basic as the right to confer with the counsel of your choice."

The Birmingham News reported yesterday that Fuller said the baby was "in such bad shape from neglect" that he was admitted to the hospital. However, the Decatur Daily states that Dr. Hendrix reported that the baby was healthy and there were no signs of the abuse and neglect that usually are cited as reasons for removal of a child. Hendrix also reports that Marta took meticulous care of the baby, who was in good health other than the scabies.

Before being silenced by Judge Anderson, Hendrix detailed his version of the story in the Athens Times-Courier. This accounting is available on the internet here. As Hendrix is now under a gag order, citizens must trust public officials, such as Commissioner Fuller to provide accurate and complete information regarding the case.

The Birmingham News reported that Fuller said, "These DHR caseworkers on the [February] 26th saved his life. There's no question but that he was in imminent danger."

The American Academy of Dermatology states scabies is caused by a mite, and the most significant symptom is serious itching. It is quite common, with an estimated 300 million cases worldwide each year. According to the American Social Health Association, scabies does not usually cause anything more than discomfort and inconvenience. Occasionally, secondary bacterial infections may occur due to aggressive scratching, they add.

Tony Cheek, Libertarian and web master for the el Jaguar internet site agrees with the medical experts, stating, "The kid probably had better chances of being killed by a falling meteor while in his crib."

Stephen Gordon, LPA vice chair stated, "Bill Fuller seems to have had the power to reunite the Alonzo family for some time, and has not done so. I am sure that Fuller would not tolerate such DHR delay had he been separated from his baby for over half a year."

"Clearly, this case of scabies was not life-threatening," said Gordon. "No allegations of child abuse have been made. Fuller needs to immediately provide sufficient information to substantiate his claim that the life of the child was spared by DHR actions, or resign from his office as a consequence of his statement and the refusal of the DHR to allow a breast-feeding baby the comfort of his own mother."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional information: http://al.lp.org/alonzo.htm

Most recent updates:

News: http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/106707334833691.xml

Editorial: http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/opinion/editorials/031026a.shtml

From the platform of the Libertarian Party:

We believe that families and households are private institutions, which should be free from government intrusion and interference. Children [in this case, Marta Alonzo] always should have the right to establish their maturity by assuming administration and protection of their own rights, ending dependency upon their parents or other guardians, and assuming all responsibilities of adulthood. We call for repeal of all "children's codes" or statutes which abridge due process protections for young people.

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Selzer to Libertarians: Support Your Candidates

Received via e-mail...

SUPPORT YOUR CANDIDATES
by Mark Selzer

Libertarians sometimes get impatient and support some candidate from another party that sounds a little Libertarian on some issue or another. This is because they do not see Libertarians taking over the political world yet and they feel this person may be a good compromise. Well before you do that remember that if it was not for uncompromising Libertarians being on the ballot those politicians probably would not even be aware of our ideas. Uncompromising Libertarians on the ballot taking up a percentage of the vote have kept those ideas alive and influencing the politicians in the old and the new parties.

Also, why would someone run as a Libertarian taking up their valuable time and money if they can not count on your support and your vote? How will we attract capable and/or wealthy and attractive candidates to carry the Libertarian torch if you are not going to give them your vote and your loyalty?

So next time you are tempted to vote for the lesser of two evils rather than the Libertarian just remember the lesion of the last presidential election. So many people who wanted smaller government decided to vote for GW Bush because he said he wanted to cut taxes. But now just like all the times before Republicans have said that, once he got into office he raised taxes through the roof while saying he is lowering them. Not only has GW doubled and quadrupled social spending in the U.S. he has also put almost everyone in Afghanistan and Iraq on welfare too. Instead of fighting terrorists he has decided to put them all on welfare, food stamps and subsidized medical care as well as giving them a cushy government job. 2 out of every 10 people in Iraq will be getting a well paying government job on the backs of U.S. taxpayers. Thanks to GW and his fellow comrades in the Republican Party Iraq will soon be a worker's paradise. GW has added about $5000 per year per person to the tax bill of every American for the next 10 years. So don't get fooled again, vote Libertarian 110% of the time.

I have seen some Libertarians get impatient on social issues and think that some other party may make more progress on civil rights and point out that more Democrats voted to end the Federal prosecution of medical marijuana cases than Republicans. Or because more Democrats are against the war. Well do you think they would be as strongly with us on those issues or others if we were not keeping it alive and keeping the pressure on them by being on the ballot for 30 years pushing our point of view? I think not.

I have also seen Libertarians join some other flash in the pan third party because they think that they have a better chance than us of bringing about change. Well Libertarians have seen many third parties come and go in the 30 years and we will still be here to bury the next one.

So next time you see a Libertarian candidate at a supper club or a convention thank them for carrying the torch for you and better yet, volunteer to help their campaign or donate to it. All they get for their efforts is your support and appreciation, so lets give it to them.

By voting Libertarian you amplify your vote by a hundred times. Let us say you joined the Democrats to turn them around on the drug war and civil rights or the Republicans to make them really become the small government party. This would be futile because you will never get to the 60 or 70 percent mark it would take to turn those parties around. You will just be de-clawed and de-fanged and help to add your support, numbers and votes to the people who are in control of those parties who are raising taxes and taking away your civil rights. But as a Libertarian you can through a big government politician out of office with only one or two percent of the vote.

The Republican and Democratic parties are like ships sinking in a mire of big government bureaucracy and by getting aboard you are just adding your weight and helping them sink faster, no matter what your intentions are when you decided to join. Your voice, even though it may be the opposite of the people in charge of that party, will just be used to shovel more coal on the fire to help them go faster down the track towards an ever bigger left or right wing big brother. Only outside those parties will you be able to derail that train.

So lets keep our eyes on the prize and understand that we are a minority opinion and we will not get that opinion heard by adding our voice to someone that disagrees with us, in whole or in part, and who is part of the big government machine.

Mark Selzer
Southern Vice Chair
California Libertarian Party

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 27, 2003

Celebrities to try their hand at Israeli-Arab diplomacy

I'm sure the popular thing will be to denigrate this effort, but I think, why not applaud it, and wish them the best? The intro of this article, for example, all-but sneers at the celebrities for trying to sit at the big diplomats' table. But note what the article also concedes, twice in the first two paragraphs: the big diplomats have failed. So I'd say they hardly have more stature in terms of this conflict than Hollywood celebrities, or even you or I.

After Tony and Kofi fail, Brad and Jennifer try Mid-East diplomacy

By Inigo Gilmore in Jerusalem
(Filed: 26/10/2003)

Bill Clinton failed, Tony Blair drew a blank and Kofi Annan made little progress. But now a team of Hollywood film stars is about to visit the Middle East on a private peace mission, in the belief that their charms will work magic on the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Brad Pitt, his wife, Jennifer Aniston, and Danny DeVito are among the stars who aim to succeed where world statesmen have stumbled.

Full story...

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 70%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 26, 2003

Gary Coleman to be political analyst on comedy radio network

Gary Coleman to be political analyst on comedy radio network

Posted on Mon, Oct. 13, 2003
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Former childhood actor Gary Coleman didn't win California's recall election, but he'll still get a political platform on the new Hollywood-based All Comedy Radio network.

Coleman, 35, has been tapped to become the network's political analyst and said his experience as a candidate will come in handy in this new assignment.

Full story

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 90%

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

U.S. Soldier Killed in Attack on Baghdad Hotel where Wolfowitz was staying

U.S. Soldier Killed in Attack on Baghdad Hotel

By REUTERS

BAGHDAD, Oct. 26 -- Guerrillas blasted rockets at Baghdad's most heavily fortified hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying on Sunday, killing an American soldier and wounding 15 people, U.S. officials said.

Wolfowitz, who escaped unhurt, vowed that the United States would not be cowed into abandoning Iraq.

But the bold attack on the hotel with the tightest security in Baghdad, if not the Middle East, undermined Washington's claim that it is steadily defeating the guerrillas who have killed 109 U.S. soldiers since President George W. Bush declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1.

Full story...

TruthOut permalink

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 23, 2003

Georgia runs from the MATRIX

Georgia runs from the MATRIX

By Ashlee Vance in Chicago
Posted: 22/10/2003 at 19:45 GMT

The state of Georgia has pulled out of the U.S. Department of Justice sponsored MATRIX information collection program, leaving data only on its felons and sexual offenders behind in the Orwellian database.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has cited both privacy concerns and costs as the two key reasons the state will no longer participate in the MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) pilot project. ...

Full story

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 55%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 20, 2003

October 18, 2003

The story behind "Eight Men Out"

An Account of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox Scandal and 1921 Trial

(From University of Missouri-Kansas City Professor Doug Linder's Famous Trials page. The account is just one item in a very thorough overview of the whole incident, with lots of background info, images, etc.)

Watching the movie Eight Men Out made me curious to find out the full story of the 1919 "Black Sox" World series scandal. The movie moves along pretty quickly, and there are a lot of people involved in the story, so it can be pretty confusing. I recommend keeping its IMDB movie page handy, and reading this account -- that should help you piece it all together. From the way it's told on that page, it sounds like the movie was extremely faithful to the real story, and included almost all the key elements. It adds up to a semi-confusing movie if you don't know the backstory, but I think director/screenwriter John Sayles made the right choice in including all that detail. If it can draw in a relatively baseball-neutral person like me, it must be pretty decent. Of course, the cast of many familiar faces helps.

(As a side note, Professor Linder's Famous Trials page, which I discovered as part of this search, looks to be pretty excellent. It appears to have accounts of some depth of 35 different trials of import throughout history -- from socrates to O.J. Simpson. Not likely you'll see those two together in many other places. ;-))

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 16, 2003

LP: America owes Rush Limbaugh a debt of gratitude

LP Press Release:

America owes talk host Rush Limbaugh a debt of gratitude, Libertarians say

October 16, 2003

WASHINGTON, DC -- The entire nation owes radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh a debt of gratitude, Libertarians say, because his ordeal has exposed every drug warrior in America as a rank hypocrite.

"One thing we don't hear from American politicians very often is silence," said Joe Seehusen, Libertarian Party executive director. "By refusing to criticize Rush Limbaugh, every drug warrior has just been exposed as a shameless, despicable hypocrite.

"And that's good news, because the next time they do speak up, there'll be no reason for anyone to listen."

The revelation that Limbaugh had become addicted to painkillers -- drugs he is accused of procuring illegally from his Palm Beach housekeeper -- has caused a media sensation ever since the megastar's shocking, on-air confession last week.

As the Limbaugh saga continues, here's an important question for Americans to ask, Libertarians say: Why are all the drug warriors suddenly so silent?

"Republican and Democratic politicians have written laws that have condemned more than 400,000 Americans to prison for committing the same 'crime' as Rush Limbaugh," Seehusen pointed out. "If this pill-popping pontificator deserves a get-out-of-jail-free card, these drug warriors had better explain why."

Given their longstanding support for the Drug War, it's fair to ask:

Why haven't President George Bush or his tough-on-crime attorney general, John Ashcroft, uttered a word criticizing Limbaugh's law-breaking?

Why aren't drug czar John P. Walters or his predecessor, Barry McCaffrey, lambasting Limbaugh as a menace to society and a threat to "our children?"

Why aren't federal DEA agents storming Limbaugh's $30 million Florida mansion in a frantic search for criminal evidence?

Why haven't federal, state, and local police agencies seized the celebrity's homes and luxury cars under asset-forfeiture laws?

Finally, why aren't bloviating blabbermouths like William Bennett publicly explaining how America would be better off if Limbaugh were prosecuted, locked in a steel cage and forced to abandon his wife, his friends, and his career?

The answer is obvious, Seehusen said: "America's drug warriors are shameless hypocrites who believe in one standard of justice for ordinary Americans and another for themselves, their families and their political allies.

"That alone should completely discredit them."

But there's an even more disturbing possibility, Seehusen said: that the people who are prosecuting the Drug War don't even believe in its central premise -- which is that public safety requires that drug users be jailed.

"The Bushes and Ashcrofts and McCaffreys of the world may believe, correctly, that individuals fighting a drug addiction deserve medical, not criminal treatment," he said. "That would explain why they're not demanding that Limbaugh be jailed.

"But if that's the case, these politicians have spent decades tearing apart American families for their own political gain. And that's an unforgivable crime."

Posted by Lance Brown at 08:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 14, 2003

Abandoning Blogs- Blogger Demographics and Activity Trends

From BlogSearchEngine.com:

Abandoning Blogs- Blogger Demographics and Activity Trends

For the BloggerCon 2003 conference at the Berkman Center of Harvard Law School, Perseus Development Corp. randomly surveyed 3,634 blogs (frequent publications of personal thoughts and Web links, also known as Web logs) on eight leading blog-hosting services to develop a model of blog populations. Based on this research, Perseus estimates that 4.12 million blogs have been created on these services: Blog-City, BlogSpot, Diaryland, LiveJournal, Pitas, TypePad, Weblogger and Xanga.

Based on the rapid growth rate demonstrated by the leading services, Perseus expects the number of hosted blogs created to exceed five million by the end of 2003 and to exceed ten million by the end of 2004.

Abandoned Blogs

The most dramatic finding from the survey was that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned. ...

Full story

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 11, 2003

Unrest in Shiite district over attacks

CNN.com - Unrest in Shiite district over attacks - Oct. 10, 2003

Crowd chants 'No, no America'
Friday, October 10, 2003 Posted: 3:56 PM EDT (1956 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Anti-U.S. feeling swirled among worshippers and demonstrators Friday in the sprawling Shiite slum where two U.S. soldiers were gunned down and eight Iraqi police officers were killed in a suicide attack a day earlier.

Such violence has so far been rare in the neighborhood, Sadr City, which was a base of anti-Saddam Hussein sentiment.

But the depressed district now may become a center of resistance to the U.S. occupation, and a powerful imam with a huge power base there, Muqtada al-Sadr, has taken an anti-American stand.

...

As many as 6,000 worshippers gathered in front of the Sadr City municipal offices near the ambush site for Friday prayers and a sermon was delivered by an al-Sadr aide, Sheikh Abdel-Hadi al-Daraji.

"America claims to be the founder of freedom and democracy. That is wrong. Instead, it is nothing but a terrorist organization that leads the world through its terrorism and its reckless arrogance," the cleric said.

"It is forbidden for the American forces to enter Sadr City, especially for the next few days because the sons of Sadr City reject their presence."

The crowds chanted "No, No America!" ...

Full story

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .1
Learning Percentage: 65%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What do they mean by "Talking Points"?

If you've ever wondered what the news pundits mean when they accuse one party or another (or one side or another) of handing out "talking points" that everybody on that side takes its cues from...well, here's an excellent example. In this case it happens to be from the Democrat side of things, but they aren't unique in that practice.

Also, for what it's worth, hardcore talking points come out more often than once a month, or however long Democracy Corps waits between issuing these memos. Real, full-bore talking points come out as often as there's something new to be talking about. Talking points also come in many shapes and sizes. I get an e-mail every couplefew days from each of the Bipartisan parties with some form of topical critique of the other side, or promotion of their own -- sort of a soft, massified form of talking points.

Democracy Corps "Core Message"
Here's an archived copy of the one I just read, dated September 26th, 2003.

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mexico politicians fear Schwarzenegger is bad news for migrants

Mexico fears Schwarzenegger is bad news for migrants

by Lisa J. Adams
Associated Press
Oct. 9, 2003 07:45 AM

MEXICO CITY - Mexican federal lawmakers are bemoaning Hollywood action star Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as California governor and issued a stern call to the novice politician to respect the rights of Mexican migrants in North America's largest state.

"This is something about which Mexican migrants should be very concerned," said Rep. Carlos Jimenez, secretary of the foreign relations committee in Mexico's lower house of Congress.

"For the Mexican community in California, which forms such an important part of the state, it could represent a sorry defeat," he said Wednesday. "The very discriminatory message that he has delivered at certain times against Mexican migrants is not something that encourages us. It's totally the opposite."

...

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 35%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 10, 2003

Fake cops stopping, terrifying motorists

Fake cops stopping, terrifying motorists
Shots fired, but no one hurt in incidents around Tucson

By L. Anne Newell
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Men impersonating law enforcement officers have pulled over at least three people since mid-September, shooting at one driver and forcing another to run into the desert at gunpoint, officials said Wednesday.

No one was injured in the incidents, and authorities believe all three were committed by the same two men, using fake police lights to pull drivers to the side of the road. Officials put out information on the incidents to warn the public.

"Obviously, they're still out there," said Marana police Sgt. Tim Brunenkant, whose agency recorded one of the incidents. "We don't know what their motive is, if it's drug-related or if it's something just to strike fear in people."

...

Full story

Here's a less in-depth story about the same set of incidents.

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2.5
Learning Percentage: 75%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Student Suspended For Having Emergency Roadside Kit

Student Suspended For Having Emergency Roadside Kit
Kit Mom Gave Teen Contained Utility Knife

CORONA, Calif. -- Lori Bollong says she wants to warn other parents about the contents of emergency roadside kits after her son was suspended from school because of it.

Lori Bollong bought the kit for her 17-year-old son who drives 20 miles to an after-school job. But inside the new, unopened kit was a utility knife.

"According to them it's a weapon... no tolerance for weapons," said Lori Bollong.

Drug-sniffing dogs at Santiago High School detected Bollong's asthma inhalers inside his truck parked at school. That's when security opened a bag behind the passenger's seat and found the utility knife....

Full story

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 70%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 09, 2003

Decision on touch-screen voting suit may take weeks

It seems pretty obvious that there should be a paper backup in the touch-screen voting process. The voting process is not the place to cut corners or take chances. Or at least it shouldn't be.

Decision on voting suit may take weeks
Woman wants touch-screen system replaced with one providing audit trail

By Darrell Smith
The Desert Sun
October 9th, 2003


A federal appeals court Wednesday heard arguments from a Palm Desert woman challenging touch-screen voting, but it could be weeks before a decision is rendered.

A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Pasadena agreed to hear arguments in Susan Marie Weber's 2001 lawsuit against then-California Secretary of State Bill Jones and Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend over the touch screens.

...
"Are (touch-screens) more accurate? That’s the crux of the defense’s case, but there’s no audit trail," Weber said. "You wouldn’t accept an ATM that wouldn’t give you a receipt. We want a document to verify (the vote)."

It will likely be weeks before the court’s decision, but Weber has not ruled out an appeal to a larger, en banc panel of the court if the three-member panel affirms the 2002 ruling to toss the lawsuit.
...

Full story

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.3
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Touch-screen lawsuit continues

Vote lawsuit continues

By Darrell Smith
The Desert Sun
October 8th, 2003

Susan Marie Weber will face a federal appeals panel today in Pasadena.

It's the latest chapter in the Palm Desert woman's three-year battle challenging the constitutionality of paperless touch-screen voting systems.

Weber filed suit against then-Secretary of State Bill Jones and Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend in 2001 to have the system -- used in Riverside and three other California counties -- replaced or supplanted by another system.

A federal judge in 2002 dismissed the suit.

District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson agreed with election officials Jones and Townsend that the machines met the State of California’s certification process for voting machines.

Secretary of State and Riverside County elections officials have since said the electronic voting machines are accurate and reliable, have safeguards programmed into them and meet the requirements of federal and state commissions.

But the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel agreed to hear oral arguments today in the suit.
...

Whatever happens today in Pasadena, Susan Marie Weber should be seen as a pioneer, Alexander said

"The right to have a paper ballot is the voting rights struggle of our time," Alexander said.

"If she wins, it could fundamentally shake up the foundation of electronic voting. If she loses, the courts can be sure that more (challenges) will follow."

Full story

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 25%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Driving dangerously with the Patriot Act

Driving dangerously with the Patriot Act

By Pat M. Holt

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft is running a dead heat with A. Mitchell Palmer, attorney general in the Wilson administration, for the distinction of being the worst in that job in the history of the United States.

One of the duties of the attorney general as head of the Justice Department is to protect the Constitution. Both Mr. Ashcroft and Palmer found that the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, got in their way more than it protected anything. It has gotten in Ashcroft's way in his pursuit of terrorists after Sept. 11, especially those who dress differently and practice a different religion. Palmer's crusade was the pursuit of communists, in the aftermath of World War I. He especially went after people with what to him were funny names from Eastern Europe. He tended to equate liberals with communists.

Ashcroft's vehicle is the USA Patriot Act, which Congress, abdicating its own duties of vigilance, passed with a whoop and a holler in the days after Sept. 11. Even the name of this odious legislation is offensive. It implies that the purpose of the act is to promote patriotism and that those not cooperating with it are somehow less patriotic.

...

Full column

Pat M. Holt is former chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L1.1
Freedom Rating: 1.1
Learning Percentage: 1%

Posted by Lance Brown at 08:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Philly Mayor Tries to Regroup Campaign

Philly Mayor Tries to Regroup Campaign

Oct 9, 11:19 PM EDT

By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Mayor John F. Street tried to get his re-election campaign back on track Thursday after FBI bugging devices were discovered in his office, insisting that he has done nothing wrong and that prosecutors have assured him he is not the target of an investigation.

He and other politicians called on the FBI to say who is being investigated - something the bureau refused to do for the third straight day.

"I just can't entertain a never-ending series of questions about this," Street said, urging the FBI to "lift the clouds" over City Hall.

Read It Rating: 2
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 08:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Philadelphia Mayor Finds Office Bugged

Philadelphia Mayor Finds Office Bugged
Device Linked to FBI Probe of Corruption

By Robert Strauss and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A01

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 8 -- A federal corruption investigation was inadvertently exposed here this week when a secret listening device was discovered in the City Hall office of Mayor John F. Street.

The bug was uncovered Tuesday during an electronic sweep of Street's office by the city police department, a sweep officials said was performed routinely every few months.

Its discovery set off a political firestorm when local FBI officials announced that the bug was not part of any electoral espionage -- Street (D) is locked in an acrimonious campaign with Republican Sam Katz -- but would not say how they knew that.

"The FBI doesn't confirm or deny investigations," said special agent Linda Vizi, the FBI spokeswoman in Philadelphia. "We were contacted by police that they found the device and responded. We will confirm, however, that we have ruled out the possibility of it being connected to the election campaign."

...

Full story

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .4
Learning Percentage: 80%

Posted by Lance Brown at 08:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dowd: Is Condi Gaslighting Rummy?

Is Condi Gaslighting Rummy?
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: October 9, 2003

Excerpt:

The administration that never let you see it sweat is sweating, as two of its control freaks openly tug over control. The president's foreign policy duenna and his grumpy grampy over at the Pentagon are suddenly mud wrestling.

Women who are discouraged at the ascension of Conan the Barbarian in Cal-ee-fornia can take heart. In this delicious gender-bender, Condoleezza Rice triumphs as the macho infighter, driving Rummy into a diva-like meltdown.

The trigger was Monday's coverage of the Iraq Stabilization Group (a.k.a. Fat Chance Group); the group is a desperate bid to get a grip on Baghdad before the campaign starts by transferring power for postwar Iraq from the Pentagon to the national security adviser's office inside the White House.

Condi used a trick she learned from Rummy: pre-emption. She outflanked the famous Washington infighter by talking about the new alignment to The New York Times before he had a chance to object.

It was the first time the chesty defense czar — who had tried to freeze out the softies at State, which the Pentagon sneeringly refers to as "the Department of Nice" — had been downgraded by the president and outmaneuvered by a colleague.

Full column

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Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: L3.5
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 25%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

California dreamin' wakes the rest of us up to reality

California dreamin' wakes the rest of us up to reality

Commentary by Bill O'Reilly
August 27, 2003

Excerpt:

The polls show that even many poor people aren't buying the class warfare stuff anymore. We are all in this together. When the power went off, everybody got hosed. And when al Qaeda strikes, it doesn't matter what your tax bracket is.

As with most things in life, we have now been warned. The collapse of California's political system, the blackout, and Sept. 11, 2001, have all been signals sent. We Americans better wise up and start electing people who have a sense of urgency about protecting us and solving problems. For Americans, remaining in the dark is simply not an option anymore.

Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: .03
Learning Percentage: 3%

Posted by Lance Brown at 04:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bush aides admit Iraq missteps

Bush aides admit Iraq missteps
Say estimates on oil revenue, damage off

By Wayne Washington, Globe Staff, 9/9/2003

WASHINGTON -- One day after President Bush gave the nation a cautious view of rebuilding efforts in Iraq, senior administration officials for the first time acknowledged that they vastly underestimated the damage to the country's infrastructure and greatly overestimated the amount of oil revenue that could be used to help rebuild the war-torn country.

Yesterday's sobering assessments came as members of Congress are contemplating Bush's request for $87 billion to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan -- and call into question earlier pronouncements by administration officials about the size and cost of the job.

The disclosures, coming on the heels of Bush's prime-time address, mark the administration's strongest acknowledgment to date that it failed to fully comprehend the complexities of rebuilding Iraq.
...

Read It Rating: 3.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 04:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Wider War -- Unless The Democrats Speak Out

A Wider War -- Unless The Democrats Speak Out

By Paul Craig Roberts
September 08, 2003

I blame the Democrats for the "war on terror." I know the neoconservatives planned the conquest of the Middle East long before the events of September 11 gave them an excuse. Internet pundits are familiar with the blueprint for American Empire put together by the neocon think tank, Project for the New American Century. Indeed, everyone in the world seems to know about it except the American public.

Still, the Democrats are to blame. It was the Democrats' war on Bush that created the "war on terror."
...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: .1
Learning Percentage: 8%

Posted by Lance Brown at 04:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Posse Comitatus Gets New Attention

1878 Military Law Gets New Attention

by T.A. Badger, Associated Press, 24 November 2001

SAN ANTONIO -- America's military is largely prohibited from acting as a domestic police force, but with the increased fears of terrorism, some experts say it's time to rethink those restrictions.

"Our way of life has forever changed," wrote Sen. John Warner, R-Va., in a letter last month to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Should this law now be changed to enable our active-duty military to more fully join other domestic assets in this war against terrorism?"

The law, known as the Posse Comitatus Act, was championed by Southern lawmakers in 1878 who were angry about the widespread use of the Army in post-Civil War law enforcement.
It currently bans the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from participating in arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other police-type activity on U.S. soil. The Coast Guard and National Guard troops under the control of state governors are excluded from the act.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying in October before the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that it might be desirable to give federal troops more of a role in domestic policing to prevent terrorism.
...

Full story

Thanks to Post911TimeLine for this link.

And here's a link to an article about the same issue when it popped up over 6 months later, with the formation of the Department of Homeland Security.

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 20%

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We report, you get it wrong

I recommend checking out the actual questionnaire as background material for this article. The report itself is right here. I didn't read that.

We report, you get it wrong

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are likely to be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a major new study released in Washington on Thursday.

And the more you watch the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News channel, in particular, the more likely it is that your perceptions about the war are wrong, adds the report by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

....

Full story

Thanks to Post911TimeLine for the link.

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating:0
Learning Percentage: 35%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Hampshire free-staters prepare for newcomers

New Hampshire free-staters prepare for newcomers

By Kate McCann, Associated Press Writer, 10/4/2003

CONCORD, N.H. -- New Hampshire members of the Free State Project were still celebrating when their phones started ringing and the e-mails started coming.

Most had worked for months to promote New Hampshire over nine rivals as a prospective home for 20,000 project members from around the country. But Wednesday's victory announcement caught many unprepared.
...

"It's just going nuts," said Babiarz, a database consultant from Grafton. "New Hampshire businesses are calling me asking how they can help facilitate the move. People are asking where's the best place to live."

Babiarz said he even got an e-mail from a moving company trying to drum up business.

Granite Staters among the 5,400 free staters nationwide will meet Sunday in Bow to plan and assign tasks such as directing newcomers to real estate offices, schools and business opportunities.
...

Full story

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

We're Number One ... But Is That Good?

We're Number One ... But Is That Good?

by Jacob G. Hornberger, October 3, 2003

Did you know that the United States has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, that the U.S. inmate population has quadrupled since 1980 to two million people, that $46 billion a year is spent on U.S. prisons, that more than half of the incarcerations are for nonviolent offenses, and that blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are over-represented throughout the U.S. prison system? That's right -- believe it or not, our nation has a higher incarceration rate than North Korea, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Burma, or Iran.

At the rate that U.S. officials are rounding up people in Iraq, however, it's entirely possible that Iraq could overtake the United States and vault into first place, especially given that U.S. occupational officials are exercising unfettered and omnipotent power to incarcerate anyone they want -- without charges, arrest warrants, indictments, convictions, or any judicial supervision whatsoever. And the number of inmates in Iraq is almost certain to grow, given that no one except family members, who are powerless to do anything about it, seems to care.

...

Full column

Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Culture Based on Murder

This essay is excellent.

A Culture Based on Murder

by Sean Haugh

On September 3rd, Paul Hill was executed by the taxpayers of Florida for the murder of abortionist John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett, and the wounding of June Barrett.

The murder of Paul Hill adds a new level to the anti-death penalty slogan, "why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" His sad case, and the reaction to it all across the country, paints a portrait of a society lost in amoral murderous solipsism. Or, in simpler terms, we see killing someone as the easiest solution to just about any problem.

At every level of this warped tale, you find someone who is utterly convinced that their brand of murder is completely justified, and so hypocritical that they feel justified in killing anyone who opposes them.

...

Full column

Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mexican Government snipers started 1968 massacre, documents say

Government snipers started 1968 massacre, documents say

Wednesday, October 1, 2003

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- At least 360 snipers under government command fired into a crowd of protesters, touching off a massacre 35 years ago that scarred a generation of Mexicans, according to once-secret government files obtained by The Associated Press.

Government officials at the time said armed dissidents provoked the deadly confrontation on October 2, 1968 -- 10 days before the start of the Olympics hosted by Mexico -- by firing on police during a protest against Mexico's lack of democracy. Estimates on the number of people killed range from 38 to several hundred.

As Mexicans hold an annual march Thursday to mark the anniversary of the attack, there is growing evidence backing up claims by student protesters that government operatives initiated the massacre.
...

Full story

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 85%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Local Peace Group Infiltrated By Government Agent

Local Peace Group Infiltrated By Government Agent

By Mike Rhodes
October 4, 2003

Peace Fresno was infiltrated by an agent working for the Fresno Sheriff's Department. Aaron Kilner, known by Peace Fresno activists as Aaron Stokes, attended several Peace Fresno meetings. Peace Fresno activist Nicholas DeGraff remembers him taking voluminous notes and several members say they saw him at peace vilgils held at Shaw and Blackstone. He was also on the bus local anti-globalization activists took to attend the WTO ministerial-level conference on Agricultural Science and Technology demonstration in Sacramento in June 2003.

Aaron Kilner died in a motorcycle accident on August 30, 2003. In his obituary in The Fresno Bee he was identified as a member of the Fresno County Sheriff's department. The obituary went on to say that he was "assigned to the anti-terrorist team." Local activists believe that this "anti-terrorist team" is, in fact, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) that has recently been formed in this area.. When members of Peace Fresno saw the picture and read of Kilner's association with law enforcement they began piecing the story together.

The infiltration by law enforcement of progressive community groups in Fresno and throughout the country has long been used to disrupt legitimate political work. This disruption occurs by sowing seeds of mistrust among members, agents often promote discord within the group, and sometimes encourage illegal or violent actions. Agent provocateurs have been know to instigate violence at demonstrations, giving the police an excuse to attack protestors.

...

Full story

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Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 45%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Capital Punishment and Texas

Capital Punishment and Texas
by Kathryn A. Graham

Interestingly enough, I had never been opposed to capital punishment, or at least, not in theory. Yes, I'm a Libertarian, and most Libertarians I have met are opposed to such taking of life, but I'd always reasoned that the person being executed had most definitely initiated the force by committing a capital crime in the first place. In addition, I felt (and, in some ways, still do feel) that keeping a person in a cage for life was cruel and unusual punishment far beyond execution.

Boy, have I ever received an education! Yep, that's right. This very stubborn and opinionated gal has had her mind changed 180 degrees, and in record time.

You see, I live in Texas.
...

Full column

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 45%

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Sheriff Hege locked and loaded on the radio

This article was brought up by someone who posted a comment on my first Sheriff Hege-related post.

Sheriff Hege locked and loaded on the radio

BY JENNIFER RIDDLE
SALISBURY POST
June 27, 1999

Sheriff Gerald Hege is invading the air waves. This time it's FM and modern rock.

In true Hege fashion, the infamous Davidson County "bad" boy ripped onto WKZL 107.5 as the Friday morning show guest host.

He wore his uniform, a Team 101 hat and was "locked and loaded" with a gun on his hip and a microphone in his hand.

"Bad to the Bone" blasted in the background as the sheriff informed listeners, "Hege's in the house."

The Greensboro-based radio station usually plays the top-ranking Murphy in the Morning show from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. but Jack Murphy, the show's host, was on vacation.

"I didn't have any idea that Murphy was going to get Sheriff Hege to host the show until I heard him talking about it on the radio," said Jeff McHugh, program director. "Considering who Hege is, it should make for an interesting show."

...

Read It Rating: 2
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

RVers who are spoiling a good thing

RVers who are spoiling a good thing

RVers who "camp" long term in Wal-Mart parking lots are ruining the privilege for the rest of us.

By Chuck Woodbury, editor
FreeCampgrounds.com

A woman just wrote to me boasting of how she stays overnight in her motorhome at one Wal-Mart parking lot after another, usually for a few days at a time. At one store, she said, she met a couple that "had been there for two months."

Two months! I was horrified!

...

Wal-Mart, founded by an RVer named Sam Walton, as corporate policy, allows RVers in self-contained units to spend a free night in its parking lots. There are no formal rules and regulations — only informal ones like "blend in, make no noise, don't pull out awnings and barbecue grills, and don't leave behind any trash."

It's understood by 99% of all RVers that Wal-Marts are not campgrounds. They are retail stores with big parking lots with management kind enough to let RVers stay the night when they are in need of some sleep and have nowhere else to go. But that other one percent is basically comprised of ignorant freeloaders, who possess no common sense and who will eventually blow the opportunity for a free stay for the rest of us.

...

The woman who wrote me today seemed to think the freeloading slobs she met were to be admired. I guess you can figure out what I think.

...

Full column

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 10%

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Neophyte Gorge

This author is trying a bit too hard, with too much imagery and sarcasm. She did however provide a link to a page that tells you how to grow your own botulinim bacteria among the many embedded links in her column. So there's that.

Neophyte Gorge

by Karen Kwiatkowski

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .4
Learning Percentage: 25%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Foreign Views of U.S. Darken Since Sept. 11

Foreign Views of U.S. Darken Since Sept. 11

By Richard Bernstein
The New York Times
Thursday 11 September 2003

BERLIN - In the two years since Sept. 11, 2001, the view of the United States as a victim of terrorism that deserved the world's sympathy and support has given way to a widespread vision of America as an imperial power that has defied world opinion through unjustified and unilateral use of military force.

"A lot of people had sympathy for Americans around the time of 9/11, but that's changed," said Cathy Hearn, 31, a flight attendant from South Africa, expressing a view commonly heard in many countries. "They act like the big guy riding roughshod over everyone else."

In interviews by Times correspondents from Africa to Europe to Southeast Asia, one point emerged clearly: The war in Iraq has had a major impact on public opinion, which has moved generally from post-9/11 sympathy to post-Iraq antipathy, or at least to disappointment over what is seen as the sole superpower's inclination to act pre-emptively, without either persuasive reasons or United Nations approval.

To some degree, the resentment is centered on the person of President Bush, who is seen by many of those interviewed, at best, as an ineffective spokesman for American interests and, at worst, as a gunslinging cowboy knocking over international treaties and bent on controlling the world's oil, if not the entire world.
...

Full story

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 20%

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October 08, 2003

Clark's Run: Net Made Him Do It

Wired News: Clark's Run: Net Made Him Do It
By Suneel Ratan

02:00 AM Sep. 17, 2003 PT

Gen. Wesley Clark's decision to enter the Democratic presidential race is another sign of the Internet's growing influence on American politics, political experts and campaign officials say.

Clark apparently decided to run following an elaborate Internet-based draft movement that grew on its own, without much help from the candidate himself. The organization had established offices in all 50 states, run radio ads in New Hampshire and garnered nearly $1.6 million in pledges as of Tuesday afternoon, according to one of its organizers, John Hlinko.

"This was all accomplished for $50,000 to $60,000," said Hlinko, who helped found DraftWesleyClark.com, one of several organizations working over the past six months to press Clark into the race.

Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline, a Web-based political consulting firm, said the movement to draft Clark, combined with the Net-based insurgent Democratic candidacy of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, illustrates how the rules of American politics are being rewritten in real time.

"The Internet is increasingly becoming the place where politics happens in America," said Noble. "Wesley Clark was at least partially persuaded to run because of the response generated online in a remarkably short period of time."
...

Full story

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 3
Learning Percentage: 25%

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Bootleg Butts and the Power Wonks

"Bootleg Butts and the Power Wonks"

by Garry Reed

High Tax Blamed For Rise In Smoking

My first reaction to that Daily Mail headline was the classic furrowed-brow slack-jawed squinty-eyed "Huh?" How does raising cigarette taxes cause increased smoking? Wouldn't higher taxes cause decreased smoking? Eventually, 100 watts of GE Soft White winked on above my head. Of course. Smuggling. Seems the Brits had just discovered the Law of Unintended Consequences. Jacking up cigarette taxes made it profitable to sell bootlegged smokes on the black market (or what libertarians fittingly call the Free Market).

But while smuggling makes cigarettes cheaper, how does it increase the actual number of smokers? One way, the article enlightens us, is the practice of hawking cigarettes out the back of vans to school children. Surprise! Smuggling drives out legitimate business and attracts less virtuous entrepreneurs.
...

Full column

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: .4
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Repairing California Government

Repairing California Government

By David S. Broder
Wednesday, October 8, 2003; Page A29

Now that the miserable recall experience is over, California can finally get serious about repairing the damaged structure of its government.

...

One would hope that Californians would draw the right conclusion and be less willing to sign the next recall petition. But the reality is that the Progressive-era trio of populist experiments in direct democracy -- initiative, referendum and recall -- remains wildly popular with millions in the state.

That being the case, the next two California elections are likely to feature initiatives proposing serious structural changes in the way the state government operates and the way people gain office in Sacramento.

...

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: ?
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 45%

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Blog has become former actor's portal into new career

Blog has become former actor's portal into new career

Posted on Sun, Oct. 05, 2003

By Dan Gillmor
Mercury News Technology Columnist

Wil Wheaton is not, repeat not, Wesley Crusher.

Wheaton, 31, isn't sorry he played the role of the brainy but somewhat annoying teenager on ``Star Trek: The Next Generation'' back in the 1980s and early 1990s. He's proud of it.

But some fans of the show utterly loathed the Crusher character. A once-notorious Internet discussion group was called ``alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die'' -- and the tone of the postings fit the newsgroup's title.

In 2001, the Pasadena resident launched a Weblog (www.wilwheaton.net), in part to ``undo a lot of the misconceptions directed toward me because of the character I played on Star Trek,'' he says.

His online journal mixes intensely personal observations with commentary on modern life, politics, technology and entertainment. It tells you a lot about who he really is: a thoughtful and intelligent family man, with a bent toward geekiness and political activism.

The blog has become Wheaton's portal into a new career as a writer. And Wheaton has established a new kind of connection with his audience.
...

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fineman: Recall Lessons for the President

The important part of this article, for me, was this:

There is a straight line of voter protest running from Ross Perot through John McCain and on to the Internet-based campaigns of Wesley Clark and even Howard Dean. To some extent, all were or are powered by a sense of voter alienation from the centers of authority in government politics—whether those center are in Sacramento or Washington, D.C. The bigger and more remote the government, the more ignored and misunderstood the voters feel.

He left out Jesse Ventura, but the point remains. That point -- that voters are super-willing to embrace the an 'outsider' candidate who has momentum -- is one of the driving factors that inspired me to run for president so long ago.

Recall Lessons for the President
Voter alienation will not stop at voting booths in California
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek

Tuesday 07 October 2003

It would be nice to think that the ending of Election Day here will bring peace to the politics of California, and to the country. It would be nice, but wrong. Don't expect an end to partisan rancor, voter anger and alienation, here or elsewhere. This state's political warfare will resume long before Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger actually takes office. And the same forces that are shaking Sacramento could materialize on the doorstep of the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

There are a lot of reasons. Starting with the winning candidate, here are some:

...

Full article

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Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: R2
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 5%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How to slip new taxes past skeptical voters

This came to me via e-mail, and seeing as how I can't find a web copy -- even on the Mercury-News's site -- I'm creating one. It's an interesting article, in a polisci-ops sense.

Published Tuesday, October 12, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News

How to slip new taxes past skeptical voters
One political consultant says not to use the t-word

BY BARRY WITT
Mercury News Staff Writer

Next time a local city council asks voters to approve a tax increase, don't expect officials to mention the word ``tax'' and don't expect to hear much about the issue at all.

Those were among the strategies a top political consultant outlined Monday to local officials at the League of California Cities' annual conference, held for the first time at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

Proposition 218, which California voters approved in 1996, requires local government to put virtually all tax measures on the ballot. So strategies for getting such measures passed have become particularly important to the people charged with running cities.

``The voters are very, very skeptical about what you all do,'' warned consultant Max Besler, of the Sacramento firm Townsend Raimundo Besler & Usher, which ran the 1996 campaign that persuaded Santa Clara County voters to increase sales taxes to pay for transportation programs. ``They're very, very skeptical about anything you put on the ballot.''

So to get something passed, Besler offered several pieces of advice, including avoidance of the ``tax word'' whenever possible and what he calls his ``run silent, run deep tactics.'' Besler spoke to a session of about 60 council members and city bureaucrats Monday afternoon, part of a group of about 2,300 attending the three-day convention, which concludes today.

``Don't do any press releases,'' Besler said, because ``what happens in the newspaper will kill you.'' Even a single opponent usually gets an opportunity to state his case in news stories, the consultant noted.

Efforts to gain publicity only serves to ``prop up the other side . . . You're just providing them with a forum to make a case against you.''

Instead, Besler said cities should engage in intensive polling and focus-group research prior to putting a measure on the ballot in order to craft the most attractive-sounding ballot title and summary; prepare the arguments that voters find most persuasive and identify the community
figures whose endorsements count the most with voters.

With that information in hand, he said, a campaign should target swing voters and probable supporters with direct mail.

Besler noted that public money cannot be used for ``advocacy'' literature on behalf of a tax measure, but he encouraged the cities to use public funds on the polling work that goes on before putting a measure on the ballot. He also advised cities to poll voters annually to gauge the best time to seek their approval for a tax measure.

San Jose is among the cities spending money on such polls. It paid more than $20,000 in July to test how a potential bond measure for new and expanded branch libraries might do with voters. The pollster said a bond would have a good chance of passing, but the city has not set an election date.

And in arguing for a ballot measure that asks voters to raise taxes, officials are best served by avoiding the ``tax'' term, Besler said.

``What you have to do is talk about benefits (the measure will bring),'' he said. ``When somebody starts to talk about the tax thing, you move away from that and talk about what the benefit is.''

Other advice included using a broad range of people to sign ballot arguments. Particularly useful, Besler said, are ``white hats'' such as chamber of commerce and senior organization leaders. If voters see such organizations, in addition to representatives of law enforcement and
labor, signing ballot arguments, they will think that all major segments of a community support a tax measure, not just the elected officials whose job it will be to spend the money.

Not everyone in Besler's audience was convinced of the merits of his ``run silent'' tactics.

``If and when we do a tax measure or a bond measure, I'll let the public know,'' said Patsy Marshall, a Buena Park city councilwoman whose city is considering a measure to pay for a new police headquarters. ``I have confidence in the voters.''
----------

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -1
Learning Percentage: 40%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Julian Sanchez: Misapprehending millennial politics

There's quite a bit of article between the first bit I excerpt and the last bit. Lots of related links in the full article, too.

The Kids Are All Right?
Misapprehending millennial politics

by Julian Sanchez
Reason

Ah, kids today. Just when it seemed that every possible form of youthful rebellion had been tamed, absorbed, and turned into a jeans commercial, they find one sure to shock their Boomer parents: become conservatives.

Such, at any rate, is the impression you might get from following the news. A May article in The New York Times Magazine -- one whose author will doubtless burn in one of hell's warmer and more feces-filled concentric circles for coining the term "Young Hipublicans" -- claimed that conservatism is becoming mainstream on American college campuses. In a recent American Conservative editorial, Gavin McInnis, right-leaning editor of the painfully cool magazine Vice, spotted the same trend even among his core audience of Williamsburg hipsters. A study by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that undergraduates supported the war in Iraq by a ratio of two to one --a lower level of support than among the general public, but high for the college set -- and were about as likely to identify as Republicans as they were to call themselves Democrats. Jim Eltringham of the Leadership Institute, a group which aids conservative campus groups, offers anecdotal confirmation of the trend, reporting strong recent growth in student organizations on the right. At the same time, these young conservatives seem not to be plagued by the disdain for homosexuals or immigrants that sometimes cause libertarians to shrink from association with their adult counterparts.

In short, it seems as though Millennials—the post-Gen X cohort born after 1981—are leaning to the right, with a strong libertarian streak. Alas, it's not true.

...

Gen Xers were stereotyped as politically "apathetic," but as a character in the archetypal Gen X film Slacker notes, withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy. Millennials do not withdraw in disgust: They are politically engaged in a way not seen since the Greatest Generation born in the early decades of the last century. If that engagement is shaped by the collectivist attitudes that are already becoming apparent, many of us may soon be nostalgic for apathy.

Full article

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Students for Individual Liberty aims to educate

Students for Individual Liberty aims to educate

by Rae Licari
September 09, 2003

People say that some of the best learning experiences in college come not only from the classroom but from outside activities as well. A new student organization at UNO called Students for Individual Liberty aims to provide that sort of non-lecture education for UNO students.

"Our goal is to spread awareness of libertarian philosophy," said Adam Horn, one of the group's founding members and current president.

Horn stressed, however, that while the group's focus was on the libertarian philosophy, it was not affiliated with the libertarian party.

The libertarian philosophy focuses on individual rights and choices.

John Yenny, another founding member and current treasurer, summed up the libertarian philosophy: "Let people choose what's best for them."
...

Full story

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 3
Learning Percentage: 60%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Naked workers invade Mexican senate

Ananova - Naked workers invade Mexican senate
Story filed: 14:31 Wednesday 1st October 2003

Naked farm workers staged a mass invasion of the Mexican senate as part of a land row.

Some 150 naked protestors broke windows, seats and tables, according to Terra Noticias Populares.

They left only after the senate's vice president Carlos Chaurand guaranteed he would carry out their demands.

...

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.1
Learning Percentage: 89%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Appeals court lets 'do not call' list go forward

Appeals court lets 'do not call' list go forward
Appeals court decision makes it easier for Feds to enforce the anti-telemarketing program.

October 7, 2003: 6:45 PM EDT

WASHINGTON/DENVER (Reuters) - Telemarketers may not dial the 51 million phone numbers on the national "do-not-call" registry while a U.S. appeals court decides whether their free-speech rights are being violated, the court said Tuesday.

The decision clears the way for the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the popular anti-telemarketing program, which had been thrown into legal limbo by a lower court decision days before it was to take effect.

The legal status of the list is still not resolved as the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver must determine whether it unconstitutionally discriminates between commercial and charitable calls, which are not subject to the no-call rule.

But until then, the FTC will be able to fine telemarketers up to $11,000 for each time they call numbers on the list. Consumers will be able to sign up if they have not yet done so, and thousands of telemarketing companies that still do not have the list will be able to purchase a copy.

...

Full story...

Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -1.3
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Campaign on wheels

Campaign on wheels

Posted on Fri, Oct. 03, 2003

ARNOLD: "LET'S START THE ENGINES"
BY MARY ANNE OSTROM & LORI ARATANI
Mercury News

SAN DIEGO - Moments after uttering regrets for having behaved like a boor over the years, Arnold Schwarzenegger declared to a crowd of 1,500 cheering, sign-waving supporters in the cavernous San Diego Convention Center that it was time to ``terminate Gray Davis.''

He then lowered his voice an octave, and said: ``Let's start the engines.''

In dramatic fashion, a curtain rose to reveal a large bus plastered with Schwarzenegger's face and the campaign event's slogan, ``California Comeback Express.'' The actor jumped on the bus as it circled the floor in the indoor convention center and the crowd ran to greet him.

...

At times, the rolling circus felt more like a tour promoting a movie than a candidate for governor. The bus carrying Schwarzenegger was named ``The Running Man,'' and featured satellite television and bunk beds. His entourage followed in a bus dubbed ``Total Recall.'' Some 200 reporters and photographers hailing from as far away as India, Japan and his native Austria followed in buses the campaign had dubbed ``Predator'' 1 through 4.

At the Orange County fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, Schwarzenegger ignored protesters and repeated his campaign promise to repeal increases in the state vehicle-license fee.

``I was 25 years in show business. In the movies, if I play a character and I didn't like something, you know what I did, I destroyed it. I wiped it out, I wiped it out.''

At that instant, a 3,600-pound wrecking ball was dropped 50 feet, crushing an older-model Oldsmobile on which the words ``Davis Car Tax'' had been spray-painted.

...

Full story

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 35%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Terror suspect tortured: dad claims

Terror suspect tortured: dad claims

By Rebecca Urban
October 8, 2003

Australian terrorist suspects David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib had likely been tortured while detained at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer and Hicks' father said today.

Australian lawyer Richard Bourke, who has been working with prisoners at Camp X-ray for the past two years, told ABC radio leaks from the American military and reports from former inmates revealed the detainees had been forced to kneel in the sun until they collapsed and were tied up and had rubber bullets fired at them.

...

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 04:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MIT publishes 500 courses worth of free info

MIT for free, virtually

Last modified: September 29, 2003, 5:49 PM PDT
By Paul Festa
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is making its course materials available to the world for free download.

One year after the launch of its pilot program, MIT on Monday quietly published everything from class syllabuses to lecture videos for 500 courses through its OpenCourseWare initiative, an ambitious project it hopes will spark a Web-based revolution in the way universities share information.

"The real hope is that we start seeing many open courseware programs, with the net result of there being a critical mass of knowledge online for people everywhere," said Jon Paul Potts, communications manager for the program. "If that happened, people all over the world would be able to tap into reserves of knowledge from major large institutions around the globe."

...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 3
Learning Percentage: 45%

Posted by Lance Brown at 04:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thou Shalt Not Pray

I'm cleaning up some stuff that's been dogging my desktop for a long time. Like this well-written article on the constitutional issues behind the Ten Commandments in the Alabama courthouse and related situations.

Thou Shalt Not Pray

Does the Constitution hate God?
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Thursday, August 21, 2003, at 3:21 PM PT

One hesitates to spill one more drop of ink over Chief Justice Roy Moore - the demagogue judge who heads the Alabama Supreme Court and who -- as of midnight last night -- is in violation of a federal court order to remove a 5,000-pound monument to the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama State Judicial Building. Moore, who's made a career of confusing his bench with a pulpit, has evinced such contempt for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the rest of this nation that he's unworthy of another word. There is, however, a constitutional problem highlighted by Moore's conduct and by the popular support he's garnered in some circles. A sentiment expressed frequently by elected officials, religious leaders, and even the occasional U.S. Supreme Court justice is that the principle of separating church and state has morphed into unbridled state hostility toward the church. The founders of this country were, for the most part, deeply religious men. Would they, like Moore, object to the ways in which religion has been chased out of the public square?

...

Full column

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L5
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at 04:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sullum: Ashcroft's Patriot Act tour

Ashcroft's Patriot Act tour

The Washington Times: Commentary
By Jacob Sullum

August 26, 2003

Attorney General John Ashcroft is on a publicity tour, promoting the Patriot Act and preparing the public for a sequel. But just as you can't always believe an actor who tells you his latest film is sure to be a hit, you have to take what Mr. Ashcroft says with a grain of salt.

Mr. Ashcroft is reacting to bad reviews from critics who say the Patriot Act -- given a green light just a month and a half after the September 11 terrorist attacks by members of Congress who had not even read the script -- was rushed into production. The result, they say, was a deeply flawed work in which civil liberties make only a brief appearance.

...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Home schoolers form support network, but some say students lack social skills

This is an OK article of some length about the experiences of homeschoolers in an area in Michigan.

Home schoolers form support network, but some say students lack social skills

By Jennifer Burd - Daily Telegram Staff Writer

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.2
Learning Percentage: 35%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ready…Set…Homeschool!

This article includes a goodly amount of tips and links to resources.

Ready…Set…Homeschool!

by Linda Schrock Taylor

It's that time of year again. Parents are worrying and debating, "Should we let the children return to public school for just one more year?" Parents are refiguring budgets and wondering, "Could we drive the old car another year and put the kids in private school?" Parents are reevaluating long-range financial goals to determine which might be put on the back burner until later; so as to homeschool children who are growing up quickly now. Many parents arrive at the decision to homeschool, but then fail to act upon their decision, fearful of taking 'The Giant Step,' as we called it in our home. Do not be fearful. Act. Your children will be all the better for it, and you will never regret your decision.

Too often parents have believed the official state slogan, "You need to be a certified teacher in order to teach." That is nonsense, and one need only look at the failure of the public school system to see how 'well' those thousands of certified, degreed, experienced administrators and teachers have failed America. ...
...

Certainly loving, committed parents can educate their children better than the State is doing. Children being homeschooled by parents who are focused; who willingly sit and learn with their children; who mediate experiences and information; are far better off than the children in most public schools in America. However, children who are being kept home from school by parents who lack plans, goals, and a commitment to truly educate their children, are better off in school where, hopefully, they will have a few good teachers and come away with something.

...

Full column

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Free Staters: Ready to vote with their feet

Ready to vote with their feet

Originally published October 1, 2003

THIS CENTURY'S first potential large-scale political experiment takes its next baby-step today. The 5,400-some folks in the Free State Project will find out which of 10 low-population U.S. states their majority picked to conquer by persuasion. If the Free Staters can swell their ranks to more than 20,000 by 2006, all have pledged to move in (but not live together) across the favored state by 2011.

...

Free Staters - many of them Libertarians -want to slash government and repeal laws that punish nonthreatening behavior, but the specifics are fuzzy. The nonprofit project will not set up a political platform; the plan is to leave it to the immigrants. But if 20,000 "rugged individualists" do move in somewhere, would they really be able to agree on everything? Plus, the states on the chosen list may be "liberty-friendly," but it's not clear how persuadable the locals would be.

Still, it's heartening that those so dissatisfied with this country's politics believe they can work within the system to change it. Perhaps more will be inspired to participate in their country's business by watching these practical idealists try to seed a state.

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .25
Learning Percentage: 10%

BTW, the state they picked was New Hampshire.

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

2nd Libertarian Agrees To $15,000 Clean Elections Fine

2nd Libertarian Agrees To $15,000 Clean Elections Fine
Clevenger To Pay Penalty In Failed Bid For District 17 House Seat

By Daniel Burnette

Former District 17 House candidate Trevor Clevenger will repay $15,000 of the more than $31,000 in public campaign funds he received, under a tentative settlement reached with the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

The five-member commission, the state agency that administers public campaign funds, must approve the proposal on a majority vote for the settlement to become final. The commission is scheduled to meet at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 21 in the first-floor boardroom at 1616 W. Adams St.

Mr. Clevenger is one of three Libertarian candidates for the Legislature from District 17 whom the Clean Elections Commission decided had failed to properly document their campaign expenditures for the 2002 election as required under the state Clean Elections Act and rules of the commission.

...

The Clean Elections Commission has had no settlement talks with the third District 17 Libertarian, Senate candidate Yuri Downing, who was found to have failed to properly document his expenses.

Mr. Downing has appealed the commission's decision to demand a return of the $41,155.53 in public campaign funds he received. The hearing was continuing on Oct. 2.

Mr. Downing maintains that although he and the other Libertarians ran an unorthodox campaign to register and attract voters at bars and restaurants in the East Valley, the tabs from those events were legitimate campaign expenses.

...

Full story

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -.8
Learning Percentage: 50%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Media elite debate Patriot Act

Arbiter Online - Media elite debate Patriot Act
Privacy policies concern librarians

by Amy Olsen
October 06, 2003

Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post reporter David Broder spoke Oct. 2 at Boise State, encapsulating the day-long “Freedom and Secrecy: Trading Liberty for Security?†conference held by the Andrus Center for Public Policy.

Broder's speech was one of several activities and joint panel discussions focusing on the philosophical and political question of balancing civil liberties and homeland security.

Broder was the last speaker among three distinguished panelists at the conference on Thursday. Former Vice President Walter Mondale and former Washington State Senator Slade Gorton joined Broder for the event.

The lecturer gave several examples of past uses of the act, ranging from long-term immigrant confinement to inquiries into library records across the nation by agents of the law.

Broder reported that among 1,500 major libraries in the United States, 178 reported "visitations from FBI members" since the USA PATRIOT Act's passage in Oct. 2001.

...

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 35%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Recall Arnold

From Brian Flemming:

Recall Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger

October 7, 2003

Dear Scared Californian,

I know. Me too.

This site, created more than a month ago, was at first a semi-joke intended to illustrate California's chaotic future if the right-wing recall succeeded. I guess it's not so funny anymore.

Because this site gets a lot of search-engine hits on "recall Arnold" and the like, I want to make sure this traffic does not go to waste. If you're interested in joining a recall petition effort, please click on the link in the right column and send me your email address and other information.

There are many groups currently being formed to recall Arnold Schwarzenegger. I will send you notifications about these efforts as they develop, so you will know exactly how to get involved. If you give me your specific permission to do so, I will pass your information on to other Recall Governor Schwarzenegger groups.

As a lifelong Californian, I'm as shocked as you are that our state has done such a surreal, horrible thing. Please volunteer to set things right again.

Sincerely,
Brian Flemming

That's followed by a ton of messages of support that people have apparently sent in. I presume there will be future developments there as well.

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 0%

It's hard to predict whether the Recall Arnold movement will have legs, politically speaking. We're deep into surreal politics now, so who's to say what might come? From a certain perspective, another recall right away makes all the sense in the world. With Arnold Schwarzenegger being governor-elect, somehow nothing seems politically weird anymore.

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:33 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

California Recall Election results

Updated recall election results from the CA Secretary of State office.

Here are the current results:

Shall GRAY DAVIS be recalled (removed) from the office of Governor?
90.4 % ( 13777 of 15235 ) precincts reporting as of Oct 8, 2003 at 1:50 am
Votes Percent

Yes 3,763,848 54.2
No 3,184,259 45.8


County Returns

Leading Candidates to succeed GRAY DAVIS as Governor if he is recalled:
90.4 % ( 13777 of 15235 ) precincts reporting as of Oct 8, 2003 at 1:50 am
Candidate Party Votes Percent

Arnold Schwarzenegger Rep 3,198,508 47.8
Cruz M. Bustamante Dem 2,181,952 32.6
Tom McClintock Rep 881,744 13.2
Peter Miguel Camejo Grn 188,479 2.9
Arianna Huffington Ind 38,936 0.6
Peter V. Ueberroth Rep 19,592 0.3
Larry Flynt Dem 13,693 0.3
Gary Coleman Ind 11,370 0.2

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wesley Clark's campaign manager quits

This could be a seriously bad sign for the Clark campaign. Listening to the online supporters and Draft Clark folks is a key element of him potentially having a chance to overpower Dean.

Wesley Clark's campaign manager quits

Oct. 7, 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wesley Clark's campaign manager quit Tuesday in a dispute over the direction of the Democratic presidential bid, exposing a rift between the former general's Washington-based advisers and his 3-week-old Arkansas campaign team.

Donnie Fowler told associates he was leaving over widespread concerns that supporters who used the Internet to draft Clark into the race are not being taken seriously by top campaign advisers.

Fowler also complained that the campaign's message and methods are focused too much on Washington, not key states and the burgeoning power of the Internet, said two associates who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Spokesmen for the campaign declined comment.
...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -.8
Learning Percentage: 75%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 07, 2003

BlackManWithAGun.com

Md. Man Wants A .357 Magnum In Every Hand

By Courtland Milloy
Sunday, September 7, 2003

Kenneth V. Blanchard is a firearms instructor and home safety expert who caters to a mostly African American clientele. He lives in Prince George's County and believes that he has a solution to the area's crime problems.

His Web site, www.BlackManWithAGun.com, shows him posing in front of a U.S. flag with the solution in his hands: a gun -- in this case, an H&K 9mm submachine gun.

"We can't make our neighborhoods safer with our heads in the sand and waiting for the 'Man' to protect us," Blanchard writes in a manifesto reminiscent of the old Black Panther Party. "I don't agree with the NAACP on gun control. We can't get different outcomes doing the same old things."

...

Full story

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 80%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Scientists admit: we were wrong about 'E'

Scientists admit: we were wrong about 'E'

Experts who gave a dramatic warning that ecstasy led to brain damage based their study on a huge blunder, reports health editor Jo Revill

Sunday September 7, 2003
The Observer

It was billed as the one of the most dramatic warnings the world has ever received over the dangers of ecstasy. A study from one of America's leading universities concluded that taking the drug for just one evening could leave clubbers with irreversible brain damage, and trigger the onset of Parkinson's disease.

The study, published in the eminent journal Science last September, had an immediate impact. Doctors and anti-drug crusaders spoke of a 'neurological time bomb' facing the young. Others suggested that taking one of the tablets was the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with the brain, and demanded tighter 'anti-rave' laws to deal with it.

But today, scientists are facing up to the humiliation of admitting that the stark results they reported in the study were not a breakthrough but a terrible, humiliating blunder.

The study was based on the fact that laboratory monkeys and baboons had a severe reaction to the drug when it was injected in small doses. But it emerged this weekend that the vials of liquid did not contain ecstasy....

Full story

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 80%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mother Convicted of Contributing to Child's Suicide

Mother Convicted of Contributing to Child's Suicide

Monday, October 06, 2003

MERIDEN, Conn. -- A woman was convicted Monday of contributing to the suicide of her 12-year-old son, who hanged himself in his closet with a necktie after being picked on for months at school over his bad breath and body odor.

Judith Scruggs, 52, was found guilty of one count of risk of injury to a minor for creating a filthy home that prosecutors said prevented J. Daniel Scruggs from improving his hygiene. She faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced next month.

The six-member jury cleared Scruggs of a second charge that accused her of failing to provide her son with proper medical and psychological care. She also was acquitted on a cruelty charge.

Legal experts said the case may mark the first time a parent has been convicted of contributing to a child's suicide.

...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 90%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Arnold is no conservative

Arnold is no conservative

Arnold is no conservative
by David Freddoso | Oct 5, 2003

Moderates are not the only ones backing Arnold Schwarzenegger in California's gubernatorial recall election. Particularly among politicians, many true conservatives, such as Representatives Chris Cox and Dana Rohrabacher, are taking up the Terminator's standard, as are conservative icons such as Ann Coulter.

In better times, the famous actor's social liberalism might have alone precluded such support. But California's GOP is at an historic nadir. It has drifted downward ever since 1995, when a Jeffords-style defection and clever Democratic legal maneuvering disastrously cost Republicans their hard-won State Assembly majority.

Conservatives have never recovered. Their party is now out of power and out of favor with voters, and they think the Arnold gimmick can save them.

But these "Arnold Conservatives" -- not his moderate or liberal supporters, but those reluctantly backing him as the "electable" Republican candidate -- are wrong. They underestimate the extent of Schwarzenegger's liberalism, which guarantees his leadership will fail California and further harm Republicans if he wins.

...

Full column

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: R5
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Arnold Unplugged

I want to go on record as saying that the closing lines of this article --

I asked Mr. Muscle's PR people to comment on the new Enron memos -- and his strange silence on Bustamante's suit or Davis' petition. But Arnold was too busy shaving off his Hitlerian mustache to respond.

-- are really weak. Really, really weak. Palast could have appeared more mature (and just as journalistically honest) by saying "Arnold has poopie in his pants."

Arnold Unplugged - It's hasta la vista to $9 billion if the Governator is selected

Friday, October 3, 2003

It's not what Arnold Schwarzenegger did to the girls a decade back that should raise an eyebrow. According to a series of memoranda our office obtained today, it's his dalliance with the boys in a hotel room just two years ago that's the real scandal.

The wannabe governor has yet to deny that on May 17, 2001, at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, he had consensual political intercourse with Enron chieftain Kenneth Lay. Also frolicking with Arnold and Ken was convicted stock swindler Mike Milken.


Now, thirty-four pages of internal Enron memoranda have just come through this reporter's fax machine tell all about the tryst between Maria's husband and the corporate con men. It turns out that Schwarzenegger knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter as part of a campaign to sabotage a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off.


Here's the story Arnold doesn't want you to hear. ...

Full column

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

At Wire, Recall Race Tightens Up

At Wire, Recall Race Tightens Up
Davis keeps the heat on Schwarzenegger over women's allegations of groping. 'A lot of these are made-up stories,' the GOP front-runner says.

By Gregg Jones, Peter Nicholas and Michael Finnegan, Times Staff Writers

With polls showing the recall race tightening in a last dash to Tuesday's election, Gov. Gray Davis on Sunday questioned the truthfulness of Arnold Schwarzenegger's response to sexual misconduct allegations while the Republican tried to shift the focus to his rival's shortcomings as a leader.

Davis challenged the GOP candidate to respond in detail to accusations by women that he groped or humiliated them. Schwarzenegger, dogged by the allegations for the fourth day, sought to lay them to rest in two nationally televised interviews.

"A lot of these are made-up stories," Schwarzenegger told NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in a campaign-bus interview on "Dateline NBC." "I never grabbed anyone and then pulled up their shirt and grabbed their breasts, and stuff like that. This is not me. So there's a lot of this stuff going on.... "

"So you deny all those stories about grabbing?" Brokaw asked.

"Not at all," said Schwarzenegger, who apologized Thursday for having "behaved badly sometimes" toward women. "I'm just saying this is not — this is not me."
...

TruhOut permacopy (2nd story on page)

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Davis Comes Back Swinging at Schwarzenegger

Calif.'s Davis Comes Back Swinging at Schwarzenegger

Sun October 5, 2003 08:14 PM ET

By Gina Keating and Adam Tanner
SAN JOSE/SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - Buoyed by fresh reports of sexual misconduct by rival Arnold Schwarzenegger and a poll showing more erosion in efforts to recall him, Gov. Gray Davis on Sunday renewed his attacks on the actor turned politician, who in turn rallied thousands to the capital.
Davis charged into the final stage of the wild recall battle demanding Schwarzenegger, his chief rival for the state's top job in Tuesday's recall election, explain in detail what was behind the sexual harassment charges he now faces.
...

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Support strong to recall Davis

Support strong to recall Davis

By James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 06, 2003

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The latest polls show that several days of reporting on accusations of sexual harassment against Arnold Schwarzenegger have dented only slightly support for recalling Gov. Gray Davis in the vote tomorrow.
The Austrian-born actor's campaign tour of California came to a roaring conclusion at the state Capitol yesterday in front of 10,000 people buoyed by the poll figures and a live performance by 1980s rock star Dee Snider of Twisted Sister.
A poll released by the San Jose Mercury News yesterday showed that 54 percent of likely voters support the recall, and 41 percent are opposed. Mr. Schwarzenegger led the 135 replacement candidates with 36 percent, compared with 29 percent for Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.

...

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 35%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

4 More Women Go Public Against Schwarzenegger

4 More Women Go Public Against Schwarzenegger

By Gary Cohn, Carla Hall, Jack Leonard and Tracy Weber, Times Staff Writers

Four more women have come forward to say that Arnold Schwarzenegger fondled, spanked or touched them in incidents they said took place as recently as 2000 and as long ago as 1979.

In all, 15 women have now accused the Republican candidate for governor of grabbing or groping them. On the campaign trail Saturday, Schwarzenegger denounced as a "puke campaign" news reports that he has behaved abusively toward women.

The women who agreed Saturday to tell their stories publicly are:

A 51-year-old woman who said Schwarzenegger pinned her to his chest and spanked her shortly after she met him at a West Los Angeles post-production studio in 2000.

Tamee Smith, 46, who said Schwarzenegger followed her into a bathroom on a studio lot and grabbed her breast during work on the movie "Predator" in 1986.

Jan Prinzmetal, 50, who said Schwarzenegger reached under her skirt and grabbed her bare buttocks outside a Venice gym in the mid-1980s.

Elizabeth Rothner, 45, who said Schwarzenegger lifted her sweatshirt at a popular Santa Monica bar in 1979, exposing her bare breasts before a crowd.

The Times provided details of each of the new allegations to Schwarzenegger's campaign Saturday. The candidate's spokesman, Sean Walsh, said Schwarzenegger had said that the accounts of three of the women were untrue. Walsh said Schwarzenegger had no recollection of the alleged Venice gym incident.

...

Full story

TruthOut permacopy (2nd story on page)
Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 50%

Posted by Lance Brown at 06:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fight to the finish before historic vote

Fight to the finish before historic vote / Davis wants criminal investigation

Sunday, October 5, 2003

Fresno -- Gov. Gray Davis, spending the final days of the recall campaign surrounded by women and prominent Democrats, suggested Saturday that actor Arnold Schwarzenegger committed a crime of sexual battery and should be investigated by law enforcement.

The governor's comments were a significant escalation of his rhetoric against his chief Republican rival in Tuesday's recall campaign. The allegations about Schwarzenegger's conduct with women, and statements he is reported to have made about Adolf Hitler, provided the Davis campaign with a dose of optimism -- mixed with astonishment at the extraordinary events over the past couple of days.

...

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: L.4
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 25%

Posted by Lance Brown at 06:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 06, 2003

Why wasn't Davis investigated too?

Why wasn't Davis investigated too?

By Jill Stewart

Excerpts:

I couldn't have been more shocked to see the lurid stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger and the things several women allege he uttered or did to them. But it wasn't over the allegations, which I had read much of in a magazine before. I was most shocked at the Los Angeles Times.
Some politicos dub the Thursday before a big election "Dirty Tricks Thursday." That's the best day for an opponent to unload his bag of filth against another candidate, getting maximum headlines, while giving his stunned opponent no time to credibly investigate or respond to the charges.

It creates a Black Friday, where the candidate spends a precious business day right before the election desperately investigating the accusations, before facing a weekend in which reporters only care about further accusations that invariably spill out of the woodwork.

Dirty Tricks Thursday is not used by the media to sink a campaign.

Yet the Times managed to give every appearance of trying to do so. ...

...

If the Times were a tabloid, this would hardly matter. But the newspaper is influential at times, and claims it has high standards. In this case, the paper gave in to its bias against Schwarzenegger:

Here's my proof:

Since at least 1997, the Times has been sitting on information that Gov. Gray Davis is an "office batterer" who has attacked female members of his staff, thrown objects at subservients and launched into red-faced fits, screaming the f-word until staffers cower.
...

Weeks ago, Times editors sent two teams of reporters to dig dirt on Schwarzenegger, one on his admitted use of steroids as a bodybuilder, one on the old charges of groping women from Premiere Magazine.

Who did the editors assign, weeks ago, to investigate Davis' violence against women who work for him?

Nobody.
...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 70%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Trial of Sir Thomas More, 1535

The Trial of Sir Thomas More, 1535

The following, sadly, is a true story. It is the story of Sir Thomas More, beheaded in London in 1535.

...

Full story

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 40%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 05, 2003

Fed Court tells NY to back off Russell Simmons and Hip Hop Summit

FEDERAL COURT ISSUES ORDER SUSPENDING NY LOBBYING COMMISSION INVESTIGATION OF RUSSELL SIMMONS AND THE HIP-HOP SUMMIT ACTION NETWORK

The link

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- OCTOBER 2, 2003 - Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis, who together with the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, filed a lawsuit in July of this year charging the New York Temporary State Commission on Lobbying with violating their First Amendment rights, reconvened in federal court this morning to ask Judge Loretta A. Preska to enforce the suspension of the Lobbying Commission's investigation into Russell Simmons and Dr. Chavis.

Today, Judge Loretta A. Preska issued an order suspending the Lobbying Commission's investigation into Plaintiffs' First Amendment activities, which were aimed at raising public awareness about the unfairness of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The Judge found that the Lobbying Commission had unfairly tried to back out of a court-approved agreement to suspend the investigation. The suspension that Judge Preska ordered today will last until the Court can issue a full decision in this case.

...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 4
Learning Percentage: 85%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Denmark's windmills flourish as Cape Cod power project stalls

Denmark's windmills flourish as Cape Cod power project stalls

By Charles M. Sennott, Boston Globe Staff, 9/22/2003

COPENHAGEN -- Looking out to sea from this city's picturesque harbor, a wall of 200-foot windmills dominates the horizon with rotors silently spinning in the glinting sunshine as sailboats and fishing trawlers glide past.

For most Danes, these towering turbines are anything but an eyesore, and anything but a threat to the environment. In fact, they are featured on postcards and proclaimed attractions by tour guides on ferry boats. They are the pride of the local Greenpeace office, which even owns shares in the project.

Here, the windmills are seen as a graceful gateway to a historic harbor and a proud symbol for an environmentally conscious country that has put itself at the cutting edge of one of Europe's fastest-growing energy sectors: wind power.

So where, Cape Wind executive Jim Gordon might ask himself, did he go wrong in selling his project to build a similar offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod? And why, the vocal opponents to Cape Wind might ask themselves, are offshore wind farms in Denmark regarded as environmentally sound and even beautiful -- while they are eyed suspiciously in Massachusetts as a threat to serenity and wildlife?

Perhaps both sides in the intensifying Cape Wind debate could learn valuable lessons from Denmark's success in the wind industry.

...

Full story

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 75%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ashcroft Is Unprintable, and Glad of It

Ashcroft Is Unprintable, and Glad of It
On tour, he bars the press and cozies up to local TV reporters.

September 25, 2003
COMMENTARY

By Todd Gitlin and Jay Rosen

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, who is continuing his tour of the country to promote the Patriot Act, has at several stops, including Buffalo and Philadelphia, refused to speak to print reporters. While television correspondents can often breeze right in, their newspaper colleagues are kept at bay by Secret Service agents doing the bidding of the nation's chief law enforcement official, who prefers audiences of handpicked enthusiasts and interviews with local television reporters.

According to Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock, Ashcroft wants to explain "key facts directly to the American people" and not have to subject himself to "as much of a filter from people who are already invested in having a different view of it."

Of course he does. What public official wouldn't prefer a stenographer to an interlocutor? Ashcroft, like the president he serves, wishes to conduct the public's business in an echo chamber. With aplomb and no hint of bad conscience, they practice the politics of no-politics, the politics of l'etat, c'est moi.

...

Full story

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 50%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ashcroft Linked to Rove

Attorney General Is Closely Linked to Inquiry Figures

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: October 2, 2003

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- Deep political ties between top White House aides and Attorney General John Ashcroft have put him into a delicate position as the Justice Department begins a full investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's, an associate of Mr. Rove said on Wednesday.

Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Mr. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, was the director of Mr. Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign, and later worked as Mr. Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff.

Those connections led Democrats on Wednesday to assert that Mr. Rove's connections to Mr. Ashcroft amounted to a clear conflict of interest and undermined the integrity of the investigation. The disclosures have also emboldened Democrats who have called for the appointment of an outside counsel.

Full story

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 45%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them

If I'm not mistaken, this is the big story that started all the recent hoorah. (Deserved hoorah, in my opinion...though the timing is definitely suspect.)

Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them
The acts allegedly took place over three decades. A campaign aide denies the accusations.

October 2, 2003

By Gary Cohn, Carla Hall and Robert W. Welkos, Times Staff Writers

Six women who came into contact with Arnold Schwarzenegger on movie sets, in studio offices and in other settings over the last three decades say he touched them in a sexual manner without their consent.

In interviews with The Times, three of the women described their surprise and discomfort when Schwarzenegger grabbed their breasts. A fourth said he reached under her skirt and gripped her buttocks.

A fifth woman said Schwarzenegger groped her and tried to remove her bathing suit in a hotel elevator. A sixth said Schwarzenegger pulled her onto his lap and asked whether a certain sexual act had ever been performed on her.

According to the women's accounts, one of the incidents occurred in the 1970s, two in the 1980s, two in the 1990s and one in 2000.

"Did he rape me? No," said one woman, who described a 1980 encounter in which she said Schwarzenegger touched her breast. "Did he humiliate me? You bet he did."
...

Full story...

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 75%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 04, 2003

Stretched Thin, Lied to and Mistreated

This is a very well-written article about life in the midst of a National Guard unit in Baghdad. It's quite long, with too much to effectively excerpt, but I definitely recommend taking the time to read it.

Stretched Thin, Lied to and Mistreated
On the ground with US troops in Iraq

by Christian Parenti
Published in the October 6, 2003 issue of The Nation (subscription requeired)

An M-16 rifle hangs by a cramped military cot. On the wall above is a message in thick black ink: "Ali Baba, you owe me a strawberry milk!"

It's a private joke but could just as easily summarize the worldview of American soldiers here in Baghdad, the fetid basement of Donald Rumsfeld's house of victory. Trapped in the polluted heat, poorly supplied and cut off from regular news, the GIs are fighting a guerrilla war that they neither wanted, expected nor trained for. On the urban battlefields of central Iraq, "shock and awe" and all the other "new way of war" buzzwords are drowned out by the din of diesel-powered generators, Islamic prayer calls and the occasional pop of small-arms fire.

Here, the high-tech weaponry that so emboldens Pentagon bureaucrats is largely useless, and the grinding work of counterinsurgency is done the old-fashioned way--by hand. Not surprisingly, most of the American GIs stuck with the job are weary, frustrated and ready to go home.

...

Full story at TruthOut, or at CommonDreams.

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: L1.5
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 40%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

2-fer: Rush Limbaugh's rough patch

Limbaugh Quits TV Job Under Fire (washingtonpost.com)
Remarks on NFL's Donovan McNabb Spark Racial Controversy

By Leonard Shapiro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 2, 2003; Page A01

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 1 -- Radio-talk show host Rush Limbaugh resigned late tonight from the ESPN National Football League pregame show on which he appeared after racially charged comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb drew widespread media attention today.
...

Report: Limbaugh Faces Probe Over Prescription Drugs

Thu October 2, 2003 03:25 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - One day after he resigned as a football commentator for making comments many saw as racist, radio host Rush Limbaugh was embroiled in a new controversy, this time over a report that he regularly used painkillers bought illegally.

New York's Daily News newspaper reported on Thursday that Limbaugh was under investigation by the state attorney's office in Palm Beach County, Fla., where he lives....

TruthOut permacopy of both stories

Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2.5
Learning Percentage: 50%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Arnold Schwarzenegger nude photo

I couldn't resist the opportunity to grab a piece of the search engine pie with this one. I am going to resist actually hosting the picture here though. You can cruise over to Brian Flemming's weblog for that:

Brian Flemming's Weblog: Arnold Schwarzenegger nude photo

Beware: you will actually see Arnold Schwarzenegger naked, with his privates showing and all.

Read It Rating: ?
Left/Right Rating: ?
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: ?%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:01 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Schwarzenegger Sows Doubt Among State Environmentalists

Schwarzenegger Sows Doubt Among State Environmentalists
Recent remark, later clarified by aides, about the possibility of scrapping Cal/EPA only bolsters skepticism.

October 3, 2003

By Miguel Bustillo And Marla Cone, Times Staff Writers

When Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested this week that he would consider eliminating the California Environmental Protection Agency to cut government waste, he cemented what has emerged as a near-universal distrust of his gubernatorial candidacy among conservationists.

Schwarzenegger has made a concerted play for the environmental vote, tapping his wife's cousin, prominent conservation attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to help fashion his platform. His campaign pronouncements more closely match the environmental views of the man he wants to replace in Tuesday's recall election, Democrat Gray Davis, than those of his fellow Republican, President Bush.

Yet he has failed to sway a single major environmental organization to his side, and most conservationists continue to view the actor, famous for driving a gas-guzzling Hummer, with deep skepticism.

...

Full story

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

California Recall Archives

I just wanted to post a more prominent link to the ever-growing California Recall Archives here at The Little Brown Reader. I'm soaking recall articles up like a sponge lately -- there were 14 recall-related entries in the past 3 days. I'm mostly watching closely to see if there's enough of a defection from Arnold to motivate the No On Recall movement, or to shift a critical mass over to support super-conservative-but-well-respected Tom McClintock.

Enjoy the archives! They may only matter for a few more days. ;-)

(I haven't decided whether I'll start new archives for the recall that's likely to start shortly after this election.)

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anthony Gregory : Last-minute notes on the California recall

Last-minute notes on the California recall

by Anthony Gregory

Now that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed itself, and the California recall is back on, libertarians of this state have only a few days to finalize their voting strategy.

Since my last article on the subject, I have had some new thoughts on the matter. I have looked more closely at some candidates whom I did not mention in the last piece I wrote. Some friends of mine have pointed out some incompleteness in my analysis. All of these considerations -- along with the time of the election, creeping up quickly -- have inspired me to reorganize my opinions on the controversy at hand into this polemic sequel.

...

Read It Rating: 2
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .04
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Arnold Schwarzenegger and women - Premiere article from 2001

Lots of allegations of inappropriate conduct toward women, in this article that was published before Arnold had any specific political ambitions.

March 2001 Premiere magazine story on Arnold Schwarzenegger

Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .8
Learning Percentage: 90%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The B-Team

The B-Team

We know how the contenders are spending the weekend, but what about recall's second stringers?
by Bill Whalen
10/03/2003 8:50:00 AM

Read It Rating: 2
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 3%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

3 More Women Allege Arnold Misconduct

3 More Women Allege Misconduct

October 4, 2003

In all, 11 women have said Schwarzenegger touched them without their consent. The candidate denies new allegations.

By Tracy Weber, Sue Fox and Megan Garvey, Times Staff Writers

Three more women said Friday that Arnold Schwarzenegger had grabbed or groped them.

The new allegations against the Republican front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gray Davis came a day after he issued a blanket apology for "behaving badly" in the past.

The women who spoke Friday are:

An assistant director on the 1988 film "Twins," who said the actor had regularly undressed in front of her in his trailer. Once, she said, he pulled her down on a bed while he was wearing only underwear. His behavior on the set, said Linnea Harwell, who has since left the entertainment industry, prompted her to warn women who came to her with concerns never to be alone with Schwarzenegger.

Carla Baron, a stand-in on the same movie set, who said the actor had sandwiched her between himself and a crew member and forced his tongue into her mouth.

Collette Brooks, an intern at CNN in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, who said Schwarzenegger had grabbed her buttocks and told her she had a "nice ass." She said the incident occurred in a stairwell when she was 23 and that it had left her scared and shaken. She spoke about her alleged encounter at an event organized by opponents to Schwarzenegger's candidacy.

Full story

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .2
Learning Percentage: 70%

Posted by Lance Brown at 09:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Effect of Arnold Allegations Is Unpredictable

Effect of Allegations Is Unpredictable

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 3, 2003; Page A08

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 2 -- For two months, the focus of the California recall election has been Gov. Gray Davis's (D) performance in office. Today that focus abruptly shifted to Arnold Schwarzenegger's behavior toward women, throwing a roadblock into the path of the front-running actor and introducing a volatile and unpredictable issue into the campaign's final days.

Coming at such a late hour, the accusations against the action-film star could easily be dismissed by many voters here as political dirty tricks. But the charges, detailed in today's Los Angeles Times, were serious enough and credible enough to prompt a partial confirmation and startling apology from the candidate.

Whether that confession will push the issue to the sidelines or merely fan the flames of the controversy was the question of the day among Schwarzenegger's supporters and opponents. But no one regarded it as insignificant.

...

Full story

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 08:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kubby: Libertarians endorse GOP's McClintock!

WorldNetDaily: Libertarians endorse GOP's McClintock!

Posted: October 4, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Steve Kubby
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A strange thing is happening in California politics: The GOP is turning its back on a popular, conservative Republican to support a Hollywood actor who opposes nearly every social issue the Republicans claim to stand for.

Meanwhile, Libertarians across the state of California are making an unprecedented exodus from the Libertarian party's candidate and instead supporting California state Sen. Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican. Nothing like this has happened before in the Libertarian Party and it speaks volumes about the character and integrity of Tom McClintock.
...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 06:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Smashing "The Conservative Case for Arnold Schwarzenegger"

In "The Great Compromise", Anthony Gancarski attacks "The Conservative Case for Arnold Schwarzenegger"

(There is no real conservative case for Arnold Schwarzenegger, BTW.)

'The Great Compromise' by Anthony Gancarski

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: R2
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Chomsky: Reasons to fear U.S.

Reasons to fear U.S.

NOAM CHOMSKY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Amid the aftershocks of recent suicide bombings in Baghdad and Najaf, and countless other horrors since Sept. 11, 2001, it is easy to understand why many believe that the world has entered a new and frightening "age of terror," the title of a recent collection of essays by Yale University scholars and others.

However, two years after 9/11, the United States has yet to confront the roots of terrorism, has waged more war than peace and has continually raised the stakes of international confrontation.

On 9/11, the world reacted with shock and horror, and sympathy for the victims. But it is important to bear in mind that for much of the world, there was a further reaction: "Welcome to the club."

For the first time in history, a Western power was subjected to an atrocity of the kind that is all too familiar elsewhere.

Any attempt to make sense of events since then will naturally begin with an investigation of American power — how it has reacted and what course it may take.

Within a month of 9/11, Afghanistan was under attack. ...

Full column

TruthOut permacopy (With title changed)

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: L3
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Radio group fined $357K

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;"

Radio group fined $357K

WASHINGTON -- The government on Thursday proposed the second-biggest fine ever for indecency: $357,000 against Infinity Broadcasting for a radio segment in which a couple was said to be having sex in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The Federal Communications Commission responded to an outpouring of complaints following an August 2002 broadcast of the "Opie and Anthony" show over New York's WNEW-FM and 12 other Infinity radio stations. The nationally syndicated show was canceled a week later and DJs Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia were fired.

Four commissioners voted for the fine. The fifth said the agency should have gone after Infinity's licenses instead.

"Infinity's actions here were unquestionably willful and egregious," Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said. "These callous actions show a high degree of culpability and a deliberate attempt to heighten the shock to listeners. They clearly offended community standards."

...

Full story...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 70%

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Arianna's "No On the Recall" Speech

This speech is worth listening to. It's short -- it appears she gave this statement in lieu of appearing in the debate last night, though I'm not sure about that part.

It's currently featured on the top left of her site's Video Vault page. Here is the link to the low bandwidth Windows Media Player version.

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 5%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 03, 2003

The Clark Critique

The Clark Critique

Exclusive: In an excerpt from his new book, the ex-general argues that Bush is leading us astray in the war on terror

By Gen. Wesley K. Clark
NEWSWEEK

Sept. 29 issue -- In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, many in the Bush administration seemed most focused on a prospective move against Iraq. This was the old idea of "state sponsorship" --even though there was no evidence of Iraqi sponsorship of 9/11 whatsoever--and the opportunity to "roll it all up." I could imagine the arguments. War to unseat Saddam Hussein promised concrete, visible action.
I WENT BACK through the Pentagon in November 2001, and one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. So, I thought, this is what they mean when they talk about "draining the swamp." It was evidence of the Cold War approach: Terrorism must have a “state sponsor,” and it would be much more effective to attack a state than to chase after individuals, nebulous organizations, and shadowy associations.
He said it with reproach—with disbelief, almost—at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either.

...

Full article

Al Jazeera also took excerpts from Gen. Clark's article, and a little more content, and weaved it into an article of their own. (TruthOut permacopy)


Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rivers Pitt: Situation Excellent, I Am Attacking

About President Bush's recent speech to the UN.

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Situation Excellent, I Am Attacking

Excerpt:


Never mind the rank absurdity of it all. There is an old story of a French officer who, when thrown into an impossible battle, sent a communiqué to his commanders: "Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent, I am attacking!" That sad chestnut was on display before the United Nations on Tuesday, with George W. Bush and the United States of America standing in for the officer. Bush was at the United Nations for one reason: He got his country into terrible trouble, in defiance of virtually the entire international community, and was forced to come begging for help. An ounce of contrition would have furthered the cause of actually helping to repair the devastation in Iraq. An ounce of contrition would have shown America to be the humble nation Bush promised us way back in 2000. An ounce of contrition would almost certainly have motivated the U.N. to leave aside wrangling, roll up its sleeves, and begin to repair the damage that has been done. That ounce was not offered, and the jut-jawed whipsaw President barefaced his way through what could have been the most hopeful moment the Iraqi people have seen in 100 years. Situation excellent, I am attacking.

Never mind the 26,000 liters of anthrax, the 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, the 500 tons of sarin and mustard gas and VX gas, the 30,000 munitions capable of deploying this red death, the mobile biological weapons labs, and the infamous 'yellow-cake' uranium from Niger, that has so fantastically failed to materialize. All of this is sitting on a White House web page called 'Disarm Saddam Hussein.' This was the argument, the reason for war. None of it exists in any coherent state. The administration's own hired-gun weapons inspector, Dr. David Kay, has been tearing through Iraq to find all of these horrors promised by Bush and the gang. His report, saying pointedly that the stuff isn't there, was ready to be released on September 15th, but was promptly buried by the administration.

Never mind all that. It comes down to this.

Over the last 227 years, the United States of America went from a brawling, rebellious infant to the greatest democracy in the universe. This nation spent oceans of blood, sweat and tears to earn the respect of the world. Too often, it abused that respect by abusing the world, but always managed to regain its standing within the global community by the sheer force of its goodness, its ideals, and its willingness to help other nations in need. When the attacks of September 11th came, that global community responded to our essential goodness by embracing us with a passionate ferocity that has no precedent in the annals of human history. That standing is dust now, ground under the heels of a pack of ideological extremists who would wrap the world in flames if it profited them a few more ducats. The world sees this, and has seen it for some time now. The United Nations was used on Tuesday as a prop for a failing President's Fox newsbite writ large. It is a shame and a scandal and a disaster beyond description that this great nation has fallen so very low.

...

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: 1.1
Learning Percentage: 5%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

SAVE US FROM GEN. WESLEY CLARK

SAVE US FROM GEN. WESLEY CLARK - By Dorothy Anne Seese - Sierra Times.com

Read It Rating: .2
Left/Right Rating: R7
Freedom Rating: .0001
Learning Percentage: 10%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Russell Madden: For the Little Guy

I'm posting this entire essay, because I want to make sure it remains available, and the original location doesn't convince me that they'll ensure that. This essay is excellent; you should read it. People you know should read it too. And so on.

For the Little Guy, by Russell Madden

For the Little Guy



by Russell Madden

As someone who has fought for years in my own small ways for freedom, I have been accused of many negative things. Because I believe in the right of rich people who come by their wealth honestly to enjoy all the benefits of their money, I have been attacked as an elitist. Because I believe in the sanctity of private property, I have been told I don't "care" about education when I oppose yet another school bond vote or "optional" sales tax. Because I believe in personal responsibility, I have been charged with heartlessness given my disagreement with welfare — whether in the form of AFDC or food stamps or Medicaid.

These and other positions have led various critics to brand me as an enemy of "the little guy."

Heaven knows, I enjoy no shortage of adversaries.

Many professional politicians have made their careers embracing "the little guy." Some wear their "compassion" on their sleeves, elbowing each other aside as they race towards the microphones and television cameras to prove to any and all that they "feel" the pain of "the little guy," that they "care" more than their rivals do about that neglected victim's plight.

Others wear the "populist" label, decrying all the low-end jobs being "exported" to other countries. These righteous individuals just know that a major part of the unemployment problem results from our sieve-like borders. If only we could keep out all those damned foreigners, the Second Dawning of America would draw nigh.

A significant number of the defenders of "the little guy" wax indignant at the evils of Corporate America. They are convinced that the only thing of interest to the CEO's of Big Business is increasing their companies' bottom lines: "people before profits" is the mantra chanted by these protesting, tenderhearted activists.

An exemplar of what awaits "the little guy" should his self-proclaimed supporters prevail occurred at a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Cancun, Mexico. With confident assurance, these proponents of policies advancing the cause of "the little guy" told the world that they sought to uphold the vision of those admirable leaders, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong. This remarkable triumvirate "'represent the social justice movement, and they did a lot of good things for people.'" Exemplars of "freedom," these three icons "battled the exploitation of the common man." People — not power or money — motivated these guardians to retain power for "the masses, not...a certain handful of people." (Quotes from [2].)

Capitalism is the enemy of the "developing world," and the source of "misery, poverty" and "destruction." Better for the inhabitants of Africa to avoid luxuries such as "running water and electricity" than to suffer under the yoke of "colonization and colonialism." Not only is trade negative for people, it also represents an assault on "plants and animals" and on the earth, itself. [2] Indeed, the very prospect of allowing "unsafe," even "deadly," genetically-modified and -enhanced food to enter into the markets of Third World countries is sufficient to send many into apoplexy. [1]

These enlightened individuals are joined in decrying commerce by conservatives who see trade as weakening "U.S. sovereignty and economic independence." Better, they think, to place stiff tariffs on any goods imported into this country. [2]

When the most recent WTO talks ended, those who laud the dead torchbearers of communism called it a "victory for the working poor, family farmers, farm workers, the indigenous, the poor, and for immigrants all over the world." They brushed off complaints by some such as author Paul Driessen that those deceased heroes murdered tens of millions of their own citizens and kept those who survived destitute and miserable. [2]

The representatives of "rich" nations, however, were unhappy. One U. S. House Representative, Charles Stenholm, said this setback delayed the day when farmers would "give up subsidies" and rely more upon the "market than...government." Others said they wanted to lower tariffs and other barriers to trade. [3]

Others disagreed with such goals, maintaining that keeping American subsidies is better than giving "charity" to the rest of the world. The prospect of permitting poorer nations to postpone tariff reductions did not set well with some, either. [3]

Sadly, it is precisely "the little guy" who is getting screwed in this struggle. Yes, it is wonderful for a politician to back a loosening of the ropes strangling world trade. Such a stance is less than believable, however, when the American political machine continues agricultural policies begun in the Depression that increase food prices for U.S. consumers while simultaneously undercutting the ability of farmers in poor countries to compete against American products dumped into their markets.

How can we take seriously an administration that preaches "free trade" while imposing tariffs on foreign steel that "save" less than two-thousand jobs (at nearly $800,000 per) in that industry while losing a far greater number of employees (about forty-five thousand) dependent on steel for their own livelihoods? [4]

Where is the sense in a mindset that cloaks itself in empathy for single-mothers while jacking up their living expenses and imposing walls of licensing and permits and regulations they must scale before they can create and run their own businesses?

When will people recognize that asking the State to usurp the world of medical care will not guarantee lower prices, improved treatment, accelerated innovation, or greater accessibility to the disadvantaged?

Who in his right head could believe that inflating away the modest savings of the "working poor" (as though the "rich" do not work...) and depressing their retirement income possibilities is a better course to follow than encouraging individual responsibility and decision-making?

What will it take to shake clear the intellectual cobwebs that obscure the vision of those who claim that tyrants are good for the average citizen; that poverty, disease, primitive living conditions, and lack of even the most modest luxuries form an existence worthy to be pursued; that dying in the desert while seeking a crappy job in America serves the illegal indigent right?

Why do so many of "the little guys" swallow the poison that freedom is their enemy and slavery their savior; that they are being "exploited" when offered a job; that the same desire they have — to make more money — is golden as "wages" but evil when it occurs in the form of "profits"; that a collectivism that extolls the "masses" means that he — as an individual — will prosper; that all the political posturing designed to succor him will, instead, benefit those who know that poor people are their meal tickets to a comfortable life?

While I do often praise the extremely productive, the exceptionally creative, the extraordinarily hardworking, I do so knowing that — short of total tyranny — that rare group will usually manage to prosper, even if at reduced levels. Their very personal qualities help ensure that they can and will maneuver through or jump around or over most of the roadblocks placed in their path.

It's the average person, however, the mediocre, the less bright, the less skilled or educated who will stumble or surrender or wander bewildered when confronted with a twisting maze of laws or a thick tangle of red tape they neither comprehend nor can navigate.

You don't help the crippled by tossing rocks at their feet. You don't aid the weak by stacking weights upon their bowed backs. You don't console the frightened by perpetually scaring them to death with dire predictions of disaster and calamity they are told they cannot possibly handle.

Only those with the courage and the integrity to battle for liberty — for the removal of the chains binding our arms — only these uncommon souls deserve the title of "Champion of the Common Man."

Maybe someday "the little guy" will figure that out, too.


References

[1] Morano, Marc. "Mexican Village Plays Host to Fight Over Genetically Modified Food." CNSNews.com. 9-15-03. here

[2] Morano, Marc. "WTO Protesters Praise Marx, Lenin, Mao as 'Freedom Fighters.'" CNSNews.com. 9-15-03. here

[3] Scott, Alwyn. "WTO talks shatter amid clash of rich, poor nations." The Seattle Times 9-15-03. here

[4] Williams, Walter. "Economic Stupidity." WorldNetDaily 4-30-03. here


See Russ Madden's articles, short stories, novel excerpts, and items of interest to Objectivists, libertarians, and sci-fi fans at http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/.

-30-

from The Laissez Faire Electronic Times, Vol 2, No 37, September 22, 2003
Editor: Emile Zola     Publisher: Digital Monetary Trust

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 4
Learning Percentage: 15%
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Raimondo: Mr. Sharon, Tear Down That Wall!

Mr. Sharon, Tear Down That Wall!
That's what Bush should have said.

by Justin Raimondo

The "fence," as the Israelis and their amen corner in the U.S. call it, is actually a wall, about 25 feet high: higher than the Berlin Wall. Like every atrocity carried out by the Israeli government, it is being sold as a "defensive" measure, but is in reality an act of aggression, cutting off large swathes of Palestinian property from the main body of the Palestinian community and preemptively establishing a border on annexed land. As the Los Angeles Times reported:

"The red signs appeared one morning on the barbed wire. 'Mortal danger; military zone,' they read. 'Any person who passes or damages the fence endangers his life.'

"And just like that, Mohammed Habbas was forbidden to reach the acres of fields and olive groves that have been in the family for as long as anyone here can remember. The people of this tiny hillside village were left behind when Israeli military walls chopped away more than half of their property, snaking all the way to the edges of houses to swallow the land – but exclude the people."

Only a few days ago, meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen, the President declared the wall to be "a problem." But now that Sharon's in town, the problem – but not the Wall – seems to have gone away. ...

Full column

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating:
Freedom Rating: .12
Learning Percentage: 25%

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Chicago City Council votes against parts of USA-PATRIOT Act

Below is an official news story about it. Here is a slightly less journalistic story that provides more background info on the movement behind the resolution. (That story, by Elaine Cassel, seems to have originated at her blog here.

Council decries Patriot Act in watered-down resolution

October 2, 2003

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Warning of civil liberties abuses similar to those that preceded the Holocaust, the City Council on Wednesday approved a watered-down resolution urging repeal of portions of the USA Patriot Act.

The 37-7 vote followed an emotional debate that invoked the chilling words of Nazi leader Hermann Goering and ignored Mayor Daley's warning that the federal government needs extraordinary tools to fight terrorism.

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 75%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Patriot Act Finds Trouble in Texas

You can read a news story about the vote mentioned below -- Austin did indeed pass a resolution against the USA-PATRIOT Act -- here. There's also a pretty interesting local news video clip about the meeting here. The story aims to be a transcript of the video, though that's not fully the case. The U.S. Attorney who is interviewed sounded like he might have only read the beginning of the act, and then skipped the rest.

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Patriot Act Finds Trouble in Texas

[TruthOut] Editor's Note | The following remarks were delivered by William Rivers Pitt at a Town Hall meeting in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, September 16. The meeting was called on the eve of an historic vote; the capitol city of Texas is very near to joining hundreds of other American communities in passing a resolution that repudiates the Patriot Act.

Patriot Act Finds Trouble in Texas
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 22 September 2003

I have listened to the defenses of the Patriot Act offered tonight. The essence of the defenses, the essence of the rebuttals to our reservations and complaints, is "Trust us. We're the government. We're the constitutional scholars. Trust us."

I've heard that before.

There are tons of mass destruction weapons in Iraq. Trust us. There are al Qaeda terrorists all over Iraq. Trust us. September 11 happened because of enemies who hate our freedoms. Trust us.

With all due respect, I say hell no. The one thing this government's behavior has not created is trust.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have come here today to appeal to your patriotism. We are all patriots here, every one of us. Let no one deny that or doubt that.

What are our duties as patriots? Is one a patriot if they fly the flag, to stand for the national anthem? Yes…and no. One may do these things and be filled with love of country, but if that is all you do, then you have not done enough. In this time, and in this place, and with all that is happening in this country and around the world, the duties of a patriot go far, far, far beyond flying the flag.

The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'

That is how our freedom began 227 years ago. We said 'No.' Now, we must talk, and listen, and ask questions, and understand. If we do not like where we find ourselves, we must once again say 'No' with roaring voice, and without fear.

So let us, as patriots, speak tonight about the Patriot Act....

Full speech

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 1.2
Learning Percentage: 15%

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White House Ambushed By Criticism From America's Military Community

White House Ambushed By Criticism From America's Military Community

By Andrew Gumbel
Independent UK

Saturday 20 September 2003

George Bush probably owes his presidency to the absentee military voters who nudged his tally in Florida decisively past Al Gore's. But now, with Iraq in chaos and the reasons for going to war there mired in controversy, an increasingly disgruntled military poses perhaps the gravest immediate threat to his political future, just one year before the presidential elections.

From Vietnam veterans to fresh young recruits, from seasoned officers to anxious mothers worried about their sons' safety on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, the military community is growing ever more vocal in its opposition to the White House.

"I once believed that I served for a cause: 'To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States'. Now I no longer believe that," Tim Predmore, a member of the 101st Airborne Division serving near Mosul, wrote in a blistering opinion piece this week for his home newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star in Illinois. "I can no longer justify my service for what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies."

The dissenters - many of whom have risked deep disapproval from the military establishment to voice their opinions - have set up websites with names such as Bring Them Home Now. They have cried foul at administration plans to cut veterans' benefits and scale back combat pay for troops still in Iraq. They were furious at President Bush for reacting to military deaths in Iraq with the phrase "bring 'em on".

And they have given politically embarrassing prominence to such issues as the inefficiency of civilian contractors hired to provide shelter, water and food - many of them contributors to the Bush campaign coffers - and a mystery outbreak of respiratory illnesses that many soldiers, despite official denials, believe is related to the use of depleted uranium munitions.

Full story...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 75%

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Ilana Mercer: Libertarians who loathe Israel

This column was one of the first big shots fired in what has become a significant battle. I posted a link to one of the other shots fired (fired back at Ilana in part for this very column, in fact) a while ago (see: Shame on WorldNetDaily).

Her column is basically a series of distortions and snide slams, wherein she mocks those libertarians who speak at all in sympathy for the beleaguered Palestinians, and who speak out against Israel's extremely heavy-handed "defensive" tactics.

She doesn't quite make the claim that such people are anti-semitic, but she wants to pretty bad. She comes about as close as she pssobily can without going over. You can see it right in the column's title: the libertarians mentioned above don't "loathe" Israel -- they oppose a number of the policies of its government and leaders. None of them say they loathe Israel -- in fact, I'd wager that few if any of them have expressed emotions toward the nation of Israel at all. It's about policies, and the actions of leaders -- but Ilana's trying to convince you it's about a whole nation of people, and that libertarians who oppose the government of Israel's aggressive, xenophobic actions toward the Palestinian people, and their clear-cutting "defensive" measures and police actions toward those same people on their own land are actually libertarians who loathe the people of Israel -- namely, Jews.

You can see her try to make that switch-over right in the first few sentences of her tirade column, below.

One result of this (or at least this theme) is that someone wrote in to me saying that his friend came to him saying Libertarians are anti-semitic. Thanks a lot, Ilana.

WorldNetDaily: Libertarians who loathe Israel

by Ilana Mercer

Posted: August 13, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Admittedly, there is a lot about the Israeli side of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute to be critical of. For one, demolishing the homes of a terrorist's family isn't just or prudent. But it's hard to make sense of a perspective that sees everything Israel does as arch-evil, as is the case with those libertarians who religiously and robotically depict Israel as the devil incarnate.

So, how about it? Is Israel always wrong? Is there nothing redeeming about a people that revived a desolate land and a long-dead biblical language just over 100 years ago? ...

Full story

Read It Rating: 3.5
Left/Right Rating: R2
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 6%

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October 02, 2003

Arnold grabbed breasts, admired Hitler (?)

Arnold's New Battle: His Past

S A N D I E G O, Calif., Oct. 2— California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off his bus tour of California today amid allegations of sexual harassment and anti-Semitism.

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .2
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Clark Calls Iraq War 'A Major Blunder'

t r u t h o u t - Clark Calls Iraq War 'A Major Blunder'

By Mike Glover
Associated Press
Saturday 20 September 2003
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark reversed an earlier opinion that he likely would have voted for war in Iraq, telling a cheering college-town crowd the invasion was "a major blunder" he never would have supported.
Clark said his Army career taught him that "the use of force is only a last resort" that wasn't justified in Iraq. "I'm a soldier," he said. "I've laid on the battlefield bleeding."
While the use of force can occasionally be justified, he said, "It's not a way to solve problems and resolve disputes. It's very difficult to change people's minds when you are bombing them and killing them."
Clark sought to blunt a controversy that arose as he opened his campaign. The core is his resume as a retired four-star general with the credibility to challenge President Bush and oppose the war in Iraq.
Many of his backers expressed surprise when Clark told reporters he probably would have voted to authorize the use of force.
"At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that's too simple a question," The New York Times quoted Clark as saying Thursday.

Full story

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .05
Learning Percentage: %

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 01, 2003

Byrd: Marshall Plan to Bush Iraqi Plan: No Comparison

Marshall Plan to Bush Iraqi Plan: No Comparison

West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd
Wednesday 24 September 2003

Opening remarks to the Senate Appropriations Committee considering Bush Administration request for 87B additional dollars in funding for the Iraqi occupation.

The American people want to know more about what the Administration has planned for Iraq, and it is the responsibility of Congress to help inform our public. But rather than explanations of the Administration's long-term plan for Iraq, we only hear comparisons to the Marshall Plan.

I can understand the Administration's desire to equate in the minds of the American public Saddam Hussein's Iraq to Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. World War II invokes images of the "Greatest Generation" -- the entire country united to defeat the Axis powers, and then, after victory, stayed behind to rebuild the cities of their conquered foes.

But with World War II, Japan had attacked us. The Axis Powers had declared war on us. The U.S. occupation of Germany and Japan took place in the wake of a widely supported defensive war, under a commitment to internationalism and multilateralism.

We're seeing none of this in Iraq. For one, the war in Iraq was not defensive. It was a preemptive attack. Secondly, we have alienated most of the international community in fighting the war. Third, the Germans and Japanese did not resist the U.S. occupation through sabotage, assassinations, and guerilla warfare.

The Marshall Plan was not a huge bill presented to Congress for its rubber-stamp approval. It was a comprehensive strategy to provide $13.3 billion to 16 countries over four years to aid in reconstruction. In current dollars, the U.S. share would be about $88.2 billion spread over four years - very nearly the same amount that has been requested by the President for one country for a period of mere months.

...

The $87 billion package that the President is seeking has little in common with the Marshall Plan. We should not learn our history through sound bites. Congress has an obligation to understand what this $87 billion is supposed to do for Iraq, and whether those goals can ever be achieved.

Full statement

Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: L3.5
Freedom Rating: .14
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mr. Bush and the Flag

Here's the whole short editorial. The original is linked to in the title.

Mr. Bush and the Flag
Washington Post | Editorial

Sunday 31 August 2003

THE WHITE HOUSE supports the wrongheaded constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power "to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." Yet in light of an incident last month, Mr. Bush should consider whether he might be the first person jailed should this perennial foolishness -- passed most recently by the House of Representatives earlier this year -- ever become part of the Constitution. Mr. Bush, at a political event in Livonia, Mich., autographed supporters' flags, an apparent violation of an obscure provision of American law that details the respect with which flags should be treated. "The flag," reads the code, "should never have placed upon it . . . any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature." The last time Congress sought to ban flag-burning, in a statute the Supreme Court struck down in 1989, it made a criminal out of anyone who "defaces" a flag -- language Mr. Bush likewise appears to have violated. Never mind the fact that he clearly meant no disrespect; if Congress had the power to criminalize flag desecration, he would at least arguably be indictable.

We say arguably because there's no telling what "desecration" actually means. The proposed amendment is meant to deal with flag-burning, but what about that American soldier who, in a moment of unadulterated patriotism, wrapped a flag around a statue of Saddam Hussein? What about a person who proudly wears a ripped T-shirt displaying the flag? Of course, such cases would never be brought in court. The amendment, in practice, would be used to punish only unpopular political expression, expression that, though sometimes odious, is today unambiguously protected by American constitutional law -- as it should be. But the notion that the president, or anyone, could be charged with signing a flag should not be even arguable. It should be laughable -- as it would be if politicians such as Mr. Bush had the guts to stand against constitutional pollution rather than pandering to it.


Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: 3
Learning Percentage: 25%

Posted by Lance Brown at 11:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

OC Weekly: The (Progressive) Case for Governor Tom McClintock

This author hits the nail right straight on the head, in my opinion. I love it when other people say exactly what I was planning on saying, but better than I would have. It saves me time, and ultimately serves the cause of spreading the word better.

The Case for Governor Tom McClintock

Why progressives should vote for the most conservative candidate in the race to replace Gray Davis

by R. Scott Moxley

Three weeks before the Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election, state Senator Tom McClintock stood outside the Irvine Transportation Center and told reporters why he should replace Governor Gray Davis. Standing at a makeshift podium, his demeanor seemed, if possible, simultaneously nonchalant and stiff. He looked—there’s no other way to put it—comfortable being uncomfortable. He makes bargain-shoe salesmen look charismatic.

His words, though passionate, weren’t memorable, which isn’t really a problem: if you’ve watched any five-minute McClintock interview in the past year, you’ve likely heard everything he has to say. Yes, you were probably startled by his intense, cockeyed stare; encyclopedic knowledge of government intricacies; or social stands to the right of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But don’t be frightened. Despite initial appearances, McClintock is the best choice to serve as governor of California for the next three years.


***

Let me explain.

Start with character. Unlike his top competition—Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruz Bustamante—McClintock does not lie, duck debates, accept illegal contributions, hide from reporters, flip-flop positions, defend crooks, pander to special interests, place party loyalty over principles, rely on one-liners, award no-bid contracts, surround himself with sleazy advisors or pretend good government is as simple as marketing a movie.

Let’s be blunter: even if McClintock was as ruthlessly ambitious and unprincipled as the other candidates (he isn’t), he would still deserve support in this special election.

Why?

Checks and balances.

I’m hardly a conservative, but the Democrats—rulers of all three branches of state government for the past four years—have proven themselves unwilling to control taxes, spending and bureaucratic growth. After four years of Davis, California’s $10 billion surplus became a $38 billion deficit last fiscal year. For those of you counting, that’s a $48,000,000,000 flip. Note the zeroes: it’s enough money to fund several small- and medium-sized federal agencies for the next 50 years.

Is there reason for alarm? Not, apparently, if you’re Davis or his Democratic allies in the legislature. They’ve spent like whiskey-drunk business guys on an expense-account trip to Vegas.

Full column

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: L3
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 25%

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Autobiography of Bryan Caplan

Autobiography of Bryan Caplan

01 June 2003

by Bryan Caplan

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Note to the Reader: This essay was originally solicited by Walter Block
for his forthcoming volume of libertarian autobiographies. Much to my
surprise, however, he was only willing to accept it for publication if I
heavily edited the content, particularly the sections critical of Murray
Rothbard and Austrian economics. His main argument was that if it accepted
my essay unchanged, he would have to allow other contributors to reply to
my controversial views. I remain puzzled by this idea. It seems to me
that the only way to "reply" to an autobiography would be to accuse the
author of misrepresenting the story of his life. Unfortunately, Walter and
I were unable to reach a mutually acceptable compromise, so I have decided
to run the unedited, uncut, no-holds-barred version here on my webpage.
Enjoy. - B.C.

High School

It began with Ayn Rand, as it proverbially does....

Continue...

(That link is actually to the location where I encountered this autobio, on the Libertarian International website. Here is the same document on Bryan's website.)

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 90%

Posted by Lance Brown at 01:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Public Schools Fail to Teach History, Study Charges

FOXNews.com - Public Schools Fail to Teach History, Study Charges

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

WASHINGTON — The story of America's heroes, accomplishments and ideals is getting surprisingly short shrift in a place of great influence: the nation's public schools.

That's the theme of a provocative report about U.S. civics and history education that is drawing praise from leaders and groups whose views span the ideological spectrum.

Produced by the nonpartisan Albert Shanker Institute and released Tuesday, "Education for Democracy" is the latest effort to try to strengthen the nation's grasp of its own past and present. Authors hope it will lead to curriculum changes and stir debate about social studies lessons as people reflect on the terrorist attacks of two years ago.

Full story...

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: R2
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 15%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fear as human shield faces jail

BBC NEWS | Americas | Fear as human shield faces jail

Sitting in her modest two-bedroom home on the west Florida coast, Faith Fippinger begins to cry as she talks about the prospect of going to jail.

This spring, the 62-year-old retired schoolteacher decided to travel to Iraq as a human shield.

To many she is a humanitarian, but in the eyes of the US Government she is a criminal.

...

when she returned home there was a letter waiting for her from the US Treasury Department.

"It was a requirement to send information as to why I was in Iraq," she says.

"It also said the penalties for being there could be as high as a million dollars and up to 12 years in jail."

'Freedom of speech'

By going to Iraq Faith Fippinger had broken the US economic embargo on Iraq, which had been in place for many years.

The letter explained that by travelling to the country and spending money there, Miss Fippinger was now liable for prosecution.

Full story

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 25%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Poll: Bush down, Clark up

CNN.com - Poll: Bush down, Clark up - Sep. 22, 2003

Highlights:

Fifty percent of 1,003 people questioned for the poll approved of Bush's job performance -- down from 59 percent in August and 71 percent in April -- the president's lowest rating since he came to office in January 2001.

...

"The GOP would point out -- and they would be right -- that the approval rating in the autumn before an election is not a good predictor of how the election will turn out," said CNN poll analyst Keating Holland, pointing out that Ronald Reagan's approval rating was in the 40-percent range in fall 1983, a year before he was re-elected in a landslide.
...
Of the 877 registered voters included in the poll, 49 percent said they would vote for Clark, compared with 46 percent for Bush. Each of the four other major Democratic candidates came within three points of Clark's showing in a hypothetical head-to-head race with the president, the poll found.

Kerry narrowly outpaced the president, 48-percent to 47-percent. Bush held a slim lead over Dean (49 to 46 percent), Gephardt (48 to 46 percent) and Lieberman (48 to 47 percent).

...

In the new poll, 50 percent of respondents said going to war in Iraq was worthwhile, with 48 percent saying the military effort was not. In April, 76 percent backed the war. That figure had fallen to 63 percent in August and 58 percent in the September 8-10 survey.

Full story

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 10%

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Tommy Chong gets 9 months for selling bongs and such on Web

COURTTV.COM - PEOPLE - Tommy Chong gets 9 months for selling drug wares on Web

Updated Sept. 11, 2003, 2:45 p.m. ET

Tommy Chong gets 9 months for selling drug wares on Web

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Tommy Chong, who played one half of the dope-smoking duo in the Cheech and Chong movies, was sentenced to nine months in federal prison and fined $20,000 Thursday for selling bongs and other drug paraphernalia over the Internet.

The 65-year-old was allowed to remain free until federal prison officials tell him in a few weeks where he must report to prison.
Full story...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3.5
Learning Percentage: 30%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

McClintock Sticks to Calif. Recall Race

They say, 'Don't you dare drop out, we need someone to believe in.'

Count me in on that group.

McClintock Sticks to Calif. Recall Race

By BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writer

October 1, 2003, 9:36 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO -- With little more than a week left in California's recall race, Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to make his victory seem inevitable. But his more conservative Republican rival isn't going away.

State Sen. Tom McClintock has stuck firmly -- some say obstinately -- to his pledge to race to the end, even at the risk of splitting the Republican vote and allowing Democrats to stay in power even if Gov. Gray Davis is recalled.

"I have never been popular in the country club wing of the Republican party," McClintock said in an interview Sunday before another full day of campaigning. "I've always drawn my strength from grassroots voters, and I'm quite content with that."

The pressure on McClintock to drop out and throw his votes to Schwarzenegger -- a political rookie whose moderate views are shared by many Democrats -- has been intense. Most high-level GOP endorsements have gone to Schwarzenegger, who has led McClintock in every poll, and Republican strategists warn that his career could suffer if he stays in.

But McClintock, a 47-year-old career politician who has earned his conservative credentials during almost 17 years in the state Legislature, refuses to bow to critics who call him the Ralph Nader of the Republican Party, referring to the Green Party's 2000 presidential candidate widely asserted to have received votes that otherwise would have gone to Democrat Al Gore.

McClintock prefers to compare himself to Seabiscuit -- the scrappy California race horse who outran the establishment. He said he believes millions of voters will embrace his anti-tax, anti-abortion, pro-gun philosophy.

"I believe in the final days of the campaign we'll see a lot of voters who prefer me but doubt I can win coming back in droves," McClintock said. "The crowds have been phenomenal. They say, 'Don't you dare drop out, we need someone to believe in.'"

Full story...

Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .4
Learning Percentage: 15%

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California recall: Does one man hold key?

It's pretty glaringly obvious that Tom McClintock would be the best candidate (out of the frontrunner pack) for California to elect in the upcoming recall -- and I think that an awful lot of leftward voters, if forced to do a gut check, would tend to agree, despite his socially conservative and immigrant-unfriendly stances. He appears to be principled and straightforward to a nearly unprecendented extent for a candidate from the TwoParty.

And it speaks volumes about the Republican Party that they have all-but betrayed him in favor of the mish-mash of unknowns and government-friendliness that is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The volumes that it speaks say, in short, "We are vote-and-power whores with no real political compass."

Barring some sort of funky development, the real race that I'm watching in this coming week is whether Tom McClintock will stand firm and refuse to bow out of the race, despite the super-heavyweight pressure that will be levied on him in the next few days. From what I've gathered about him, he's not going anywhere, no matter who pressures him. I hope that's the case.

On the other hand, if the compromisers in the state and national GOP are successful in their efforts to crush his will -- well, at least there won't be any more room for mystery about what that party stands for.

For the record, it's because of that abhorrent, immoral party which Senator McClintock chooses to align with, and not because of the laundry list of issues I disagree with him on, that he won't be getting my vote. The only way that would change is if Tom wised up and quit the foul party that is trying to befoul him. Which is to say, if he promised to switch to be an independent if elected (or just switched now), I'd vote for him. I don't think he's quite zany and frisky enough to do something like that, but I do think that if he did, there are a lot of California voters who would decide to deal with his gay-unfriendly, immigrant-unfriendly, abortion-unfriendly views, in order to vote for someone who seems to be truly honest and committed to his principles -- plus a true fiscal conservative with the knowledge and wherewithal to go to town on the budget.

He has gone from low single-digits to around twenty percent in the polls -- essentially, his poll numbers go up every time he's in a televised debate. And I get the same reaction from people whether talking to my Green friends, my Democrat friends, or my independent friends -- they all are impressed by Tom because he seems like a uniquely honest straight shooter (and they all disagree with him on pretty much the same things I do -- his social conservative views).

It's not often that I'm impressed by a candidate from one of the Bipartisan parties, but this zany recall election has brought one to light.

One bright spot, regardless of the election results, is the sliver of evidence that McClintock's ever-rising numbers provide for the premise that (at least some) voters are more interested in a principled politician they can trust than that politician's specific policy stances. At least that's what I see. Tom's numbers aren't all coming from hardcore conservative Republicans, that's for sure. And he has something like a 60% favorability rating, in a state that's only 35% Republican. That right there is pretty freakin' nutty.

California recall: Does one man hold key?

Tom McClintock, top GOP conservative, could tilt race for or against Arnold Schwarzenegger.

By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BURBANK, CALIF. -- Republican candidate Tom McClintock laughs from deep in the belly when asked if he will be the "spoiler" in the great populist revolution/experiment/circus of California's gubernatorial recall election.

"My opponents say I'm the Ross Perot of this campaign, possibly siphoning off enough votes to hand the election to Democrats," he says, settling onto a shady park bench for an interview. "I say, 'Wait a minute.... Ross Perot was an idle millionaire, with no public-policy experience who one day on a whim entered the presidential race.' That sounds like another candidate in this race ... not me," he says, referring to muscleman/millionaire Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Once a mere asterisk in the con- fused calculus of California's 135-candidate recall election, Mr. McClintock has gradually emerged as the strong, third-place vote getter in polls - rising (at 14-to-18 points) while the two leaders - fellow Republican Schwarzenegger (26 points) and Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (28 points) - tread water.

...

"He is by far the most studied and experienced of all the candidates in fiscal issues and how to implement public policy," says Jack Pitney, political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. "If the election were a college SAT test, McClintock would be the next governor hands down."

Full story...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: %

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

'X' factor in recall: Who will vote?

'X' factor in recall: Who will vote?

LOS ANGELES – Laurie Benton says she has never been so aggressively glad-handed, back-slapped, and chatted up by perfect strangers in her whole life.

"I've gotten mailings from five candidates," says the San Fernando Valley homemaker, "fliers on two citizen's initiatives, driving directions to the nearest voting booths, and two guides on how to vote absentee."

Ms. Benton is part of a growing group of Californians - newly registered voters with no party affiliation - who are making it all but impossible to forecast how next week's gubernatorial recall vote will turn out.

Full story...

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 35%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Jimmy Carter's Bunny Rabbit Attack

Jimmy Carter’s ‘Killer Bunny’

All presidents face confrontation. The media attacks. The opposing party attacks. And 20 years ago, as Jimmy Carter found, a bunny rabbit can also attack.
The so-called “killer bunny” that came after Carter as he was fishing near his home in Plains, Ga., in mid-1979 marks an interesting moment in the history of White House controversy. Certainly, his staffers will never forget.
“I think a lot of people in politics have gone to school on this bizarre little event,” recalls former press secretary Jody Powell.
“More than anything else, it shows the extent to which an insignificant incident can snowball and end up in newspapers and news shows across the country.”
...
“After writing my Carter biography I can tell you,” Brinkley says, “more people ask about the bunny than about the Camp David Accord or the Panama Canal Treaty. Strange.”


More on the rabbit attack story:

Today in Odd History: Jimmy Carter Attacked by Killer Rabbit (April 20, 1979)

The Straight Dope: What was the deal with Jimmy Carter and the killer rabbit?

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: R1.5
Freedom Rating: -.8
Learning Percentage: 80%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Arianna Shifts Campaign to Defeat the Recall, Arnold and Prop 54

Arianna Shifts Campaign to Defeat the Recall, Arnold and Prop 54

Arianna Huffington delivered the following statement on September 30, 2003.

Over the last 48 hours it has become clear to me that the only way to stop a Republican takeover of our state is to vote No on the recall.

Because it's also clear that I am not going to win on October 7, I am withdrawing from the race so that I can devote all my time and energy in the remaining week to defeating the recall -- and to defeating the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Pete Wilson forces that are trying to use the recall to hijack our state.

Full statement

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: L5
Freedom Rating: .2
Learning Percentage: 8%

Posted by Lance Brown at 12:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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